Building the Operating System for Drone Swarms | Alex Fink

<p>Alex Fink is the President &amp; US CEO of Swarmer (NASDAQ: SWMR), helping drones fly autonomously, without pilots, and work together in large teams. </p><p><br></p><p>Alex on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/temuchin43/</p><p><br></p><p>Swarmer: https://swarmer.com/</p><p><br></p><p>Follow the show!</p><p><br></p><p>Steve on X: https://x.com/StevenSimoni</p><p><br></p><p>Steve on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevensimoni</p><p><br></p><p>Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3F1sc8yzQIF9WcdHQ3w7kf</p><p><br></p><p>Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-drone-ultimatum/id1770994541⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠</p><p><br></p><p>Subscribe to our newsletter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠: https://thedroneultimatum.substack.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠</p><p><br></p><p>X (Twitter)⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠: https://x.com/DroneUltimatum</p><p><br></p><p>⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-drone-ultimatum/</p><p><br></p><p>Our website: https://www.thedroneultimatum.com/</p><p><br></p><p>Alex Fink is the President and U.S. CEO of Swarmer, a defense technology company developing software for autonomous drone operations. </p><p><br></p><p>Swarmer grew out of Ukraine’s wartime drone ecosystem after Alex’s co-founder identified a basic scaling problem: militaries could build millions of drones, but they could not produce millions of pilots.Alex explains how Swarmer approaches swarming differently from coordinated or leader-follower drone formations. </p><p><br></p><p>Instead of choreographing individual aircraft, Swarmer is building software that allows drones to act as independent decision-makers, communicate with one another, allocate tasks, and continue operating when their connection to an operator is degraded or lost.</p><p><br></p><p>The conversation covers the rapid expansion of Ukraine’s drone industry, what autonomy means for electronic warfare, and Swarmer’s bet that military robotics will eventually resemble the early PC industry: many competing hardware manufacturers running a smaller number of common software platforms. </p><p><br></p><p>Alex also explains why integrating software across different drones remains difficult and why engineers who understand both hardware and software have become a major constraint.Alex and Steve discuss how Ukraine’s wartime acquisition model differs from traditional W