Defense tech is flooded with money, but who’s built to last?

Defense tech is flooded with money, but who’s built to last?

Defense tech is red hot right now. Anduril and Mach Industries just doubled and quadrupled their valuations, respectively, and the U.S. government is proposing a 40% increase in defense budget. A wave of new startups is chasing those government contracts, but according to Ross Fubini, the venture investor who wrote Anduril’s first check, most of them will get lost in the Valley of Death between prototype contract…

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Anthropic’s Pentagon deal is a cautionary tale for startups chasing federal contracts

Anthropic’s Pentagon deal is a cautionary tale for startups chasing federal contracts

The Pentagon has officially designated Anthropic a supply-chain risk after the two failed to agree on how much control the military should have over its AI models, including its use in autonomous weapons and mass domestic surveillance. As Anthropic’s $200 million contract fell apart, the DoD turned to OpenAI instead, which accepted and then watched ChatGPT uninstalls surge 295%. As the stakes keep rising, the question remains: how much unrestricted…

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Palmer Luckey says the coolest thing about Anduril expanding to Long Beach is the fighter jets

Palmer Luckey says the coolest thing about Anduril expanding to Long Beach is the fighter jets

Defense tech company Anduril on Thursday announced its plans to expand its Southern California presence with a major campus in Long Beach, the coastal town where founder Palmer Luckey grew up. The expanded campus will eventually support about 5,500 jobs. Luckey told TechCrunch that these will be new jobs, not transfers from other operations. Anduril’s…

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