Instead of building mobile apps or AI-based chatbots, competitors will hack surveillance tools, electronic warfare systems, or drone countermeasures on Ukraine's front lines — the battleground technology that is driving a funding frenzy among investors in the space. Technology.
“[Build] Solid Technology to Defend the West,” one of the hackathon judges books On X, encourage applicants. “Defence, drones. Gondo”, organizer booksUsing the city's nickname to promote the event.
Until recently, tech insiders were wary of applying the spirit of fast, nimble startups to designing lethal weapons. When Google signed a contract with the Pentagon to develop artificial intelligence to target drone strikes, thousands petitioned its CEO in 2018 to cancel it. Such protests This spread during the Trump administration, as workers objected to plans to sell augmented reality headsets to US forces and facial recognition tools to immigration officials at the US-Mexico border.
But after a decade of pushing a utopian vision of the future, the most optimistic idea for technology is a return to America's past. Contact with the world has ended. The rearmament of the arsenal of democracy is here.
Between 2021 and 2023, investors will transfer $108 billion to defense technology companies to build a range of cutting-edge tools, including hypersonic missiles, wearable devices and satellite surveillance systems, according to data firm PitchBook, which expects the defense technology market to rise. . To $184.7 billion by 2027.
Skepticism against defense work has faded for younger generations who have grown up in the turmoil of foreign wars, the financial crisis and the growing threat from China, said hackathon organizer Rasmus Die Mayer, a 20-year-old at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service.
In this fragile situation that the world is experiencing, Die Mayer said: “It is socially acceptable to be unabashedly patriotic for the sake of the national interest.”
For some among this new crop of tech workers and startup founders, defense contracting is a higher calling to extend American ideals into the next century. This group of men (mostly) believes in hard work, true innovation, and family values. They are eager to accelerate progress in America. And a growing number of investors can't wait to support them.
At least three dozen funds are dedicated to the market, according to the Defense Investors Network, investing in cutting-edge sectors such as defense technology, deep technology, hard technology, and space technology. Most carry military branding, such as Andreessen Horowitz's American Dynamics Fund, General Catalyst's Global Resilience Fund, and Shield Capital's “Frontier Technologies” fund, which boasts the slogan: “Mission Matters.” On Wednesday, prominent startup incubator Y Combinator announced a new fund dedicated to defense, space, and robotics.
This public embrace of nationalism represents a huge shift in Silicon Valley, where values have long been out of touch with the rest of the country, said Tray Stevens, a partner at Founders Fund.
The company's founder, Peter Thiel, asked Stevens in 2014 to identify companies building technology to protect American interests that could be sold to the Department of Defense. In three years, Stevens, who was recruited by Thiel from the CIA-backed data-mining startup Palantir, says he found only one company.
Now there are dozens, including at least seven “unicorns” worth more than $1 billion.
Likewise, lobbying budgets have expanded, from venture capital firms to companies like Anduril, which Stevens co-founded, Shield AI, and Skydio.
This cultural shift has been driven by growing anxiety in technology circles, as economic and geopolitical threats collide. Rising interest rates, the fragility of the global supply chain, and China's rapid militarization have led to fears that the United States, and perhaps the industry itself, is at risk.
“Russia invaded Ukraine, reminding us that defense technology is not just something that can be discussed in theory,” Katherine Boyle, a partner at Andreessen Horowitz, said in a November speech at the Defense Enterprise Summit. “History began again, and we realized that we were entering a new, violent era.”
The extensive use of drones in Ukraine has prompted the Pentagon to make the arduous procurement process more friendly to technology startups, launching initiatives such as federally guaranteed loans for investors to finance technology deemed essential to national security, and improvements that have arrived as capital for venture funds. It was drying.
As the bubble deflated and startup valuations shrank, “everyone panicked,” said Michael Dempsey, managing partner of investment firm Compound. Some developers wondered if they wasted their time mixing software. This period of research and self-doubt presented an opportunity for venture firms to declare defense technology as the next big thing. So far, he said, investors lack conviction about where to focus: “It's like, 'Is it crypto? Is it climate? Is it AI? Is it American dynamism?'
Amid layoffs in technology, the latter has become attractive. In a Morning Consult survey of 441 tech workers last March, 34% said they were more likely than a year ago to apply their skills to military projects, and 48% supported employers considering defense contracts that include battlefield technologies.
“When everything is going well, you don't have to do the hardest thing to make money,” Stevens said. “But it's not the moment to print money anymore.”
Silicon Valley Industrial Park
Military ties between technology companies predate Silicon Valley, which began in the late 1950s when funding from defense and intelligence agencies transformed an area of fruit orchards into production areas for mainframe computers and microprocessors.
These relationships waned during the Internet era, then slowly resumed after 9/11, Margaret O’Mara wrote in her 2019 book “Code: Silicon Valley and the Remaking of America.” Palantir, which Thiel co-founded, was one such company that was founded during the “War on Terror,” with support from the CIA’s venture firm, In-Q-Tel.
In order to keep pace with the threat posed by stateless terrorist networks, the defense establishment reversed the Cold War pipeline, turning to private industry rather than government-funded laboratories. The Pentagon has launched venture capital firms and sponsored hackathons to build commercial technology that can eventually be sold for military use.
Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, efforts have escalated. The Defense Department chief has tapped longtime Apple CEO Tim Cook to direct the Defense Innovation Unit, a division aimed at accelerating commercial technology for national security, a role that reports directly to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. In August, the Pentagon unveiled the Replicator program, which will quickly build and deploy thousands of drones in two years or less.
The war between Israel and Gaza has amplified divisions between workers, with more than 500 Google employees protesting the company's $1.2 billion contract with the Israeli government in December.
Still, the overarching message from elites in both Washington, D.C., and Silicon Valley is technological optimism, said Jack Murphy, an Army special operations veteran and former Army Ranger turned investigative journalist. “We believe there is a technological solution to everything.” He said. “Are we losing sight of the reality of what AI will likely do on the battlefield?”
But instead of turning away from reality, some tech investors are presenting this business as an opportunity to return to mid-century American values. “Faith, family and science, the things that once defined our national character, have been eroded,” Boyle said in her speech at the defense summit, which became a clarion call to funders and founders. “You win the war against America when you get nihilism all the way.”
The clarion call from El Segundo, where the hackathon will be held, is less formal. The city lies between a Chevron refinery, a sewage plant and Los Angeles International Airport, and was once home to contractors who made aircraft, missile and rocket parts. Then, in 2002, SpaceX set up shop. It's now a haven for a growing scene of weight-lifting, nicotine-gum-chewing, energy-drink-drinking people, as founders of space, energy and drone companies seek to restore calm to American manufacturing.
Augustus Dorico, the 23-year-old founder of Rainmaker, a startup that aims to alleviate water scarcity by “seeding” clouds with minerals, described the local tech community as a “cultural project” that rejects San Francisco’s precious engineering culture.
There, one can make a million dollars without doing much work or adding any value to the world.
Dressed in hipster pants, Nike high boots, and a casual swagger—an aesthetic he refers to as “Americana”—Dorico looks to eras of great technological progress, such as the Enlightenment, the Gilded Age, and the 1960s, to capture the era of great technological progress. Feeling that “it was ambitious and honorable to be an inventor, creator and builder.”
Software developers looking for a dose of energy were so keen to visit that Doricko set up bunk beds at Rainmaker's headquarters “The pilgrims said home to Gondo.
Believers preach online too, with Social media bios like“Ask me why energy consumption is a good thing and you should have more kids” and shared hustle and grind slogans that can sound akin to religious chants or military slogans. “Jm. The world desperately needs you to build. books An anonymous poster on X, formerly Twitter, uses the abbreviation for good morning favored by crypto insiders.
some He rejected previous era technology, particularly the protests against Project Maven and Google's work to target Pentagon drones. This labor opposition ultimately benefited America's enemies, said Guillaume Verdon, a former Google researcher, in a recent podcast interview with Joe Lonsdale, a Palantir co-founder and tech investor.
“What I saw with my own eyes was cultural sabotage within big tech companies,” Verdon said. This case led him to Helps Create a philosophy called Efficient acceleration or e/acc, which calls for the promotion of technological progress through unbridled capitalism. The logo has become popular in the world of defense technology, with some adopting, and sometimes replacing, the e/acc moniker Letter “e” with American flag emoji.
Others in the field see their job as conflict prevention. “The neocon warmongers of the past I do not support,” Dorico said. “Defense is good, but war is still bad.”
Kat Hendrickson avoided jobs at big tech companies after completing her PhD in mechanical and aerospace engineering in 2022. She wanted her research to be seen Addressing real problems in conflict areas.
However, Hendrickson, a technical director who works on autonomous drone fleets at EpiSci, a startup based in Poway, California, said the word “patriotism” makes her freeze up, especially now that it has become “really co-opted by the government.” She said: The far right.
Hendrickson said that while the war in Ukraine made it easier to explain her job to friends and family, the war in Gaza sparked a lot of internal debate.
“Given Ukraine, which is a front line for the forces, those are your goals,” Hendrickson said. “If you're looking at Gaza from an Israeli perspective, you're bombing a city. It's completely different.”
She and her team discuss what safeguards they can implement if their products are later resold and misused, intentionally or not. “I always tell my team that I hope we're all a little uncomfortable.”
Meanwhile, Dai Meyer and the hackathon's co-organisers are focusing on building young talent. Their organization, Apollo Defense, aims to guide undergraduate students toward creating their own defense technology startups or working for one.
“This deep feeling of uncertainty about the future [that young people have] “It can be molded,” Dai Meyer said. “We have agency in shaping this future. And the way we shape this future is to build the best arsenal we can to make sure war never happens.”
