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EXCLUSIVE: Outgoing DIU head ‘frustrated… we’re not supported’ more by big Pentagon

Updated 5/10/22 at 3:22 pm EST with new comments from a Pentagon spokesman.

WASHINGTON: When Michael Brown, a former CEO of cybersecurity firm Symantec, joined the Pentagon in September 2018 to lead the Defense Innovation Unit, his goal was direct: to scale up the work being done by the department’s office dedicated to strengthening ties between the department and commercial technology firms.

This week, Brown formally announced his plans to leave DIU at his four-year anniversary. And in an interview with Breaking Defense, he opened up about the challenges the office faces, including what he said was a critical lack of support from Pentagon leadership, the optimism he still holds for the office and the ways the DoD must course correct to bring cutting edge technologies to the military.

“I just don’t feel that we’re making the kind of progress that I’d like to see made. So I’m frustrated that we’re not achieving more, we’re not supported more. There’s not the agreement by leadership that this is a priority,” Brown said. “And so if that is the case, then you can’t accomplish what you believe should be accomplished. It’s really that simple.”

Several times throughout the conversation, Brown described what he called a “benign neglect” from top DoD officials around the unit’s budget, in part because “we were so small that no one was paying attention” to what DIU was doing — even as top officials would repeatedly state in speeches the importance of tapping into the commercial market.

That includes taking a 20% cut in funding from fiscal 2021 to 2022, as well as losing staffing positions to other Pentagon offices over the last several years.

That’s not specifically the fault of the current team in place, Brown said, noting it was “the same thing” during the Trump administration. He particularly called out Trump appointee Mike Griffin, the former Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering when Brown was hired, as someone who was “not a big supporter” financially of DIU. (Griffin declined to comment on Brown’s statement.) And, Brown noted, the FY22 budget process was such a mess that there was little chance for reorganizing or gathering support from key members for his relatively small office.

Ultimately, though, “We need leadership in the department,” Brown said. He mentioned that he has not had an in-person meeting with Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks in over a year. That’s notable, as the Pentagon’s number two official recently traveled out to Silicon Valley specifically to talk with non-traditional defense firms — which is to say, the kind of companies Brown’s team works with regularly.

RELATED: After hearing Silicon Valley complaints, Hicks says no ‘magical’ fix to acquisition

After publication of this story, Pentagon spokesman Eric Pahon stated that Hicks “appreciates the critical role DIU plays in the defense ecosystem and appreciates the hard work DIU’s staff has done to drive innovation through public/private partnerships. Under Under Secretary of Defense Heidi Shyu’s leadership, DIU’s efforts to break down barriers are being integrated with broader work across the Department through important governance processes like our Innovation Steering Group, Deputy’s Management Advisory Group & other investments.

“Mike Brown met regularly with Heidi Shyu and Heidi meets regularly with DSD Hicks — which is pretty standard practice across not only the defense enterprise but large organizations more broadly. It’s not unusual, nor does it signify a lack of interest, that DSD & Mike didn’t meet regularly.”

Recent months have seen other high profile technology experts make departures from the Pentagon in the form of Nicolas Chaillan, the Air Force’s chief software official, and Preston Dunlap, chief architect of the Air and Space Forces. Both men made it clear in their departures that they feel the department’s roadblocks were too severe to overcome and that they did not receive enough institutional support. Although less outspoken in his exit, David Spirk, the Pentagon’s chief data officer, also stepped down in March.

Brown was quick to distance his exit from theirs, noting that between his four years at DIU and a stint as a White House Presidential Innovation Fellow, he’s put in over six years of public service. While he could have applied to re-up his DIU role, it would only be for one more year — not enough time to truly make a difference, he said, given the broad institutional challenges DIU has faced. (It is also worth noting that Brown was at one point nominated to be the Undersecretary for Acquisition and Sustainment but withdrew his name last July.)

In a letter to DIU staff announcing his decision, he explained he was making his departure official now so no one would be blindsided and people could make proper career decisions.

“We need to enable those folks to be able to have a higher impact and change that frustration to forward momentum, in terms of having those people feel like they’re making progress. Everyone is making their own individual career decisions at any point in time. So I’m not telegraphing there’s any big change coming in terms of the number of people supporting this effort. It’s just time for me to move on.”

Pathways To Success

Still, Brown expressed optimism about what his office had been able to do with limited budget and limited personnel. “I’m very encouraged by the scaling. We’ve proven the model works,” he said.

During Brown’s four years, 43 capabilities were transitioned to DoD, including eight so far in FY22, according to DIU. Overall, DIU has seen as 45% transition rate during his time, with 75 current projects underway. He also helped get funding for the National Security Innovation Capitol fund, which helps fund dual-use technologies in the private sector, particularly for key pieces of hardware that are being ignored by software-focused VCs.

“If we don’t have capability in the hands of the warfighter, we’re not satisfied. That’s not a success for us,” Brown said. “Just doing demonstrations or experiments, you’re only part of the way into changing the capability the warfighter car access.”

And yet, a number of times during the interview Brown left the sense that DIU, if it had more budget and ability to truly prove attractive for VC-backed companies, should be more successful. Asked for specific steps that could improve the flow of commercial technology into the department, Brown laid out three calls to action.

First, change the inventive for program managers from focusing on compliance and mitigating risk, and instead make them about speed. Doing so, Brown argued, would lead to more failures — but if everyone is moving quickly, those failures would become experimentations the department can learn from, rather than existential challenges to readiness. It would also avoid programs becoming bogged down the multi-year cycles that leave the Pentagon far behind the commercial industrial pace.

The second, which ties into the question of speed, is more willingness to hand out production contracts to commercial firms. Silicon Valley voices have said time and again what they need from DoD are actual production deals, not small R&D contracts, in order for the department to be attractive. “In the macro sense we’re not really diversifying the amount of spending we’re doing” right now, Brown said, and that has to change.

Finally, he called for DoD to adopt a “Fast Follower” approach, where the department sets up a series of small Centers of Excellence for key technologies — commercial satellite imagery, small drones, and wearables, for instance — that are coming out of the commercial sector. By having a dedicated focus, those centers would be able to quickly adopt the latest in those technologies and get them into the military more quickly.

Ultimately, though, it comes back to support, especially in the form of money. Give DIU more, Brown argued, and his successor will find more victories for the department, especially at a time when emerging technologies are being used widely in Ukraine’s conflict with Russia.

“I do think that we could accomplish more if we had more resources, and I look forward to seeing the department realize that there’s a lot more that we can gain from commercial technology, which is the key to defense innovation and modernizing the force,” Brown said. “Over time, things have a tendency to get corrected and move in the right direction.”