Brian Bell · Jul 27, 2026 · 16 min read

Ignite Startups: Passive Sensors, Drone Swarms, and the Future of Air Defense with Deo Arlo | Ep285

Most counter-drone pitches begin with the weapon. How fast is the interceptor? How large is its payload? How far can it travel? How cheaply can it destroy an incoming drone? Deo Arlo thinks that starts one step too late.

Most counter-drone pitches begin with the weapon.

How fast is the interceptor? How large is its payload? How far can it travel? How cheaply can it destroy an incoming drone?

Deo Arlo thinks that starts one step too late.

Before an interceptor can engage a threat, someone—or something—must detect it, identify it, determine where it is going, and provide targeting data precise enough to act. If that sensing layer is incomplete, delayed, or inaccurate, improvements to the weapon may not matter.

Deo is the founder and CEO of YC-backed Arlo Industries, which is building a passive, decentralized sensor mesh designed to track small drones and other aerial threats in real time. Instead of relying exclusively on a large, centralized radar installation, Arlo’s architecture distributes compact sensors across the area being protected.

The result is intended to function less like a single watchtower and more like a networked nervous system: many sensing points continuously sharing information and collectively building a more accurate picture of the sky.

In this episode of the Ignite Podcast, Deo explains why sensing may be the most neglected layer of modern air defense, what Ukraine has taught founders about battlefield iteration, why future defense systems may resemble biological immune systems, and how AI could amplify both humanity’s capacity for peace and its capacity for conflict.

The Real Counter-Drone Bottleneck Is Sensing

The counter-drone market is crowded with companies building interceptors, jammers, autonomous aircraft, directed-energy systems, and other methods of stopping aerial threats.

Deo’s contrarian argument is that the interception layer is not necessarily where the largest capability gap remains.

Many companies are competing to produce an interceptor that is marginally faster, carries a slightly larger payload, remains airborne longer, or costs less per engagement. Those improvements may be valuable, but they do not solve the underlying problem of awareness.

An interceptor still needs to know:

That an object has entered the protected airspace
Where the object is located in three dimensions
How fast it is moving
What direction it is traveling
Whether it is hostile, benign, or unidentified
Which response system should engage it
How targeting information should be updated as it moves

Deo argues that the industry has invested heavily in what delivers the final strike while underinvesting in the systems that make an accurate strike possible.

As he puts it:

“Information is power, and the more you know, the better you can strike, and maybe you can strike less.”

Better weapons without better awareness may simply create more expensive systems operating with incomplete information.

A Founder Shaped by Conflict, Not Defense Hype

Deo’s interest in defense technology did not begin with the recent surge of venture capital into the sector.

He was born in Indonesia during a period of violent riots targeting immigrant communities, including his own family. That early exposure to instability led him to think seriously about how technology could protect people from violence.

He later spent six years in Israel, where rocket attacks and trips to shelters turned aerial defense from an abstract engineering problem into part of everyday life. He also spent time in Ukraine studying how military technology performs under actual battlefield conditions.

Those experiences shaped Arlo’s founding philosophy: conflict may be unavoidable, but it should be made as concise and precise as possible.

Deo does not describe defense technology as a path to eliminating human disagreement. His starting point is more pessimistic. Humans will continue to compete, quarrel, and occasionally fight.

The practical objective is therefore to reduce the duration, uncertainty, and collateral damage of those conflicts.

That requires more than building larger weapons. It requires giving defenders enough information to act precisely rather than indiscriminately.

Why Traditional Radar Struggles With Modern Drone Threats

Radar remains indispensable for detecting aircraft, missiles, and many other aerial objects. Deo is not arguing that radar will disappear.

His argument is that radar was developed around a different set of threats.

Traditional systems are particularly effective against larger objects with substantial radar cross-sections: aircraft, ballistic missiles, and other targets that are comparatively easy to distinguish at distance.

Small drones create a different detection problem.

They may:

Fly at low altitude
Travel slowly
Have small radar cross-sections
Blend into environmental clutter
Operate in coordinated groups
Use fiber-optic control systems
Approach from directions poorly covered by centralized installations
Cost little enough to be deployed at enormous scale

Attack systems have evolved rapidly, while much of the sensing architecture used to detect them still rests on assumptions developed decades ago.

Deo believes the answer is not simply to abandon radar, but to explore additional sensing modalities—including optical, acoustic, passive radio-frequency, and eventually more experimental approaches—and combine them into a stronger awareness layer.

A mature air-defense system will likely remain layered. Radar may continue to handle certain classes of threats while other modalities become better suited for small, low-flying, or difficult-to-classify objects.

The mistake would be treating every aerial sensing problem as though it must be solved by radar alone.

What Arlo Industries Is Building

Arlo Industries is developing a network of compact, man-portable sensors that can be installed on buildings, towers, and other infrastructure.

Deo describes each unit as roughly the size of a human head.

Once deployed, the sensors are designed to:

Connect through their own mesh network
Calibrate themselves
Coordinate with nearby sensors
Track objects moving through the protected airspace
Produce real-time three-dimensional position data
Help identify and classify aerial objects
Feed information into existing command-and-control systems
Provide targeting data to compatible interception systems

The customer is not necessarily buying another standalone defense dashboard. Arlo’s core product is the awareness layer and the resulting data.

That information could be integrated into air-traffic systems, command-and-control platforms, intelligence software, existing radar displays, or interceptor batteries.

The broader ambition is to create a turnkey sensing network that can be deployed without the cost, infrastructure requirements, and single-point-of-failure risks associated with a small number of large installations.

Drone detection is the initial wedge. Deo’s longer-term vision extends from terrestrial sensing to the stratosphere and eventually low Earth orbit, where similar infrastructure could potentially help track satellites, debris, aircraft, glide vehicles, and other objects.

Distributed Sensors and Compounding Accuracy

The central architectural bet behind Arlo is decentralization.

Rather than depend on one extremely powerful sensor, Arlo distributes many smaller sensors across the protected area. Each additional sensor contributes another observation point.

The cost of adding nodes may grow approximately linearly: another location requires another sensor.

Deo’s thesis is that the usefulness of the network can improve much faster because the sensors do not operate independently. Their observations are combined probabilistically, allowing each node to help correct or strengthen the information produced by the others.

One sensor may have an incomplete view. Several sensors observing the same object from different locations can collectively estimate its position and trajectory with greater confidence.

This resembles the logic behind other networked systems. The value does not come exclusively from the capabilities of each individual node. It comes from the relationships and information exchanged between nodes.

For the model to work, the sensors must connect reliably, calibrate accurately, synchronize observations, and fuse data quickly enough to support real-time decisions.

That software layer is critical.

Deo’s background in robotics taught him that more hardware and more moving parts often create additional failure modes. If the software is sufficiently capable, the physical system can remain comparatively simple.

Arlo is applying that principle to defense: use intelligent software and distributed, potentially lower-cost hardware to perform tasks historically assigned to large and expensive systems.

Why Future Air Defense May Resemble an Immune System

One of Deo’s most useful analogies is biological.

The human body does not rely on a single giant organ to identify and destroy every pathogen. Defense is distributed throughout the body. Cells detect threats locally, communicate with one another, escalate when necessary, and respond without requiring every decision to travel through a single central command point.

Deo believes future air defense may develop in a similar direction.

A decentralized system could include:

Distributed sensing nodes
Local decision-making at the edge
Multiple classes of interceptors
Shared threat intelligence
Autonomous or semi-autonomous responses
Coordination across many independent units
Redundancy when an individual node fails

This architecture is particularly relevant to drone swarms.

A centralized system may become overwhelmed if it must individually identify, classify, and authorize responses to a large number of simultaneous threats. A distributed architecture can potentially spread both awareness and response across many nodes.

The analogy also extends beyond hardware.

Deo points to the Israeli military’s ability to let edge units make decisions quickly. In a rapidly changing environment, requiring every judgment to move up and down a long chain of command can make the response too slow.

The future may belong to systems that combine centralized strategic control with decentralized tactical intelligence.

What Ukraine Teaches About Building Defense Technology

Ukraine has become an extraordinary testing ground for drones, electronic warfare, autonomous systems, and counter-drone technology.

The most important lesson, according to Deo, is not that every country should copy the exact systems being deployed there.

It is speed.

Battlefield requirements can change in days. A product designed around last month’s threat may arrive after tactics, frequencies, control systems, or attack patterns have already shifted.

That creates a fundamentally different product-development cycle from conventional government procurement.

Deo argues that founders should deliver something useful to the front line tomorrow rather than spend months perfecting a system in isolation. Operators can test it, expose its weaknesses, and provide feedback grounded in actual conditions.

The relevant standard is not perfection.

It is whether the system creates useful capability now—and whether the company can improve it faster than the threat evolves.

At the same time, founders should resist drawing overly broad conclusions from a single conflict. Ukraine has a specific geography, enemy, infrastructure base, force structure, and set of operational constraints.

Technology that works in Ukraine may not translate directly to the Middle East, the Pacific, Latin America, or another theater.

The transferable lessons are methodological:

Develop rapidly
Test under realistic conditions
Keep systems affordable and replaceable
Reduce training complexity
Learn directly from operators
Expect the threat to change
Localize the system for each battlefield

Copying the product is less important than copying the learning loop.

Arlo’s Long-Term Moat: Data, Networks, and Infrastructure

Arlo is entering a market that includes well-capitalized defense startups, major contractors, government research programs, and companies already building integrated counter-drone platforms.

Deo does not expect an initial product idea to protect Arlo indefinitely.

The company’s intended defensibility comes from execution and the infrastructure created through deployment.

Over time, that could include several reinforcing advantages:

A sensor-network moat: Each additional deployment expands the company’s operational footprint and experience managing distributed systems.

A data moat: More observations can improve classification, tracking, calibration, and performance across different environments.

An infrastructure moat: Integrations with command-and-control systems, air-traffic platforms, and interceptors can make the sensing layer increasingly embedded.

A speed moat: A smaller company can test, travel, deploy, and modify its product faster than a large incumbent.

An operational moat: Real-world experience in different geographies can expose edge cases that are difficult to reproduce in a laboratory.

This is particularly important because the sensing layer may become strategically valuable to many interceptor companies.

Rather than compete with every method of destroying a drone, Arlo can potentially provide the information that many different response systems need.

The objective is to become part of the underlying infrastructure through which those systems understand the airspace.

Better Awareness Could Mean Using Less Force

Defense is often framed as a competition over destructive capacity.

Deo offers a different possibility: better sensing could reduce the amount of force required.

When defenders have poor information, they may overreact, respond late, use an unnecessarily expensive interceptor, or fail to distinguish a hostile object from a benign one.

Greater awareness can improve proportionality.

A system that understands what is approaching, where it is going, and how dangerous it is can select a more appropriate response. In some cases, better information may reveal that no strike is required at all.

This is where Arlo’s technical thesis connects to Deo’s moral philosophy.

He is not arguing that precise weapons make conflict good. He is arguing that if conflict occurs, precision and information can reduce unnecessary destruction.

The intelligence layer is therefore not separate from the ethical question. It directly affects who is targeted, which system responds, how much force is used, and what collateral damage may result.

Autonomy, Accountability, and the Battlefield Black Box

As more autonomous systems enter military operations, fewer people may need to be physically present on the front line.

That could reduce casualties.

It could also weaken human understanding of what is happening.

Deo compares the risk to AI-generated software. Developers increasingly rely on systems that can produce complex code faster than a human can inspect every line. The product may work, but parts of its internal logic can become a black box to the people responsible for it.

A similar dynamic could emerge in autonomous warfare.

Machines may detect threats, classify targets, coordinate with other machines, select responses, and execute actions faster than any person can follow individually.

The scarce resource may no longer be destructive capacity. It may be accountability.

Who authorized the system’s objective? Who understands why it acted? Who can reconstruct the chain of decisions? Who remains responsible when the system makes a mistake?

Deo argues that human accountability must remain intact even as autonomy expands.

Machines do not independently create the political disagreement that causes a war. Humans establish the objectives, incentives, and missions. Autonomous systems amplify the ability to carry them out.

The sensing layer can help preserve accountability by creating a richer record of what was detected, how it moved, and why a response was triggered.

The Rise of Private Air Defense

Drones are also blurring the distinction between military and civilian security.

Commercial drones can be used for photography, inspection, logistics, agriculture, and recreation. The same underlying technology can also be used for surveillance, smuggling, terrorism, and targeted attacks.

As capabilities spread, governments may not be the only organizations seeking airspace awareness.

Potential customers could eventually include:

Airports
Energy facilities
Embassies
Ports
Data centers
Stadiums
Prisons
Industrial sites
Large public events
Private estates
Maritime vessels

Deo expects some form of private drone defense to become increasingly normal.

The shift may resemble the evolution of physical security. Walls, locks, alarms, cameras, guards, and access-control systems were not created because every neighbor became an enemy. They emerged because individuals gained assets and capabilities that required protection.

Drones introduce a third dimension to that security perimeter.

A fence can prevent someone from walking onto a property. It does little against an object approaching through the air.

As drones become cheaper, more autonomous, and easier to coordinate, knowing what is flying overhead may become a standard component of protecting critical infrastructure.

AI Will Amplify Human Intent

Will increasingly capable AI make the world more peaceful or more violent?

Deo rejects the idea that AI is inherently aligned with either outcome.

His view is that AI primarily creates scale.

It can accelerate research, coordinate systems, analyze information, write software, operate machines, and execute complicated objectives. But the objectives still originate with humans.

“Power doesn’t corrupt, power amplifies.”

Peaceful institutions may use AI to improve coordination, deterrence, detection, and reconciliation. Aggressive institutions may use the same capabilities to expand surveillance, persuasion, cyberattacks, targeting, and autonomous warfare.

The technology increases the reach of the underlying intent.

That makes institutional judgment more important, not less. More capable systems will magnify both good decisions and catastrophic ones.

The challenge is therefore not simply building advanced AI. It is preserving clarity over who directs it, what objectives it is given, and how responsibility is assigned when it acts.

Founder Judgment, Intuition, and Building Scar Tissue

The final portion of the conversation moves from defense systems to founder psychology.

Deo once believed that every important decision should be thoroughly rationalized. Startup experience changed his mind.

Founders rarely have complete information. They must make decisions quickly, often before the evidence is conclusive. Over time, they develop intuition: a compressed form of judgment built through observation, experience, mistakes, and repeated exposure to similar patterns.

That does not mean ignoring advice.

It means treating advice as data rather than instruction.

A founder can listen to investors, operators, customers, mentors, podcasts, and domain experts while retaining responsibility for the final decision.

Deo is skeptical of founders who outsource judgment to whichever successful person spoke to them most recently. Following someone else’s advice may reduce the immediate emotional burden of making a decision, but it also prevents the founder from developing independent conviction.

Sometimes founders must make their own mistakes.

Those mistakes create scar tissue: an embodied understanding of what failure costs, how recovery works, and which warning signs matter the next time.

The objective is not to reject external knowledge. It is to process that knowledge through a judgment system the founder has deliberately built.

The Big Takeaway

Arlo Industries is built around a simple strategic insight: the future of air defense may depend less on creating another weapon and more on understanding the sky well enough to use existing weapons intelligently.

Small drones are exposing the limits of centralized sensing systems designed for a different technological era. As threats become cheaper, smaller, more numerous, and more autonomous, defense systems will need to become distributed, adaptive, and deeply networked.

Arlo’s passive sensor mesh is an attempt to create that awareness layer.

The company’s deeper architectural bet is that resilient systems do not concentrate perception and response in one place. They distribute both.

That principle appears throughout biology, computer networks, military organizations, and modern infrastructure. Systems survive disruption when individual nodes can sense locally, communicate globally, and continue operating when another node fails.

The interceptor may produce the visible result.

But the network that sees the threat first may ultimately determine who wins.

Learn more about Arlo Industries:
https://arlo1.com

Follow Deo Arlo on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/deoarlo/

Follow Brian Bell on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/bblinkedin/

Subscribe on Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/show/6Ga6v0YUsHotLhjap67uu5

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https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ignite-conversations-on-startups-venture-capital-tech/id1709248824

Chapters

00:01Introducing Deo Arlo and Arlo Industries
00:28Growing Up Around Violence in Indonesia
01:55Living Through Rocket Attacks in Israel
02:43Why Conflict Should Be Concise and Precise
03:54What Traditional Air Defense Systems Still Miss
05:14Applying Robotics Principles to Defense Technology
06:13Choosing an Unconventional Founder Journey
07:13Tracking Small Drones With Greater Accuracy
08:36Why Modern Interceptors Still Depend on Old Radar
09:44Linear Sensor Costs and Compounding Accuracy
10:46What Investors Misunderstand About Drone Defense
12:20Expanding Arlo’s Vision From Earth to Space
13:31Competing Through Speed, Data, and Infrastructure
14:37What Ukraine Teaches About Battlefield Innovation
15:45How Arlo’s Passive Sensor Mesh Works
16:46Why Bigger Weapons May Not Solve Future Conflict
17:39Building Defense Systems Like an Immune System
19:00Why Defense Innovation Is Spreading Beyond Ukraine
20:08Exploring New Sensing Modalities Beyond Radar
21:58The Wrong Lessons Founders Take From Ukraine
23:06The Future of Decentralized Air Defense
24:52Why Better Awareness Can Matter More Than Firepower
26:15Autonomy, Accountability, and Battlefield Black Boxes
28:07Whether AI Will Scale Peace or Conflict
30:35Blurring the Line Between Civilian and Military Security
32:25Why Private Drone Defense Could Become Normal
33:57Technology Revolutions and the Recurrence of War
36:47Maintaining Moral Clarity in Defense Technology

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Brian Bell (00:01.502) Everyone, welcome back to the Ignite podcast. Today we are delighted to have Dio Arlo on the program. He is the founder and CEO of Arlo Industries, a YC backed company building a passive sensing mesh to track drones and missiles without radar. Very exciting. to have Mani is such an incredible background, but I'll let you hear from him. Thanks for coming on, Dio.

Deo (00:20.546) Thank you, Brian. Thanks for having us.

Brian Bell (00:22.61) Yeah. Well I'd love to start with your origin story. What's your what's your background and how'd you get into doing what you're doing?

Deo (00:28.718) It's big question when people ask about why do I wanna build in defence, I first

came into the thought of building a defense when I was born. So quite early. I was born during riots. People were chasing us around. So it was very violent time back then. I was born in Indonesia. There's a lot of riots against immigrants, which my family were. And so I just had this vivid experience growing up with a lot of violence. And so I wanted to protect people and I went into rabbit hole of you know how can I build tools to protect people went into the rabbit hole of defense and just thought of where should

I positioned myself in a role to learn more about this stuff. So I came to actually Israel and spent six years there, got more actual violence and rockets above my head during the six years and during the wars, and learned how we can improve aerial defense and spent some time in Ukraine. And long story short, I built a company in America, and here I am solving it for the rest of the world.

Brian Bell (01:26.142) That's really amazing. I mean, you've kind of lived and breathed the the the violence overseas that Americans take so so much for granted. We we live in such a serene, peaceful country, right? But you've you've seen it firsthand in Indonesia and Israel and now Ukraine. that's how it has have a profound impact on you and how you see see the world. Like, how do you like see the world and it's through that lens of what you've seen versus how you think Americans kind of generally see the world?

Deo (01:55.022) First of all, it made me grateful to be in a place where I finally can sleep in peace whenever I left whenever I leave Israel or or Ukraine to to Finland to Poland to to America obviously or East or Western Europe I feel

alarmed when I hear my my phone ringing or something. shit, that's that's something. Okay, it's not. I'm I'm in a safe place. I can I can sleep tight. Doesn't don't have to run to the bunker. but sometimes I I realize people take that for granted. Like you said, people don't understand how much different it is in the rest of the world. So I I'm very grateful now that I'm in America and like be able to build something for real in a place that's safe and also supportive. And I'm just very happy to be able to build in this in this in this space.

Thank you.

Brian Bell (02:43.186) Yeah. So you describe Arlo as coming from a philosophy that conflict should be concise and precise. What does that mean in practice?

Deo (02:51.948) Came from the understanding that conflict will always happen, first of all. I think a lot of people wish for world peace, and I do too. I think people who are not familiar with the world of defense, they view weapons or defense manufacturers as as this warmongers. No, no no nobody wants wars. No everybody wants peace. But are we gonna have it tomorrow? Probably not. So the first thing we can do to take this first step is to make it concise. the fact is humans are

our animals, we we have disagreements and we will always quarrel, either it's in our heads or sometimes it turns physical. But what we can do is whenever it does turn physical, we should make it concise, make it quick, reduce collateral damage, and that's what we're trying to solve with first aerial defense, right? Because civilians, they're they're the ones that are paying the paying the price mostly when you have sharp mills from rockets exploding up in the sky. That's what I saw when I was in Israel. We have sharp knows lining around my apartment. And

Neeral defense is the one thing we can work on to start solving this problem.

Brian Bell (03:54.195) Yeah. Yeah, I love that. So you've lived around systems like Iron Dome. I mean, your I think your professor and one of the advisors lived around this as well. And you decided the world still needed a very different sensing architecture. What did those world class systems still miss that you're solving with Arlo?

Deo (04:11.138) Well, first of all, they're great at

Tackling against ICBMs and big missiles. I'm not gonna discount them, they're amazing. But then again, they're also built you know from hundreds of years ago. Radars are more than 100 year old and they're not being innovated by much compared to the attacks themselves. So the offensive has developed very rapidly. I mean, there's new technologies in the eastern Ukrainian front, you know, the shaheeds, we've seen them all over the place now, and newer technologies like loitering munitions, but we haven't seen

seen much change in radars and so or or sensing in general because radars is is now a a misnomer every everything that senses the the sky is a radar no they're not there's a lot of other modalities that we should explore acoustics optical and that is why I think we can improve especially when tracking smaller drones which radars don't do quite well yet and so we should explore other modalities to to solve this gap

Brian Bell (05:14.044) In in between university, you also did robotics research and actually have some patents there. What did kind of robotics teach you that you still carry over to to what you're building now?

Deo (05:26.132) Robotics teaches me to make things as simple as possible. I am a mechanical background and so the philosophy there is that more moving parts is more points of error. And so whenever possible

If the software is amazing, the hardware can be simple. It's almost the Elon Musk sort of type of mentality with self-driving cars. You know, you don't want all these sensors and expensive hardware around the car if you can just have very good computer vision. And so what we are trying to solve as well in defense is why spend billions of dollars on radars and billions of dollars on all these expensive systems when you can have very good software running on, you would say, off-the-shelf and cheaper hardware, but do the same amount of value and deliver even better solutions and tracking and sensing for ARLD.

So that's that's the philosophy that I carry on from robotics.

Brian Bell (06:13.436) Yeah. So was there a point where you realized this wasn't going to be a normal startup?

Deo (06:19.762) think from the beginning I realized

Not gonna live I'm not gonna live a normal life now that I've I've been all over the world on all these violent places. I I realize I I I probably not gonna be living a simple, simple life. It's gonna be quite unique and I have to figure out stuff that maybe most people haven't figured out, just a very unique life story. But I enjoy it. I think being able to carve a new path in in the woods and and see if people follow you and see if people would be interested to to do the same and and open new paths to people who want to try to do the same. I think that's very

interesting startups in general is is very uncommon is very rare i a lot of people are are now being more pushed to building startups but in general compared to other careers entrepreneurship is is by definition making a new path and so it's it's a very rewarding journey I would say

Brian Bell (07:13.662) So explain Arlo or it like imagine you're talking to a skeptical defense operator, right? They've heard every counter drum pitch already. Like what's different about what you guys are doing?

Deo (07:26.978) Right now, most interceptor companies they have about 300 meters of inaccuracy or about that range when tracking very small RCS radio cross-section UAS. What we are doing is providing real-time 3D tracking with a higher accuracy. We cannot get released the numbers on how much performance we improved, but

It's well lot. and

Imagine being able to track everything in the sky at any given moment, any size. That's the goal. And that is a huge capability f not just for defense folks, operators, but also for general people. You would want to know everything flying in your airspace if it could pose a threat, especially if you're a high net worth of individuals living in your yacht. Maybe there's stroves flying above your head. You don't even know. Embassies, power plants, even in space. In the future when we expand to lower orbit, there's a lot of the breeze and satellites that we don't even know

We have on earth on orbit because we're sending so much stuff to space now with these new space race. So there's a lot of concern beyond defense.

Brian Bell (08:36.092) Yeah. So I mean the public argument here is that radar is expensive, emitting, targetable leaves gaps against low altitude threats, right? what's the what's the biggest opening for you among these these four things?

Deo (08:49.099) Yeah, first of all we were gonna focus on class one, class two, or group one, group two drones, which are small FPVs, optical fiber drones, up to the larger coming case drones like the Shahed or the Garan, which

The radars do track, although not as good as what we're doing. And what we're trying to solve is to provide better, easier tracking for more interceptors to work with, because there's millions, maybe hundreds of just a bunch of interceptor companies out there, drone companies, and

They are still relying on these archaic tracking to provide them their targeting for their interception, which is which is for me it's mind-boggling. Look, you're you're a high-tech new technology interceptor, but you're relying on these archaic 100-year-old radars. So are you really a new technology? You're not. So we should improve the sensing so that these interceptors too can be the futuristic technologies they claim to be.

Brian Bell (09:44.114) Yeah. And you've said that adding sensors grows cost linearly, while tracking accuracy improves exponentially, which is a powerful claim. What has been true technically for that? What has to be true technically for that to hold?

Deo (09:57.122) Yeah, it's a it's a critical mass question. when we talk about decentralized sensing, which is the route we go instead of having one giant radar, we distribute hundreds of sensors around an area, a city, thousands in a country. The goal is for all of them to work together in unison and have a exponentially increasing spec sheet, not just like a radar who have

a singular range and singular accuracy from the get-go. With increasing number of sensors, you're just adding one more sensor. That's what we mean by exponent, linear cost. But the accuracy will will build on top of each other. There's this compounding effect because the the math behind it is is probabilistic, right? With probability, the more points you have, the more data you have, the higher accuracy you get.

Brian Bell (10:46.942) Yeah, it's kind of like a Metcalf's law in in network yeah, your accuracy is gonna expand geometrically to the number of nodes. That totally makes sense. So in counter UAS, there you mentioned some of these, but there's acoustic, optical, passive RF, radar, and there's fused approaches. What do most investors misunderstand when they hear about passive sensing?

Deo (10:49.955) Exactly.

Deo (11:07.699) But they think immediately it's

Deo (11:12.566) Well, I think most investors don't think about sensing at all. I think most investors think about how to take down drones and you're not most investors, which is great. But most investors think about

counter US as just drones. what are what drones are you making? How how can it shoot it down? Look, shooting is is an easy solved solution and there's a lot of new interceptors out there. That's that's always my my stance and what I've been seeing and what people can see online. There's hundreds of interceptor companies. H1 is just marginally faster, marginally longer lasting, marginally large payload. So it's like a new iPhone. It's never really a huge improvement, just step by step. But really what we can change by a whole lot is in the sensing and it too will augment the capabilities of of drones. And

And to answer your question in terms of acoustic, optical, passive, a lot of these misunderstandings comes to just how much effect it will give. And people don't understand that if you can solve how good you track objects in the sky, shooting them down will change by a whole lot, which which most investors don't understand because they see the final result, which is the punch, which is the explosions. But really, if you if you have better eyes, you you do everything better. Yeah.

Brian Bell (12:20.23) Right. Yeah. So drone detection here is the wedge, obviously. It's not the ceiling. you know, what is the ceiling for Arlo?

Deo (12:31.267) The sky's the limit, but we are planning to put our sensors in in on Earth to start on stratosphere to continue to and then we're gonna expand to to space, right? We're gonna put our sensors on constellations in low Earth orbit. We're gonna track not just drones from bottom up, but hypersonic missiles, glide vehicles.

Brian Bell (12:33.192) Yeah.

Deo (12:52.852) spy planes from adversarial countries and threats. There are so many things in the sky that we don't even know. UFOs, i I know it's getting sort of science fiction now, but UFOs scientifically speaking are just things that we don't understand. They're falling out there, like UAPs. we need to understand everything that's above our heads. I think in order to ensure world peace and ensure safety, we need to first understand what might cause us to lose those safety and peace.

And so that is the direction that we're going. And who knows, maybe we'll we'll we'll set up iron domes in in Mars.

Brian Bell (13:31.518) So the hard version of this is, you know, Anderal, Helsing, all these other companies are all g all gonna want a piece of this market. How do you kind of, you know, win that win this market?

Deo (13:43.584) I think speed is a I think speed is a is a big big deal. and that is what we have as a smaller company. when I move to different countries to different sort of testing fields, I come as a person, it's very easy to get access to. And we have to play it well. Execution is is a big part. Again, I believe that ideas are cheap, execution is everything and you have to do it well. but but we're confident with we have a great team, we have great talent.

And we have a great list of investors with great connections and great support that will help us achieve all these things. And obviously we will build the mode, which aims to protect us against the bigger primes when they s have interested and when they when they gain interested gain interest in the pie. but by then we're we're gonna be already miles ahead because we're gonna build a mode of network, mode, mode of data, mode of infrastructure. So we we have plans underway.

Brian Bell (14:37.566) Yeah, love that. One of the things that struck me when we originally met is how much you've been on the front lines, right? And your own launches that you know, you have you've been there in Ukraine and Israel. what did what in particular what did Ukraine teach you that no lab or US procurement process could have taught you?

Deo (14:56.97) being scrappy. I think that's the whole point. Ukraine they don't have as much capital as Americans do. So they have to solve everything

cleverly and I think that's what I learned. You know, as long as it works, let's start delivering it out there. You know, Americans tend to wait too long until the park is perfect, but by then it's too too late because the conflict has shifted. The demands have changed. You know, if you wait a week, the war has changed by a week. War changes very quickly. So if you wanna try something, go try tomorrow. Bring it to the front lines. And that's I think the benefit of being there actually. a lot of companies like to be in the comfort of the air conditionings in a El Zagundo, but I think if you want

to really relearn something you gotta go to the front lines and and talk to people who face the problems daily

Brian Bell (15:45.192) Yeah. So imagine I'm trying to protect some vital infrastructure or my citizens. What am I actually buying from Arlo?

Deo (15:52.748) So we're buying we're we're selling a s a network of sensors, which is man portable. They're about the size of my head. He put it on top of buildings, South and Towers. they connect together via their own mesh network and they

Perform from the get go. It's a turnkey operation. You turn it on, they connect the auto calibrate, they track everything in the sky, they send you the data. So that's what you get, the data. The data of every single flying object in the sky, their XYZ tracking, their ID, and you can use this data to feed it into your own existing air traffic systems, air traffic control or radar dashboard control centers, C2 systems, C4 systems, your own

intelligent softwares or if you want to take action you can also feed it to your own interceptor batteries that will actually shoot down the threat if they are classified to be a threat.

Brian Bell (16:46.908) Yeah. Amazing. What what's a popular idea in defense tech that you think is wrong?

Deo (16:53.684) Hmm. I love that. And I have to be careful here because I might change my life. But I I I think I think a lot of people do have their own interesting ideas. which might be wrong. But what I would hypothesize right now is that yeah, you know, there's this big push in in the El Segundo and in general the defense world of strength, peace through through strength and and just building the the bigger badder

Brian Bell (16:57.756) Ha ha ha.

Deo (17:24.406) technology out there. I I do believe in strength through peace through th strength, but I don't know if building the bigger gun is gonna solve the problem because I think it's gonna be miniaturized. That's that's my whole hypothesis.

Brian Bell (17:39.004) As Ukraine is kinda kinda proving on the field against Russia, right, you know, in every like vector Russia is out, you know, has more resources and people and money and equipment. But Ukraine yet is still kinda you know, slightly turning the tide now by with new t new tech new technologies and new methods.

Deo (17:53.666) Thank you.

Deo (17:57.044) Mm-hmm. Conflict will be yes, conflict will be concise. That's the first part of my sort of tagline. The second one is conflict, will be concise and precise.

as in it'll it'll look more like your immune system. You're you're you're not gonna have like one giant organ in your body that destroys all the bat bacteria or or viruses. You'll have all these T cells across your body decentralized working together as a hive mind to tackle every single infiltration through your skin if there's bacteria coming in. So that's that's how it works and that's what I see will happen in the future. You'll have smaller and smaller technologies fighting the battles for us. I think that's good because you'll have

Brian Bell (18:26.152) Yeah.

Deo (18:34.698) less c collateral damage. It's like playing chess with with robots and and decided the tide of war that way.

Brian Bell (18:42.322) Hmm. That's really interesting. you you said something that kind of made me think of another question, which is, you know, about ideas, right? And is is there something that you've changed your mind on about defense tech in the last, you know, five years?

Deo (19:00.62) Let's see. That's a good question.

Deo (19:10.795) I think

I think what's interesting is that a lot of people think Ukraine

Is the only place to build defense now, but I believe it's getting more accessible to learn and build something useful actually all over the world. Although I believe Ukraine is still giving a lot of value for a lot of companies to learn and experience from the front lines where it's happening. But UAE, the Gulf, Europe at large, and America, and even Latin America and Asia, they're all ramping up. I just had calls with people in Japan, people in Taiwan, people in Singapore. Singapore.

They're all increasing their defense budgets and increasing their defense capabilities, research. So I believe that's changing. I thought if you want to learn about defense, you all you only have to be in the front lines. And again, as I said, although it's gonna be still a lot of value, the rest of the world is catching up. And and that is something I I changed my mind on. Yeah.

Brian Bell (20:08.84) Yeah. Now you mentioned radar, right? What what do radar people misunderstand about drones? or do people commonly misunderstand about using radar to to detect drones? And why is it not working the way it does for detecting planes?

Deo (20:28.725) Mm-hmm. Well, first of radar radar people are smart. I'm not gonna discount that. People who anyone who work on radar are are smart folks. Radars are are complicated things. Electrical engineering, a lot of smart people in that area. I would say that I'm I'm not discounting radar. What I'm saying is that it's worthwhile to explore other modalities. It's like if we've been walking down this you know road

in in in the forest for for quite a while, might as well make a new track. Let's see what's up in there. Right? Maybe we'll we'll discover something new. And that's what I'm I'm betting on on optics. And what I'm thinking about radar is that they're they're

They have been they've been in the market for so long that the counter to radars are also quite developed. And and so now it's it's almost like an endgame. Like you you can make one better advancement in radars, and now the solution the the counter is already there or it's already been developed. So if you try to build something new before the counter exists, then you you'll get a leverage. That's that's how you win wars with leverage. And so you have to have new innovations.

radars will still still exist 50 years from now, 10 years, 100 years from now, but I would say there'll be new modalities that's gonna be explored. Quantum sensing. Imagine this. And you've you've heard the the rumors about ghost murmur, like all these new American technologies that we that the crowd doesn't even know. So there's these new modalities that we haven't even explored, and we should in order to gain leverage.

Brian Bell (21:58.407) Is there a wrong lesson people are taking from Ukraine?

Deo (22:03.03) Hmm. Yes, I I think there is. I think people think that solving what works for Ukraine will solve it for the rest of the world. No. Ukraine has its own unique battlefront that you just won't replicate in where else in the world. They have a unique sent set of circumstance, terrain, enemy. I would imagine wars in different parts of the world to require different things. So take the essential lessons in terms of

How do you rapidly develop capabilities? How do you build something that's attributable? How do you quickly train people to use newer technologies that include AI or or semi-autonomous tools? But but don't just duplicate everything and try to deploy it in Middle East, deploy it in Asia. It won't work. And so that uniqueness requires this level of

Specialization and localization for each battlefront.

Brian Bell (23:06.322) Yeah. Let's talk a little bit about the future. you know, five years from now, what does a competent air defense architecture look like?

Deo (23:16.588) things still gonna be layered. I think there's still gonna be different capabilities on different altitudes to tackle different types of threats and different types of attacks like swarms or single huge missiles or

Th there are many kinds of attacks and I think you know, in in the future what will definitely occur is that war is gonna be more decentralized, or at least the response to it. You I I I spent some time in Israel and I think the reason why their defense forces are very great and very efficient is that the edge units can make their own decisions quite fast. It's like a knockop.

It's like an octopus. Each arm can make their own judgment. And unlike most larger nations where you have to

return it back back back back back up to the base and up to the command chain and return it back back back down before you have a decision. You need to have each edge unit able to decide on their own. Again, immune system, immune system. I I do believe in biomimicry. I believe everything will generally look like what have evolution has developed over the thousands of years. And so response units will look like the immune system. You don't have to have everything report to the brain.

my my pinky, my toenail, everything can can repair themselves independently and have their own defense system. So that is what I see coming in in the future.

Brian Bell (24:52.158) So is the future, you know, about better weapons or better awareness?

Deo (24:59.01) I think it's both, but what would definitely be interesting is better cooperation, better heifmine, better

Understanding of of what

You're up against. So in in some ways, I would put a lot of emphasis on awareness. And I'm again I'm biased because I'm building a company based on sensing. But I do believe we have enough punch out there. We we've been spending years and and so much money on on explosives and payloads and guns and and and interceptors, but very few on sensing and seeing what to fight out there. I think information is power, and the more you know, the better you can strike, and maybe you can strike less. It's like the the tai chi type of way or the kung fu type of way, you it's not box.

that where you just punch everything. It's also trying to reuse your enemies' strength against themselves, understand where they're going, understand their interest and where what what their thumbscrew is. And I think that comes from sensing from intelligence. So companies like Palantir, I'm I'm I'm I'm become that companies like us ourselves focusing on understanding where physical intelligence, like physically understanding where things are in in space, that's very important.

Brian Bell (26:15.08) So feels like every battlefield's getting saturated with cheap aerial threats. If if that is the case, what becomes scarce?

Deo (26:25.346) That's a very question.

Deo (26:44.919) I wanna answer personnels. I think the less the the more autonomy you put in the front lines, the less people want to go into the front lines for the better, because we have less casualties. But

What we have to also keep in mind is

We might have less control, slash responsibility on what what actually happens. The same way we start to code with or or you know, AI companies start to code with AI. They don't exactly understand what happens in the code themselves, like a black box. What if we start sending a lot of autonomous systems to the front lines and the front lines become a black box? We don't know exactly what's going on in there. Maybe they the robots just sit down and and drink beer. Like they decide, you know what, the the humans don't know what we're doing, let's just do whatever we want. And well, we need to make sure that we just

know every step of the way what's happening such that we maintain that accountability because essentially that's what we still want to hold on in this age of autonomy is that accountability comes back to humans. Humans cause the war, not not the machines. Machines probably won't fight each other if the whole world's just a one hyp-mind terminator, right? Nobody will will fight. Skynet will not fight Skynet. Humans will fight humans. So have that accountability because that's the whole point of of finding

A solution to a disagreement between humans, accountability. So that's that's what will be lacking in the future, and I hope we can maintain it.

Brian Bell (28:02.15) Yeah.

Brian Bell (28:07.528) Yeah, I I think you just touched on something you breezed right by a point that I want to tease out. because it's something I've been thinking about a lot, which is does superintelligent AI that we're kind of heading into, or at least AGI, kind of ubiquitous across the world, does it become a force for peace or more conflict? Right? Like in the 20 like put yourself forward, you know, we're talking about the future here, five, ten years from the future, Fable ten is out, right? Chat GPT ten point, you know, six is out.

And these are super intelligent, hundred and eighty, two hundred IQ that are omniscient, omnipresent, know everything. Does it does it help us settle our disagreements faster and better and more efficiently between these human animals? Or or do we have more conflict?

Deo (28:59.01) I think it's black and white. What I think it will do is just amplify whatever we're already doing right now. Like power doesn't corrupt, power c amplifies. And I think that's what agents and AIs will do. one thing to distinguish between AI and humans is that AI doesn't have any desire. We give them the mission. And

aka the desire to do whatever but humans come up with those things unless AI have their own desires to do whatever they want then it's dangerous because now they have interest they have something they want to do in their quote unquote life but hum as as far as I know we're not gonna have that and humans have that and so AI are simply gonna be just the agents of of whatever we want to do do it much faster do it on larger scale do it in in higher complexity and and

and just more more involved. But I wouldn't say it's gonna be immediately an agent for good or bad. It's just gonna be an agent of scale. We are fighting maybe in in the scale of countries in the in in the history of humankind. And now in the twenty first century in the scale of nations. Maybe in the future we're gonna fight in the scale of planets, planetary warfare, galaxy warfare.

I mean AI is just scale. It allows us to scale up everything we're already doing physically and and also intellectually, philosophically, everything's gonna be enlarged by AI. So that that is what I see will happen.

Brian Bell (30:35.836) Yeah, how do how do you draw the line between you know defense infrastructure and and more like civilian infrastructure? is there a demarcation there?

Deo (30:47.371) I mean, definitions are mostly for bureaucracy, but i if you think about it philosophically, there's no differentiation between

Deo (30:58.338) private and civilian

leg legally there's a lot of differentiation for the sake of bureaucracy and not not just bureaucracy but also obviously regulations. Very important. But in terms of

what I I I'd like to answer the question philosophically but because that's what that's what interests me, is that I mean there's no there's no distinguishing between protecting your your family, protecting a base. I think everyone wants to be protected in some ways. And so the the problem with drones is that it blurs the line with with front lines and behind the lines, drone warfare is now becoming drone terrorism. I've been seeing Colombian and Latin American gangs in Ukraine learning drone warfare and now you've you can Google yourself. There's a lot of

news online in Bloomberg or whatnot about drones being used to spread contrabands in France and French prisons or drones being used to attack enemy gangs in different territorial warfare so it it blurs the line and so now protection has to be decentralized and privatized that's that's what I'm trying to solve and I I believe there's

There's a lot of need in in private security. you would want an RN Dome in your home in in a few years. maybe now it's just the embassies and the presidents and the high net worth individuals, but in the future everybody would want protection.

Brian Bell (32:25.17) Yeah. Well, I think of like, you when I when I visited South Africa and I remember driving around in Joburg and, you know, everybody had, you know, huge fences with barbed wire on them, like every single house. Right. just because that's the reality there, right? I guess the riffraff and criminals out. maybe in the future, you'll need Arlo in every city, right? To keep

domestic terrorists from you know setting dr you know drone swarms into neighborhoods and terrorizing people.

Deo (33:00.254) Exactly. And I think it's just a matter of maturation. If if people hear this and think, you're creating a future where people don't trust each other and you need to have high protection against your own neighbors, you need to have high walls and high protection and and all these t air defence systems against your own in your own city. No. It's like back then you you live in huts.

I can anybody can come to your home well hut and and rape your wife and and kill your children. But now we have walls, we have secured cameras, right? It's it's not about the world being more distrust distrustful. It's about the world maturing and understanding that each individual have more capability, not just for harm, but for good, but also for harm. And so we need to protect ourselves from each other and and that's fine. That's just a a matter of humans and and and and

Brian Bell (33:34.59) And yeah. Yeah.

Brian Bell (33:50.91) Yeah.

Deo (33:54.698) The human race evolving into something more complex.

Brian Bell (33:57.311) Yeah, and this is this is something I worry about a lot as a student of history. I was a history major before I switched to finance and became a business guy. And I was really interested in kind of these arcs of history. And it seems to me that we seem to have a war every time there's a new technological paradigm. You could almost argue that every industrial revolution kind of drove new conflict. And this is this is where I was coming to with the with the AI. I hope AI is like a force for peace, not a force for war, right?

and and drones and and everything else. But this is like wh what do you think about that? Like if you look at the arcs of history and you think about kind of where we sit here in in twenty twenty six as we record this, and we definitely feel like this new industrial like maybe the fifth industrial revolution's coming with AI and robotics. I'm just hoping in the twenty thirties it doesn't lead to more conflict. But maybe maybe it does because we're just human animals that have our primal needs and instincts, right?

Deo (34:51.639) Yeah. Yeah. I'm I'm glad you you're a historian. I I love history and I think there's a lot of stuff we need to learn about our history, especially as as defense founders, to understand how how this will play out or how this has played out in the past. it it is true. I think a lot of quarrels happen when humans discover something new. And and you know, in the in the microcosm, you can think of it as as two kids.

discovering a new toy and now they start to fight over it. After a time they realize it's not that fun and now they move on with their lives. But then they find a new toy and they start quarreling over it again. Again, humans are always trying to find leverage against death. But because of that, also against each other. And because of that we fight. But I think in the long run, I'm I'm I'm trying to be optimistic about the future, but also skeptical

I think I think always being cautious is is important. But but still have that optimism that humans will will take care of itself and that we won't bring ourselves to extinction with with new technology that we're developing that is getting in more and more powerful. and so we should we should should just pace things out. I think this is why I want conflict to be concise, meaning we can get back to

shaking hands after we perhaps slap each other in the face, which will happen in the future always, because humans are humans and we're just animals. But the the that speed into reconciliation is is paramount, which is why like in in like like in a marriage, you know, what what defines a good marriage, not that they don't have any fight, but that the reconciliation is fast after the fight. And that's what I wish humans can achieve.

fight, fight, go ahead. But reconcile. And this is why the fights themselves must be concise. I'm I'm re I'm repeating myself, but I it's it's it's something I truly truly believe is is very important. Yeah.

Brian Bell (36:47.378) Yeah. So you're you're building a c a a company around defense, you know, conflict detection. How do you keep moral clarity without becoming performative about it?

Deo (37:01.76) Go to the front lines. I think a lot of people in LA, people in Silicon Valley, who are now pretentiously being Tony Stark and I'm solving this war for Ukraine. I'm I'm pro- peace or whatever y you don't know. Peep, right? Because they they don't know the reality of the war. They grew up in I grew up in the streets. You grew up in the streets of Belgium. You know, you have like

Brian Bell (37:23.676) Yeah. Yeah.

Deo (37:24.162) strokeful and and ice creams come to the front lines understand death understand war understand what it means to lose a friend i'm not saying people who hasn't been sort of in conflict don't have that rough and tough life to be able to provide value and and contributions to the efforts no i'm saying if you do want to seriously work on this don't stay in your high and mighty

towers, ivory towers, you know, far away from from where the conflicts are. try to understand how how do people feel in the front lines, how how it plays out. And like yourselves, learn history. History is just the the cheat code to understanding what's gonna happen in the future because that's a repetition of what happens in the past. And

And that is my recommendations. I think understand the reality of it. Don't just stay in LA, don't just stay in California pretending like you're Tony Stark. y we're not trying to privatize world peace, like Tony Stark said. We're trying to solve war from press principles.

Brian Bell (38:28.7) No. it it it strikes me as you've had to sacrifice to work on this problem. Was there a version of your life that would have been easier and more peaceful?

Deo (38:38.102) You know, if I always thought about this every time I wake up, what am I doing with my life? I'm not I'm not dissatisfied. I'm very happy I'm working on something I'm

Brian Bell (38:46.974) Yeah, you could be riding your bike in San Francisco to your little software startup, you know? But instead you're flying to Ukraine and putting yourself in harm's way.

Deo (38:50.742) Exactly. There's

Deo (38:54.742) There's always an easier way of living life, but I I I approach life as a as an author and and almost seeing my life as a as a third person, sort of a you know, I'm I'm JK Rowling and what would this potter guy do to make an interesting life story? Because I'm almost optimizing life from for for for the great story sort of thing. I you know, I I want my my tombstone to have a

a great sort of sum summary of what I've been able to do and contribute to humanity and I I think I I don't optimize life for happiness, which is which is which sounds depressing, but if you think about it, happiness is is quite it's quite cheap. It's quite it it's just a it's a means to an end. Like happiness by definition is just a stream of dopamine that your brain feed into the body or or produce in the brain.

to to reward yourself for doing stuff that prevents death or keep you living. If you eat you get dopamine. If you work for another day for next month's paycheck, you get dopamine. But I it will end, right? It's just a means to an end. But an interesting life story, an interesting life's journey that might not be easy, might be sacrificial to a lot of things that might be easier and better. it's it's worth it. It's worth it. So that is how I live my life. Yeah.

Brian Bell (40:18.248) Yeah. Yeah, I love that. Well let's wrap up with some rapid fire questions. I mean you you stole one of that I often ask, which is like what do you want on your tombstone? I love that. you know, and we've kind of asked a variation of this, but like what is something you believed with total conviction five years ago that you would now argue against?

Deo (40:38.262) Ha rapid question, but very hard question. I'm gonna take my time there.

Deo (40:50.403) What do I believe five years ago that I completely changed my view on now?

Brian Bell (40:54.226) And you would argue against.

Deo (41:08.93) Thinking, which which sounds weird, or I'll I'll give context. Thinking too much is is is is sickening. I I believe intuition is very powerful. Back then I wouldn't believe this. I'm I'm a very sort of rational person. I want to think my three way through everything, rationalizing everything. But now I realize you gotta move fast as a star founder, and sometimes your intuition already knows what you really, really want, and sometimes what you really really need. And you gotta learn to build your trust on your intuition, your gut feeling, yes.

Brian Bell (41:38.462) Yeah, I love that. Well a perfect segue into the next question, which is what's a decision you made that looked irrational to others but made complete sense to you?

Deo (41:46.944) To Israel. I am the first ever Indonesian in my university, which is in Israel, which is in a country with with half with no diplomatic ties with with Indonesia. Why would you go into a war zone that doesn't have any sort of simple pathway for you to even be there? Right? That's that's the questions my friends ask. but

intuitively I wanted to learn the fence and I know that they are good at what they're doing. And now it's a perfect life story. Now I'm quite interesting because I'm just one of me who have done this before and I gained so much unique insight that not many people have gathered because I I carved this new unique path in in the forest.

Brian Bell (42:31.166) What's the worst piece of advice you hear smart people repeat that you'd like to correct?

Deo (42:38.091) Ask for advice from successful people. I think that is the worst advice ever. I my advice would be to not listen to an advice, which is like a paradox. But the point is you want to build your own scar tissue. The point is you want to build your own confidence in what you decide. If you live your life based on whatever people decide or what people tell you to or pip what people think is good, you'll never have that decision you have you made yourself that you feel fully confident on that you you can take pride in or

you you'll never live your own life, right? So ne I I would I wouldn't say never listen to anyone, but listen to people, but do whatever you want anyway. Exactly. No, it's gather data. It's not to not listen to an advice. Gather data. Listen to podcasts. Listen to I I still listen to tons of podcasts, including yours. But make your own decision. Come come to it yourself. And sometimes decide to do something that's unpopular. Maybe

Brian Bell (43:12.584) Yeah. Definitely listen to the Ignite podcast. I mean, it's full of good advice.

Brian Bell (43:23.198) Yeah.

Right.

Deo (43:33.148) Do a mistake for the sake of making a mistake and learn what it costs and learn how to get back up.

Brian Bell (43:38.825) Yeah. Yeah. I this is something I deal with as a VC, right? Because I came into the industry. I was an operator, worked at startups and led a lot of teams at, you know, Amazon and and Microsoft. So I I'm an outsider to VC. And so nobody really taught me how to do it. And so a lot of the ways that I do it, other VCs disagree with me and LPs disagree with me too. And I'm like, no, this is how I do it. This this is how I've learned to do it. Cause I I just approach it from first principles.

And you know, maybe I'm making mistakes, but I'm making my own mistakes and yeah, I love that.

Did did you ever achieve anything that felt less satisfying than you expected?

Deo (44:20.578) I think most achievements are they turned out to be less than than what you thought of them to be. Because I think this is a quote I made up in my mind, but it sounds so poetic. The weight

Deo (44:44.801) The sweetness of victory is quickly subsided subsided by the weight of responsibility. Once you gain that neural level, once you earn that new title, it's now just your day-to-day and it's now you now your new burden, right? Victory turns into a burden, something you have to carry. It's good because now you have this new responsibility that you can create influence and you can do a lot of things.

you can control but also it's it's more stuff to think about. Like the the most success successful people in the world, the most influential people, the most powerful people in the world are probably not the most happy. They have a lot of stuff on their plate. And so the more you rise, the more you gain a responsibility, also it's just more stuff to care about. Exactly. Simple that.

Brian Bell (45:19.774) Totally.

Brian Bell (45:25.17) Yeah. Yeah. Mo money, more problems, as they say. If if everything you built disappeared tomorrow, what would you rebuild first?

Deo (45:36.288) Hmm, very good question. my if everything includes relationships, then probably number one relationships. I believe connecting with people, humans are social creatures, foundations of societies, well, society's human connection, right? So build first my connection with my network, build allies. I mean I do it all the time, right? I I move to countries and and build life from zero, I don't know what, six times at this point, like build a new find a place to live.

Brian Bell (46:00.531) Yeah. Really good experience. If if anybody listening hasn't done that, move somewhere and just restart your life. Just for a year or two. And just and just see what it frees up. It frees up all that energy. I I've done it, I've done it five times. So not as many as you, but yeah, five times I've just like reinvented where I live and who I am, you know? It's it's it's freeing. Yeah.

Deo (46:12.448) Seriously.

Deo (46:23.05) It's it's so powerful. It's so powerful. I'm glad you can relate to this because first of all, it teaches you a lot about human nature and what is really important. And second of all, you feel like James Bond. Just going around different countries and like making a new life, right? Yeah, exactly.

Brian Bell (46:34.194) Yeah, like double seven. Like here I am. I'm like in a new place.

Deo (46:54.07) The answer will be cliche. I think everyone wants the same thing in this world, which is to leave a positive outlook and a positive impact. You want humanity's ROI to be positive with your existence. I guess that's the Silicon Valley way to answer it. But my my way of answering it is: you know, there's there's millions of people, billions of people that has existed in human history. there's millions of lives that are exactly the same. Maybe there's

you know, John Doe. There's there's millions of John Doe's throughout different times in human history that has lived the exam same life, did the same exact profession, married the same kind of woman, lived in the same kind of place, and have the same kind of children, the same number of children, and that's it. Just a repetition in history. That ROI for humanity is zero. You learned humanity learned nothing new. If you think of humanity as a hive mind which benefits in new neurons doing new things, then you would want

in humanity's interest to do just everything differently. And there's a limit to this because doing everything differently might not be the best interest for you, but I think what I want people to remember is that I have done a lot of things that have never been done before in my life. And that is my contribution to humanity.

Brian Bell (48:05.106) Yeah, love it. Well, really enjoy the conversation. where can folks find you online and find out more about you and and Arlo?

Deo (48:13.196) Well the website is arlo1.com, one numerical arlo1.com. And my LinkedIn is my name, Deo Arlo. And you should find everything about me there.

Brian Bell (48:25.064) Well, really enjoyed it. Thanks for coming on.

Deo (48:26.925) Thank you, Brian. Thank very much.

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