Some observers compare the Defense Department’s current capabilities with what its mission demands and decide the gap will never close. Justin Fulcher disagrees. After six months inside the department, he describes its problems as structural rather than permanent, and he says they respond to people who engage with them directly.

Justin Fulcher, a technology founder with two decades of experience in regulated environments, served as a senior advisor under Secretary Hegseth. His portfolio centered on acquisition reform and IT modernization across defense agencies. Among the initiatives he contributed to was an effort to cut software procurement timelines from years to months. Fulcher’s leadership were recognized when he appeared on Forbes Asia’s 30 Under 30 list in the Healthcare & Science category, a milestone he reached while still in his mid-twenties.

Seeing the System From Inside

Fulcher completed his planned six months of service and returned to work in defense technology and national security. He says the tenure gave him an operational understanding of defense institutions that no advisory relationship or vendor contract could have provided.

The department he worked in was actively restructuring how it procures, deploys, and protects technology. Watching that process up close, Justin Fulcher came to see that much of the friction had a history. Old procedures reflect decades of decisions that were logical when made and never fully revisited. Recognizing that history helps separate habits worth keeping from ones that only waste time.

“The Pentagon doesn’t run only on strategy decks,” he has said. “It runs on relationships, institutional knowledge, and a set of processes that were built for a different era.”

A Practical Case for Service

Fulcher’s argument for founders entering government rests on what the experience produces, not on an abstract appeal to civic obligation. The private sector, he says, prepares founders well for uncertainty, institutional friction, and the task of winning adoption in places not designed to adopt new technology. Those skills help in government, but they fall short on their own.

Public service, in his account, adds a direct understanding of the systems that regulated environments, defense organizations, and large institutions all depend on. Justin Fulcher considers that knowledge essential for anyone advising on defense infrastructure, and he notes it is available in only one place. Refer to this article to learn more.

Find more information about Justin Fulcher on https://www.crunchbase.com/person/justin-fulcher