Trae Stephens, Executive Chairman of Anduril Industries and Partner at Founders Fund, addresses anti-defense and pacifist pushback against defense technology.
“Pacifism as an idea is only possible inside of a governing system with a monopoly on violence. Like, you can't be a pacifist without a government monopoly on violence. That's just, like, not possible for humanity.”
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More from Trae Stephens
Insight
Stephens: AI and autonomous defense fulfill Just War Theory by maximizing precision
“The goal is take humans out of dull, dirty, dangerous jobs so we're not putting our, you know, men and women, brothers and sisters, in horribly dangerous situations and become as accurate and precise as possible. And that's really what Just War Theory is all a…”
Trae StephensDec 15, 2025▶ 18:49Inside Anduril: Exclusive HQ Tour w/ Palmer Luckey, Brian Schimpf, Matt Grimm & Trae Stephens · Sourcery with Molly O'Shea
Opinion
Stephens: DoD operated like a centrally planned economy for over 30 years
“We think it's really great to have more companies in the space that are, ah, you know, moving away from kind of the semi-communist, centrally planned economy way that the department has been doing business for really the last 30 plus years.”
Trae StephensDec 18, 2025▶ 6:28Trae Stephens on Anduril’s Origin, Peter Thiel, & Palantir DNA · Sourcery with Molly O'Shea
Insight
Stephens: Pacifism requires a governing system with a monopoly on violence
“Pacifism as an idea is only possible inside of a governing system with a monopoly on violence. Like, you can't be a pacifist without a government monopoly on violence.”
Trae StephensDec 15, 2025▶ 19:39Inside Anduril: Exclusive HQ Tour w/ Palmer Luckey, Brian Schimpf, Matt Grimm & Trae Stephens · Sourcery with Molly O'Shea
Opinion
Stephens: US cannot easily reshore critical components despite labor parity
“Even if there was complete labor cost parity, we still don't have the ability
To just magically reshore a lot of these critical components that are going to be important to the next 50 or a hundred years.”
Trae StephensDec 18, 2025▶ 9:41Trae Stephens on Anduril’s Origin, Peter Thiel, & Palantir DNA · Sourcery with Molly O'Shea
Insight
Stephens: Defense primes ignore startups until market share is threatened
“I think like broadly across the defense industry this is a pattern that you saw happen with both Palantir and SpaceX as well, is that the big players, the primes, they don't really pay attention at all until their lunch is being eaten. And then the moment they…”
Trae StephensDec 18, 2025▶ 14:24Trae Stephens on Anduril’s Origin, Peter Thiel, & Palantir DNA · Sourcery with Molly O'Shea
Opinion
Stephens: Massive advisory boards of retired military generals never work for defense companies
“There's a long history in Companies that are doing business with the department where they have these massive advisory boards of retired generals and things like that, and it was just clear that that's never worked, and so that was never really part of our str…”
Trae StephensDec 18, 2025▶ 18:04Trae Stephens on Anduril’s Origin, Peter Thiel, & Palantir DNA · Sourcery with Molly O'Shea
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