#245 Trae Stephens - Inside Anduril’s AI Superweapons: Eagle Eye Helmet and Autonomous Tech

**SPEAKER_1** (0:03)
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**Shawn Ryan** (0:30)
This Friday, see what critics are calling a cold-blooded masterpiece. Hello, Finny.

**SPEAKER_1** (0:35)
You're dead.

**Shawn Ryan** (0:36)
Dead is just a word.

**SPEAKER_1** (0:39)
Did you think our story was over? Discover the secret.

**Shawn Ryan** (0:43)
You brought us here for a reason. Behind the mask. What do you think happens when you die?

**SPEAKER_1** (0:48)
It's time to find out.

**Shawn Ryan** (0:50)
You can walk.

**Trae Stephens** (0:54)
Black Foam 2, only in theaters Friday.

**Shawn Ryan** (0:56)
Read it R.

**SPEAKER_1** (0:57)
Under 17, not admitted without parents.

**Shawn Ryan** (1:04)
Trae Stephens, welcome to the show, man.

**Trae Stephens** (1:07)
Man, it's great to be here. Thanks for bringing me out.

**Shawn Ryan** (1:10)
I've been pumped about this. I love everything that's going on with Anduril. The Palmer episode was fascinating. What a, like, cool dude to be around. And so, yeah, we've been dying to get you in the studio, and it's been almost a year, I think, since Palmer's been on, so I'd love to get some updates, and what I really want to do is a life story on you, get into everything that, you know, childhood, how you got into tech, all that stuff, and then we'll end with everything that's going on in Anduril.

**Trae Stephens** (1:42)
Sounds good. Let's do it.

**Shawn Ryan** (1:43)
Perfect. All right. Everybody starts with an introduction here.
Trae Stephens, co-founder and executive chairman of Anduril Industries, a defense tech powerhouse that's redefining national security with AI and autonomy. A partner at Founders Fund. You've backed game changers in government and defense tech since 2014 Co-founder of Sol and wearable e-reader, so you can read without distraction. Intern at the Afghan Embassy in DC. An early Palantir employee who helped turn data into Intel. Excuse me. Intel. A husband, a father, a devout Christian. You're unapologetic about your faith in Silicon Valley. In fact, you preach to tech entrepreneurs in 2024 on how Jesus would approve of building of righteous AI weapons. You are a sneaker head and a prepper.

**Trae Stephens** (2:42)
All those things.

**Shawn Ryan** (2:43)
Love the prepping. Love all of it.
But yeah, I wanted to talk about in 2024, you preach to tech entrepreneurs on how Jesus would approve of righteous AI weapons. There's not a whole lot of Christians out there, from what I know, but.

**Trae Stephens** (2:59)
There are not. It is a pretty godless city with a pocket of really strong believers and community.

**Shawn Ryan** (3:07)
Do you get a lot of pushback for that or for being a Christian out there?

**Trae Stephens** (3:11)
You know, when I first moved to San Francisco, that was kind of my expectation, that it would be sort of hostility. But I haven't experienced that at all. I feel like really smart people, they generally think of Christians as being simple-minded, and so when you come at them and you're clearly not simple-minded, they're just curious. They're like, I don't get it. How could you be both smart and also have this kind of crazy faith that I don't take seriously? And so it's actually been a great opportunity to open doors for people just asking those questions and being able to go into apologetics, explain to them why I think that their lack of faith is just as much of a faith as mine. Like you have to be kind of crazy to believe that all of this came from nothing over millions and millions of years. That requires as big if not a bigger leap of faith than what I believe.

**Shawn Ryan** (4:00)
That's what I think, man. Have you ever heard of Lee Strobel?

**Trae Stephens** (4:03)
Of course, yeah. Case for Christ.

**Shawn Ryan** (4:04)
Yeah, man.

**Trae Stephens** (4:05)
I read that back in high school, man.

**Shawn Ryan** (4:06)
I've had him on three times and when he talks about his time as an atheist, he's like, man, you have to have, it's like more work to gain faith that there is nothing out there than there is to actually believe. And I love that guy.

**Trae Stephens** (4:23)
Yeah, no, it's absolutely true. And I think that we're seeing a bit of a renaissance, where people are coming back to this idea that, look, even if they have a hard time with the belief in the supernatural, they're starting to kind of grok this idea that a society unmoored from truth, foundational truth, is really dangerous and not a society that they want to live in. And that's kind of opened the door to being able to have these conversations with people about, you know, why we believe what we believe and why we believe that that is not only good for our souls, but also good for humanity.