Palmer Luckey
Founder, Anduril Industries. On 8 shows, 9 appearances, plus 3 compilation re-airs not counted. The Shows tab opens the full record on each.
founderexecutiveengineer@palmerluckey ↗palmerluckey.com ↗Wikipedia ↗
Palmer Luckey is the founder of defense technology company Anduril Industries. He previously founded Oculus VR and designed the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset before the company was acquired by Facebook.
8shows
9appearances
221statements
31resolved
17supported
5contradicted
55%fully supported
619said about them ↓ Everything Palmer Luckey said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
Palmer Luckey argues people should biologically have children in their teens
“Kids should be having kids when they're in their teens. That's when they're supposed to have them. And you could argue that maybe there's a reason to stretch it out a little bit, but if we're just talking about Physical ability and depth of well of energy. You…”
Luckey: U.S. Suffers Severe Disadvantages in Almost All Simulated China War Games
“And the result of this is that today, in almost every war game that the United States simulates against China or their proxies, the United States, ah, if we don't lose, certainly end up in a very, very bad situation.”
Luckey: Apple agreed to invest $275 billion in China to stay independent
“Apple's got 95% of their manufacturing in China. They agreed to invest. They've invested hundreds of billions of dollars in manufacturing capacity there. They've agreed to invest a further two hundred and seventy five billion dollars in Chinese manufacturing i…”
US military lags behind China's PLA in implementing artificial intelligence
“The US military is well behind the Chinese People's Liberation Army in the implementation of artificial intelligence.”
Tech firms use anti-military employees as cover for Chinese market access
“There's a lot of companies in Silicon Valley and elsewhere who look at those employees who are ideologically opposed to working with the military and they use them as a smokescreen Pretending that it's principled opposition that drives their decision. When in …”
Erebor Bank preemptively partners with US intelligence without waiting for court orders
“For example, one of the things that we're doing is rather than working with the intelligence community only under court order to kind of go and, you know, respond to when they think there's crime going on on the platform, we're preemptively going out there and…”
Erebor Bank will strictly follow US law and ignore foreign legal rulings
“We're saying, you know what, we're an American company, we're an American bank that supports American companies. And we will comply with US law, but we will not comply with spurious rulings from people who have no real jurisdiction or authority over us.”
An Oculus executive secretly intercepted Luckey's invitation to ring the NYSE bell
“Back in the Oculus days, when we sold the company to Meta, one of the first things that happened was New York Stock Exchange emailed our contact info, email, and they asked if I would come and ring the bell of the New York Stock Exchange.
Sounds pretty cool, r…”
Luckey: UAPs likely originate from the distant past, not future
“My current working theory is that they come from the past. So. Interesting. Ok. Coming from the future is too hard. The physics just don't seem to work out.”
Palmer Luckey says starting high-risk startups after having children is irresponsible
“Once you have a family, you have a sort of fiduciary duty to your family to maximize their quality of life. There's no life hack that says that you're allowed to degrade the quality of your child's childhood because daddy wanted to have that grind set mindset,…”
Microsoft's $22B Army augmented reality contract vehicle has moved to Anduril
“Who would have bet that eight years later, that Microsoft contract, that twenty-two billion dollar contract vehicle for the architecture of the Army's AR future would move over to Anduril, that we would be launching something like Eagle Eye”
Luckey: Magic Leap botched launches and over-promised on display technology
“They basically botched their hardware launch, they botched their software launch, but most importantly, they over-promised. I think Magic Leap was at its best when they were non-specifically hyping themselves up, but then when they started to say, we're buildi…”
Luckey: Optically transparent AR is a dead end in the long run
“Optically transparent AR is a path that has been so widely explored, I think it's a dead end, it's a great hack in the near term, because it gives you Real world fidelity in terms of focus and convergence and resolution of the real world. But I think it's a de…”
Luckey: Stronger US deterrence would have changed Ukraine, Taiwan, and Hong Kong
“And if we had been in a better place, not just the United States, but our partners, I think that things would, I think things would be very different in Ukraine. They would be very different in Taiwan. Maybe they'd even be different in Hong Kong.”
Luckey: Humanity should actively biologically uplift other animal species into sentience
“Are we playing God with AI? Maybe a little bit but I actually wish we were playing God more. I wish we were just straight up, you know, hauling other species up into sentience. Let's, like, humans have done pretty well. Let's bring some other guys along for th…”
Luckey: John Deere Tractors Have More AI Than Any Fielded DOD System
“There's more AI in a John Deere tractor than there is in any system that the U.S. DOD is fielding.”
Luckey: Silicon Valley execs used anti-defense protests to mask China dependence
“I could give a whole talk on how the executives of Silicon Valley used the vocal minority of their rank and file as a smoke screen for their dependence on China, but that's a different talk for a different day.”
Luckey: US Engineers Must Choose Defense Over Ad Optimization and Photo Filters
“Tens of thousands of engineers across our entire country that are not working on defense currently are going to have to ask themselves if there are more important things in their careers than building photo filters or doing ad optimization.”
Luckey: Private prison companies are incentivized to maximize nonviolent recidivism
“Those companies have a strong incentive to lobby for and perpetuate laws that
Incarcerate people for the longest period of time for the least serious crime.
In other words, they don't want murderers and terrorists.
They want nonviolent drug offenders who will …”
Luckey: The New York Times published a fabricated quote of mine
“The New York times posted a quote for me that I literally never said. And I told them like, Hey, you said that I said this, I never said that. They said, well, it's more or less what you said. We don't think the meeting is different.”
Luckey: The odds of a tactical nuclear weapon being used are high
“And so for that reason, I think this is a little contrarian and not everyone agrees, but I think that the odds of a tactical nuclear weapon are very high. It will not be used on the United States. It will not be used on a NATO ally. It'll probably be a tactica…”
Critics like Calacanis only changed their tune after Anduril became successful
“And Jason, like many influential people, some of them even in this room, who have treated me like shit for years, suddenly changed their tune as soon as Andrew was on the upswing.”
Media commentators like Jason Calacanis caused Luckey's firing from Oculus
“Jason and the people like him are the reason I was fired from my, from Oculus, my own company.”
The other half of the tape: Palmer Luckey's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 572 times in 186 episodes across the shows. 47 statements on the record name them. every mention, with the transcript →
Who brings them up most John Coogan 70Jason Calacanis 57Jordi Hays 39Sam Parr 34Molly O'Shea 28Harry Stebbings 28Shaan Puri 21Kyle Harrison 17
Statements about Palmer Luckey, by other people (47)
Andreessen: a16z passed on Anduril Series A out of political fear
“The most straightforward example is the deal we didn't do, we should have done, is the Andrewle Series A right, which was like, which was just, like, sort of obvious that it was gonna be special, and, you know, Palmer, we had worked with Palmer at Oculus, and …”
Singerman says no single Anduril founder could have built the company alone
“The Andurl founding team are all so complimentary to each other and different, but respect each other so much and are good in different ways that Not any one of them, not any one of the four of them could have, like, pulled this off, but I do think that the co…”
Thompson: Private AI Labs Imposing Unilateral Limits Invites Severe State Backlash
“Unilaterally imposing restrictions, even if those restrictions are good, isn't just an issue as far as who rules us, the democracy issue, that sort of Palmer Luckey, I think very eloquently raised. It's inviting Very bad outcomes for those asserting that in ge…”
Gil: Parker Conrad and Palmer Luckey were unfairly thrown under the bus
“Palmer Luckey is another one where I backed Andrew in the very first round, and he was controversial given what happened at Meta early on with him. I think in both cases, they basically got thrown under the bus in one form or another.”
In 2017, Jason Calacanis called Palmer Luckey an idiot and a troll
“But this case, Palmer Luckey's just an idiot and a troll.”
Palmer Luckey is one of history's greatest tech innovators
“Palmer is just one of the greatest technology innovators in history, period.”
Andreessen: Musk, Karp, Luckey, and Huang are today's great communicators
“If you watch what Palmer Luckey does, or if you watch what, you know, Alex Karp does, or if you watch what Elon does, or if you watch what any of the great communicators do, like, that's what they're doing. You know, I'd say put Jensen in the, in that rank, yo…”
Meta and Anduril partner to develop military AR/VR hardware
“Luckey's defense company Andrel and Meta said Thursday that they will together build a line of new rugged helmets, glasses, and other wearables that provide a virtual reality or augmented reality experience.”
Brose: Defense companies shouldn't rely on government for technical solutions
“I will always be interested in the government's definition of its problems but I'm not going to necessarily believe that they know what the right solution to that problem is.”
Hays: Jason Calacanis is a bully who ducks charity fight challenges
“Yeah, but he, you know, he is a bully. And it's interesting that as soon as the bully is actually getting invited, saying, step into the ring. He's saying, oh, I, you know, it's, I don't want to do this.”
Puri: Palmer Luckey made defense tech culturally attractive to Silicon Valley
“And then Palmer Luckey made defense cool.”
Harrison: Anduril is actively working on subterranean warfare technology
“Like several people are working on that, including Anduril, much to the surprise, I don't know if you have heard this story, but there was a story of Palmer talking about subterranean warfare, and the marketing person at Anduril was there, it was like, to the …”
Steckman: Palmer Luckey's brand is uniquely valuable for establishing trust in defense
“I do. Unequivocally. In defense, anything highly regulated, right? Every single thing is a headwind. And so the main thing you do to cut through headwind is you try and establish trust relationships with people who matter. I think Palmer is an N of one when it…”
Meyer: Palmer Luckey has no direct reports at Anduril
“Palmer Luckey is one of the founders of Anderil. Most people are under the impression that Palmer is actually the CEO of Anderil. In fact, it's Brian. And everyone at Onderell is emphatic that Brian is the decision maker, is the executive. We learned in that p…”
Kantrowitz: Zuckerberg needed Palmer Luckey more than Luckey needed him
“I think he needed Palmer more than Palmer needed him.”
Sankar: Defense Startups Are Investing Private R&D Capital Over Cost-Plus Contracts
“You now have a Palmer Luckey. You now have hundreds of founders and entrepreneurs that are back on the playing field with wildly heterodox ideas that are not just being yes men to what the program offices are asking for, but actually investing their own capita…”
Arnott: Anduril's square underwater vehicles fly faster and more stably
“The guys did the numbers and interestingly for what we're doing, it's actually faster. So given we've got the software magic to fly these things, It actually flies more stable and quicker for the application that we want.”
Cotton: Pentagon over-customizes solutions instead of buying commercial off-the-shelf tech
“At the Pentagon, as you know, Joe, there's always the tendency to make a customized bespoke solution for every problem they have. And if you're building a stealth bomber, okay, well, you can't just go out and find a company that's building stealth bombers for …”
Hays: Social media posters have replaced traditional media as domain experts
“The posters are the experts now.”
Coogan: Meta exec apologies to Palmer Luckey reflect genuine regret, not expediency
“I think it's, it is impressive, mostly because they didn't need to do this. Like, Palmer is not in charge of Meta. Meta is bigger than Anderl, and sure, they might want to align a little bit more with the new administration, but I do think that there's a genui…”
Hays: Anduril ranks profitability low to focus on critical product lines
“Anduril is focused on building a bunch of really critical, important product lines and profitability is maybe like number 12 on their list of priorities. So if Palmer cared about profits right now and the team more broadly cared, then I'm sure they would be ab…”
Coogan: Palmer Luckey says government won't let Anduril monopolize defense tech
“Palmer told me that directly. He said, like, the government will not allow us to be a complete monopoly.”
Lonsdale: Losing five to ten key tech leaders would cause national decline
“I think if you take away maybe five or 10 of the most important tech people, a lot of these really bad things do happen.”
Every mention by year
tap a year for its mentions
TBPN 207
All-In 92
Sourcery 83
My First Million 67
20VC 47
the a16z Podcast 45
American Optimist 17
Big Technology 14
2026 109 mentions in 38 episodes 3 per episode
- 300 Pages on Anduril: Inside Modern Warfare · Sourcery with Molly O'Shea
- Brian Singerman: "If SpaceX Didn't Work, Founders Fund Wouldn't Exist" · Sourcery with Molly O'Shea
- The AI chip squeeze, Dirty Soda mania, OCC approves Palmer Luckey’s Erebor | Diet TBPN
- Siri needs an App, OpenAI Acquires health startup Torch, Claude Cowork reactions | Diet TBPN
- "Dig Through Your Couches. SpaceX Needs It." Cyan Banister on Luke Nosek's Pitch · Sourcery with Molly O'Shea
- Dylan Field on the “Permanent Underclass of Zero Taste” · Sourcery with Molly O'Shea
- The Media Game Has Changed
- Microsoft Takes on Frontier AI with Project Solara, OpenClaw, and More at Build 2026 | Diet TBPN
- 30 more episodes that year, every mention in 2026 →
2025 214 mentions in 75 episodes 3 per episode
- He's Making REAL LIFE Super Heroes! (Palmer Lucky)
- Mass AI-Driven Unemployment, NVIDIA Surges, CEOs' AI Avatars Unleashed
- The OCEAN Is the Next BATTLEFIELD | Shane Arnott on TBPN April 7th
- Full Anduril R&D Tour: Matt Grimm, Co-Founder & COO · Sourcery with Molly O'Shea
- 7 Wild Business Ideas for this $3 Trillion Dollar Frontier
- Weekly Recap: Casey Neistat, OpenAI Cracks Math, The Future of ChatGPT, Apple x F1, Intel Layoffs
- CASEY NEISTAT on Why Analog Is The Future
- Can This Man Save Los Angeles? (Rick Caruso)
- 67 more episodes that year, every mention in 2025 →
2024 107 mentions in 37 episodes 3 per episode
- How BILLIONAIRES dress for XMAS (ep17)
- The Secret Billionaire Party (ep6)
- Inside Facebooks Secret "Red Book" (ep18)
- Election Betting Gone WRONG (ep15)
- The All-In Holiday Spectacular
- Who's Getting Rich Off Ozempic? (e12)
- The China Threat: Silicon Valley and the Great Uncoupling
- How to Spend a Trillion Dollars Fast (ep13)
- 29 more episodes that year, every mention in 2024 →
2023 34 mentions in 9 episodes 4 per episode
- The 2023 Milly Awards (#531)
- Polarizing Talent: Navigating 2023's Landscape
- E149: Hamas terror attacks in Israel: fallout, reaction, next steps
- If I Had To Make $1 Billion... Here’s The Business I Would Start
- E129: Sam Altman plays chess with regulators, AI's "nuclear" potential, big pharma bundling & more
- E137: Inflation cools, market rips, Ripple/MSFT beat regulators, NATO summit, cocktails of youth
- AI & The Future of Modern Warfare
- E148: McCarthy ousted, border chaos, Cruise's robotaxi "accident" & more
- 1 more episode that year, every mention in 2023 →
2022 72 mentions in 17 episodes 4 per episode
- E83: Market slide continues, and how to address Uvalde
- Kevin Rose: His $100M/Year Watch Blog, Money From Digg.com, & Web3 Business (#382)
- E65: VC markup dynamics, Russia/US tensions over Ukraine, Altos Labs raises $3B, Stripe mafia & more
- The 2022 Milly Awards (#401)
- #AIS: Pear VC’s Mar Hershenson on making successful founders
- #AIS: Tim Urban on political discourse + Keith Rabois on early-stage investing in 2022
- E108: Doxing debate, Nuclear fusion breakthrough, state of the markets & more
- How I Sold My Company To PayPal For $800 Million | Bryan Johnson (#388)
- 9 more episodes that year, every mention in 2022 →
2021 23 mentions in 3 episodes 8 per episode
- 20VC: The Anduril Memo: Founders Fund's Brian Singerman on What Makes Palmer Luckey One of the Greatest Innovators in History, Why It Is BS The DOD Do Not Want To Work With Silicon Valley & Why in Venture You Have To Play A Different Game to the Hedge Fun
- 12 Startups Where Stock Grants Can Make You a Millionaire | My First Million #220
- E53: Wealth tax, inflation as a capital allocator, big tech earnings, paternity leave & more
- every mention in 2021, scene by scene →
2020 5 mentions in 2 episodes 3 per episode
- 20VC: What Is Founder Narrative Fit and How to Detect and Invest In It, How To Avoid Consensus Thinking When Investing, Price Sensititivity; When To Pay Up vs Stay Disciplined & From New York Times To General Catalyst; Why Venture and Journalism are Not S
- 20VC: The 4 Phases of Effective Decision-Making, The No 1 Quality of Good Decisions, How To Approach Effective OKR Setting, & How To Optimise and Improve Your Operating Cadence with Shishir Mehrotra, Founder & CEO @ Coda
- every mention in 2020, scene by scene →
2019 3 mentions in 3 episodes 1 per episode
2016 5 mentions in 2 episodes 3 per episode
- 20VC: Spark's Nabeel Hyatt on Investing in Oculus and Cruise & What It Takes To Invest Ahead Of The Curve
- 20VC: Why You Have To Be A Good Long Term Actor To Succeed in VC & How Owning An Esports Team Could Be A $Bn Outcome with Clinton Foy, General Partner @ Crosscut Ventures
- every mention in 2016, scene by scene →
One line per show, most statements first. The link opens Palmer's full record on that show: the calibration, argument clarity, speaking style and every statement made there.
| Show | Role there | Eps | Statements | Record | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| BIG TECHNOLOGYLEDGER | Founder, Anduril Industries | 1 | 43 | 50% 1/2 | full record on Big Technology → |
| TBPNLEDGER | Founder, Anduril Industries | 2 | 40 | 100% 2/2 | full record on TBPN → |
| MY FIRST MILLIONLEDGER | Founder, Anduril Industries | 1 | 29 | 40% 2/5 | full record on My First Million → |
| SOURCERYLEDGER | Founder, Anduril Industries | 2 | 27 | 50% 4/8 | full record on Sourcery → |
| AMERICAN OPTIMISTLEDGER | Founder, Anduril Industries | 1 | 23 | 57% 4/7 | full record on American Optimist → |
| 20VCLEDGER | Founder, Anduril Industries | 1 | 19 | 50% 2/4 | full record on 20VC → |
| ALL-INLEDGER | Founder, Anduril Industries | 1 +2 | 20 | 67% 2/3 | full record on All-In → |
| a16zLEDGER | Founder, Anduril Industries | 0 +1 | 20 | — | full record on the a16z Podcast → |