Spyglass

Saronic's 4 Co-Founders on Building a $9.25B Shipbuilder | Part III

Sep 10, 2026 · 59:52

Saronic's co-founders Doug Lambert, Rob Lehman, and Vibhav Altekar join Molly O'Shea to argue autonomous mass production, not exquisite manned ships, decides naval power as China outbuilds the U.S. 230 to 1—1,000+ commercial ships in 2024 to America's 5. COO Doug Lambert details the $3B Port Alpha shipyard, aluminum welding with Path Robotics, Palantir Foundry for manufacturing, and why casting, forging, and wire harnessing must return to the U.S. Rob Lehman says only 1% of the Department of War's ~$1T budget goes to autonomy, wants AI tooling so contracting officers can say yes, and aims to thank two Apache pilots Saronic tech helped. CTO Vibhav Altekar explains hardware-software co-design for 20-G impacts, redundant comms against jamming, the Nvidia partnership, and open-source AI.

Inside Saronic’s $9.25B Autonomous Boat Factory | CEO Dino Mavrookas

Sep 7, 2026 · 33:01

Saronic co-founder and CEO Dino Mavrookas tours Molly O'Shea through the company's 420,000 sqft autonomous boat factory in Austin, Texas, arguing vertical integration of hardware and software took the 2022 startup to a $9.25B valuation. He shows the Corsair line, which can build 2,000 boats per year, and credits its linear flow with exposing bottlenecks. He boards Mirage, a 52-foot vessel with 2,500 nautical miles of range and 3,500 lbs of payload, and points to Marauder, a 180-foot ship. Port Alpha, the Brownsville shipyard on 800 acres, will add 150,000 gross tons — 1.5X U.S. capacity — and 10,000 jobs vs. China's 230-to-1 lead. He traces the $800 Amazon-raft origins, the $392 million Navy contract, and Corsair combat use in the Strait of Hormuz, including an autonomous rescue.