Rylan Hamilton spent years putting over a million robots into Amazon warehouses. Now, he’s automating the ocean.
As the CEO and co-founder of Blue Water Autonomy (BWA), Rylan is taking the "Amazon athlete" mindset back to his roots in the US Navy. With a fresh $50M Series A led by Google Ventures, BWA is building 145-ton, software-defined ships designed to out-think and out-maneuver traditional naval vessels.
00:00 Why the best founders never lead from a desk
01:28 The $60M mission to automate the US Navy
02:23 How 9/11 changed my career path forever
03:52 Surviving Iranian missiles in civilian clothes
05:16 Why sailors just want to go home at 3 PM
06:13 Transitioning from mission obsession to customer obsession
07:18 The concrete floor leadership of Amazon Robotics
08:28 Why choosing pain was the best decision of my life
09:34 Facing the 230x China shipbuilding gap
11:02 Why retrofitting old ships is a technical trap
12:41 Build your team like a Navy
13:15 Designing ships that solve their own problems
14:10 Why bad news never gets better with time
15:01 Becoming the Waymo of the open ocean
In this deep dive into the future of defense tech and maritime AI, Rylan shares:
➡️ The "Keel Up" Philosophy: Why retrofitting old ships for autonomy is a dead end, and why BWA builds modular, person-less ships from the start.
➡️ The Geopolitical Race: How the U.S. can use high-end autonomy to compete with China’s massive shipbuilding volume.
➡️ From Kiva Systems to Shopify: Lessons on scaling from the team that revolutionized warehouse robotics (and why "heroics" don’t scale).
➡️ Deck Plate Leadership: What leading sailors in a Persian Gulf engine room taught him about building trust in high-stakes startups.
Watch to learn how a former Surface Warfare Officer is merging naval tradition with cutting-edge robotics to protect freedom of navigation and redefine the "Blue Water" navy for the agentic era.
Rylan is a graduate of Harvard Business School and a former US Navy Surface Warfare Officer. He was an early leader at Kiva Systems (acquired by Amazon for $775M) and co-founded 6 River Systems (acquired by Shopify for $450M). He is now focused on building the future of autonomous maritime platforms at Blue Water Autonomy.
Blue Water Autonomy (BWA) is a dual-use defense technology company building autonomous, unmanned surface vessels (USVs) for the US Navy and commercial applications.
#DefenseTech #Robotics #AutonomousShips #Startups #Leadership #USNavy #AmazonRobotics #GoogleVentures #BlueWaterAutonomy
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