Lockheed Martin (Audio)

1. DRDavid Rosenthal0:00

   Those two movies are so freaking good.

2. BGBen Gilbert0:04

   Yeah.

3. DRDavid Rosenthal0:05

   It's so shocking how good Maverick is, so many years later, in such a different environment, and then, like, delayed due to coronavirus.

4. BGBen Gilbert0:14

   Well, the funniest thing is when it was delayed for whatever years during coronavirus, the fighter that Maverick is in is an F/A-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/A-18 Hornet for the Navy.

5. DRDavid Rosenthal0:31

   Yeah.

6. BGBen Gilbert0:32

   Did you catch the Lockheed thing in Maverick?

7. DRDavid Rosenthal0:36

   The skunk on the tail of the plane?

8. BGBen Gilbert0:37

   Oh, yeah, on the, uh, Mach 10 Darkstar aircraft. [laughing]

9. DRDavid Rosenthal0:43

   Mach 10 Darkstar. [laughing] Oh, God.

10. BGBen Gilbert0:46

    All right, let's do it.

11. DRDavid Rosenthal0:47

    All right, let's do this.

12. SPSpeaker0:48

    Who got the truth? Is it you? Is it you? Is it you? Who got the truth now? Is it you? Is it you? Is it you? Sit me down, say it straight. Another story on the way. Who got the truth?

13. BGBen Gilbert1:05

    Welcome to season 12, episode five, of Acquired, the podcast about great technology companies and the stories and playbooks behind them. I'm Ben Gilbert.

14. DRDavid Rosenthal1:14

    I'm David Rosenthal.

15. BGBen Gilbert1:15

    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.

16. DRDavid Rosenthal2:23

    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, 'cause 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 gonna do that.

17. BGBen Gilbert2:51

    [laughing]

18. DRDavid Rosenthal2:51

    Instead, we're gonna focus on two interwoven stories from Lockheed, not Martin, but Lockheed's golden eras, and the first of those stories is the famous Skunk Works. The second one, I'm not gonna 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. So 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, so I can't wait to tell it.

19. BGBen Gilbert3:25

    Ooh, quite the teaser, David. Well, listeners, this episode was selected by Acquired LPs. So 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/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.

20. DRDavid Rosenthal4:04

    We've got some awesome interviews coming up, too. ACQ2 is on fire.

21. BGBen Gilbert4:08

    Yep. Join the Slack, acquired.fm/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.

22. DRDavid Rosenthal4:25

    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 Allan Lockheed, but if you were to look at the spelling of his name-

23. BGBen Gilbert4:56

    [chuckles]

24. DRDavid Rosenthal4:56

    ... it would look like Loghead.

25. BGBen Gilbert4:58

    L-O-U-G-H-E-A-D.

26. DRDavid Rosenthal5:00

    Yes, but it was pronounced Lockheed because it is Scottish, like loch, like Loch Ness. Lockheed, not Loghead. He eventually changed his name to Lockheed, and the name of the second company to Lockheed to avoid mispronunciations.

27. BGBen Gilbert5:13

    Which is great. He didn't just rename Lockheed the company. He's like, "Yeah, I'm actually gonna change my own name spelling to match it."

28. DRDavid Rosenthal5:19

    Yes. So great. So he started the first company with his brother, Malcolm, and they were more or less contemporaries of the Wright brothers. It was based in San Francisco, of all places.

29. BGBen Gilbert5:30

    Hmm.

30. DRDavid Rosenthal5:30

    And it was mostly kind of a tourist attraction. They had one plane, the Model G, and they flew tourists around over the bay and evangelized this new flying technology. It had a bunch of ups and downs. Malcolm leaves the company and goes to Detroit to seek his fortune in the automobile industry, where he invented the modern hydraulic brake system for automobiles. So every time you press the brake in your cars, you're using Malcolm Lockheed's technology.

Episode duration: 3:38:37