The Lords of Silicon Valley are enjoying a moment thanks to the Pentagon
They are both running companies with names derived from Lord of the Rings. Both have ties to venture capitalist Peter Thiel, a neofeudalist. Both have been the subject of in-depth, lengthy profiles. They are Alex Karp of Palantir and Palmer Luckey of Anduril, the two biggest players in the hot new thing: Silicon Valley defense companies.
The profiles–Maureen Dowd covered Karp for The New York Times and Jeremy Stern wrote about Luckey for Tablet Magazine–are brimming with colorful anecdotes and brutal insight. Two men have made a dream that the Pentagon had been attempting to achieve for 20 years a reality. They bridged the distance between Silicon Valley (SV) and the DoD. Why? The reasons are complex. DoD had a way of doing things and it didn’t fit with the “move quickly and break things” attitude of Big Tech. Pentagon is bureaucratic and slow. Big Tech leaders were morally and ethically flexible but their employees weren’t. Google employees revolted in 2018 because the company had cosyed up with the DoD. In response, Google exited the partnership.
“Not supporting the U.S. military,” Karp told the New York Times. I don’t know how to explain to an average American why you have become a multi-billionaire but won’t sell your product to D.O.D. It is shockingly corrosive. That’s before you get to all the corrosive, divisive things that are on these platforms.”
Things have changed. Quickly. Dramatically. Not just Anduril or Palantir. Google has once again gotten close to the U.S. Military. “A lot was related to Trump and ICE’s work. We were outsiders. Although we’re still considered outsiders, I do feel less resistance. Maybe people know more about what we do. Defense tech has become a major part of Silicon Valley.” He made billions by selling the VR headsets to Facebook, but he got in trouble with the company after reporters revealed that he had given money to a Trump aligned PAC during 2016’s election. People stopped supporting Oculus. Luckey’s reputation was in tatters when he left Facebook. “I felt I was the only person who had been… lit on fire. That’s why I founded Anduril. I’ve been burned. I was so soiled that I literally could have done anything. In this way, I consider myself to be blessed. If I was still a well-known, respected member of the tech community, I don’t think I would have been so convinced to launch Anduril. “I wouldn’t have been able to do something that everyone would think was evil,” Luckey said in Tablet.
Now Luckey wants Anduril be the Western world’s weapon store. Tablet reports that this is his phrase. According to Luckey, the store will be filled with cheap AI-powered robots. What if, instead of the $60 billion aid package
it was a package worth $1 billion and was 10 times more effective? Imagine that this was possible. He said that if you build the right loitering munitions, AI robot produced, that can always do the job for a hundredth to a thousandth the cost of an existing system then the
justification will disappear. Palantir is involved in too many contracts for the DoD and uses the Ukraine war as a test ground for their various systems. And Luckey? “In Anduril’s showroom, Luckey demonstrated the current state of gun shop. The Pulsar electronic warfare system can jam and hack the drones and spoof the navigation systems. It can also manage 100 incoming targets at once. Altius is a loitering weapon which can carry a 30 pound warhead – 50% more than a Hellfire and is currently deployed in Ukraine. Wisp produces a 50 gigapixel panoramic scan every 2 seconds. Money comes from strange places and the world is more interconnected than ever before. In the days after Karp and Luckey’s profiles, Forbes broke the news that the Venture Capital firm 8VC employed two children of sanctioned Russian oligarchs.
8VC invests in both Anduril and Palantir. Forbes stated that they are unaware of any evidence linking 8VC to the fathers sanctioned. Pentagon is concerned about the influence foreign actors have on tech startups. Luckey expressed his support for 8VC’s employees on X. “How dare we take the best people away from dictatorships!”
How dare we take the best people away from dictatorships!
— Palmer Luckey (@PalmerLuckey) August 16, 2024[for Ukraine]
