It is fashionable in Silicon Valley to speak about patriotism in the language of venture capital. Where founders once pitched photo-sharing apps, they now speak of “hard problems” and “American dynamism.” The frame is powerful: by investing in domestic makers of drones, these firms claim to be rebuilding American strength, protecting first responders, and insulating critical infrastructure from Chinese risk. But beneath the marketing lies a clearer picture — one of capital flows, policy capture, and a well-oiled lobbying machine that has reshaped U.S. drone procurement to enrich the pockets of those same venture capitalists.
Andreessen Horowitz has been the loudest of the group. Its “American Dynamism” program explicitly promises to back companies that “support the national interest… including public safety.” Skydio, the California drone maker, is showcased as a model investment. When the firm pivoted out of consumer drones in 2023 and repositioned as a supplier to law enforcement and defense, the timing was not accidental. A wave of policy activity — executive orders framed around “unleashing American drone dominance” and “restoring airspace sovereignty” — was already in motion, with Commerce preparing parallel rules under its ICTS authority to cut Chinese drones out of the U.S. market. A national security rationale provided the shell. Venture capital provided the muscle to shape who would be left standing when the bans took hold.
Skydio’s executives leaned hard into the narrative. “Focus on enterprise and public sector,” they declared, as they exited consumer retail. A blog series titled “Drones as Infrastructure” argued that docks and remote operations should be treated as critical public-safety assets, on par with communications towers or water systems. The message was as much for regulators as for customers. By the time Omaha passed Ordinance 44387 authorizing a sole-source deal with Axon for “Axon Air powered by Skydio Systems” — ten Skydio X10 drones and five docking stations, funded by a police foundation grant — the playbook was fully visible. Skydio’s drones were not just products, they were infrastructure, interoperable with Axon’s evidence systems, and backed by the national interest.
Axon’s role in this cannot be overstated. The company boasts its products are used by more than 17,000 law-enforcement agencies worldwide, making it the largest distribution channel in policing. By bundling Skydio systems into Axon contracts under the “Axon Air powered by Skydio” label, city councils and procurement offices could be shepherded into sole-source purchases that bypassed competitive bidding. The Omaha deal was not unique; insiders describe similar line-item add-ons in other jurisdictions. Public dockets and purchase orders are unevenly transparent, but the strategy is unmistakable: tie Skydio to Axon’s existing footprint, and a new domestic drone monopoly emerges without needing to win bids head-to-head against DJI.
The money behind these deals matters just as much as the contracts themselves. In Las Vegas, the Friends for Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department foundation reported $7.4 million in revenue in 2024, a huge pool for technology grants. Nonprofit police foundations like this operate in a gray zone, funneling private donations into public equipment purchases without the scrutiny of normal budget hearings. Venture-backed drone makers have learned to use them. In Omaha, records of who ultimately paid for the new drone program are not yet public, but foundation support has played a role in past acquisitions. When private capital raised on Sand Hill Road is recycled into police foundations and used to underwrite technology buys, the effect looks a lot like a soft-money influence campaign — one that bypasses voters, councils, and open competition.
Jon Beal, president of the Law Enforcement Drone Association (LEDA), made the stakes clear in a recent letter rebutting industry talking points. “There is literally nothing on the market to replace them—at any cost,” he wrote, referring to DJI’s dominance in flight performance. For Beal, the issue was not brand loyalty but operational reality: lives depended on tools that worked.
Michael Robbins, president of the Association for Uncrewed Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI), framed it differently. His February op-ed warned that foreign drones were a persistent threat, insisting that only domestic suppliers could safeguard American skies. The timing of his argument was no accident; it aligned neatly with Commerce’s ICTS rule-making and the NDAA audit clock.
The tension between these two voices defines the current moment. On one side, trade groups amplify sovereignty narratives that reinforce venture portfolios. On the other, practitioners and safety advocates admit the technology gap is real. Vic Moss, a commercial pilot and co-founder of the Drone Service Providers Alliance, was blunt: “Drones significantly impact policing during a tactical crisis response.” He warned that forcing premature substitutions could jeopardize missions rather than secure them.
Charles Werner, founder of DRONERESPONDERS and a retired fire chief, echoed the same point. His group has documented hundreds of real-world deployments where drones cut response times, located missing persons, and reduced risks to firefighters. In testimony and interviews, Werner stressed that drones were not gadgets but essential infrastructure for public safety. The rhetoric of national security, he cautioned, should not blind policymakers to operational truths on the ground.
John Santry, a former Naval officer now serving as Skydio’s Vice President of Sales, has been one of the clearest voices linking the company’s growth to the broader venture playbook. On social media, he echoed the American Dynamism refrain that “it’s not about one company, it’s about building at scale,” language pulled directly from a16z partners. It shifts the conversation away from whether Skydio’s drones outperform DJI in the field, and toward whether Skydio can be positioned as the anchor of a federally blessed industrial base. In doing so, Santry bridges Skydio’s municipal sales pitch with the national-security narrative crafted by its investors.
Andreessen Horowitz partners were even more explicit. Katherine Boyle wrote that American renewal required “the courage of both founders and investors.” Marc Andreessen argued that rebuilding strength meant trusting capital as much as government. Scott Kupor underscored the personnel side, taking an appointment at the Office of Personnel Management while his firm’s program seeded defense tech firms. Each of them turned a venture thesis into federal doctrine, line by line, hire by hire.
At the federal level, the narrative never drifted. Executive orders with patriotic titles created the scaffolding for a domestic drone strategy. Reuters reported in September 2025 that Commerce was preparing ICTS rules to restrict Chinese drones independently of the NDAA audit. “The rules will apply even if the December audit does not conclude,” the report noted, meaning agencies could lose access to DJI months sooner than expected.
Critics described the maneuver as protectionism disguised as sovereignty. Andreessen Horowitz partners described it as renewal. Katherine Boyle repeated that rebuilding American industry required “the courage of both founders and investors.” Marc Andreessen linked the thesis to governance, participating in discussions about the new Department of Government Efficiency. Scott Kupor’s OPM appointment underscored how personnel choices were part of the same strategy.
The Washington Post reported in January that a prominent venture capitalist was “recruiting and interviewing candidates” across agencies, including the Pentagon and intelligence community, during the administration transition. The New Republic and Semafor described the group-chat ecosystems where investors, founders, and policymakers blurred the line between national service and portfolio strategy. What might look like patriotic networking was, in practice, a conduit for policy capture.
Founders, for their part, were happy to play the role of national champions. BRINC’s Blake Resnick described his company’s mission in explicitly patriotic terms, offering his drones as life-saving tools for law enforcement and disaster response. Skydio’s Adam Bry cast his products as infrastructure essential to public safety. Neither man needed to mention DJI by name; the policy environment ensured that Chinese drones were already cast as suspect. The lobbying ecosystem — populated by trade groups, security hawks, and congressional allies — carried that message. What mattered was appearing as the domestic alternative, ready to inherit the market once foreign suppliers were kneecapped.
The contradictions are glaring. Public agencies facing budget shortfalls are told they must abandon cheaper, proven DJI fleets in favor of expensive U.S. alternatives — often procured through sole-source contracts or subsidized by opaque foundations. Search-and-rescue teams, fire departments, and small police agencies, once able to buy multiple DJI units for the cost of a single U.S. model, now find themselves priced out of drone adoption. The very communities that national security rhetoric claims to protect are forced into fewer tools at higher cost. Meanwhile, the venture firms backing these startups tout their “American Dynamism” funds as patriotic investments, extracting outsized valuations from the market they helped engineer.
Operators on the ground noticed the difference. A fire battalion chief in California described the irony of having to replace reliable DJI units with American models that were twice the cost and half the endurance. Search-and-rescue volunteers complained that Skydio drones could not match the range needed for mountain rescues. “You can ban DJI, but you can’t ban physics,” one said. The national security frame insisted that domestic supply was paramount. But when lives were on the line, performance mattered more than compliance. Agencies that could afford parallel fleets often kept DJI units hidden in the trunk, flying them unofficially when the American alternatives fell short. The contradiction was stark: federal rules framed DJI as unsafe, yet local responders trusted them when outcomes mattered.
Meanwhile, lobbying pressure intensified. The Association for Uncrewed Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI), under the leadership of Michael Robbins, became the amplifier of talking points. Hill briefings promised American leadership. Missing from these narratives was the disclosure that many of the domestic firms positioned to benefit were backed by the same venture investors shaping the rhetoric. Critics inside the drone industry described it as a shell game: investors pushed bans on competitors while presenting their own portfolio companies as patriotic saviors. The policy community, eager to show toughness on China, rarely asked who profited when the rules shifted.
Money was flowing in other ways too. Police foundations became the quiet financiers of drone adoption. In Las Vegas, more than seven million dollars in a single year was routed into the Metropolitan Police Department through donor channels. In Omaha, private contributions underwrote Skydio deployments. In other cities, equipment arrived as “gifts” from nonprofit intermediaries. These structures insulated elected officials from scrutiny. Taxpayers did not see line items for new drones in city budgets. Instead, they saw ribbon-cuttings and press releases celebrating innovation funded by “partners.” The result was public agencies acquiring expensive new technologies without the checks that normally accompany procurement. The donors remained invisible. The investors reaped the returns.
Even in cities without large foundations, the Axon partnership provided a backdoor. Contracts for body cameras and evidence software were already locked in, often on multi-year sole-source terms. By embedding drones as add-ons to those agreements, Skydio entered agencies without having to compete. Omaha’s ordinance spelled it out: ten drones and five docking stations, justified entirely on interoperability with Axon Evidence. No request for proposals. No competing bids. No debate about cost or performance. The narrative of national security and the promise of seamless integration were enough. Multiply that pattern across dozens of cities and you see how quickly a domestic monopoly can be built.
BRINC’s path was different but equally revealing. The company branded itself around tactical response, promising life-saving tools for SWAT and hostage scenarios. Its founder was celebrated as a prodigy, a teenager who built a drone after the 2017 Las Vegas shooting. By 2025, BRINC was appearing at training events with demonstrations of repeater technology it claimed would guarantee connectivity. Operators walked away unconvinced. Some said the system simply did not work. Yet procurement interest grew anyway, fueled by the company’s NDAA-compliance marketing and the drumbeat of coming bans on Chinese systems. Credibility was less important than positioning. Like Skydio, BRINC had attached itself to the right narrative at the right time.
The revolving door made sure of it. Venture capitalists advising agencies one month were investing in firms the next. Government staffers drafting executive orders were in group chats with investors discussing portfolio strategy. Trade groups testified in hearings with language that mirrored blog posts from American Dynamism partners. At every layer, the firewall between public interest and private return thinned. The beneficiaries were not random startups. They were the companies selected years earlier when venture firms branded national security as an investment category.
To understand the scale, you only need to look at Skydio’s capital rounds. Series C and D funding propelled the company into unicorn territory, with valuations climbing alongside each policy milestone. By the time Commerce prepared ICTS rules to sideline DJI, Skydio had already become the face of the domestic alternative. Each executive order, each procurement shift, and each foundation grant validated the company’s pitch to investors: that it was not just a drone maker but a national security asset. The public never voted on that designation. It was conferred through the convergence of capital and access.
What makes this moment so consequential is not simply that American drones are being promoted. It is how they are being promoted. The traditional path — build superior products, win open competitions, convince customers on merit — has been supplemented by another path: shape policy to eliminate rivals, embed distribution through monopolistic partners, and channel private money into public agencies to grease adoption. It is a model that rewards influence over performance. It is also a model that can be replicated across other sectors. Drones are only the test case.
Look at the rest of the a16z portfolio and the logic is identical. Nuclear startups promising new reactors. Hypersonic ventures promising deterrence. Autonomy firms promising naval superiority. Each positioned as patriotic, each carrying the implicit message that foreign competition is dangerous, and each reliant on the same investors who now walk the halls of Washington. The playbook is not subtle. Declare a national crisis. Cast foreign suppliers as threats. Push executive orders to close markets. Then present portfolio companies as the solution. When it works, venture returns masquerade as sovereignty.
For the first responders and local agencies caught in the middle, the reality is less lofty. They face higher costs, limited options, and equipment that sometimes fails in the field. They rely on foundations that make them dependent on donor goodwill. They operate under mandates written not for their needs but for investor theses. And they are left explaining to their communities why the drones that once saved lives must now be replaced by models that cannot fly as far, as long, or as reliably. In theory, American Dynamism is about strength. In practice, it is about substitution — trading one form of dependence for another.
Donors to police foundations often remain in the shadows, even as their money helps underwrite equipment purchases that look like public spending. Agencies in several states have quietly kept DJI drones in service despite bans, citing cost and performance. Policy advisors who once held venture or lobbying ties have had a hand in drafting the very orders reshaping the market. What emerges is not the image of open, deliberative government, but one where national security arguments are used to justify outcomes that align neatly with venture portfolios.
What can’t be denied is that the pattern is working. DJI is losing its grip on government contracts. Investors are cashing in. And American Dynamism is no longer just a buzzphrase—it’s embedded in federal policy via executive orders that steer procurement toward domestic suppliers. It isn’t the final nail in the coffin, but it’s close enough that pulling it back out would take rare political courage. Washington shows little appetite for that. Waving the flag of sovereignty is easier, even if what looks like patriotism also looks a lot like opportunism.
What has been sold to the public as sovereignty is, in practice, a narrowing of choice. The United States has not built a flourishing drone ecosystem where dozens of domestic suppliers compete on cost, endurance, and features. It has built a funnel where a handful of firms, chosen early by venture capital, are positioned as the only legitimate options. Federal orders mandate their inclusion. Local ordinances are written to accommodate their contracts. Foundations underwrite the purchases. The result is a system that looks competitive on paper but behaves like a monopoly in the field. Agencies that want alternatives find the door closing fast.
Departments still have choices today, but the biggest money and political tailwinds are concentrating around a small circle of domestic vendors. Public-safety leaders keep saying the quiet part out loud: cost and capability still favor DJI, which is why many agencies continue to buy or keep DJI in service despite state-level restrictions and federal pressure. Florida’s experience is the cautionary case—lawmakers moved first, funding lagged far behind, and agencies were left staring at an estimated $200 million replacement bill just to swap police fleets—because U.S. models “still can’t compete… in quality, price, or production volume,” as one industry roundup put it.
On the ground, performance and budgets decide outcomes. Police trade coverage notes that U.S. manufacturers (Skydio, BRINC, others) are gaining ground, especially in DFR and tactical niches, but also acknowledges what chiefs and pilots report: DJI remains cheaper and often more capable per dollar, which is why bans without funding provoke blow back and why many agencies stage purchases or run mixed fleets.
The pattern is clear. Venture capital has built a closed loop where early backers of the “sovereignty” thesis enjoy privileged access, and those outside the circle are shut out. Even international partners with proven technology find the market closed — not by merit, but by design.
That club extends beyond drones. The investors driving this shift are explicit about their ambition to remake American industry across multiple fronts. Defense technology is no longer a niche; it is the new frontier of Silicon Valley ambition. Nuclear power, hypersonics, AI-enabled autonomy, all are being rebranded as venture categories under the same patriotic umbrella. Drones are only the most visible “because the Chinese competition didn’t just symbolize an advantage, it demonstrated it. If it sticks here, it’ll spread fast—security as the excuse, handpicked winners as the rule, and no room for rivals.
In Washington, few question the arrangement. To stand against American Dynamism is to risk being painted as soft on China or indifferent to national security. For lawmakers, the incentives are obvious: back the domestic firms, cite sovereignty, and collect the credit for protecting jobs. For regulators, the path of least resistance is to adopt the framing provided by venture-backed lobbyists. The apparatus of national security becomes a delivery vehicle for private investment theses. The line between patriotic duty and portfolio enrichment vanishes. What remains is a new orthodoxy where venture capital defines the national interest and government ratifies it.
For first responders, the reality continues to diverge from the rhetoric. Firefighters report that American drones cannot yet withstand the heat and wind conditions that DJI units managed. Police officers complain about endurance and range. SAR volunteers improvise workarounds to make under performing equipment usable. The gap between the executive orders signed in Washington and the flights conducted in the field is measured not in ideology but in performance. The White House can declare dominance. On a mountaintop in Colorado or a floodplain in Texas, the difference is counted in minutes of flight time and kilometers of range. That is where lives are won or lost. And that is where the failure of the substitution strategy is most visible.
This momentum doesn’t stop on its own—it keeps moving because it works for too many people. Investors get their returns. Politicians get their soundbites. Agencies get new toys without the budget fights. Trade groups get to look important. What’s missing is an honest look at the cost: fewer tools for the same money, more dependence on a handful of suppliers, and a system where innovation takes a back seat to politics. The public is told that national security requires sacrifice. What they’re not told is who profits from that sacrifice, and how little anyone is watching the process.
The most telling detail may be how openly the language has migrated. What began as blog posts on Andreessen Horowitz’s site now echoes in White House fact sheets. The line that a16z “invests in founders who support the national interest, including public safety” appears in spirit if not in exact words in executive orders and press releases. The Skydio tagline about “AI driving a new era of public safety” is repeated in council meetings. Axon’s claim of serving 17,000 agencies is recited in procurement justifications. The rhetorical pipeline is direct: from investor decks to federal doctrine to local ordinances. By the time drones arrive in police stations, the narrative has been laundered through so many stages of officialdom that its origins are invisible. But they are there, and they point back to venture capital.
The unanswered questions will determine how durable this model becomes. Will agencies rebel against performance gaps once DJI is gone from their fleets? Will foundations continue to funnel millions without transparency? Will journalists and watchdogs pierce the group-chat curtain to reveal how policy was drafted? Or will the momentum carry forward, normalizing a system where private investors dictate public procurement? These questions are not peripheral. They decide whether American Dynamism is a genuine national project or simply a marketing slogan that captured the state.
What is certain is that the pattern has consequences beyond drones. Already, sectors like energy and defense are being mapped onto the same playbook. If drones can be recast as infrastructure, so can nuclear micro-reactors. If Axon can provide distribution channels for Skydio, so can defense primes provide channels for other startups. If foundations can subsidize law enforcement purchases, so can philanthropic arms underwrite adoption in other agencies. The machinery of influence is modular. Once built, it can be reapplied endlessly. And it has been built with remarkable efficiency.
It’s not just about whether American drones make it. It’s about the way the game is being played. Rules and directives have steered the field, and the biggest prizes keep landing in the same places. This isn’t really a story of scrappy founders clawing their way to the top. It’s about investors dressing up their bets as national destiny. And in a country that swears by free markets, seeing outcomes nudged from the top down instead of earned out in the open should make us stop and think.
In the end, it won’t matter what the press releases say or how high the valuations go. What matters is what happens in the field. If a drone fails during a rescue, no amount of patriotic branding will make up for it. If budgets are stretched thinner, it’s communities that will feel the delay when every minute counts. And if foundations and investors start holding more sway than voters and city councils, accountability slips away. That’s the real cost hiding under all the talk of sovereignty. And it forces a tougher question: when national security gets blurred with venture capital, whose security are we really protecting?
