Building Defense Technologies to Protect Democracies | Torsten Reil, Helsing
Torsten Reil, founder of Helsing, discusses how modern warfare is fundamentally shifting from traditional vehicles and manned aircraft to autonomous drone swarms and AI-controlled systems, driven by rapid technological advancement and the lessons from Ukraine. He argues that European defense capabilities require aggressive founders with high talent density, mass manufacturing of simple hardware paired with sophisticated software, and an unwavering commitment to building companies that matter rather than selling out.
Summary
Torsten Reil, CEO and co-founder of Helsing, a European defense technology company, discusses the radical transformation of modern warfare demonstrated in Ukraine. He argues that tanks and traditional artillery are becoming obsolete because they are easily detected by drones and destroyed quickly, making human survival on the battlefield increasingly difficult. This has led to his core thesis: future wars will be won by whoever can produce more autonomous systems—drones, fighter jets, and ground robots—at scale. He estimates that 100,000 autonomous strike drones positioned at a border could deter invasion, as they would destroy traditional military hardware in hours.
Reil explains Helsing's founding in early 2021, which was highly controversial because defense companies were grouped with pornography and gambling in ESG frameworks. Despite this, he, co-founder Niklas Knobel (AI/engineering), and Gunbert Bauer (military/political process expert) had high conviction that Europe needed a homegrown defense tech company with the sophistication of American firms like Palantir and Anduril. They raised €8 million in seed funding, and Daniel Ek later invested €100 million of his personal capital, allowing them to pursue high-risk programs of record rather than relying on early revenue.
Helenski's breakthrough came when they won a program of record for the Eurofighter electronic warfare upgrade—the fastest journey from founding to program of record in the industry. They accomplished this by applying AI and deep learning to a problem that traditional approaches had failed to solve: detecting software-defined radars that constantly shift their signatures.
Reil discusses Helsing's most ambitious project: Centaur, an AI neural network trained through reinforcement learning to be a superhuman fighter pilot in beyond-visual-range combat. Using a simulator running at 25,000 times real-time speed, they trained the AI to outperform active Eurofighter, Rafale, and Gripen pilots. In 2024, they flew an autonomous Gripen over the Baltic Sea in air-to-air combat against a human-piloted Gripen and won. This success convinced them to acquire an aircraft manufacturer and build the CA-1 Europa, a fully autonomous fighter jet that will fly for the first time in 2025.
On manufacturing and deterrence, Reil emphasizes that Europe must design for mass production, not exquisite systems. His approach involves simple hardware, sophisticated AI software, and the ability to manufacture thousands of units monthly. The HX2 strike drone now produces 1,000-3,000 units per month from a small factory. He argues that AI should absorb complexity from hardware—simpler sensors paired with better algorithms, relaxed manufacturing tolerances compensated by software recalibration.
Regarding talent, Reil identifies high talent density as the single most important factor in company success—more important than capital, regulation, or bureaucracy. He describes implementing rigorous hiring processes with external recruitment agencies from day one, weekly KPI reviews, and quarterly performance calibration where managers are held accountable for consistent performance ratings across the company. He looks for 'effortlessness' in candidates: deep knowledge combined with curiosity and high agency, which he can often assess in 10 minutes of conversation.
On culture and values, Reil notes that Helsing's core values ("Whatever It Takes," "The Truth Is in the Field") emerged organically from employee experience rather than being imposed. These values reflect the reality of having deployed systems in Ukraine and the necessity of real-world validation over testing.
Reil is critical of European founder culture, arguing that excessive commentary and excuse-making (blaming regulation, taxes, bureaucracy) have replaced ambitious entrepreneurship. He contends that what's actually missing is aggressive founders with large strategic ambitions. He uses Spotify as a model of European ambition and argues that a handful of prime movers can change an entire continent's trajectory.
On the morality of autonomous weapons, Reil distinguishes between deterrence (preventing war through credible defense posture) and deployment (minimizing casualties when conflict occurs). He argues it would be immoral to send humans into battlefields where they cannot survive against autonomous systems, and that AI systems are more accurate than humans in many combat scenarios. He's concerned that public and journalistic scrutiny of ethical implications has decreased since Ukraine's invasion, replaced by acceptance of military necessity.
Reil draws parallels between his background: his PhD work on neural networks and genetic algorithms for simulating movement, his early gaming company Natural Motion (which created realistic character physics for films and games), and his pivot to defense. He emphasizes that being an outsider to each industry—not feeling part of the traditional biology, gaming, or defense communities—made it easier to do things differently. Similarly, he priced games at 99 cents and pioneered free-to-play when the industry insisted games needed $5+ price points, maximizing user adoption and revenue.
Finally, Reil criticizes social media commentary culture as net-negative, arguing it drags down creators and contributors. He believes founders have disproportionate leverage to change society and should focus on building rather than commenting on how bad things are.
About this episode
Torsten Reil has spent his career working at the intersection of artificial intelligence, simulation and entrepreneurship. He began as a biologist studying neural networks and complex systems before founding NaturalMotion, whose technology was used in films including Lord of the Rings, Troy and Harry Potter and later in games including Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption. After building and selling NaturalMotion, he eventually returned to entrepreneurship to co-found Helsing, a European defense technology company focused on artificial intelligence and autonomous systems. Reil believes warfare is undergoing a fundamental shift from humans operating expensive weapons systems toward what he calls autonomous mass: large numbers of AI-controlled machines operating together. He explains why drones are making tanks, artillery and eventually crewed fighter jets increasingly vulnerable; how AI can navigate without GPS in jammed environments; and why Helsing developed Centaur, an AI fighter pilot that has controlled a real Saab Gripen in air combat against a human-operated aircraft. That work led Helsing to begin building its own autonomous fighter jet, the CA1 Europa. The underlying strategy is to combine simpler, mass-manufacturable hardware with increasingly capable software. Reil argues that future conflicts will become battles of materiel, making manufacturing capacity as important as technological sophistication. Helsing's HX-2 strike drone was redesigned to scale from dozens of units per month to a baseline of 1,000, with the ability to surge to 3,000. He also explains Helsing's concept of distributed “resilience factories,” which allow countries to manufacture systems domestically while reducing their dependence on vulnerable centralized production facilities. Reil also describes how he runs Helsing and why he considers talent density the most important ingredient in company performance and culture. The company closely monitors recruiting, conducts quarterly performance calibration and makes an unusually large investment in finding and retaining exceptional people. He discusses Helsing's values of “whatever it takes” and “the truth is in the field,” why founders should pursue ambitions large enough to matter, and why he believes commentary has little value compared with actually building something that changes the world. Show notes: https://www.davidsenra.com/episode/torsten-reil Made possible by Ramp: https://ramp.com AppLovin: https://applovin.com Deel: https://deel.com/senra Chapters (00:00:00) Drones, Tanks & the Future of Warfare (00:07:08) Why Torsten Founded Helsing (00:09:27) Founder Conviction & Betting on European Defense (00:19:19) Helsing's Mission: Protecting Democracies (00:23:38) Programs of Record & Winning the Eurofighter Contract (00:28:35) Building a Superhuman AI Fighter Pilot (00:36:14) Deterrence, Autonomous Weapons & the Morality of Defense (00:42:11) Mass Manufacturing, Software & the Future of Materiel (00:48:33) Airbase Vulnerability, Procurement & Scaling Strike Drones (00:52:46) Talent Density, Hiring & Performance Management (00:59:44) How Torsten Hires Exceptional People (01:05:27) Helsing's Culture: Whatever It Takes & Truth Is in the Field (01:07:38) Deploying in Ukraine & the Weight of Defense Technology (01:10:50) NaturalMotion, Gaming & Torsten's Path Into AI (01:18:33) Outsiders, First Principles & Ambitious North Stars (01:20:54) Why Commentary Is Worthless & Founders Should Build Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Key Insights
- Reil argues that tanks and large artillery systems are now obsolete in modern warfare because drones can easily locate and destroy them within minutes, making their use tactically untenable.
- He claims that 100,000 autonomous strike drones positioned at a border could deter land invasion by destroying traditional military formations in hours, establishing a new deterrence model.
- Reil contends that the survival time for soldiers on modern battlefields has collapsed to 20-30 minutes, and this makes deploying humans increasingly immoral when autonomous alternatives exist.
- He asserts that AI-trained fighter pilots consistently outperform human fighter pilots in beyond-visual-range combat because AI can explore the tactical search space far more efficiently than humans trained through traditional instruction.
- Reil argues that high talent density—not capital, regulation, or market conditions—is the single factor determining company success, and that all other obstacles founders cite are excuses.
- He claims that future wars will be won by whoever can mass-manufacture autonomous systems at scale, making industrial capacity and manufacturing capability the decisive factor.
- Reil contends that European founder culture has been damaged by excessive negative commentary on social media and public forums, which drags down ambitious builders without creating alternative value.
- He states that it was easier to found Helsing as an outsider to defense because industry insiders would have constrained thinking to existing paradigms, whereas his gaming and science background enabled different approaches.
- Reil asserts that journalistic and public scrutiny of autonomous weapons ethics has largely disappeared since Ukraine's invasion, replaced by acceptance of military necessity without critical examination.
- He argues that being publicly associated with defense in Germany (a pacifist society) required high conviction, and that cultural shift toward accepting defense investment has happened faster than expected in recent years.
- Reil claims that simple hardware paired with sophisticated AI software enables manufacturing at scale, with AI absorbing complexity from hardware through sensor simplification and real-time recalibration.
- He contends that recruitment and performance management systems deserve the same rigor and top-tier talent that engineering receives, as they determine which talent enters and remains in the company.
Topics
Transcript
Let's start with what we were just talking about before we started recording. What are your opinions of the future of tanks and battleships? I think there's a big change happening, and you can already see it in Ukraine, obviously, where tanks are barely being used anymore. The same is true for artillery systems. If you get yourself into a tank, your survival rate is very short. Apparently, the time that the russian soldier survives now at the front is about 20 to 30 minutes you can argue about whether that's you know correct but it's probably roughly right in terms of ballpark and it probably gets even worse if you're in a tank if you put yourself into a…
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