Decades-old defense contractors are leaning into the Pentagon’s new focus on startups, entwining themselves with emerging companies that have the technologies or even the contracts they seek. It has a startup investor fund, and in June it launched an ecosystem for testing and developing autonomous technologies. The goal is to enable companies working on AI pilots to test how their software performs within different mission focus areas, said Dan Salluce, director of advanced autonomy at Northrop Grumman. The company also wants to change the “past performer” preference that gives companies that have executed federal contracts an advantage over rookies. Matt Cronin, a senior advisor at Andreessen Horowitz, said the past-performer preference keeps innovative companies from competing for awards they could otherwise win.