Anduril

Palmer Luckey left Oculus after Facebook acquired it for two billion. Hardware requires manufacturing and supply chains. Then he asked: What if startup speed applied to defense? Traditional contractors built slowly. A missile took five years, cost one billion. Anduril proposed something different: build software-defined hardware. Create a surveillance drone ninety percent software, ten percent hardware. Update monthly. Evolve capability faster than adversaries could adapt. The Department of Defense had contracts but no venture capital. Anduril raised capital from venture investors. The military wanted five-year specs. Anduril wanted to ship in six months and iterate. The Pentagon was losing surveillance to slow procurement.