Inside Anduril: Exclusive HQ Tour w/ Palmer Luckey, Brian Schimpf, Matt Grimm & Trae Stephens

Tour of Anduril's 200,000 sq ft Building A with 50-foot ceilings, housing machine shops, composites labs, and development test environments. Discussion of how modern defense requires speed and production scale over decades-long technological edge, with focus on affordable, rapidly adaptable autonomous systems that can be produced at scale.

• •Building A enables rapid prototyping and testing to find fractures and ship products faster
• •Defense strategy shifting from decades-long tech edge to rapid innovation and affordable production at scale
• •Ukraine conflict demonstrates importance of systems that can be produced quickly and adapted via software
• •New defense companies must focus on speed, affordability, and scale or face extinction
• •Balance needed between new autonomous capabilities and traditional platforms like aircraft carriers

Breakdown of the nearly trillion-dollar defense budget showing over half goes to personnel, facilities, and military construction rather than procurement. Procurement as percentage of GDP is at historic lows, with most spending on sustaining legacy systems rather than new technology development.

• •More than 50% of defense budget goes to personnel costs and facilities, not new technology
• •Sustaining legacy technology costs significantly more than procurement of new systems
• •Procurement budget as percentage of GDP is at historic lows
• •Potential for 2x efficiency gains by changing the mix of systems being procured
• •Transition period will cost more as old systems cycle out and new ones come online

Detailed explanation of Anduril's international expansion model using Australia's Ghost Shark autonomous submarine program. Countries worldwide are increasing defense spending due to geopolitical instability, US production backlogs (15-year wait for Patriot systems), and desire for local manufacturing and assured supply.

• •Australia faced decade-long gap after canceling French submarines, waiting until 2035 for US nuclear subs
• •Ghost Shark program: 50/50 development split, contract signed in months, first production unit delivered 30 days after production contract
• •Built Australian engineering team and production facility for local manufacturing
• •Europe will spend 4x US procurement budget over next 5 years - massive opportunity
• •Model replicates across allies: local engineering, local production, while maintaining US alliance
• •Countries want economic benefit, assured supply, and military shaped for regional challenges

Trae Stephens discusses opening Arsenal 1, a 5 million sq ft factory campus in Ohio for autonomous fighter production. Addresses how US manufacturing atrophied over 30 years of offshoring to China, and why 'the factory is the weapon' - without production capacity at scale, you have no weapons.

• •Arsenal 1: 5M sq ft campus in Ohio opening Q1 for collaborative combat aircraft production
• •US lost manufacturing capacity and tooling know-how to China over 30 years
• •Even with labor cost parity, US lacks ability to produce critical components at scale
• •Multiple facilities across US: shipyards, loitering munition assembly in Atlanta, Costa Mesa HQ
• •Ohio chosen for historical significance: birthplace of aviation, near GE Aircraft engine production
• •Goal: build tens or hundreds of thousands of units, not just hundreds

Discussion of how Just War Theory (developed by Saint Augustine 1000+ years ago) guides Anduril's ethical framework. Explains the historical arc from increasing lethality to precision, and how AI/autonomy continues the trend toward more accurate, discriminate warfare while removing humans from dangerous situations.

• •Just War Theory principles: discrimination, just cause, proportionality guide development decisions
• •Historical arc: weapons lethality peaked with atomic bomb in 1945, then reversed toward precision
• •Modern counterterrorism: shooting non-explosive missiles through windows to avoid collateral damage
• •Goal: remove humans from 'dull, dirty, dangerous' jobs while maximizing accuracy and precision
• •Autonomy enables better adherence to Just War principles than human-operated systems
• •Pacifism only possible within government monopoly on violence - someone must provide security

Trae Stephens on unexpected cultural shifts in Gen Z, including rising church attendance with more men than women attending for first time in modern history. Discusses transition from frivolous pursuits to meaningful work and the importance of 'good questing.'

• •Gen Z showing rising church attendance, with more men than women for first time ever
• •Cultural shift from 'monkey JPEGs and AI slop' to serious, meaningful pursuits
• •Hard times create serious people - current moment requires stepping into important quests
• •Defense work becoming culturally acceptable and even cool in Silicon Valley after being pariah status in 2017
• •Opportunity for people to engage in work that matters beyond trivial pursuits

Palmer Luckey reveals the F-Q-44 Fury, first autonomous fighter procured by US Air Force, developed from contract signing to first flight in 556 days - fastest fighter development since Korean War. Anduril beat Boeing, Northrop Grumman, and Lockheed Martin in competition.

• •Contract to first flight in 556 days - fastest new fighter program since Korean War
• •Beat Boeing, Northrop Grumman, and Lockheed Martin in Air Force competition
• •AI-powered fighter flies alongside manned F-35s, extending weapons and sensors forward
• •Enables risk-taking and 'sacrificing pawns' without ethical problems of human casualties
• •Defense product company model: invest own money, sell finished products vs. contracted work
• •Better incentives: make more money moving faster and getting things right first time

Palmer demonstrates Anduril's optical camouflage system from 2019-2020 that makes Ghost drone invisible to human eye by projecting calculated luminance values. Explains why it's not deployed: easily defeated by thermal, infrared, LiDAR, and radar - only useful against adversaries without technology.

• •Projection system calculates luminance/color to match background (sky, mountains, clouds)
• •Successfully demonstrated on Ghost helicopter drone in 2019-2020 tests
• •Human eyes have poor resolution - relatively easy to fool at operational ranges
• •Not deployed because easily detected by thermal, infrared, LiDAR, radar systems
• •Only useful against low-tech adversaries - US focuses on Russia, China, Iran with advanced sensors
• •Optical camouflage can actually make platforms easier to detect with synthetic systems

Palmer Luckey's working theory on unidentified aerial phenomena: they come from Earth's distant past rather than the future or distant space. Explains physics of time travel - can go forward easily via gravity distortion, but not backward - making past origin more probable than future.

• •Physics allows forward time travel via strong gravity distortion, but not backward travel
• •Probabilistically more likely UAPs come from billions of years of past than single present moment
• •Could be remnants of advanced civilizations from billion years ago that we don't know about
• •Invisibility in multiple spectrums may indicate non-interaction with physical reality as we understand it
• •Not active cloaking but potentially the nature of the matter itself
• •Given long tail of time before now vs. impossibility of coming from future, past origin most likely

Matt Grimm tours Anduril's development test facilities and Ghost Shark autonomous submarine. Shows saltwater spray chambers, drop testing, vibration tables, battery cycling, and anechoic chambers for jamming resistance. Demonstrates Menace distributed command and control platform and soldier-borne compute systems.

• •Ghost Shark: fully autonomous submarine, no humans on board or remote control, mission-programmed
• •Designed in Sydney, manufactured in 75K sq ft Australian facility producing dozens per year
• •Expanding to Quonset, Rhode Island facility for US market production
• •Dev test area designed to break products: saltwater, temperature cycling, vibration, over/under voltage
• •Anechoic chamber tests jamming resistance and electromagnetic compatibility
• •Menace platform: distributed AI compute nodes for soldiers in field, mobile and rack-mounted variants
• •Partnership with Palantir on Titan program bringing their software to Anduril hardware
• •IVAS/SBMC program: soldier-borne compute via wrist/head-mounted AR systems creating forward-deployed lattice network