I wonder if, in traipsing out to Silicon Valley in search of innovation, Defense officials and those from other departments will find what they dream of.

Now Ash Carter has rolled the initial leadership of the so-called DIUx, or Defense Innovation Unit Experimental. He wants “rapid uptake of promising technology” and “speedy decision-making.” But Carter didn’t give the initial boss of the DIUx, George Duchak, much time. Plus there are reports of a little jealousy from deep within the Pentagon of this free-wheeling outpost. Carter nevertheless wants to expand the program, hinting at opening DIUxs in Boston and maybe Austin, Texas.

DoD establishing a beachhead in Silicon Valley probably can help somehow. But it’s interesting to consider the name of the area between San Jose and San Francisco. It’s mostly a software center now, or at least software companies get all the publicity and fame. The word “silicon” refers to the development of the semiconductor industry there, dating back to just past World War II. Innovations in both silicon — mainly the integrated circuit — and the equipment to make chips saw great advances technologically. The Valley also spawned the “startup, grow, sell, startup, grow, sell” culture fueled by venture capital. When circuitry finally became so powerful it could do almost anything, the software growth followed, creating products to run on the millions and millions of computers out there.

At one time the Silicon Valley companies kept their distance from stodgy Washington, with its perceived urge to tax, regulate, coddle unions and dole out favors — that is, its seeming lack of meritocracy and understanding of the ceaseless death-and-birth corporate cycle so vital to a vibrant economy. Although in the 1990s they pressed the government to pursue dumping charges against Japanese chip makers. But the culture was different.

National Semiconductor chief Charlie Sporck once threatened to move his headquarters out of Santa Clara County if the commissioners tried to ban indoor smoking so he couldn’t puff cigars inside his own building. I attended one Semiconductor Industry Association dinner many years ago, where the legendary Jerry Sanders remarked that his AMD had had such a good year, “I added another Rolls Royce to my fleet.”

Many of today’s Silicon Valley executives like to cozy up to Washington, attend earnest meetings at the White House, and generally pretend not to be the money barons their original funders and current shareholders want them to be. So I imagine the DIUx meetings are cordial, even if today’s West Coast executives secretly disdain the Pentagon’s mission, which is ultimately to fight and win the nation’s wars by wrecking things and killing people if necessary.

Further: Having a Pentagon still largely modeled on the 1961 innovations of Robert McNamara helicopter into Silicon Valley I think has a slim chance of making any difference without a lot of navel-gazing first.

In Silicon Valley, the hottest application in the world could fail, and the only thing lost is someone else’s private money. Money aside, when DoD adopts a new technology, failure means a weaker military and therefore less effective national defense. Military technologies sometimes take years or decades to perfect before they are effective. Stealth technology, for instance, didn’t merely spring into existence, whereupon the Air Force issued an acquisition and next month painted in on airplanes. Attempts at hiding airplanes started during World War I. Current stealth technologies date to the late 1950s and took 20 years to fully operationalize.

Google may develop a cute autonomous car. It may even find an actual use for it. But autonomous vehicles in the military will somehow have to incorporate the fact that enemies will be trying to destroy them with projectiles and explosives. That could take a decade of testing in harsh situations.

So DoD has two challenges in trying to become a five-sided Silicon Valley. First, even for what it can use now, it has an inadequate acquisition process. Second, new technology with commercial promise is slow to translate into the the military world.

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