Shawn Ryan Show
#171 Palmer Luckey - Superhuman Soldiers, AI Missiles and Exoskeletons in Warzones
Fri, 14 Feb 2025
Palmer Luckey is an entrepreneur and innovator best known for founding Oculus VR and Anduril Industries. In 2012, he launched Oculus VR and developed the Oculus Rift, a groundbreaking virtual reality headset that redefined a wide array of industries. The company was acquired by Facebook in 2014 for $2 billion, where Luckey subsequently worked until 2017. Following his departure, he founded Anduril Industries - a defense technology company specializing in autonomous systems including drones, surveillance towers, and aircraft. Anduril has secured major contracts with the U.S. Department of Defense and international allies. The company has raised significant funding, including $1.5 billion in 2022, valuing it at $8.5 billion. Shawn Ryan Show Sponsors: http://armra.com/srs http://helixsleep.com/srs http://patriotmobile.com/srs http://hexclad.com/srs http://ziprecruiter.com/srs https://ROKA.com | Use Code SRS Palmer Luckey Links: Anduril Industries - https://www.anduril.com/ ModRetro - http://modretro.com/ X - https://x.com/PalmerLuckey/ Please leave us a review on Apple & Spotify Podcasts. Vigilance Elite/Shawn Ryan Links: Website | Patreon | TikTok | Instagram | Download Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Chapter 1: Who is Palmer Luckey and what are his achievements?
Palmer Luckey, welcome to the show. Thank you for having me. I'm so incredibly stoked to be here. I'm pumped to have you here. It's so different when it's not on a screen. Yeah. Do you watch it? Do you watch the show? So I don't watch podcasts regularly in general, but I've seen yours from time to time. Of course, I had to tune in for Trump. Yeah. And it's just, it's a...
I'm a virtual reality guy, and so I understand the difference between things that's on a flat screen versus 3D, but it's just so cool to be here in person.
Oh, thank you. Thank you.
We'll do the next one in VR.
Well, teach me how to do it. I'd love to be the first one to do that. I'll set it up. I'll set it up. Right on. Yeah, so you're a tech titan, and we had Joe Lonsdale on a couple months ago. Amazing human.
Amazing human. People should just know my bias. Joe was one of the first investors in my first company, Oculus. Back when I was a teenager, he put millions of dollars into my company at a time where very few people did. This was his last VC firm, Formation 8, which has now evolved into 8VC. I love Joe. I like to think Joe loves me.
We've had a really productive and profitable relationship over the years.
Very cool. He was a fascinating interviewer. And then you came up and I was like, dude, we've got to get this guy. He's like the Tony Stark, but real.
Tony Stark, except Tony Stark got out of building weapons. I moved into it. So we're a little bit in reverse, but I like the comparison.
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Chapter 2: How did Palmer Luckey transition from Oculus to Anduril Industries?
Because one, they're often years or even decades behind what industry and hobbyists are actually doing. So you're going to be learning how to do things that are ancient. Two, when you're working on something that you're only doing for yourself, you're going to make way better decisions, I generally find, in what you teach yourself, in how you do things.
When I hire people at Anduril, I look for people who have done projects that were outside of what their work paid them to do or what their school made them do, because that means that the type of person who is willing to work on things with their own money and their own time because they want to bring something into this world that wouldn't have existed otherwise.
To me, those are the projects that people, that's what drives you to learn the most. It's what drives you to have the right attitude around all this stuff. I would say, don't do what I did. I started going to college when I was 14 or 15. And I took some robotics courses, which in hindsight, I don't regret taking them.
But I think the time that I spent taking those robotics courses would have been better put into self-guided, self-directed efforts. And that's especially true in the modern day of the internet. All these things that in my era were not as widely available and you kind of had to go talk to a professor about it. There's a YouTuber who can teach you even better. There's an instructables guy.
Heck, there's probably a lot of people on Patreon. I'll bet there's a ton. There's a lot of creators on Patreon who are putting out really interesting guides, really interesting education.
I would tell your son, encourage him to work on the things that he's interested in and don't rely on other people telling him what he should be working on and don't sweat the fact that he's not doing much or any coding. There is lots of stuff you can create in the technology world when you're a bad coder.
It just means he's going to have to go find a really good programmer as his co-founder, that's all.
Right on, right on. Well, I'm sure he's going to get a lot out of that. So, got a little gift for you. Oh, boy. Yeah, yeah. Those are Vigilance League guy bears. A little something for the flight home. Now, there's no, like, caffeine in these or anything, right? No, no funny business. All right. I mean, there's a bunch of shit that's unhealthy for you, like sugar. So, what's good about these?
Taste them. All right, I'm going to taste them. Open them up. I've been a big fan of European gummy bears in the past because they don't use all the stuff that they use in the United States.
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Chapter 3: What are Palmer Luckey's views on conspiracy theories and media?
Maybe someday everyone who hates Jews are going to be gone. We are not living in that world today. And people, it's a slippery slope though. If they can have it, why can't the KKK have their own state? I say, that's not going to happen. It's absurd for us to even have a discussion. it is very reasonable for the Jews to have a place that is theirs. And they say, oh, but what about the Palestinians?
You know what? That's a separate political issue. Like the existence of a Jewish state which is what Zionism is, like the belief that they have the right to a Jewish state, the existence of a Jewish state, is separate from the issue of what do you do with refugees from some political, you know, from some physical area.
So it was so funny to me when like Palmer's this anti-Semitic guy, because it was literally made up. Like, it's not even like there was like screenshots or made up screenshots. journalists just said it was true with zero evidence and they just repeated what each other said.
And I know people are going to hear this and say, this, I must be missing, Palmer's ignoring, like he's glossing over something. He must have like said something about Jews on Twitter and they were like- Are you Jewish? No, I'm not Jewish. I just believe in the existence of a Jewish state. And I bet even some of your listeners probably won't agree with me on that. And that's fine.
We don't have to all agree on everything. But I will say it was pretty ridiculous in the moment where like Palmer's an anti-Semite. I'm like, no, I love the Jews more than like anybody. Like you Democrats would probably hate me for how much I like the Jews. You know, like that you... Anyway, it was...
But what happened was as a result of this reporting, like looking back, I should have pushed back. What happened is I wrote a statement saying, hey, this is all false. None of this is true. Here's what actually happened. I gave $9,000 to this pro-Trump group. They ran a single billboard. Everyone is lying. This is literally fake news. And that was when fake news was like a new phrase.
Facebook told me I couldn't publish it. They said, we won't let you make this statement. You cannot make this statement because it frames the media as the bad guy. And in a world where Donald Trump is attacking the fourth estate, we can't appear to be aligned with him. I said, well, you guys don't have to appear to be aligned, but I will be.
Like I'm fine if people think that I'm being unfair because this is literally, Character assassination. Like they are trying to destroy, they kept reporting as of Thursday at 3.58 PM when read for comment, Palmer Luckey is still employed by Facebook. Like that's how they ended the articles. It was explicitly a scalp taking operation from the very beginning. All the articles were ending with,
Palmer's still employed, Palmer's still employed. According to Facebook, Palmer is currently still employed. And they just couldn't wait for the followup where they could take my scalp. So Facebook tried to get me to resign and I refused. They tried to get me to not say anything.
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