Michael Duffey

Michael Duffey is the U.S. Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment, overseeing the Defense Department’s procurement, sustainment, logistics, materiel readiness, and defense industrial-base enterprise. He has held senior national-security roles across the Pentagon and the Office of Management and Budget and is publicly associated with defense acquisition reform and industrial-base capacity policy.

Production Capacity Is the Binding Constraint on Defense Growth

At a16z’s American Dynamism Summit, Erin Price-Wright’s conversation with Michael Duffey and Dino Mavrookas recasts the “trillion-dollar” defense question as a production problem. Mavrookas argues that autonomy and software-first design can make new maritime platforms cheaper, simpler, and faster to build, while Duffey says the Pentagon must change acquisition incentives so industry invests in capacity rather than waiting for government-funded expansion. Their shared case is that defense cannot scale without a broader industrial base built around producibility, commercial demand, private capital, and faster procurement.

a16zMay 19, 20267 min read