Introducing Ethos
Powering the People who Power the Mission
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Throughout history, America’s strategic edge has not been defined solely by superior technology or weaponry, but by the quality of its people and the tactics they employ.
I was fortunate to take a class from LTG H. R. McMaster while in the early days of forming this company. He told us the story of the Battle of 73 Easting, where American forces under his command destroyed 85 Iraqi tanks and over 40 other vehicles while sustaining zero American casualties.
This stunning dominance in combat was remarkable. I asked him what he attributed it to. Were our tanks just that much better? Were our tactics so incredibly superior? Was the element of surprise at play, and decisively to our advantage?
His answer was simple: “our ethos”
McMaster explained that our victory then - as has been true in so many of America's triumphs - was not due to superior equipment alone. It was due to the unmatched training, tactics, and decision-making skills of the American warfighter - to our warfighting ethos.
The Battle of 73 Easting stands as a testament to the power of the human operator, and to the enduring advantage of strategic and tactical overmatch employed by superior warfighters. History gives us countless other examples: from the innovative strategies of General Patton and to the craft and cunning of Admiral Nimitz, our success has often stemmed from distinctly human advantages.
As we move into a future where software and AI increasingly define warfare, the role of the warfighter must change and our systems of preparing them for combat must too.
Despite our people being our greatest strategic asset, the training enterprise within the Federal Government today, to include the Department of Defense (DoD), is ill equipped for an AI driven future.
It’s fashionable today to say things within government are broken. In Defense, it’s more nuanced: our training isn't broken - it’s just becoming obsolete.
Our systems of equipping warfighters for combat were exquisitely built for a world that no longer exists. They prepare us for yesterday's fight, but have little to say for the future.
Our military’s training enterprise is plagued by inefficiencies and outdated methods that demand reform. We've seen this first hand over the past four years since founding this company. Millions of personnel hours and billions of taxpayer dollars are wasted annually on obsolete or irrelevant training that fails to prepare our forces for 21st-century conflicts against peer adversaries.
Worse still, ineffective training results in costly and sometimes deadly mistakes, as seen in incidents like the USS McCain and USS Fitzgerald collisions. Intensive mishap investigations after each tragedy concluded that poor training was the primary causal factor. In one instance, a software system controlling the ship’s throttle was updated, but the Sailor tasked with operating that system was not trained on the change. As a result, 10 sailors lost their lives, 48 more were injured, and the ship suffered over $100M in damage.
Absent intervention, we believe these sorts of tragedies will become more common, not less, as we go into the future.
The perhaps counterintuitive reason for that prediction is that our technological systems are developing at a faster rate than our human systems. Said differently, people are being left behind. Every day new mismatches in mission readiness emerge as technology outpaces people. As warfighting demands begin to change at the pace of software and AI, systemic readiness gaps widen when the human training doesn't keep up. These gaps jeopardize mission success and demand urgent reform.
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Ethos was founded to tackle this urgent challenge head-on. Our journey began at Stanford University where we prototyped solutions for DoD training gaps as part of the “Hacking 4 Defense” program. Our team included veterans with firsthand experience investigating and responding to the tragic USS McCain and USS Fitzgerald collisions.
My co-founder and I bring a deep commitment to national security. Sasha’s service as a Naval Reserve Intelligence officer currently supporting the Defense Innovation Unit, and my work designing courses at Stanford on technology innovation and great power competition, reflect our dedication to empowering America’s warfighters. Ethos was born out of the belief that our intellectual efforts could make a decisive impact on the future of American readiness.
We believe in the American Ethos - our character, our culture, our values and our aspirations. For the American ethos to endure, first and foremost, we believe our military must prevail in its mission: to deter, to defend and to win.
Our distinctive advantage as a military stems from our ethos, which defines the character and the quality of the American warfighter.
The future of warfare will demand more—not less—from the individuals who serve. Even as technology evolves, the outcomes of conflicts will hinge on human judgment, adaptability, and skill. Our vision is a DoD where every individual – military or civilian – receives personalized, effective training that maximizes their readiness for their mission.
Training should not be an end in itself. Too often, the DoD measures success by inputs like hours spent in a classroom, rather than by outcomes that matter for real-world missions.
Ethos reimagines education and training to enable continuous readiness.
We will accomplish this by shifting our military’s legacy, antiquated, analog training infrastructure into one that is software-defined and AI-enabled, seamlessly integrating training input and real-world performance outputs to ensure that every resource – time, money, people, and equipment – is maximized for operational success. Like Palantir’s ontology enables enterprise workflow optimization, Ethos drives human readiness optimization.
Ethos revolutionizes military readiness through:
Our platform converts legacy training materials into secure, engaging, and interactive mobile lessons tailored to specific job roles and each individual. Imagine America’s best military expertise, sitting in your pocket – accessible anywhere, anytime.
By integrating performance data, our platform identifies and addresses skill gaps before they manifest as operational failures. For instance, had the Navy had this capability in 2017, the Ethos Readiness Dashboard could have flagged the Sailor’s lack of proficiency with a critical throttle system on the USS McCain and likely prevented the tragedies before they occurred.
Advanced algorithms deliver targeted learning interventions, optimizing training at the individual level to close readiness gaps in real time. These AI-enabled tools are also able to identify instructor and curriculum deficiencies and recommend mitigations.
Operating across commercial and classified networks, our platform is uniquely positioned for enterprise-wide adoption on a problem that only AI and software can effectively solve.
The DoD faces what Col. Adam Boyd, Division Chief, J8 Warfighting Analysis Division, calls a "Scharnhorst Moment," referencing the Prussian general whose sweeping reforms revolutionized military systems in the early 19th century. In his article Who Goes There? What the DoD is Missing About the Changing Character of War, Boyd details how General Scharnhorst understood that success in war depended not only on superior weapons but on the systematic development of leaders, soldiers, and tactics. Similarly, today’s defense systems must undergo a transformation to meet the demands of modern warfare.
This transformation is already underway, led by innovative commercial technology organizations like Palantir, Anduril and many others, alongside visionary leaders within the DoD. With urgency and focus, they are driving a revolution in defense software and hardware systems. But this revolution cannot succeed if we innovate only the tools of war while neglecting the people who wield them.
Some believe that military personnel are of secondary importance to the technology that they operate. Many smart investors in Silicon Valley hold this view – just improve the tech, and we win. Even more provocatively, some portend that there will be no need for human operators in the future. They argue that F-35 pilots are the warfighting equivalent of cab drivers awaiting inevitable displacement by self-driving cars, or that Navy SEALs will soon be replaced by super-humanoid robot combatants.
At a recent pitch while raising our $30M Series A, an experienced Silicon Valley investor on Sand Hill Road said: “Why are you training pilots? We aren’t going to need any of them soon.” Needless to say, we did not end up raising money from his firm. But his comment is worth engaging with directly and honestly. Setting aside the ethical quandaries of a purely AI-driven kill chain, anyone who has served in uniform knows this Silicon Valley perception is flawed.
At a recent talk in Austin, TX, the Commander of the Army Futures Command, GEN James E. Rainey, rejected this idea in no uncertain terms: “Anyone who thinks there is no need for humans in the future fight is not a serious professional.”
Contrary to many VC investors, we agree with GEN Rainey’s assessment. In fact, we believe training warfighters will be even more important in the future, not less.
This prediction may seem counterintuitive. The reason is that technology will magnify the impact that one warfighter can have. Think about one operator wielding swarms of autonomous AI-enabled weapon systems: their impact is multiplied, not diminished, by AI. Consider a Navy SEAL, 10 years from now. He may be equipped with dozens of next generation AI combatants under his command, which can do incredible things. The extended reach and impact of that one person is even more important, not less, than a Special Operator of today.
So even in an increasingly AI-driven future, we believe the human capital element will remain vital. Boyd’s argument underscores that victory always depends on rapid, informed decision-making under conditions of extreme uncertainty. It is not enough to deploy the best systems; we must also cultivate the intellectual and tactical overmatch of the people who wield them. This is why Ethos exists: to innovate our human systems and ensure America’s warfighters are as prepared as the advanced tools they command.
Clausewitz described war as a “chameleon” that changes its character with each conflict. Today, the return of strategic peer competition, the rise of gray zone warfare, and the loss of American unipolar technological supremacy demand a fundamental shift in how we prepare our forces. As Col. Boyd emphasizes, intellectual overmatch—rapid, informed decision-making—is now the critical determinant of victory.
Our platform’s next evolution integrates real-world performance data to:
Col. Boyd’s article reminds us that organizations often fail when they cling to outdated models in the face of evolving threats. To avoid this fate, Ethos leverages AI to ensure warfighters can operate effectively in dynamic, contested domains.
This proactive, data-driven approach ensures that every moment of training contributes directly to mission success, making readiness optimization a continuous, real-time process.
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Ethos is more than a company; it is a mission to secure and retain America’s warfighting edge in an era of great power competition. As we scale our platform and expand our impact, we invite partners, stakeholders, and builders to join us.
Together, we can ensure that America’s military builds on its enduring legacy of being the best-prepared force in the world, and that those who serve our country are always ready are always ready.
