Dan Wright, CEO Armada | Trae Stephens Next Big Bet

Today Molly O'Shea speaks with Dan Wright, CEO of Armada, backed with $100M to date from notable investors like Trae Stephens from Founders Fund, 137 Ventures, Lux, Dragon Global, Microsoft’s M12, 8VC, Shield Capital, among others. Armada is a leading edge computing company deploying servers for advanced AI applications in remote locations. More impressively, this company barely started 2 years ago and has been out of stealth for less than a year, while achieving critical milestones like partnerships with Starlink, Skydio, Hallibutron, and more, we’ll discuss shortly. Dan is a remarkable figure in the world of data coming from key executive positions at DataRobot and AppDynamics, while Armada’s COO Jon Runyan led Okta through its IPO, and CTO Pradeep Nair was VP of MSFT Azure. This is a great sneak peek into the early innings of one of the next most important rocket ship companies in technology. Disclosure: The Fund Molly works for is an investor in Armada  -- Follow on Twitter  https://x.com/MollySOShea https://x.com/danwrightsf -- Check out Armada https://www.armada.ai/ -- Subscribe to Sourcery: https://www.sourcery.vc/  -- Sponsor: Archer Archer's Midnight is a piloted four passenger aircraft designed to perform rapid back-to-back flights with minimal charge time between flights. Learn more about how Archer is set to open up a new world of opportunity for passengers by providing safe and efficient access to people, places, and events across the communities they live, visit https://www.archer.com/ –- COMPANIES MENTIONED: Founders Fund: https://www.foundersfund.com 137 Ventures: https://www.137ventures.com Starlink: https://www.starlink.com Microsoft Azure: https://azure.microsoft.com SpaceX: https://www.spacex.com DataRobot: https://www.datarobot.com AppDynamics: https://www.appdynamics.com Okta: https://www.okta.com Halliburton: https://www.halliburton.com Skydio: https://www.skydio.com Cisco: https://www.cisco.com Palantir: https://www.palantir.com Anderol: https://www.anderol.com Rippling: https://www.rippling.com Ramp: https://www.ramp.com Goldman Sachs: https://www.goldmansachs.com OpenAI: https://www.openai.com Anthropic: https://www.anthropic.com Databricks: https://www.databricks.com Cockroach Labs: https://www.cockroachlabs.com Metronome: https://www.metronome.com -- TIMESTAMPS: (00:00) Introduction & Founding of Armada  (01:29) The Role of Early Investors  (02:52) Recruiting Top Talent  (04:34) Armada's Product Suite: Connect, Edge, and OpsAI  (07:55) The Galleon: Design and Engineering  (09:58) The Marketplace and Partner Ecosystem  (12:30) Building vs. Partnering for AI Applications  (14:20) Go-to-Market Strategy and Global Expansion  (16:46) The Go-to-Market Team and Hiring Philosophy  (18:24) Pitching to Public and Private Sectors  (21:01) Addressing the Market's White Space  (22:42) Key Partnerships and Building a Moat  (24:02) Sourcing Hardware and Scaling Production  (25:51) Growth Strategies Across Companies  (27:52) Capital Allocation and Milestones  (30:39) Crazy Edge Cases, Team Expansion, and Hiring Priorities  (33:33) Wrap  (34:00) Post-Interview Advertisement RECOMMENDED PODCAST: 🎙️ Unpack Pricing Dive into the dark arts of SaaS pricing with Metronome CEO Scott Woody and tech leaders. Learn how strategic pricing drives explosive revenue growth in today's biggest companies like Snowflake, Cockroach Labs, Dropbox and more.  Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/id1765716600  Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/38DK3W1Fq1xxQalhDSueFg