Saronic’s Vib Altekar on the Future of Maritime Warfare

As co-founder and CTO at Saronic Technologies, Vibhav (Vib) Altekar is a perception engineer with expertise in the field of autonomous systems and maritime technology. He has spent a large part of his career in industry driving advancements in U.S. Department of War technology. As one of the earliest engineers at Anduril, Vib led engineering efforts across multiple programs, including the Royal Australian Navy's Ghost Shark drone submarine. His other career highlights include software engineering at Twitter, Juicero, and 8VC. In addition to software, Vib provides thought leadership at Saronic and invaluable strategic vision for its technological advancements.

This conversation occurred during the UATX Summer Honors Program in June 2025 at the University of Austin.

00:00 – Preview
00:27 – Introduction
02:16 – There's no water in Austin
03:50 – Building for America is the priority
06:43 – Redefining maritime superiority
15:23 – Hire integrity
17:25 – Curiosity advances careers
18:49 – How to prepare for tomorrow's AI economy
21:51 – Why Saronic grew so fast
23:50 – Q&A: Maritime competitors
26:17 – Q&A: How do boats keep up with planes?
28:58 – Q&A: Should high schoolers learn cybersecurity?
30:17 – Q&A: UATX's network
32:15 – Q&A: Will AI achieve sentience?
34:35 – Q&A: Do machines make war more devastating?
35:45 – Q&A: Keep moving forward
37:38 – Q&A: Can you teach integrity?
39:02 – Q&A: Energy
40:04 – Q&A: Tariffs
41:10 – Q&A: Large navies deter conflict
42:42 – Q&A: Bringing autonomous technology to boats
43:53 – Q&A: AI doesn't make decisions
45:12 – Q&A: Contracting with the DoW