PodcastThe MergeOctober 25, 2026
E63 – The Merge Origin Story
The Merge grew organically from reader feedback — Save Rounds, Premium, and the podcast all originated from audience requests, not strategy.
- Origin in COVID lockdown: After a Silicon Valley fellowship, Mike Benitez noticed startup-world newsletters had no defense-tech equivalent, so in mid-2020 he compiled one himself.
- First send to fighter pilots: The inaugural issue went out the first Sunday of November 2020 to roughly 200-300 people via a Facebook group, almost all fighter pilots.
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Themes, sentiment and reasons are AI-written paraphrases, checked so they never quote an episode. They may contain errors. Not investment advice. Episodes remain the property of their creators.