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David Ulevitch, General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), who co-leads the firm’s American Dynamism practice with Katherine Boyle joins Sourcery to break down America’s comeback. With the encoura...
David Ulevitch, co-leader of a16z's American Dynamism practice, explains how the $600M fund evolved from supporting defense tech companies like Anduril to becoming a movement backed by Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz. The fund addresses critical national security gaps by using private capital to fund R&D while the government commits to buying outcomes, avoiding bureaucratic overhead. With JPMorgan's $1.5T commitment and AI transforming defense, space, and public safety, American Dynamism represents a fundamental shift in how venture capital supports national interest companies.
David Ulevitch recounts joining a16z in 2018 with freedom to invest in anything, leading to Anduril's Series B despite Silicon Valley's anti-defense sentiment post-Google's Project Maven exit. The partnership with Katherine Boyle began competitively over Anduril and Flock Safety deals, eventually forming the American Dynamism practice in 2022 with Marc and Ben's full support, initially borrowing from venture funds before raising $600M.
The convergence of AI, computer vision, autonomy, and commodity hardware created supply-side transformation while COVID exposed supply chain vulnerabilities and rising adversary capabilities drove demand-side changes. Anduril's first Sentry Tower used off-the-shelf parts with advanced Lattice coordination software, proving software could transform legacy defense categories. Talent from Palantir, SpaceX, and Tesla alumni created unprecedented founder pipeline.
American Dynamism built dedicated policy team in Washington to address structural procurement problems, defense appropriations, and selection processes. The firm's philosophy of 'building the firm we wish we had as entrepreneurs' extends to policy advocacy benefiting all startups, not just portfolio companies. Focus areas include defense procurement reform, AI policy, and crypto regulation working in unified approach.
Government R&D funding comes with burdensome auditing and accounting overhead that favors legacy primes who build these costs into contracts. American Dynamism advocates for government to commit to buying outcomes rather than funding R&D, allowing private capital to fund development while being better stewards and pickers of technology. Key reforms include eliminating 'past performance' requirements that exclude startups and holding competitive bake-offs instead of appropriating specific vendor products.
Ukraine war demonstrated rapid evolution of drone warfare that government appropriations from five years ago couldn't anticipate. American Dynamism pushes for competitive bake-offs where startups can win on product merit, and appropriations focused on solving problems rather than specifying exact products. Let actual customers (SOCOM, INDOPACOM, intelligence community) decide solutions at purchase time when battlefield needs are clear.
JPMorgan's $1.5 trillion commitment to American Dynamism categories (though avoiding the term) signals broad recognition that private capital investment in defense, manufacturing, supply chain, and batteries will generate incredible returns. China's superior shipbuilding capacity and control of critical materials (steel, metals, battery components) for drones, autonomous vehicles, and defense systems creates urgent need for domestic resilience across mining, manufacturing, robotics, and autonomy.
American Dynamism companies are ramping revenue faster than historical comparables in these categories, with expanding opportunity sizes and companies going public. SpaceX remaining private at massive valuation demonstrates investor recognition of transformational value. Late-stage capital availability, previously a major bottleneck, is improving. These foundational components (defense, public safety, energy) are critical infrastructure - without strong democracy and economy, all B2B SaaS and consumer tech falls apart.
AI is driving massive energy demand through compute needs, autonomous vehicles, and home battery resilience systems, with data center construction asymptoting while commercial real estate drops. In defense, Anduril's Eagle Eye headset uses advanced AI for warfighter augmentation, computer vision transforms battlefields, and AI enables drone swarm coordination. Flock Safety's AI-powered license plate readers enable free-form search (finding 'silver Camry with aftermarket rims'), improving police objectivity. Aerospace Intelligence uses AI for flight operations planning, replacing spreadsheet-based airline logistics.
Why Marc Andreessen, Ben Horowitz, & David Ulevitch Launched American Dynamism
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