EPISODE · May 29, 2026 · 38 MIN
Code Metal: Rewriting the Code Behind National Security
from Mission Matters Podcast · host Shield Capital
AI made writing code cheap. Verifying it is the new bottleneck.Peter Morales, CEO and co-founder of Code Metal, joins Maggie Gray and Pat O'Reilly to talk about modernizing the legacy code running US national security — and why formal verification is the durable moat in an era of commodity AI code generation.Founded in 2023, Code Metal has raised ~$200M and signed contracts with the US Air Force, L3Harris, RTX, and Toshiba. Projects that used to take engineering teams months now take minutes.In this episode:Why US weapons systems still run on COBOL, Fortran, and AdaHow Code Metal pairs LLMs with formal verification for safety-critical codeWhy the verification layer is more valuable than the model itselfPeter's advice for founders building in defense techTimestamps:(00:00) Introduction(2:10) Why would you want translate code? (4:11) How does Code Metal accelerate this process?(5:27) Customer interest in Code Metal(6:22) Outdated weapons systems programming language(8:39) Code Metal's formula(12:14) How does Code Metal choose a model to use(14:11) Lessons learned from working in international markets(15:20) Navigating commercial and government customers(18:03) Getting approval to work with classified customers (19:46) Customer success stories(23:06) Building trust with mission-critical customers(24:10) Why did you decide to start your own company?(26:22) How do you approach recruitment for working in a startup?(28:47) Biggest changes in defense space over Peter's career(30:11) Advice for founders and investors to leverage a board (32:16) Lessons from Ukraine and Middle East conflicts(33:10) Subcontracting as a way to gain access to larger contracts(34:39) What's next for Code Metal?(35:38) Biggest surprised building Code Metal(36:19) Advice for founders building in the national security domain
What this episode covers
AI made writing code cheap. Verifying it is the new bottleneck.Peter Morales, CEO and co-founder of Code Metal, joins Maggie Gray and Pat O'Reilly to talk about modernizing the legacy code running US national security — and why formal verification is the durable moat in an era of commodity AI code generation.Founded in 2023, Code Metal has raised ~$200M and signed contracts with the US Air Force, L3Harris, RTX, and Toshiba. Projects that used to take engineering teams months now take minutes.In this episode:Why US weapons systems still run on COBOL, Fortran, and AdaHow Code Metal pairs LLMs with formal verification for safety-critical codeWhy the verification layer is more valuable than the model itselfPeter's advice for founders building in defense techTimestamps:(00:00) Introduction(2:10) Why would you want translate code? (4:11) How does Code Metal accelerate this process?(5:27) Customer interest in Code Metal(6:22) Outdated weapons systems programming language(8:39) Code Metal's formula(12:14) How does Code Metal choose a model to use(14:11) Lessons learned from working in international markets(15:20) Navigating commercial and government customers(18:03) Getting approval to work with classified customers (19:46) Customer success stories(23:06) Building trust with mission-critical customers(24:10) Why did you decide to start your own company?(26:22) How do you approach recruitment for working in a startup?(28:47) Biggest changes in defense space over Peter's career(30:11) Advice for founders and investors to leverage a board (32:16) Lessons from Ukraine and Middle East conflicts(33:10) Subcontracting as a way to gain access to larger contracts(34:39) What's next for Code Metal?(35:38) Biggest surprised building Code Metal(36:19) Advice for founders building in the national security domain
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Code Metal: Rewriting the Code Behind National Security
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