E439: Ethan Thornton: The 22-Year-Old Building a $3.7 Billion Defense Company

Ethan Thornton (0:00)

The only risk in my mind and my team's mind early on was that we weren't able to get it done.

Dropping out of college, it's not that much of a risk. The risk is that we aren't able to go and build what the world needs. Everyone thinks I was terrified to drop out. No, I'm terrified of what happens if we lose. I'd known I wanted to work on it since I was 16 So when I went to MIT, I'd actually already patented a lot of the designs for a lot of the things I thought would be asymmetric. For me, America is the greatest country on earth, and I wanna make sure that we have asymmetric technology to punch above our weight class. We started the year at 470 million, right now we're at 3.7 billion.

David Weisburd (0:34)

We're in this Cold War with China. It may turn into a hot war.

Where are we in relationship with China? And how do you even quantify the relative military strength of the two countries? So before starting Mach, you were really a student of history learning about modern warfare. What does Ukraine teach us about modern warfare?

Ethan Thornton (0:56)

One, it teaches us that people fighting for what is right in the world can stand up very, very, very well and can fight for years to an evil power that looks to suppress their rights. Second, it proves the asymmetry of military technology, which I think we've forgotten for a long time.

David Weisburd (1:17)

You mentioned asymmetric warfare. What's the clearest example of asymmetric warfare today in 2026?

Ethan Thornton (1:25)

The thing about asymmetric warfare is that it's always changing around power law technologies. Asymmetric warfare by nature is sort of just the Pareto edge of technology as relates to a given fight. And so it's changed, right? Asymmetry early in the war was them adopting traditional Western singers and javelins incredibly well. Asymmetry in Ukraine, the thing that Ukrainians do incredibly well is they out innovate. They don't necessarily have better engineering. They don't have a bigger industrial capacity. They push forward and maintain that Pareto edge and because of that, they're able to punch significantly above their weight class. And so when I can predict what the next one is, that's kind of my job. That's what we do as a company. And so, I mean, look at our product line, the stratosphere is incredibly asymmetric. Ipersonics, when at scale, will be incredibly asymmetric.

But it's actually really hard to define these things. Like if you would have said two years ago, what is the next asymmetric thing? It would have been pretty difficult. I've actually been working on the stratosphere since I was in high school.

I'm incredibly passionate about that being something that will give the West, and when I say the West, I mean the US and its allies, asymmetry, but asymmetry is a fleeting thing, right? The tech on the front edge of that curve changes all the time. And so you have to actually innovate to push super hard. And right now, that is deep strike. That is the Ukrainians' ability to go and pick off Russian infrastructure. Now the Russians are doing it right back. And so that's really the scaring stage of the fight.

David Weisburd (2:50)

Fast forward today, Mach Industries is a multi-billion dollar company. How did you go from an MIT dropout to running this unicorn company?

Ethan Thornton (3:01)

I can't take much credit for it, honestly. It's all about finding excellent people and empowering them to do their jobs. I think you got to know what you want to build.

And for us, that is asymmetric technology for people fighting for their rights.

David Weisburd (3:16)

You're a 19-year-old and you decided to start a defense company. How did you go from idea to consumption?

Ethan Thornton (3:25)

I'd known I wanted to work on it since I was 16 So when I went to MIT, I'd actually already patented a lot of the designs for a lot of the things I thought would be asymmetric.

It wasn't really a bull, to be honest with you. It was a push. Like, I think it's incredibly important that we as a country are able to help our allies. There's a quote I like, America's greatness comes from our goodness. If America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great. And for me, America is the greatest country on earth. And I want to make sure that we have asymmetric technology to punch above our weight class, especially given that we cannot manufacture China right now. So that's the mandate of the company.

David Weisburd (4:01)