This is the Interceptor.
It's the creation of Palmer Luckey,
who might be the world's
most unlikely weapons mogul.
He's the founder of a multibillion dollar,
virtual reality company.
He's also a polarizing
figure in Silicon Valley.
My name is Palmer Luckey, and
I'm the founder of Anduril.
I wanna build a big company.
I wanna build a company that's
worth billions of dollars.
I wanna become one of the
major defense contractors,
that's building technology for
the United States government.
And I'm proud to say that,
I'm happy to say that,
and I hope we get there.
At his previous company,
the virtual reality
headset maker, Oculus Rift,
Luckey had the idea to build
a futuristic consumer device,
combining low cost components
with sophisticated software.
He sold Oculus to Facebook
for about $2 billion in 2014.
Two years later,
just a month before the
2016 presidential election,
The Daily Beast reported
he'd given $10,000
to a group of Trump supporters,
to fund billboards
featuring insulting messages
about Hillary Clinton.
In 2017, Facebook announced that Luckey
was no longer an employee.
I was fired.
We can all be honest about it.
It became the rare HR decision
to make it into a congressional hearing.
CEO, have you ever made hiring
or firing decisions based
on political positions,
or what candidates they supported?
No
Why was Palmer Luckey fired?
That is a specific personnel matter
that seems like it would
be inappropriate to speak--
You just made a specific representation
that you didn't make decisions
based on political views.
Is that accurate?
Well, I can commit
that it was not because
of a political view.
Anduril has followed
Luckey's Oculus playbook,
using off-the-shelf components,
in an industry much more
suited to his politics.
Over the course of a few
months, earlier this year,
the company built a cheap
version of its drone,
made a smartphone video,
and started showing it to
people at the Pentagon.
It's a little crazy,
but I think that is definitely
the way that it's going.
I mean, all these other
systems, like, where they,
there are people who
propose shooting drones
out of the sky with a
laser, or with a missile,
or you know, that's not
really a good way to take out,
let's say, a hundred drones
that are attacking you from
all different directions.
The only thing that can take
out a swarm of fast drones,
is a bigger swarm of faster drones,
and that's exactly what we're building.
Here's some Interceptors.
This one has a experimental
parachute release mechanism.
So that the idea is, after
it runs into something,
if it really destroys it drive train,
rather than falling to the ground,
it can pop a parachute and
fall to the ground safely.
Pops this thing, pops open,
and there's the parachute.
I think that's one of the reasons
that our customers like us so much.
I mean, they're used to going
to people who have like,
here's this white paper.
Here's this idea that we have.
We want you to pay us by the hour,
so that we can research it,
and figure out if it makes sense.
And if it does, you'll pay
us by the hour to make it.
And then, if it doesn't, you'll
pay us until it does work.
And we're going to them and saying
"We do this ourselves,
we used our own money,
"we got it done in a matter
of weeks, and here it is."
Anduril has shipped
several hundred Interceptors
to military bases.
It also has contracts with
the US Customs and
Border Protection agency,
to provide surveillance equipment to use
at the border with Mexico.
Workers at other tech companies,
such as Google, Microsoft,
Amazon, and Palantir,
have all objected to doing similar work,
leading to protests by the
employees and activists.
Luckey insists that Anduril's
work isn't partisan.
There's a lot of people who,
I think, falsely conflate border security
with immigration policy.
And, I don't care what you
believe on immigration policy,
even if you want to have
totally open immigration.
Anyone can come into the United States
and instantly become a citizen.
You should still want to
have strong border security.
The company's surveillance technology
consists of large towers,
packed with sensors,
and small surveillance drones
that can be set up along
the border, or at military
bases, to guard the perimeter.
So, this is one of our sentry towers,
it is a totally autonomous,
solar powered infrastructure,
independent security tower.
So, by placing these
towers every few miles,
you can end up with a
nearly perfect picture
of everything that's going
on in a really large area.
And then that is very easy
for an operator to read.
These are being used right now by the DOD,
by the Department of Homeland Security,
along military bases, the border,
and a lot of other
critical infrastructure.
Anduril's future success relies largely
on the military's continued concern
that the US could lose
to China in an arms race
based on artificial intelligence.
Our technology is far behind
the consumer area in many places.
And we're also far behind our adversaries
in a lot of places.
People should be more
worried than they are,
about falling behind,
'cause it's not something
that's gonna happen someday.
It's already happened.
Critics say, technologists, like Luckey,
have an ethical duty to stay
out of the weapons business.
But neither the military,
nor Anduril's investors
share their concerns.
The company recently raised a
$120 million investment round,
valuing it at about $1 billion.
