Sri Chandrasekar spent nearly a decade building military communication systems at BAE Systems before leading AI investments and analytics teams at In-Q-Tel, the CIA's strategic investment arm, where he ran Lab41, an AI-focused lab solving intelligence community problems. He argues that the U.S. government will become a much more important customer for venture-backed startups in the next decade, emphasizing that founders who understand government sales can grow faster and more sustainably than those who don't. Sri Chandrasekar spent nearly a decade building military communication systems at BAE Systems before leading AI investments and analytics teams at In-Q-Tel, the CIA's strategic investment arm, where he ran Lab41, an AI-focused lab solving intelligence community problems. He argues that the U.S. government will become a much more important customer for venture-backed startups in the next decade, emphasizing that founders who understand government sales can grow faster and more sustainably than those who don't.