# Life's Too Short for Frog DNA
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“Life’s Too Short for Frog DNA”: An Exclusive Interview with Rob “The Boss” Sivilli, CEO of Cost Plus Technologies
Posted to the Cost Plus Technologies Unoffical Blog | Cleared for Public Release: Yes, Obviously | Distribution: Unlimited (Except to InGen)
The following interview was conducted by Dr. James Nicholas Ashworth, D.Sc., Ph.D., Senior Distinguished Fellow of Computational Defense Epistemology, Emeritus Adjunct Chair of Applied Systems Irreversibility, and a man who has personally witnessed more PowerPoint briefings than any human being should reasonably survive. Dr. Ashworth sat down with Rob “The Boss” Sivilli, Founder, Chief Executive Officer, Chief Vision Officer, Chief Compliance Officer (self-certified), and Acting Director of Intersubjective Alignment at Cost Plus Technologies, to discuss the company’s groundbreaking paleobiological defense portfolio, the competitive landscape, and why Mr. Sivilli has approximately zero respect for John Hammond.
Dr. James Nicholas Ashworth, D.Sc.: Rob, thank you for making time. I understand your calendar is, to use the technical term, absolutely catastrophic.
Rob “The Boss” Sivilli: Catastrophic is generous. Do you know how many contract modification requests I signed this morning? Neither do I — that’s what the Director of Strategic Bureaucratic Optimization is for. But yes, I carved out forty-five minutes. I also billed it to a cost-plus line item, so technically the taxpayer is paying for this interview. You’re welcome, America.
Dr. Ashworth: Let’s begin at the beginning. Cost Plus Technologies has made a significant push into the dinosaur-based defense solutions market. Walk me through the origin of that strategic decision.
Sivilli: About three years ago, I was sitting in a Congressional hearing — as a witness, not a defendant, I want to be very clear about that — and a two-star general leans over to me and says, “Rob, what we really need is a heavy ground dominance platform that cannot be reasoned with, does not require a union contract, and will absolutely not unionize.” And I said, “General, I have exactly one phone call to make.”
That call launched the ALLOSAUR Heavy Ground Dominance Platform. Fourteen meters of validated lethality. Section 889 compliant. NDAA-friendly. Fully domestic — well, Cretaceous domestic, which our legal team assures us qualifies.
Dr. Ashworth: As someone with a background in computer science, I find myself curious about the systems architecture underlying the genomic pipeline. But I suspect you’re going to redirect me to the DNA sourcing question first.
Sivilli: (leaning forward)
You suspect correctly. And James — may I call you James? — as a fellow PhD, I know you appreciate precision. So let me be precise.
Bird DNA. B-I-R-D.
We use bird DNA. Specifically, a proprietary avian-sourced genomic baseline that our science team — God bless them, every one — has spent years refining. The ALLOSAUR is, taxonomically speaking, a very large bird. This is not a joke. This is a phylogenetic fact that we have weaponized. And before you ask: yes, we documented the ontology. It’s in the data dictionary. You can have a copy if you’re cleared.
Now, I don’t want to name names —
Dr. Ashworth: You’re going to name names.
Sivilli: I’m going to name names. John Hammond. InGen Corporation. The man built a theme park — a theme park — on Isla Nublar using frog DNA. Frog. DNA. Do you know what frog DNA does to a genome sequence? It introduces sex-switching vulnerabilities into your population. Your entire dinosaur workforce becomes capable of spontaneous reproductive reorganization. That is not a feature. That is a catastrophic program management failure dressed up as “chaos theory.”
We submitted a white paper on this to DARPA in 2019. They said it was “outside current solicitation parameters.” InGen failed to win a single DoD contract. I’m just saying those two facts are related.
Dr. Ashworth: To be fair — and I want to be fair, it’s a professional obligation — InGen was primarily a commercial venture.
Sivilli: (long pause)
A commercial venture. On a classified island. With classified animals. Funded by — and I looked into this — a combination of private investors and what my attorneys describe as “aggressively ambiguous offshore entities.” Meanwhile, we filed proper CAGE codes, registered in SAM.gov, and completed our CMMC Level 2 assessment before we sequenced a single strand of theropod genome. That’s the difference between a professional defense contractor and a billionaire with a god complex and a helicopter.
Also, his park had a 100% guest casualty rate on opening weekend. Our ALLOSAUR units have a controlled casualty rate. It’s in the spec.
Dr. Ashworth: I’ve spent enough time in acquisition to know that “it’s in the spec” is doing enormous load-bearing work in that sentence. How do you respond to critics who suggest a 14-meter carnivorous theropod is a non-trivial liability risk?
Sivilli: I respond by referring them to our Legal Disclaimers page, which I think speaks for itself. We have indemnification language in that document that covers acts of God, acts of dinosaur, and at least three categories of event that don’t have legal names yet.
More substantively: the ALLOSAUR is a managed system. It operates within defined engagement parameters. It has been behaviorally conditioned using a proprietary positive-reinforcement protocol that I cannot discuss in detail because it is covered under a CRADA with a major land-grant university and also because it involves a truly alarming amount of raw beef.
InGen tried to manage their assets with electric fences. We use a combination of operant conditioning, geofencing, and what our Chief Behavioral Systems Architect calls “strategic caloric leverage.” It’s more humane, more effective, and — critically — it does not fail when someone cuts the power.
Dr. Ashworth: Hammond has said, on the record, that he “spared no expense.” You’ve described this characterization as, and I’m quoting your internal Slack here, “delusional.”
Sivilli: (audible exhale)
He spared every expense. The man had a park full of apex predators and his entire security architecture ran on a single workstation operated by a disgruntled employee with a Barbasol can. His IT security posture would not pass a basic RMF assessment. It would not pass a conversation about a basic RMF assessment. James, you and I have both sat through ATO reviews. You know that what Hammond built would have been dead on arrival at the first ISSO meeting.
We operate on a zero-trust architecture. Zero trust for the network. Zero trust for the endpoints. Zero trust for the dinosaurs, frankly — that’s just good program management. Our ALLOSAUR units do not have access to the corporate VLAN. That is a design decision I am proud of.
Dr. Ashworth: Speaking as someone who has watched DoD IT infrastructure decisions get made in real time — that is the correct decision. Now, what else is in the pipeline?
Sivilli: I can speak obliquely and let the procurement community read between the lines, which is how we’ve always done business — as you well know.
We have an upcoming platform in the aerial dominance space. Avian genomics again — bird DNA, not frog, I cannot stress this enough — that addresses a capability gap in the low-altitude surveillance and interdiction domain. I will not confirm or deny whether it has feathers. I will confirm that it is Section 508 compliant, which I think demonstrates our commitment to inclusive design across all biological platforms.
We are also exploring aquatic options. I won’t say more than that. I will say that InGen had the IP rights to a certain marine-based platform and let them lapse. Their loss. Our CAGE code’s gain.
Dr. Ashworth: Final question, and I’ll make it appropriately grandiose given the setting. What is the core message you want the defense acquisition community to take away from Cost Plus Technologies?
Sivilli: We are the professionals. We file our paperwork. We use the correct DNA. We do not build theme parks and call them research facilities. We do not rely on a single power grid to contain assets that can bite through a Ford Explorer.
When you issue that next BAA — when you’re staring at a capability gap that no conventional system can fill — we want you to think of us. We want you to think: “There’s a company out there that took the Cretaceous seriously, that did the genomics right, that built a cost-plus contract structure so elegant it should be in a museum.”
And then we want you to call our Business Development team, who will be delighted to take your call between the hours of 10 AM and 3 PM, Monday through Thursday, excluding federal holidays and any day following a scheduled ALLOSAUR feeding.
Dr. Ashworth: Rob, on behalf of the defense acquisition community, and as a fellow survivor of the federal IT enterprise, thank you.
Sivilli: Charge it to the program.
Cost Plus Technologies is a registered defense contractor. The ALLOSAUR Heavy Ground Dominance Platform is currently in Limited User Testing. John Hammond was unavailable for comment. InGen Corporation did not respond to a request for comment, possibly because they no longer exist as a functioning entity. Dr. Ashworth’s views are his own and do not represent the official position of any agency, department, command, or sentient apex predator. This interview has been edited for length, clarity, and OPSEC review.
