In the Ops Room with Palmer Luckey

Mark Pesce - The Next Billion Seconds ✓ Claimed Podcast Notes Key Takeaways The United States does not have a great history of exporting things to countries before conflicts happen “The big defense primes are not in the position to build the right things, partly because the government has created the wrong incentives for them to do so.” – Palmer Luckey“The point of high-end defense technology is not to win a war that has already started; it’s to deter that war from happening, to make the cost of engaging in that war so high that it never happens.” – Palmer Luckey “The real reason that these tech companies were not doing work with the United States military, or foreign allied militaries, was that they were afraid of upsetting China.” – Palmer Luckey Until Anduril became the third unicorn in 2019, there were only two unicorns in the defense industry since the Cold War: Palantir and SpaceXIt took billionaire-founders with previous success starting companies for venture capitalists to invest in the defense industry Russia’s invasion of Ukraine forced many venture capitalists to reconsider their assumptions about investing in defense tech Some countries are willing to do irrational things that disrupt their economic relationships with other countries; irrational wars and conflicts are prevalent throughout history “I think the odds of a direct, hot war between the U.S and China are very very low. I think the odds of a proxy conflict over minerals in South America, South Africa, or Southeast Asia are quite high.” – Palmer Luckey Anduril is the answer to the question: “What would a next-generation Lockheed Martin look like?”Without giving away Anduril’s entire roadmap, the future of defense will have a lot of autonomous things across air, land, sea, subsea, and space all working togetherPalmer is more concerned about evil people using very basic AI than extremely advanced AI taking over the world in a Skynet scenario The U.S. must be involved in the technology (nuclear, autonomous weapons, etc.) if it wants to lead and potentially regulate how those technologies are used in the rest of the world “I want to save taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars a year while we [Anduril] make tens of billions of dollars a year.” – Palmer Luckey Read the full notes @ podcastnotes.orgIn this live interview with Oculus and Anduril founder Palmer Luckey - joined by Anduril Chief Engineer Shane Arnott - we look at the future of defense, geopolitics, and Australia's future in a transformed Indo-Pacific region. Have we shifted toward a defense-driven future? For more information about this and all our other Next Billion Seconds content, please check out https://nextbillionseconds.com The 2023 season of The Next Billion Cars is proudly made possible by our sponsors GIO Insurance and BMW. GIO has spent nearly 100 years continually developing our products and services to meet our customer’s needs, with dedicated team members that spend time focused on research to ensure we understand emerging vehicle technologies. This knowledge is used within our organisation to shape future products and services so we can continue to ensure your insurance needs are covered. At GIO, we know insurance, so you know you’re covered. Visit GIO.com.au for more information. BMW i. Fully Electric.  It’s time to take a look at the definition of performance. True drivers will now see the world as not just fast or slow. New performance throws you back into your seat, squeezes every molecule and watt, and gets a thrill from giving back. Performance Redefined. Discover Performance Redefined The Next Billion Seconds with Mark Pesce is produced by Ampel. https://ampel.com.au Interested in sponsoring The Next Billion Seconds podcast? Email [email protected] to speak with the team at Ampel If you enjoyed this show, please leave a rating on Apple, Spotify or your podcast app. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.