Bryon Hargis is the co-founder and CEO of Castelion, a defense startup building low-cost hypersonic missiles designed to be manufactured at scale. Before founding Castelion, Bryon spent more than a decade at Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory and nearly six years at SpaceX, where he worked on national security space programs and saw firsthand how iterative engineering and manufacturing speed could reshape aerospace. Castelion’s first missile, Blackbeard, is slated for integration on the Navy’s F/A-18 Super Hornet in roughly a year.

—

In our conversation, we explore:

• Why Bryon believes building missiles is paradoxically essential to maintaining peace
• The game theory behind warfare and why tit-for-tat strategies require credible middle-ground responses
• How China’s 2021 hypersonic test revealed not just a capability gap but a manufacturing and cost advantage
• Why traditional aerospace processes—optimized for low risk and high cost—can’t compete with rapid iteration
• What Bryon learned in his first week at SpaceX (after 12 years in traditional aerospace)
• Why building a carrier-based, air-launched hypersonic missile as a first product was the hard but right choice
• How focusing on manufacturability and cost over maximum capability can produce more effective deterrence
• Why the person who adapts faster in warfare always wins, and how that shapes Castelion’s philosophy

—

Thank you to the partners who make this possible

.tech domains: An identity for builders at their core.

Ahrefs Brand Radar: Find your brand in AI results.

Persona: Trusted identity verification for any use case.

—

Timestamps

(00:00) Intro

(04:01) Why America needs hypersonic missiles

(07:13) China’s edge in hypersonics

(12:05) The missing middle ground in deterrence

(18:05) Preventing warhead ambiguity

(19:40) How hypersonics differ from ballistic missiles

(25:05) The economics of defensive vs. offensive systems

(28:21) How SpaceX differs from traditional aerospace

(37:40) Why Bryon chose to build in defense over space

(42:42) Key factors that drove Castelion’s success

(48:28) Designing Blackbeard, Castelion’s first hypersonic missile

(1:01:06) The importance of lower costs and quicker manufacturing

(1:10:04) Book recommendations

—

Follow Bryon Hargis

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hargsb

X: https://x.com/hargsb

—

Resources and episode mentions: https://www.generalist.com/p/what-america-is-missing-between-sanctions

—

Production and marketing by penname.co. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email jordan@penname.co.

Davide Asnaghi is the co-founder and CEO of Diode, a Brooklyn-based startup using AI to design and manufacture circuit boards in the United States.

Before Diode, Davide worked on Apple’s Special Projects Group and spent time in Hong Kong and Shenzhen studying Asia’s electronics manufacturing ecosystem. That experience convinced him that PCB design, despite powering everything from smartphones and satellites to medical devices and autonomous systems, remained one of the most overlooked layers of the tech stack.

Since its founding just two years ago, Diode has landed Physical Intelligence and Saronic as customers and partnered with Anthropic to help Claude become a better electrical engineer. The company’s ultimate ambition: to make hardware as nimble as software.

In our conversation, we explore:

1. Why the West outsourced PCB manufacturing to Asia in the 2000s and why bringing it back matters for American competitiveness
2. What Shenzhen’s manufacturing culture does better than Silicon Valley (and what the U.S. can learn from it)
3. How Diode’s models can one-shot much of schematic design and compress hardware timelines from months to weeks
4. The three-week YC pivot that transformed Diode from a design validation tool into a full-stack manufacturer
5. Why circuit boards are the “forgotten middle child” between silicon and software
6. How Diode partners with Anthropic to make LLMs better electrical engineers
7. What it takes to build a hardware company in 2025—and why the talent bar must stay incredibly high
8. How Italian, American, and Chinese cultures shaped Davide’s approach to entrepreneurship and manufacturing

—

Thank you to the partners who make this possible

.tech domains: An identity for builders at their core.

Guru: The AI source of truth for work.

Brex: The intelligent finance platform.

—

Transcript: https://www.generalist.com/p/our-goal-is-to-build-an-electrical-engineer

—

Timestamps

(00:00) Intro

(04:15) Why Davide calls himself a copper merchant

(05:53) Diode’s mission to rebuild PCB manufacturing in the U.S.

(07:58) What success looks like

(09:00) Growing up in northern Italy and spending a year in Minnesota

(13:14) Why Italy produces fewer venture-backed founders

(15:30) Why Hong Kong accelerated Davide’s learning

(19:09) Silicon Valley vs. Shenzhen

(22:05) What Davide learned in Apple’s Special Projects Team

(24:11) Why Davide left Apple after two years

(26:54) Meeting his co-founder, Lenny

(29:32) How Davide uncovered the need for better PCB design and manufacturing

(33:23) PCB manufacturing in Asia, and Diode’s approach

(41:29) The YC pivot that changed Diode’s business

(44:39) Inside Diode’s customer journey

(48:10) Where the value is in electronics manufacturing, and Davide’s AGI thesis

(51:30) What separates a working board from a great one

(55:32) Where Diode fits in the electronics stack

(59:55) Diode’s early near-death moment and long-term vision

(1:02:30) Diode’s exceptionally high bar for hiring

(1:04:48) Where Davide gets his best ideas

(1:07:00) Final meditations

—

Follow Davide Asnaghi

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/d-asnaghi

X: https://x.com/davideasnaghi

GitHub: https://hexdae.github.io

—

Resources and episode mentions: https://www.generalist.com/p/our-goal-is-to-build-an-electrical-engineer⁠

—

Production and marketing by penname.co. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email jordan@penname.co.