History often reminds us that the greatest revolutions begin in the most unlikely places. The automobile did not begin with a global corporation. Silicon Valley started in garages. The Wright brothers operated a bicycle shop before changing aviation forever.
Now, one of the most significant revolutions in modern warfare may be traced to a parent’s basement in Indiana.
Olaf Hichwa and Soren Monroe-Anderson were not seasoned defense executives or decorated military officers. They were two American teenagers from Indiana with an extraordinary fascination for drones, engineering and problem-solving. They possessed no vast military budget, no government laboratory and no decades of experience in defense technology. What they had instead was curiosity, determination and an understanding that they had much to learn.
That willingness to learn may prove to be their greatest innovation.
Few classrooms could have taught them what they learned there.
Ukraine had become the world’s most active laboratory for drone warfare. Every day presented new lessons about electronic jamming, battlefield communications, autonomous navigation, survivability and rapid battlefield adaptation. Equipment that worked one week often failed the next as both sides constantly adjusted tactics and technology.
Instead of assuming they already knew the answers, these two young Americans listened.
They watched soldiers modify equipment in the field. They observed how inexpensive first-person-view drones were destroying armored vehicles worth millions of dollars. They learned that software updates could become just as important as hardware improvements. Every failure became another lesson. Every battlefield observation became another engineering challenge.
Recognizing that they still had much more to understand, Hichwa traveled to China, not as a tourist, but as a student of technology.
China had become the world’s dominant producer of commercial drone components and manufacturing systems. Walking through factories and supply chains gave the founders of Neros a front-row seat to China’s remarkable advances in drone production. They saw manufacturing speed, vertical integration, engineering discipline and production capacity unlike anything available elsewhere.
What impressed them most also concerned them.
If America intended to maintain military superiority, it could not depend indefinitely upon foreign supply chains for one of the defining technologies of modern warfare. Their visit convinced them that the United States needed an independent drone manufacturing capability built by Americans for America’s national security.
They returned determined to create exactly that.
As the war continued, Neros established operations in Ukraine, allowing its engineers to remain close to the battlefield and receive immediate feedback from those actually using their technology. Few American startups have enjoyed such direct access to real-world combat conditions. That constant interaction allowed improvements to occur in weeks rather than years, creating a pace of innovation rarely seen in traditional defense procurement.
The result was a company unlike almost any other.
Its engineers were learning from the front lines while simultaneously studying global manufacturing excellence. They understood both the urgency of combat and the realities of industrial production.
Meanwhile, military planners around the world were reaching the same conclusion.
The war in Ukraine demonstrated beyond any doubt that warfare had fundamentally changed. The future would not belong solely to the nation with the most aircraft carriers, bombers or tanks. Increasingly, victory would belong to the nation capable of producing vast numbers of intelligent, inexpensive, adaptable drones faster than its adversaries.
That realization transformed American defense policy.
In 2025, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced the Pentagon’s Drone Dominance initiative, committing approximately $1.1 billion to rapidly expand America’s tactical drone capabilities. The initiative represented one of the largest shifts in military procurement in decades, recognizing that low-cost, mass-produced drones had become indispensable weapons on the modern battlefield.
Remarkably, nearly half of that funding was directed toward Neros through a contract valued at up to $500 million.
Consider the significance of that moment.
Two young Americans from Indiana who had only recently been assembling drones in a basement and humbly acknowledging how much they still needed to learn had become trusted partners in helping shape the future of the United States military.
That is not merely a business success story.
It is an American story.
It demonstrates that innovation is not confined to age, pedigree or established institutions. Sometimes it belongs to young people willing to leave their comfort zones, travel halfway around the world, learn directly from those confronting life-and-death challenges and then return home determined to strengthen their own country.
The story of Neros also reminds us that the competition between the United States and China extends far beyond economics. It is increasingly a competition of engineering, manufacturing, artificial intelligence, supply chains and technological speed.
Hichwa and Monroe-Anderson understood this before many policymakers did because they witnessed both worlds firsthand. They stood beside Ukrainian soldiers confronting Russian attacks. They observed China’s manufacturing ecosystem with their own eyes. They learned from both experiences and transformed those lessons into an American company dedicated to strengthening American security.
Future historians may conclude that the revolution in drone warfare did not begin inside the Pentagon or one of the nation’s largest defense contractors.
It began with two teenagers from Indiana who had the humility to admit they still had much to learn, the courage to learn it on the front lines of war and the vision to help ensure that America, not its adversaries, would help define the future of warfare.
