Opinion
Wealthy founders retiring into passive angel investing is a moral failure
“And they've taken, like, the route of Big Head in Silicon Valley, the HBO show, where they're just kind of, like, resting, investing, just kind of chilling out, making lifestyle decisions while writing angel checks. And that feels like a real moral failure of …”
Opinion
OnlyFans, online gambling, and dating apps harm society despite feeling good
“Only fans you know, gambling, I think falls in the feels good is bad camp. This is like society has somehow managed to convince ourselves that there's some like freedom of expression or something like that that should be protected. And I agree, like freedom of…”
Opinion
Authoritarian regimes hold a massive advantage by conscripting elite engineering talent
“They have a massive advantage against democratic governments because they can mandatorily conscript their most talented people into working on the society on society's greatest problems.”
Disclosure
Anduril targets tech-heavy, sales-poor defense startups for M&A acquisitions
“I won't say publicly on the Technology Bros podcast that we want cool technology companies to fail because they're bad at business development. But those do present interesting opportunities for us from an M&A perspective, for sure.”
Opinion
Microsoft is much more willing to support US defense than other tech giants
“They, as you said, they have been much more willing than the other big tech companies to think of themselves as an American company, which is incredibly important and also be willing to work with the government on programs where, you know, there's potentially …”
Insight
Two years of mandatory civil service would reduce America's ideological tribalism
“To get our best and brightest kind of in the way that Israel does to do two years of civil service coming out of high school. I think that would do a couple of things. First, it would actually, like, give us the people that we need to execute on national prior…”
Opinion
Trae Stephens claims Flock Safety is the next Axon in law enforcement
“I think this is like kind of a once in a generation opportunity to build you know kind of a BMF in the law enforcement space, a la axon which is the company formerly named taser.”
Insight
Selling to the government is harder than building the actual product
“I would actually argue that it's harder to sell to the government than it is to build a product that's relevant to the government.”
Insight
Legacy defense contractors wait for contracts and bill by the hour
“The old defense industry model is like, wait for the contract and then build by the hour. Basically, that's how it works.”
Opinion
Humanoid robotics mega-rounds risk repeating the self-driving car investment bust
“Going out and raising these mega rounds at massive prices. It kind of reminds me of the self driving car phenomenon where you had these companies that understandably were capital intensive and it was like, man, if it works, it's going to be great. Everybody's …”
Insight
Trae Stephens: Local GovTech sales are as hard as federal with less upside
“Selling to local governments is incredibly difficult. I think it's basically just as hard as selling to federal government and except the upside is Significantly less.”
Disclosure
Founders Fund requires production usage before writing concentrated GovTech checks
“Now, what that means for founders fund, practically speaking, and gov tech is that we tend to want to write more concentrated checks. Once you see production usage of the technology working because it demonstrates that the founder has figured out how to get th…”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Washington DC now views Anduril as an established defense contractor
“People in D. C. C. S. You know, a real company, not a startup anymore. And I think that that just gives us additional leverage to go and pick up bigger and bigger contracts over time.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
European defense procurement will remain highly fragmented along nationalistic lines
“The more made in America we become, the more made in national prosperity the European nations will become. And I think due to the nature of Europe, that will end up being pretty fragmented. The French government's going to want to Buy from French companies. Th…”
Insight
Consensus feel-good startup sectors like healthcare ultimately become hyper-competitive
“Everyone agrees that these things are good. But what that means is that the categories end up being hyper competitive. It's like so consensus. There's so many companies being built.”
Disclosure
Anduril is building an 800,000-square-foot defense manufacturing factory near Columbus
“Arsenal exists. Site selection is over. We're building a factory just south of Columbus, Ohio. The first, call it, 800,000 square feet is already kind of, you know, there and ready for us to construct into.”
Trae Stephens