Building autonomous AI for Europe's frontlines | The Further, Faster Podcast

What happens when a paternity-leave project transforms into a tech startup with life or death stakes? When Guiam Wainwright, founder of OCCAM, began donating time to support the tech-needs of the Ukrainian frontline, he didn’t expect to build a commercially viable company that could have far-reaching implications for global security. He joins Antler Partner Hannah Leach for a candid and inspiring discussion about finding his new obsession, navigating the complexities of the defense sector and balancing risk when building for a conflict zone. 

Guiam worked in a range of industries – from a stint at Cambridge Analytica (during its earlier years), to Ocado – but became motivated by the anger felt at Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to contribute to the war effort. As he tells Hannah, there’s no real difference business-wise between logistics, telco, or defence. All companies can be distilled to the simple fact that “someone has a problem and it makes sense to solve that problem in a commercial way.”

OCCAM was born out of an Antler residency. The product is hardware-agnostic software that solves jamming and signals loss, suitable for the low cost drones that have become synonymous with the Ukrainian frontline. While Guiam is laser-focused on supporting Ukrainian service personnel, he explains why the problem Ukraine has is a problem we all share. “If we can't trust our machines to behave the way that we want them to because of electronic warfare, because of whatever, then that is a truly global crisis in the making,” he says. 

Guiam, who now makes regular trips to Ukraine, discusses how to balance risk as a founder and how he considers a “move fast and break stuff” approach in a typically cautious industry.  What matters most in this game, Guiam tells Hannah, is to find the thing you are obsessed with. “I’ve never cared as much about a business before,” he says. “It's taken me to my third founding to to really internalize a lesson that every VC and every in like everyone everyone told me for years and it's finally clicked. This is something I'm quite literally prepared to go into a war zone and risk my life for. That's the level of obsession that I think founders need to get to.”

To learn more about how OCCAM is revolutionizing drone warfare and why founders need to be able to inspire others to follow them – however crazy they might seem, listen to the full episode here.

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