Key Points
About a year and a half after that conversation, Luckey left Facebook, freeing him to pursue a defense company with Stephens, whose venture firm, Founders Fund, would become a major investor..
Startups have so far captured just a tiny fraction of the Pentagons weapons-buying budget. Venture-backed companies for the past several years have received only about $5 billion annually in Defense Department awards, or roughly 1% of annual Pentagon contract spending, according to data compiled by defense-software company Govini..
Luckey says hes dreamed of starting a defense company since he was 7 years old, inspired by the anime character Seto Kaiba from Yu-Gi-Oh," who developed virtual-reality tech for videogames, ran a weapons maker, and traveled in a dragon-shaped jet fighter..
The problem with Silicon Valleys attempts to field weapons in Ukraine is that startups had, for the most part, never deployed their technology into a war zone, said Andrey Liscovich, the head of the Ukraine Defense Fund, which raises money to help send drones and other equipment to Kyivs military forces..
Asked how Anduril would maintain its ability to plow money into innovation once it is subject to some of the same market forces that large defense companies face, Luckey points to the role of founders like himself, and Musk: big personalities with deep pockets and an iron grip on theircompanies..
