This conversation features Justin Finelli, Chief Technology Officer of the Navy on his second tour, and John Doyle, founder and CEO of CAPE, a secure cellular network company. Finelli brings extensive experience from DARPA, the intelligence community, and healthcare technology, while Doyle is a former Green Beret and nine-year Palantir veteran who led their national security business.

The discussion centers on the Navy's transformation from building everything internally to rapidly adopting commercial innovation, exemplified by their partnership with CAPE. This collaboration began with a pilot program on Guam to test secure cellular communications over potentially compromised infrastructure, proving prescient when the Salt Typhoon breach later revealed Chinese infiltration of major U.S. telecommunications carriers.

The conversation explores how the Navy accelerated its acquisition processes, increased pilot programs 5x in one year, and developed new frameworks for working with startups. Key themes include the Salt Typhoon telecommunications breach, CAPE's secure cellular technology, and the broader transformation of defense technology procurement.

Navy's Innovation Transformation Under New Leadership

Justin Finelli returned to the Navy CTO role after colleagues said 'we've slowed down' and 'we know how to fix it, but we need you' during his healthcare technology work.

The Navy implemented a 'barbell strategy' excelling at high-end acquisitions but struggling with 'lower tradable commercial' procurement due to lack of experience and different skill requirements.

Vice Admiral Total led a boot camp teaching program managers and contracting officers how to complete in three months what previously took 18 months, focusing on commercial software acquisition.

The defense venture ecosystem exploded from 4 VCs making investments to 168 now, representing 42x growth in seven years and creating unprecedented private sector readiness.

CAPE's Secure Cellular Network Architecture

CAPE operates as a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) across 190 countries, providing 'more private, more secure, and more resilient' cellular service than traditional carriers.

The company rotates phone identifiers 'like Apple rotates Mac addresses on the iPhone' and deploys commercial cloud with industry cybersecurity best practices throughout the stack.

CAPE's 'network of networks' architecture allows failover between carriers, protecting subscribers when major U.S. telcos experience outages that affected two of three carriers in recent months.

The partnership with Rakuten in Japan enabled a joint U.S.-Japanese Self-Defense Force military exercise demonstrating secure communications over foreign physical infrastructure.

Salt Typhoon: China's Telecommunications Infiltration

At Davos, only 5 out of 60 cybersecurity practitioners knew about Salt Typhoon, demonstrating how this critical national security story failed to reach mainstream awareness.

Chinese hackers gained full control of lawful intercept systems, allowing them to listen to phone calls, access call data records, and monitor internet activity of all Americans including senior officials.

The breach exposed not only communications content but also revealed who was being lawfully intercepted by U.S. law enforcement, compromising ongoing investigations and putting sources at risk.

CAPE discovered a major lawful intercept vendor's installer contained 'an unencrypted text file that had the usernames and passwords for every single client' three months before Salt Typhoon news broke.

Navy-CAPE Partnership: From Guam Pilot to National Security Solution

The collaboration began when John Doyle briefed Justin Finelli on CAPE's capability to provide 'trusted cellular connection over known compromised physical infrastructure' during a training exercise.

Finelli proposed testing on Guam where 'we believe that there's a real problem with penetration of the telcos' rather than trying to 'ferret through existing carriers and find all the China.'

The team insisted on defining 'world-class alignment metrics' (WHAMs) from the beginning, creating rigorous success criteria that enabled the pilot to finish ahead of schedule and under budget.

DIU (Defense Innovation Unit) provided funding and created an unclassified, shareable 50-page technical evaluation that CAPE now uses across services and with investors, creating a 'positive flywheel.'

Scaling Innovation Through Wildcatting and Network Effects

Finelli's team increased from 5 to 25 pilot programs annually using 'wildcatting' approach, recognizing that 'if he has a head start, I'm not going to catch up' against the pace of emerging problems.

The Navy developed an 'Innovation Adoption Kit' and network of 'unleashed people' in every community who serve as 'hitters' for munitions, robotics, and other domains.

Success stories spread through structured challenges now mandated in the Defense Authorization Act, while 'bad news travels six times faster than good news' requiring more systematic good news propagation.

The organization shifted from 'straight builders trying to build everything to gardeners' who plant seeds and nurture innovation across the broader defense ecosystem.

Strategic Priorities: Manufacturing and Software Modernization

The Navy prioritizes distributed manufacturing and 3D printing for parts repair, where 'one little part is broken' can keep vehicles out of operation for six months waiting for factory production.

Software modernization focuses on 'divest to invest' strategy requiring new solutions to 'take out five systems with one application' rather than adding more systems to existing technical debt.

The Navy published 'Modern Service Delivery 3.0' guidebook explaining 'loosely coupled' architecture and 'modular open systems' implementation for software acquisition.

Finelli successfully shut down a system 'that people have been trying to shut down for 10 years' by making tasks 'severable' and avoiding paying more for indispensable modules.

Advice for Defense Tech Entrepreneurs

Entrepreneurs should 'go to where the problems are' in San Diego and Norfolk shipyards, listening to pain points and ranking them by 'size of the pain' rather than solving 'three headaches.'

Finelli channels 'inner Steve Blank' advising founders to attend hackathons and structured challenges rather than building solutions for problems they read about that 'other people are probably covering.'

The recommendation for aspiring defense entrepreneurs without specific ideas is to 'go join a company like Cape' to gain startup experience, but 'try to work at a startup that's good.'

Drawing inspiration from Boyd The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War, Finelli emphasizes the need for 'warrior engineers' who can 'be a bridge' connecting military needs with commercial innovation.