Palmer Luckey on Elon Musk and John Carmack, selling Oculus for $2B and starting defense tech company Anduril

Aarthi and Sriram's Good Time Show
✓

Claim

Podcast Notes Key Takeaways Virtual Reality (VR) is the final platform because the only step after VR is mind-melding into the Borg; fully-formed VR makes technologies like phones, televisions, and desktop PCs obsoletePalmer Luckey started a national security company because he thought it was the most important problem that he could work on, and one that his peers were not working onBig Tech companies were refusing to work with the military because they were beholden to the US’s strategic adversariesThere is a vocal minority in tech who are anti-military, and the tech executives at these companies use this vocal minority as a smoke-screen reason to not do meaningful work with the US military when in reality the executives are just trying to appease China Most defense companies operate on a cost-plus basis: they are paid for time and materials, and then a fixed percentage of profit on top Cost-plus contracts warp incentives; defense contractors can make more money by taking longer, designing a more expensive system, and running over on costs because the percentage they make on top is just a percentage of those costsAnduril uses its own money to build the products it sells to the US military and its alliesMany countries “Stand with Ukraine” and “Reject Russian Violence” while simultaneously giving Russia billions of dollars to fund its war machine in exchange for oil and natural gasThey stand with Ukraine up until the point it inconveniences themThe best time to wave the magic wand to resolve the Russia-Ukraine conflict was years or decades agoPalmer Luckey believes China is more likely to launch a blockade around Taiwan than a full-scale invasion The worst-case scenario for the United States is the CCP gains control over Taiwan’s semiconductor industry and only allows semiconductors to be sent to ChinaPalmer Luckey believes that the next-generation category of power projection technologies (AI, hypersonics, etc.) will make the traditional category (aircraft carriers, Top Gun stuff) obsolete There is a cultural fetishization of being “the founder”, that is healthy in some ways, but it downplays the importance of other roles at startups like the chief technical officer, lead hardware engineer, etc.Do not start a technology company if you really love technology and programming 

Read the full notes @ podcastnotes.org



In this episode, Aarthi and Sriram talked to Palmer Luckey, the founder of Oculus and now the founder and CEO of Anduril. We talked about Palmer's unique childhood, how he started Oculus and essentially made re-ignited the VR movement, sold to Meta, got fired, and then went on to start another challenging company called Anduril which focuses on building defense technology. We talked about Palmer's recent trip to Ukraine, the current state of the Ukraine/Russia, China/Taiwan and the threat of nuclear war. We also talked about John Carmack, Elon Musk, dealing with haters, working on hard problems and what drives incredibly productive people and his advice for founders.