I can’t think of any other deal that more encapsulates how Silicon Valley has changed in the past couple of years than this one, announced Thursday in a press release:
Anduril and Meta are partnering to design, build, and field a range of integrated XR products that provide warfighters with enhanced perception and enable intuitive control of autonomous platforms on the battlefield.
For starters, Anduril Industries Inc. is a defense tech company co-founded by Palmer Luckey, the man who created the Oculus VR headset that was acquired by Meta Platforms Inc. for $2 billion in 2014, only for Luckey to be pushed out when it emerged he had financially backed a pro-Trump campaign group. That he would be welcomed back with open arms is yet another sign that such stances are no longer taboo in the halls of Silicon Valley companies. (It could be argued they never should have been.)
Second, developing technology for war had been considered a hard red line for many of the engineers working within those leafy campuses, at least in the era after the dot-com boom. At Google, for instance, workers in 2018 held walkouts and forced executives to abandon projects related to military use. Today, defense applications of technology are something companies want to shout from their rooftops, not bury in the basement. (Again, it could be argued that should have always been the case. Who will create tech for the US military if not US tech companies?)
In Meta’s case, there’s another factor at play. Mark Zuckerberg’s deal with Anduril — which you assume is just the start of Meta’s military hardware ambitions — offers a lifeline to its ailing Reality Labs business. The unit has lost more than $70 billion since the start of 2019. Advancements in quality haven’t led to jumps in sales. I’ve written before that fitness applications are a great selling point, but apparently too few people agree with me. A newer form factor, sunglasses made in partnership with Ray-Ban, have shown potential but still represent a niche product.
So instead, maybe the “killer app” for mixed reality is indeed a killer app. “My mission has long been to turn warfighters into technomancers,” Luckey is quoted as saying in a press release. “And the products we are building with Meta do just that.”
A prototype of the “Eagle Eye” helmet being developed by the companies is due to be delivered to the Pentagon this year, Luckey told journalist Ashlee Vance in a podcast published alongside the official announcement. He compared its utility to what a player wears in the video game Halo — a heads-up display offering reams of intricate information on targets and locations, plus an AI assistant, Cortana, relaying critical and lifesaving directions.
What’s also striking about this shift is that it is a sign the historical flow of technological innovation is being turned around. Silicon Valley began as a region set up to develop chips for military tech before the assembled talent branched out into making products for businesses and consumers, such as the personal computer.
Many breakthroughs have followed this direction of travel — the internet, the microwave, GPS, super glue, to name a few — but it is now increasingly the other way around. As Luckey put it during the podcast discussing the deal, it turns out that Meta’s headsets are “just as useful on the battlefield as they are on the head of any consumer.” See also: artificial intelligence, developed first (and perhaps, at the cutting edge, always) by private sector tech companies.
The opportunity is too big to pass up and too lucrative to hold grudges. Luckey says he was willing to work with Meta again because it had become a much different place from the one he was booted out of. Now friends again, he said he believed that Zuckerberg received bad advice when told to fire him and that his coming round to more Republican ways of thinking is genuine — as evidenced by his willingness to make Meta’s AI available for government use, too.
I’ve little reason to question Luckey’s judgment here, though I wonder if it might be time for Meta to revise its mission statement. “Build the future of human connection,” it states today, not yet updated to reflect that it’s now also working on the future of human conflict.
This column reflects the personal views of the author and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.
Dave Lee is Bloomberg Opinion's US technology columnist. He was previously a correspondent for the Financial Times and BBC News.
Anduril and Meta are partnering to design, build, and field a range of integrated XR products that provide warfighters with enhanced perception and enable intuitive control of autonomous platforms on the battlefield.
For starters, Anduril Industries Inc. is a defense tech company co-founded by Palmer Luckey, the man who created the Oculus VR headset that was acquired by Meta Platforms Inc. for $2 billion in 2014, only for Luckey to be pushed out when it emerged he had financially backed a pro-Trump campaign group. That he would be welcomed back with open arms is yet another sign that such stances are no longer taboo in the halls of Silicon Valley companies. (It could be argued they never should have been.)
Second, developing technology for war had been considered a hard red line for many of the engineers working within those leafy campuses, at least in the era after the dot-com boom. At Google, for instance, workers in 2018 held walkouts and forced executives to abandon projects related to military use. Today, defense applications of technology are something companies want to shout from their rooftops, not bury in the basement. (Again, it could be argued that should have always been the case. Who will create tech for the US military if not US tech companies?)
In Meta’s case, there’s another factor at play. Mark Zuckerberg’s deal with Anduril — which you assume is just the start of Meta’s military hardware ambitions — offers a lifeline to its ailing Reality Labs business. The unit has lost more than $70 billion since the start of 2019. Advancements in quality haven’t led to jumps in sales. I’ve written before that fitness applications are a great selling point, but apparently too few people agree with me. A newer form factor, sunglasses made in partnership with Ray-Ban, have shown potential but still represent a niche product.
So instead, maybe the “killer app” for mixed reality is indeed a killer app. “My mission has long been to turn warfighters into technomancers,” Luckey is quoted as saying in a press release. “And the products we are building with Meta do just that.”
A prototype of the “Eagle Eye” helmet being developed by the companies is due to be delivered to the Pentagon this year, Luckey told journalist Ashlee Vance in a podcast published alongside the official announcement. He compared its utility to what a player wears in the video game Halo — a heads-up display offering reams of intricate information on targets and locations, plus an AI assistant, Cortana, relaying critical and lifesaving directions.
What’s also striking about this shift is that it is a sign the historical flow of technological innovation is being turned around. Silicon Valley began as a region set up to develop chips for military tech before the assembled talent branched out into making products for businesses and consumers, such as the personal computer.
Many breakthroughs have followed this direction of travel — the internet, the microwave, GPS, super glue, to name a few — but it is now increasingly the other way around. As Luckey put it during the podcast discussing the deal, it turns out that Meta’s headsets are “just as useful on the battlefield as they are on the head of any consumer.” See also: artificial intelligence, developed first (and perhaps, at the cutting edge, always) by private sector tech companies.
The opportunity is too big to pass up and too lucrative to hold grudges. Luckey says he was willing to work with Meta again because it had become a much different place from the one he was booted out of. Now friends again, he said he believed that Zuckerberg received bad advice when told to fire him and that his coming round to more Republican ways of thinking is genuine — as evidenced by his willingness to make Meta’s AI available for government use, too.
I’ve little reason to question Luckey’s judgment here, though I wonder if it might be time for Meta to revise its mission statement. “Build the future of human connection,” it states today, not yet updated to reflect that it’s now also working on the future of human conflict.
This column reflects the personal views of the author and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.
Dave Lee is Bloomberg Opinion's US technology columnist. He was previously a correspondent for the Financial Times and BBC News.
