Joe Lonsdale

You have to go talk to senators, you have to go to the DOD. It's stressful stuff. I built companies elsewhere, like you mentioned. But then we saw in the early 2010s, we saw a lot of our smartest friends in China were being forced to have their engineers work on military projects. And we said, wait a second, this is not good. And then we saw our defense primes

You have to go talk to senators, you have to go to the DOD. It's stressful stuff. I built companies elsewhere, like you mentioned. But then we saw in the early 2010s, we saw a lot of our smartest friends in China were being forced to have their engineers work on military projects. And we said, wait a second, this is not good. And then we saw our defense primes

were not able to attract the best talent at all. So we had in America, these defense primes had all consolidated in the 90s, and obviously Palantir had to compete against them in software side and crushed them. But their hardware side was also going downhill. It was also getting worse. And this is a big problem that China's getting better. It's getting worse here.

were not able to attract the best talent at all. So we had in America, these defense primes had all consolidated in the 90s, and obviously Palantir had to compete against them in software side and crushed them. But their hardware side was also going downhill. It was also getting worse. And this is a big problem that China's getting better. It's getting worse here.

were not able to attract the best talent at all. So we had in America, these defense primes had all consolidated in the 90s, and obviously Palantir had to compete against them in software side and crushed them. But their hardware side was also going downhill. It was also getting worse. And this is a big problem that China's getting better. It's getting worse here.

And then it turned out the Xi Jinping guy is clearly a commie who's going to try to confront us. He's going to be a serious adversary. And that got scary. And then a bunch of my friends, three of the best guys from Palantir with Palmer Lucky, started the Android. And so we backed that early.

And then it turned out the Xi Jinping guy is clearly a commie who's going to try to confront us. He's going to be a serious adversary. And that got scary. And then a bunch of my friends, three of the best guys from Palantir with Palmer Lucky, started the Android. And so we backed that early.

And then it turned out the Xi Jinping guy is clearly a commie who's going to try to confront us. He's going to be a serious adversary. And that got scary. And then a bunch of my friends, three of the best guys from Palantir with Palmer Lucky, started the Android. And so we backed that early.

And it basically convinced me at the time, looking at all these things and looking at Android, we better get back involved in defense. So we said, okay, we're back involved in defense. What are we going to do? We need to get more of our best and brightest from the tech world, which I'm lucky to come from and have access to, to work on these problems. And we mapped out about 20 different areas.

And it basically convinced me at the time, looking at all these things and looking at Android, we better get back involved in defense. So we said, okay, we're back involved in defense. What are we going to do? We need to get more of our best and brightest from the tech world, which I'm lucky to come from and have access to, to work on these problems. And we mapped out about 20 different areas.

And it basically convinced me at the time, looking at all these things and looking at Android, we better get back involved in defense. So we said, okay, we're back involved in defense. What are we going to do? We need to get more of our best and brightest from the tech world, which I'm lucky to come from and have access to, to work on these problems. And we mapped out about 20 different areas.

And we decided to start EPRIS first and decided to build that because exactly the future of warfare seemed very clearly to be heading towards drone warfare. And it's just not sustainable to fire missiles at drones, right? You're spending a million dollars or $100,000 to shoot down something that costs a lot less than that. So you need a one-to-many effect.

And we decided to start EPRIS first and decided to build that because exactly the future of warfare seemed very clearly to be heading towards drone warfare. And it's just not sustainable to fire missiles at drones, right? You're spending a million dollars or $100,000 to shoot down something that costs a lot less than that. So you need a one-to-many effect.

And we decided to start EPRIS first and decided to build that because exactly the future of warfare seemed very clearly to be heading towards drone warfare. And it's just not sustainable to fire missiles at drones, right? You're spending a million dollars or $100,000 to shoot down something that costs a lot less than that. So you need a one-to-many effect.

You need to be able to shoot cones of energy. And the thing we realized...

You need to be able to shoot cones of energy. And the thing we realized...

You need to be able to shoot cones of energy. And the thing we realized...

really with the help of some really smart people like Beau and Nathan, is that it turns out that the chips in Silicon Valley had gotten to be so powerful and so fast that they can help you control power on very small time scales and get the power to hit the emitter and then fire way farther than anything anyone else was doing. And so the emitter was called gallium nitride.

really with the help of some really smart people like Beau and Nathan, is that it turns out that the chips in Silicon Valley had gotten to be so powerful and so fast that they can help you control power on very small time scales and get the power to hit the emitter and then fire way farther than anything anyone else was doing. And so the emitter was called gallium nitride.

really with the help of some really smart people like Beau and Nathan, is that it turns out that the chips in Silicon Valley had gotten to be so powerful and so fast that they can help you control power on very small time scales and get the power to hit the emitter and then fire way farther than anything anyone else was doing. And so the emitter was called gallium nitride.