EP 73 — Ethos's Sasha Seymore on Training Warfighters at the Speed of Weapons Innovation

Sasha Seymore, Co-founder & President at Ethos, walked onto the UNC basketball team as a senior, struggled with outdated playbook training, and turned that frustration into a company that cuts military schoolhouse failure rates by two-thirds while saving millions per location. His co-founder Andrew was student body president studying active learning pedagogy, and together they built a platform that measures knowledge gaps impacting performance rather than just tracking completion. 

The dual-use approach serves defense, life sciences, manufacturing, and retail customers with one unifying principle: accelerating time to competency on critical knowledge that directly affects performance outcomes. Sasha's experience as a Navy reservist with the Defense Innovation Unit gives him essential customer empathy and insight into institutional problems that outsiders miss. The five-year vision centers on becoming the comprehensive training and readiness platform as new weapon systems roll out faster than traditional training can accommodate.

Topics discussed:

• The parallel training methodologies between championship athletic programs and military operational readiness that focus on measuring knowledge gaps before performance day.
• The transition from SBIR Phase 2 directed funding through AFWERX and Naval X to 20-25 Phase 3 contracts by demonstrating measurable cost savings and readiness improvements.
• How Navy reservist experience with the Defense Innovation Unit provides essential customer empathy and insight into institutional problems that pure technologists miss.
• The strategic decision to focus on operational readiness tools rather than compliance platforms by prioritizing critical knowledge that directly impacts performance outcomes.
• The dual-use platform strategy that serves defense, life sciences, manufacturing, and retail customers while maintaining product focus on performance-critical training.
• How AI-powered content authoring converts physical playbooks and subject matter expert knowledge into interactive training modules in days rather than months.
• Why readiness dashboards that surface knowledge gaps in real-time enable instructors to correct misconceptions before exams.
• The challenge of training soldiers on new weapon systems at the speed of technological advancement when passive learning models cannot close the gap.
• Why diverse team composition combining military veterans and private-sector technologists creates better products than homogeneous backgrounds focused solely on either domain.  

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