Lockheed Martin

**David Rosenthal** (0:00)
Those two movies are so freaking good.

**Ben Gilbert** (0:04)
Yeah.

**David Rosenthal** (0:05)
It's so shocking how good Maverick is. So many years later, in such a different environment, and then delayed due to coronavirus.

**Ben Gilbert** (0:14)
Well, the funniest thing is when it was delayed for whatever years during coronavirus, the fighter that Maverick is in is an F-18 Hornet, the Boeing plane, and by the time the movie gets released, it's basically discontinued. Within a couple of years, that's when they end of life the F-18 Hornet for the Navy. Did you catch the Lockheed thing in Maverick?

**David Rosenthal** (0:36)
The skunk on the tail of the plane?

**Ben Gilbert** (0:37)
Oh yeah, on the Mach 10 Darkstar aircraft.

**David Rosenthal** (0:42)
The Mach 10 Darkstar. Oh God.

**Ben Gilbert** (0:46)
All right, let's do it.

**David Rosenthal** (0:47)
All right, let's do this.

**Ben Gilbert** (1:05)
Welcome to Season 12, Episode 5 of Acquired, the podcast about great technology companies and the stories and playbooks behind them. I'm Ben Gilbert.

**David Rosenthal** (1:14)
I'm David Rosenthal.

**Ben Gilbert** (1:15)
And we are your hosts. Today's episode is on a critical piece of American infrastructure, Lockheed Martin. They are the nation's largest defense contractor. They're actually the federal government's largest contractor, period. The American taxpayers pay Lockheed Martin around $50 billion a year. And just to state this early and clearly, Lockheed Martin makes, among other things, killing machines. The company is, of course, critical to defending the American way of life and most of these things they make fortunately are used as deterrents to keep peace. But we should not mince words, they make weapons synonymous with phrases like overwhelming force and air superiority. You may feel and probably should feel conflicted as you learn about this company. There are really no easy answers to the question, is what they make right or good? And that's why we entrust the decision to use their products to the office of the president of the United States. But this company's history is absolutely fascinating. There's stories of hardcore engineering, daring innovators, and it's frankly just inspiring.

**David Rosenthal** (2:23)
Yeah. Going back and learning all this and soaking in the history of the times when Lockheed was really forged gave me at least a whole new perspective on this killing machines and deterrence question. To tell the full story of Lockheed and Lockheed Martin and all the predecessor companies that came before it, because I think it's like 17 companies all merged together at this point, would probably require a full season of Acquired, so we're not going to do that. Instead, we're going to focus on two interwoven stories from Lockheed, not Martin, but Lockheed's golden eras. The first of those stories is the famous Skunk Works. The second one, I'm not going to say what it is, so we don't spoil it just yet, but as a teaser, it's unbelievable and is directly tied in to the birth of Silicon Valley. If you're in the tech world and you think Lockheed Martin and defense and fighter planes doesn't apply to me, think again because pretty much everything you do came out of this. I can't wait to tell it.

**Ben Gilbert** (3:25)
Quite the teaser, David. Well, listeners, this episode was selected by Acquired LPs. If you want to help pick an episode for next season, you can become an Acquired limited partner, come closer to the show in other ways, including a private Zoom call with us every month or two for all the LPs. You can join anytime at acquired.fm slash LP. If you want more from David and I, you should check out our interview show, ACQ2. Our last episode was on the topic of how generative AI can be valuable specifically to B2B SaaS companies, and probably more importantly, where it cannot. And listeners, you can just search ACQ2 anywhere podcasts are found.

**David Rosenthal** (4:04)
We've got some awesome interviews coming up too. ACQ2 is on fire. Yep.

**Ben Gilbert** (4:08)
Join the Slack, Acquired.fm slash Slack. We'll be discussing this episode there afterwards. And without further ado, David, take us in. And listeners, as always, this show is not investment advice. David and I may have investments in the companies we discuss, and this show is for informational and entertainment purposes only.

**David Rosenthal** (4:25)
So for many of you listening, one thing you may not know that I didn't really know till we started the research is that the company that eventually became Lockheed Martin today was two companies. It was Lockheed and Martin Marietta, and there was a huge merger in 1995 Lockheed was actually the second Lockheed company, or really maybe the third. The first Lockheed company was founded in 1912 by one Alan Lockheed, but if you were to look at the spelling of his name, it would look like a log head.