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We’re using artificial intelligence to find zip code by zip code, like who has the propensity and the probability of succeeding at these really hard things.
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Hey, welcome to Word Money, the show devoted to supporting our brother and sister veterans. I’m Patrick Murphy and I’m Dan Koons. Today we have a great American, former Marine colonel, commander. He is now head of.Talent strategy for our 4 technologies. Please welcome to Word Money Tyler Zagursky. Tyler, thanks so much for joining us.
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Hey, thanks for having me. It’s great to be here. We’re glad you’re
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here. We’re glad you’re here.
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I appreciate it. All right, we do the bottom line up front. Bottom line question up front. You know, why does R4 Technologies hire our veterans?
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Yeah, it’s a great question. R4, uh, was created by the founders of Priceline, about 12 years in the commercial sector.And about 3 years ago they pivoted into defense and national security, so hired veterans like myself and others. We’re committed to doing more. We’ve got sort of a growing profile within the defense industry, uh, using artificial intelligence. And the thing that’s interesting is, and I tell guys this, like I was an infantry officer. I went to Arizona State University. I’m not a deep tech AI guy, um.But I do consider myself a technologist, you know, we’re, we’re at a golden age of technology where it’s not so much about writing code or figuring out the X’s and O’s or 1s and zeros. You need folks with like deep domain expertise to help craft what do solutions look like, what problems are we trying to solve? What’s the language we use in this domain to really understand and get at hard problems because we have technology that can help.But sometimes it’s all just talking past each other.
1:48 spk_2
Yeah, not only that, but like as an infantry officer, you understand the operate like the operator, the end user problems, right? And you’ve spent your entire career learning how to integrate machines with people with problems to solve problems in real-world environments. And oftentimes, and you’re you’re in the Marine Corps, under-resourced and underappreciated. We steal it from the Army if we needed it. We all steal it from the Air Force, so it’s all right. But uhYeah, it’s like it’s an awesome kind of use case that you’re describing of why why military folks, despite all their leadership stuff, also have an advantage and be able to integrate technology in their daily life. Yeah.
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And so it was a great question to start with because I’m proud of our 4 for what they’re doing. I’m proud to bring on more brothers and sisters, but it’s kind of a lesson for small mid-businesses everywhere, um, veterans, and you guys know this because you work in this world.We don’t always know what we’re good at when when we leave.
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How manyfolks do you guys have? Do youguys have? Uh,
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jeez, we just acquired a whole another sector, so I mean 100+, I guess.
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I mean how manypeople are kind of in the defensebusiness?
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Yeah, it’s probably 25% of those in the defense, a growing defense sector, right? And so, um.You know, when you, when the, when the music stops and you’ve done 1520, 25, 30 years, I remember calling some friends saying, I, I don’t know what I do. Not, not what I want to do, what do I do? I don’t know how any of this translates to the real world. So it’s great to see, you know, really agile commercial companies who can solve problems, bringing on veterans and, you know, helping them, help them, right?
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Yeah, no doubt. I mean, you look at like there’s 200,000 veterans that that transition from active service to, to veterans every year, and you did that. I mean this, you were the commander of Marine Barracks Washington. So for those of us who served and lived in Washington, 8th and I is a legendary post. I mean, tell us about that and how that set you up for town strategy. Uh,
3:48 spk_0
well, it’s, so the whole, uh, 8th and I is a great story, you know, that’s a, that’s a command that’s selected, um.And it wasn’t on my radar. This is actually a funny story. The last time I had been to 8th and I when I got selected to command there was probably 20 years previous, maybe more, because the last time I was there, I was a lieutenant and I brought my then girlfriend to see a Friday parade. And this is back when that part of DC really wasn’t that safe, right? And they used to bring you up on a bus and some gun he’d be like, get off the bus, go straight in the barracks. You’re not allowed outside.So when I got selected for 8th and I, it, it’s an honor, of course. I mean, the commandant selects that it’s a big deal. And, but I immediately thought, oh, my wife’s not going to like this. At that point we had 44 boys at home. We lived in a quiet suburb of Northern Virginia. And so it’s funny because I went home and I asked my wife, I said, well, let’s go for a walk, and she’s like, uh, something’s up, right?And so we went for a walk and I said, hey, I got some good news. And she’s like, Oh, I said, I got selected for command. She’s like, Oh, that’s great. Is it Pendleton or Lejeune, you know? I said, it’s even better than that. It’s 8th and I, you know. And she, with tears rolling down her face, she goes, Oh, I’m proud of you, but I don’t want to live at 8th and I. Um, the reality is that that whole part of DC has turned around and in reality, what an honorific thing to do. Uh, I didn’t realize all the things 8th and I does to include all the funerals at Arlington.Uh, just a very special place. Uh, a couple of the best years I had in the Marine Corps. Really honored to have been there.
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Yeah, that’s great. That’s great.Um, you mentioned your boys. You have 4 boys. Uh, your oldest, uh, followed your footsteps, is a Marine F-35 pilot. Um, when you look at the stats though, 53% of Americans would not recommend military service to their sons or someone they’re close to, or sons or daughters or someone close to, andMost of our recruits, Marines, soldiers, etc. 78% of them come from military families.Why did your son join and, and how does that makeyou feel?
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It’s a, it’s a great question. I was sharing a story earlier. My son, all my sons grew up in the service, and I think they have a deep respect for the Marine Corps and the service. But at the time, I was trying to talk my son into joining, and he really didn’t want to. Um, he went off to his freshman year at University of Virginia and fell in with some really great young men and women who were in RTSi.And he sort of got the flavor of it other than just seeing Dad, right? And so he came back, said, I, I, I think I want to fly in the Marine Corps. And I said, I’m super proud of you. Like, just know every day in the Marine Corps is a competition. If you’re going to do it, you got to do it all day, every day. Um, my other sons haven’t followed suit yet. My youngest is looking at both of the academies and has a strong interest in service. So, I think to your statistic and point.You know, we’ve got this cast of of veterans and their networks and their lineage that are producing, you know, more of our, our warriors generation by generation. But one of the reasons our four got into talent management is that very point. I mean, propensity to serve is at an all-time low. Something south of 25% of young men and women are even qualified based on obesity, drug use, whatever.So you’ve got this really shrinking pool. We’re, we’re using artificial intelligence to find zip code by zip code, like who has the propensity and the probability of succeeding at these really hard things.
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Yeah, it’s kind of interesting. Like I um.I, I, and you guys are dual use, and you guys have a commercial business, you have a government business, you have a defense business, you have a public sector and the government business, right? Like I, I’m at a point now where I, I think that every role that you fill is an actual national security kind of job, right?And whether you do dual use, like commercial side or you do something else, like our ability to find and put people into talent roles becomes a national security imperative because like economic freedom and economic stability is one of the stability levers for us to be nationally secure, right? And if you’re not doing something in national security, I really ask what you’re doing because it’s really hard for me to see the difference.And I think to your point, like your company that pivoted in defense, it was because you saw an opportunity there to leverage capabilities across different segments.
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Yeah, 100%. You know, that, that sort of readiness, that people readiness, right, that boils right up to essential national interest very quickly. And the different approach that the company takes is this is not.You know, this is not multi-year hundreds of millions of dollar contracts that sort of explode under their whole weight. This is commercial proven software that is dual use. It’s configured and adapted to solve military problems. So it’s software as a service.And if you look at policy from sort of White House memos, SEC memos, the new acquisition strategy, I mean, this is the direction they’re going. Stop, stop with these $100 billion dollar contracts.
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It’s notonly that, it’s not only that, but it’s also that you need people that understand.The, the, so we talked about Detachment 214 in our last show, right? Great organization. You’re bringing these amazing people from commercial life. They don’t know jack about the Department of Defense, and they don’t realize the army’s gonna roll along. It doesn’t care about how big or how great your company was, right? So it’s gonna keep going and it’s gonna replace you as fast as you come in, right? And I think that’s the uniqueness of a military member is like they understand.The bureaucracy. They also understand how to get things done in commercial, bringing commercial technology. And that’s why oftentimes commercial tech companies fail so mightily regarding a defense. They do.
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You look at a commercial, a good commercial company providing, let’s say, AI solutions for commercial problems. They’re super focused on the business user. What problems do you have? What are the pain points?
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Get into the business.
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Yeah, but you pivot that to the defense, right? And if you don’t understand the user and their, their business case, their use case, and I always say this, like it’s not ROI in my mind is readiness, right? We’re driving readiness, you know, and sometimes companies look at defense and national security and they want to try toYou know, they’re wrap themselves around the axle trying to figure out what’s the ROI if we pitch to these guys. ROI is
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readiness.
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We’re making you
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more
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ready.
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And again it boils down to even, even what we say in the Army and the Marine Corps mission first people 100%, yeah. So listen, we’re gonna, we’re gonna stop now. We’re gonna take a quick break and we’ll be right back after this break on worry money.Hey, welcome back to Warrior Money. I’m Patrick Murphy. We’re here with former Marine Colonel Tyler Zagursky. Tyler, you’re executive R for Technologies. Before the break, we were chatting about, you know, that propensity to serve. Uh, and, and I couldn’t help it, you, you’re proud of your son who’s a Marine as well, like you. My daughter is doing Air Force ROTC down at Clemson. Uh, I couldn’t be more proud.Um, when you ask Americans, the majority of Americans will not recommend military service to their sons and daughters or someone they’re close to, according to a 2024 Pew study. But you also ask folks, hey, how many veterans do you think are injured? They think the majority of veterans who serve in Iraq and Afghanistan.That the majority of them will get physically injured. And I also think when you say, well, how many lost a limb, they’ll say, 3 million. There’s only 1.9 million of us that serve in Iraq, Afghanistan like you and I did.Where’s the disconnect?
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Yeah, it’s a great point. And I, you know, I think there’s this element of sort of, you know, popular culture and movies, and this becomes a political thing that sort of goes up and down. And I think you’re 100% right. Folks who don’t really have a connection to the military, you know, in the current generation, kind of get this perception that, yeah, they are, they’re all getting slaughtered in Iraq and Afghanistan, or they all end up destitute or whatever. Um, and you know, as well as I do, it’s not true. I mean,We built the greatest military in the world, and you and I both served with them. These are some of the brightest, most well-adjusted young men and women you’ll ever meet. I mean, they’re amazing day in and day out.
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Yeah, yeah, it’s, and it’s so funny. I was talking about the contrast of, you have the pageantry a couple of weeks ago of the Army-Navy game. Congratulations, Navy won by 1716. I was there. But you know, you have the pageantry and people are like, oh my God, look, this is great, you know, and, and.The military is one of the most, if not the most well-respected profession in America, but at the same time, it’s not for their sons and daughters, it’s for other kids to serve.
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Yeah, and it’s, it points to the importance of recruiting and retention, you know, and we talked before the break, propensity is down, people have this negative attitude. Our services are, you know, a national treasure. Um, and I get that sons and daughters are a family’s treasure, and it’s hard to sort of give them over to that service, but you and I have both seen firsthand.Sort of the virtuous side of service. Um, I’ll tell a quick story. When I left, uh, college, I enlisted in the Marine Corps, um, with a college degree because I didn’t know what I was doing in life. I was adrift fully and I tell this story the first night I went to boot camp. Boot camp’s not fun, it’s a nightmare, but I knew the second I got there, I said, I’m never.Believe in here because these are people who tell you what they mean. They mean what they say, their structure. I’m like, this is the structure and values that I’ve been yearning for my whole young life. And I think of the same sort of virtuous thing for our, our young men and women.
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Yeah, yeah. And I, and I, I love the fact that I know you’re a graduate of Arizona State University.Uh, 1990 grad, that is the home of Pat Tillman and his brother Kevin Tillman. Um, tell us about Pat Tillman, and I know you went back there doing the Skill Bridge program. Tell us about that experience. What Skill Bridge is.
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Yeah, so Skill Bridge is a great program for veterans hosted by Chamber of Commerce where, uh, uh.Service members on their last 6 to 8 months of active duty can get approval to go with a partner, whether that’s, you know, a large business, small business. In my case, it was Arizona State University, and you can do a fellowship that can lead to employment. And so it’s a great chance to get experience for people that are transitioning out. I spent 3 months at Arizona State kind of advising them on military affairs and military learning.You know, but one of the key features, of course, was the Tillman Center. We all know the story of, of his, his, uh, his bravery and service, um, and I look at schools like Arizona State who are doing a tremendous job of putting the right resources in place to not only attract veterans onto campus, but to help them succeed there just like we talked about earlier, sometimes the veteran doesn’t like.Not sure what I’m doing here at college, you know, it’s nice to have a Tillman Center that has resources. Other veterans are there. There’s mentorship. There’s coaching. And so I’m just, I’m very proud of what they do
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there. Yeah, I just did the intro for the new class of the Skillbridge Fellows to the US Chamber of Commerce, Hunger Heroes. And if you don’t know about it, like you said, you go, it’s free chicken. It’s free chicken for you. You’re still getting employed, paid by the Department of Defense, but also,You know, you’re free chicken for these companies and it’s a tryout. It’s a trial for you. Does this work for you?
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Everybody gets to kick the tires. Yeah, yeah, I love it. It’s a
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great program. Hey, I really wanna talk to you about, you know, one of the major initiatives that you have. It’s, it’s called Humans at the Helm. Uh, it’s this AI concept.to what that human at the helm stands for.
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Yeah, so, particularly in the defense sector, we’ve got solutions that are primarily focused on like precision sustainment, precision logistics, predictive logistics, and talent management, you know, helping services, you know, find, recruit, develop, and retain the right talent.Uh, but one of our sort of first principles at our 4 is humans at the helm, you know, and I tell folks like this isn’t some automated, you know, kill chain. This is using diverse data sets to help leaders kind of see and make sense of these complex data environments, but it never takes a human out of the helm. It’s decision intelligence, right? And so processes are the same.Workflows can be the same. We’re just, we’re just helping them see things in data that never takes a human out of the helm, and we, we think that’s important.
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Yeah, but your experience with AI when you’re in the Pentagon or when you were in the Marine Corps was somewhat different. I mean, I, because I get frustrated. People think AI is like chat GBT, which it is, but it’s.So much deeper and more rich than just that.
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Yeah, so I, I think of this honestly is like the golden age of AI. And I was telling you earlier, when I left active service just a few years ago, I was almost fatigued and confused about AI, right? Everybody’s running around talking about it. I need some AI. I don’t know what it is.And then you combine that with some confusion with just large language models, right? Chat GPT. And I, I’ll share this. I was at a trade show recently with a pretty senior panel talking about AI and it dawned on me like 5 minutes into it, they’re just talking about chat GPT.You know, when I talk about AI, we’re talking about like the diverse data sets that that the Department of War is drowning in, right? Like just look at the talent side. The recruitment has data, there’s performance and evaluation data, there’s retention data, there’s, there’s all this data that never gets sort of combined in a way so that you can see.And makes sense of a human. The same way a tank, you know, it operates in different environments. Different people maintain it. It goes on different mission sets. It has different parts. All that data gets sort of stuffed away. And so, when I think about AI, um, large language models can be a key input to it, but this is much more than that.
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Yeah, yeah.How about as far as when you, you know, obviously you’re head of talent at, at our technologies, you know, 100 folks, you have colleagues. Um, when you advise transitioning troops, right? Whether they’re Marines, soldiers, etc. uh, and they’re trying to find that new job, there’s a difference of balance between salary and equity. What are some things that you advise them or walk them through?
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I’ll be honest, uh, and I do this quite a bit with folks that reach out to me. I’m all about fit, um, and I’ve told guys multiple times, guys and gals, like, don’t, don’t worry about the salary as much as finding something you want to do in a fit that’s for you. Um, but certainly there are situations where that balance between salary and equity becomes important.
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And how about as far as like for for troops we we’ve had folks on the show talking about, hey, I’m a veteran. I wanna get into tech. What’s the quickest way for a veteran or transitioning service member to upskill into defense tech or tech overall?
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Yeah, I mean, there’s a number. Here’s, here’s the downside of that. There’s a lot of predatory folks, you know, institutions. I get them in my emails all the time for, you know.15,000 bucks. I can get this high-end sort of certification. The reality is there’s a lot of free things, Google, Microsoft, uh, there’s also some very credible institutions that have, you know, certificates in the basics in AI or coding or, uh, cloud or whatever it is you’re interested in. So I, I would tell folks, look at the free certifications, um, and then maybe every couple of years, look at, uh, a higher end certification fromYou know, a, a credible organization, um, but don’t jump into the first email you get that says, you know, you can get this online credential for 20,000 bucks. And the other thing I would know, we talked about this earlier, um, credentials are important, learning is important, but I also tell veterans, don’t, don’t dismiss how valuable you are in the tech world just with your domain expertise and understanding. You know, some of the credentialing and, and certifications can come.Um, you know, look at simple things like program management. I would say all of you, you know, NCOs and officers who’ve served 10 number of years, Dominus ominous, you are a program manager. You’ve done it,
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yeah, no doubt. And it’s funny because it’s, they don’t have, some of them don’t have that confidence, and don’t, and they say, well, I never worked in a, in the private sector. I’m like, time out, you know what.The army were a Fortune 2 size company, grows huge, right? And I say, you worked for a Fortune 2 size company. You’ve worked all around technology, but too many of our brothers and sisters are underselling themselves when it comes to technology. Yeah,
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and part of that is that just that translation to, I, I did this thing. I did it really well in a huge complex organization, a large enterprise. What are the words that mean these words over here? Well, it turns out you were actually likeUh, an operations manager, you’re equivalent to a COO or you, you, you’re equivalent of a program manager. You did those things. Yeah.
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That’s why I also talk about, uh, faith, family, and finances, right? And so I know you’re very proud of your, of your wife, your 4 kids, your 4 boys. Um, what piece of advice do you give to your brothers through veterans or your own sons, uh, to live a purpose-driven life, like you have?
21:03 spk_0
Yeah, I mean, I think part of that just goes back to to being yourself, being genuine, um.But within that, like I told my oldest son, every day is a competition, you know, uh, particularly when you get into the Army or the Marine Corps, you know, you’re not gonna just sort of slide through, you’re, you’re getting evaluated, and so you need to, you know, every day is call day they say in the Marine Corps, you need to bring your best, and so, um.You know, I love to see people with an air of genuineness, uh, but, but always also striving to be better.
21:32 spk_1
Yeah, yeah. How about as far as financially, um, what do you do now? You obviously I know you’re doing art for technology as an executive, butYou know, do you invest? Do you just have the 401k? Do you have your TSP?
21:45 spk_0
you don’t mind. No, I, I don’t mind sharing all of the above. And I, I think I’m like a lot of veterans where I started late, you know, uh, not too late, but I started late. And so I, I look at like my oldest son now. I think as soon as he got commissioned or went to OCS, we pulled out the TSP brochure and I said, look, here’s how it works. You know, you can do 10%.You’ll never miss it because you’ll never see it. Uh, and so that’s another conversation with veterans to have. Like you may not think you’re making a lot or have extra, but every little bit counts and the earlier you start, the better. And so, you know, I’m at a point now I’m fortunate enough to, to have, you know, a portfolio of things and, and ways and, and make it work for itself, but.Uh, you know this. I mean, if you started at 25, even if it was 50 bucks a month going somewhere, you look at what that pot would be, and people don’t realize it, you know, what we, uh, I went through service, uh, we were single income, you know, my wife and I chose that that she would raise the kids, which I, I don’t regret, and it was the right choice.But it forces you to kind of look at your own finances and have some foresight and say what, what things are we doing now that we’re gonna be glad we did when we’re 50, 55, 60, yeah,
22:55 spk_1
no doubt. Listen, I’m a, I’m a big Dave Ramsey fan. Like I don’t believe in bad debt and stuff like that, and I don’t believe in credit cards. I mean, I use credit cards, but I paid them off each month just to pass through, yeah, yeah, yeah, and, um.I think it’s really important for our brothers to know that and it’s OK to talk about it and work through it with your loved ones, with your financial advisor or with your friends, uh, and to make sure that you’re on the right fiscal track.Hey Tyler, we gotta wrap it up to. So listen, Tyler, uh, Zarruski, thank you so much for joining us at War Money. We appreciate it. It’s Christmas week. I wore the green jacket for that reason. Uh, you’re a great American and you continue to serve our nation out of uniform. We just wanna say thank you so much. Well, thanks for
23:32 spk_0
having me and thanks for what.For, for what you do. Yeah,
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appreciate it. All right, so that wraps up this week’s edition of Warrior Money. Thank you so much for joining us. I’m Patrick Murphy. Please check out Warrior Money wherever you get your podcasts, including Yahoo Finance. So with that, that wraps up Word Money. Hope to see you soon.
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This content was not intended to be financial advice and should not be used as a substitute for professional financial services.
