Christopher Mims
Appearances
WSJ What’s News
Palmer Luckey's 'I Told You So' Tour: AI Weapons and Vindication
We run out in two weeks. In a fight with China.
WSJ What’s News
Palmer Luckey's 'I Told You So' Tour: AI Weapons and Vindication
Okay, but and we have a new Secretary of Defense and Pete Hegseth, he recently said, I'm quoting here, we have some really fast moving newer contractors that are willing to work that have already put a lot of money into R&D that want to help us rapidly field these new systems that we're going to need for fights in the future.
WSJ What’s News
Palmer Luckey's 'I Told You So' Tour: AI Weapons and Vindication
Defense spending is, you know, at this point, given the push toward efficiency is zero sum game. That feels like he's talking about you, some of these other drone makers you just mentioned. I mean, do you see this as a good sign for Andrel, number one?
WSJ What’s News
Palmer Luckey's 'I Told You So' Tour: AI Weapons and Vindication
And number two, how can we realize the dream that you just articulated in a world where we're trying to shrink budgets, even the defense budget, it sounds like, or they're looking for efficiencies?
WSJ What’s News
Palmer Luckey's 'I Told You So' Tour: AI Weapons and Vindication
Do you think that means that Doge is going to go into the DoD like they have with other agencies? Oh, I don't think they'll have to.
WSJ What’s News
Palmer Luckey's 'I Told You So' Tour: AI Weapons and Vindication
Oh, so you think they'll let them in and just kind of immediately give them root?
WSJ What’s News
Palmer Luckey's 'I Told You So' Tour: AI Weapons and Vindication
Lucky sounds like he's on the same page as Elon Musk when it comes to cutting government spending and doing things differently. But how close are they? What's your last text message? Let me see. Let me check. What did I last say? Just ahead, more about that chat. And what Lucky says his Silicon Valley colleagues changing their views on Trump has in common with songstress Patti LaBelle.
WSJ What’s News
Palmer Luckey's 'I Told You So' Tour: AI Weapons and Vindication
Let me ask you a question about the so-called tech right, because mentioning Musk, I feel like y'all are sort of all members or honorary members. It does feel, especially in light of what you just said, like that is maybe a bigger tent in some ways than kind of other political subgroups in Silicon Valley have been in the past. I mean, do you agree with that?
WSJ What’s News
Palmer Luckey's 'I Told You So' Tour: AI Weapons and Vindication
Anduril's latest deal is taking over a massive contract Microsoft had with the Army to create what's called the Integrated Visual Augmentation System, or IVAS. It's a virtual reality headset designed for the battlefield that could give soldiers direct information from sensors and control of unmanned weaponry. This brings Lucky full circle to how he got his start years earlier with Oculus VR.
WSJ What’s News
Palmer Luckey's 'I Told You So' Tour: AI Weapons and Vindication
Do you think that there's kind of a loose camaraderie there that keeps it together?
WSJ What’s News
Palmer Luckey's 'I Told You So' Tour: AI Weapons and Vindication
And that's bold names for this week. Michael LaValle and Jessica Fenton are our sound designers. Jessica also wrote our theme music.
WSJ What’s News
Palmer Luckey's 'I Told You So' Tour: AI Weapons and Vindication
Thanks for listening.
WSJ What’s News
Palmer Luckey's 'I Told You So' Tour: AI Weapons and Vindication
His relationship with Facebook didn't last long. His support of Trump's first presidential run in 2016 didn't go over well in Silicon Valley. He was ousted after a donation he made to an anti-Hillary Clinton group sparked backlash among his colleagues, though his boss at the time, Mark Zuckerberg, would later tell Congress his departure didn't have anything to do with politics.
WSJ What’s News
Palmer Luckey's 'I Told You So' Tour: AI Weapons and Vindication
Now, Zuckerberg is among the tech moguls hanging around President Trump, and Lucky feels vindicated.
WSJ What’s News
Palmer Luckey's 'I Told You So' Tour: AI Weapons and Vindication
From The Wall Street Journal, I'm Tim Higgins. And I'm Christopher Mims. This is Bold Names, where you'll hear from the leaders of the bold-named companies featured in the pages of The Wall Street Journal...
WSJ What’s News
Palmer Luckey's 'I Told You So' Tour: AI Weapons and Vindication
So Microsoft's been, hi, by the way, Palmer. It's been a minute. It's been like five years. How's it going? But yeah, hey. So they've been leading this effort for a while, right? And I think they're going to stay on as a cloud providing partner. That's right. But why you and not them?
WSJ What’s News
Palmer Luckey's 'I Told You So' Tour: AI Weapons and Vindication
So you're clearly very bullish on Meta. Are you still bullish on their potential in terms of the Metaverse? I mean, just to put this in context, I was saying something jokey on threads and Andrew Bosworth got mad at me for saying like, oh, like they've pivoted to AI. It seems like they're no longer the Metaverse company.
WSJ What’s News
Palmer Luckey's 'I Told You So' Tour: AI Weapons and Vindication
Right. So they're clearly still invested. I mean, do you kind of... Are you still bullish on their vision? Because now they're really emphasizing AI. It does seem like a shift.
WSJ What’s News
Palmer Luckey's 'I Told You So' Tour: AI Weapons and Vindication
Is that what is that going to replace or the F-35, for example, that replaced the Top Gun?
WSJ What’s News
Palmer Luckey's 'I Told You So' Tour: AI Weapons and Vindication
So while we're talking about these autonomous flying drones, essentially, obviously those have been hugely important in Ukraine. I mean, a lot of these still are built in China. The U.S. has had trouble maintaining market share there. The Pentagon's trying to encourage U.S. manufacturing of these really low-cost autonomous munitions in a way.