Palmer Luckey's 'I Told You So' Tour: AI Weapons and Vindication
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What makes Palmer Luckey a unique figure in the tech industry?
On Bold Names, hosts Tim Higgins and Christopher Mims speak to CEOs and business leaders to take you inside the decisions being made in C-suite and beyond. Tim is here with me now. Tim, what makes Luckey such a unique voice in this moment?
He's one of the perhaps brightest examples of a new wave of entrepreneurs out there who, in a lot of ways, are abandoning what has made Silicon Valley so powerful, whether it's personal gadgets or ad tech and pouring themselves into super hard and sometimes controversial science and engineering. Lucky is working on weapons. AI weapons, drones, high-tech operating systems, kind of the stuff of sci-fi nightmares. And he is even more influential now because he thinks that his company can help the U.S. government become more efficient. And as you know, everything in D.C. right now is about becoming more efficient.
Thanks, Tim. Now let's hear what Lucky had to say in her interview for Bold Names.
Out of the Silicon Valley tech leaders now supporting President Trump, one you may not have heard of is Palmer Luckey, an eccentric entrepreneur who made his billions by selling his virtual reality company Oculus VR to Facebook, now Meta. Oculus laid the foundations of the tech behind Meta's popular Quest headsets. But it's Luckey's current venture in the world of weapons that gives him influence in the U.S. defense industry. Lucky isn't your typical defense contractor. He's got a mullet and a goatee, he sports Hawaiian shirts instead of business suits, and while his company, Andrel, is named after a sword in the Lord of the Rings, its business, designing and manufacturing high-tech weapons, is deadly serious. Drones, artificial intelligence, cutting-edge operating systems, the stuff of sci-fi armories coming to life.
How is Palmer Luckey influencing U.S. national security with technology?
The United States should not be the world police. We should be the world gun store. We need to stop sending our people overseas to die for other people's sovereignty. And we need to be willing to sell them the weapons they need to make themselves into prickly porcupines that nobody wants to step on. Nobody wants to bite. Nobody wants to take a bite of them. Anduril's latest deal is taking over a massive contract Microsoft had with the Army to create what's called the Integrated Visual Augmentation System, or IVAS. It's a virtual reality headset designed for the battlefield that could give soldiers direct information from sensors and control of unmanned weaponry. This brings Lucky full circle to how he got his start years earlier with Oculus VR.
What is the controversy surrounding Palmer Luckey's political support?
His relationship with Facebook didn't last long. His support of Trump's first presidential run in 2016 didn't go over well in Silicon Valley. He was ousted after a donation he made to an anti-Hillary Clinton group sparked backlash among his colleagues, though his boss at the time, Mark Zuckerberg, would later tell Congress his departure didn't have anything to do with politics. Now, Zuckerberg is among the tech moguls hanging around President Trump, and Lucky feels vindicated. I've been calling it the Palmer Lucky I Told You So Tour. All these people who said that we lived at the end of history, that new weapons were either evil at worst and irrelevant at best, have realized, no, actually, you do need to have a backstop to the threats that you make.
From The Wall Street Journal, I'm Tim Higgins. And I'm Christopher Mims. This is Bold Names, where you'll hear from the leaders of the bold-named companies featured in the pages of The Wall Street Journal...
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Chapters
7 chapters
1
What makes Palmer Luckey a unique figure in the tech industry?
0:37–2:26
2
How is Palmer Luckey influencing U.S. national security with technology?
2:26–3:09
3
What is the controversy surrounding Palmer Luckey's political support?
3:09–5:13
4
What role does Anduril play in military technology development?
5:13–8:43
5
How does Palmer Luckey view the future of augmented reality?
8:43–14:08
6
Why is Anduril investing in autonomous fighter jets?
14:08–21:49
7
How does Palmer Luckey approach U.S. market share in drone technology?
21:49–29:49
Speakers
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