Silicon Valley magnates are basking in recognition, thanks to strategic partnerships with the Pentagon.
New and Improved Tone:
Let's take a gander at twoSilicon Valley whizzes who've turned the military world upside down. They're Alex Karp of Palantir and Palmer Luckey from Anduril, the shining stars in the rapidly expanding field of Silicon Valley defense companies.
Maureen Dowd, from The New York Times, spilled the tea on Karp, while Jeremy Stern, at Tablet Magazine, gave us the lowdown on Luckey. These profiles are packed with vivid tales and biting insights, as these two fellas helped bring Silicon Valley and the Department of Defense (DoD) together, achieving something the DoD had been after for two decades.
Though the Silicon Valley and DoD connection goes way back, they grew apart after 9/11 and the ensuing wars. Reasons for the rift are complex, with the bureaucratic DoD not exactly getting along with the speedy, break-it-to-make-it mentality of the tech world. The Pentagon's slow and steady approach clashed with Big Tech's 'move fast and break things' attitude.
In his New York Times profile, Karp pondered that the Trump phenomenon was, in part, a reaction to Silicon Valley and its resistance to the public. In 2018,Google employees staged a revolt over the company's close ties to the DoD, prompting Google to back out of the partnership.
" eschewing support for the U.S. military" isn't something the average American understands, Karp explained to the New York Times. "That's before you consider all the corrosive, divisive things out there on these platforms."
As of today, things have changed. Rapidly. Dramatically. It's not just Anduril and Palantir either. Google is inching closer to the U.S. military once again.
"I think there's a different perception of us now a little bit," Karp shared. "A lot of that was tied to Trump, ICE work. It built up, and we were definitely outsiders. We're still at the fringes, but I feel less resistance for sure. And people seem to have a better idea of what we do, maybe."
Luckey was way ahead of the curve. He made his fortune with the VR headset's sale to Facebook, but he encountered trouble with the company when reporters discovered he'd donated to a Trump-friendly PAC during the 2016 election. People turned their backs on Oculus, and Luckey left the company, his reputation in tatters.
Speaking to Stern, Luckey revealed that losing his reputation gave him a taste for revenge. "I was kind of one of the only people who was ... I'm the guy who's already been burned, right? If I still had been a popular, respected member of the technology community, I wouldn't have had the guts to start Anduril," he said in Tablet.
Now, Luckey wants Anduril to be the western world's gun store. That's his own phrasing, according to Tablet. In his vision, that store will be teeming with cheap AI-powered drones. " Imagine if instead of a massive aid package, it was a smaller package, and it was ten times more effective!" he said.
Both Luckey and Karp are working to bring Luckey's vision to life. Palantir boasts more DoD contracts than one can count, and Palantir is using the war in Ukraine as a testing ground for its various systems. And Luckey? Luckey boasts an impressive arsenal of high-tech goodies.
"In Anduril's showroom, Luckey showed me the current state of the gun store. There was Pulsar, an electronic warfare system that can jam and hack drones, spoof navigation systems, and manage about 100 incoming targets simultaneously; Altius, a loitering weapon that can carry a 30-pound warhead and is currently deployed in Ukraine; Wisp, an apparently unjammable, passive, 360-degree, broad-spectrum thermal imager that generates a 50-gigapixel panorama scan every two seconds, allowing you to spot and classify stealth aircraft 100 miles away; Dive-LD, an undersea autonomous vehicle; Ghost, the company's flagship drone, deployed in Ukraine since the second week of the war; and Roadrunner, a reusable twin-turbojet, vertical takeoff-and-landing microfighter that went from concept to combat validation in less than two years."
As Silicon Valley and the Pentagon get chummier, questions about foreign involvement have emerged. In the days following Karp and Luckey's profiles, Forbes dropped a bomb about 8VC, a venture capital firm that employs the children of sanctioned Russian oligarchs. 8VC invests in both Anduril and Palantir, raising concerns about the influence of foreign actors on tech startups within the defense sector.
On the matter, Luckey spoke up in support of the 8VC employees. " Stealing the brightest minds away from dictatorships!" he declared on X.
- The tech world's relationship with the Department of Defense (DoD) has seen a marked shift, with tech startups like Palantir and Anduril bridging the gap that emerged post-9/11.
- The CEO of Palantir, Alex Karp, expressed a jarring perspective on the average American's understanding of his company's approach towards the US military.
- Palmer Luckey, founder of Anduril, envisions his company as a western world's tech store, teeming with AI-powered gadgets like Pulsar, an electronic warfare system capable of jamming and hacking drones.
- Questions about foreign involvement have arisen as Silicon Valley defense companies, such as Anduril and Palantir, receive investments from venture capital firms, like 8VC, employing the children of sanctioned Russian oligarchs.
