The Defense Tech Startup YC Kicked Out of a Meeting is Now Arming America E2280

This Week In Startups is made possible by: Northwest Registered Agent - Render - Agree - Ro - Plaud - Today’s show: The US military is running low on missiles, but now, Firehawk Aerospace is using 3D-printed solid rocket propellant to cut production costs in half and 5x U.S. output. Plus: PhD researcher Maruchi Kim just built camera-equipped earbuds that perform on par with Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses and could be the next wearable AI platform hiding in plain sight. Guests Will Edwards: Firehawk Aerospace: Maruchi Kim: VueBuds project: Related Links This Week in AI: “Ghost Murmur: The Heartbeat-Tracking Tech That Has Experts Questioning the Laws of Physics”: Neurometric: Meta Ray-Bans: Hanwha Defense USA: Raytheon: Pilatus PC-24 corporate jet: PlaneSense: Slopes app: Speechify: Electronic Frontier Foundation: Timestamps: 0:00 Are all these layoffs really AI's fault? 8:51 Why laid off people should start their own companies 9:27 Northwest Registered Agent - Get more when you start your business with Northwest. In 10 clicks and 10 minutes, you can form your company and walk away with a real business identity — Learn more at 13:18 Plaud: If your work depends on conversations — interviews, meetings, calls — you need a Plaud NotePin. You can check it out at and use code TWIST for 10% off! 15:25 Will Edwards of Firehawk joins the show 15:46 What are Solid Rocket Motors (SRMs)? 20:06 Render: Find out why 5 million developers are already using the all-in-one cloud platform, Render. Go to and apply for the Render Startup Program to get $500-$100,000 in free credits, depending on your stage and backers. 23:10 Who are Firehawk's customers? 24:25 Reimagining and reinventing the US military 28:35 How do missiles fit into the military's operations? 29:34 Agree - Stop chasing invoices at and tell them Jason sent you to get 50% off for life! 31:01 What's next on the roadmap for Firehawk? 31:49 How to make propellant (with easy to find ingredients) 33:13 A cheaper way to fly private 38:03 Ro.co: Ro's insurance checker will let you know if your coverage includes GLP-1s for FREE. Go to for your free insurance check. 40:48 Maruchi Kim of Vuebuds joins the show! 44:35 Why are VueBuds better than meta glasses? 46:23 The biggest VueBud use cases 48:09 Jason wants to use VueBuds on the slopes 55:38 Jason's advice for angel investors: never underestimate anyone!

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The Defense Tech Startup YC Kicked Out of a Meeting is Now Arming America E2280 is an episode from This Week in Startups by Jason Calacanis.

This episode is 00:59:15 long.

This episode was published on Apr 25, 2026.

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