More Evidence That Venture Capital is Behind New War Fever and Anti-China Military Escalation
Some comments out from the “general” of the venture capital military — the venture capital military meaning the new fleet of weapons startups coming out of a small number of venture capitalists selling a new vision of AI-backed autonomous war and importantly, who have been selling a massive military escalation with China and a total rearmament — by venture capital — of allies. This of course is a multi-trillion opportunity for them if they manage to sell it.
Anduril is the cornerstone of the strategy, and it has a full suite of scary fucking products from lethal drones to AI piloting and intelligence, and weaponized border surveillance. Its CEO, Palmer Luckey, is the lead of the VC military vision and strategy, though Anduril is not the only weapons startup, at all, involved in this. The weapons are being funded by a16z, Founder’s Fund, Lux Capital and InQTel, a small number of firms that is driving a massive war agenda.
We have been covering how venture capital specifically is aggravating anti-communist and China tensions, and some new comments highlight a few things: one is how the consumer development of products like ChatGPT become entry points into military spending, another is how venture capital is providing the animating force of a massive weapons build out, and finally, how this aggression is actually being driven by the venture capital need for returns.
One thing we can rely on from Palmer is that he is going to tell the truth about what is happening. He is indisputably a war criminal, whose company has helped round up countless people at the US/Mexico border and thrown them into rape and death holding centers, he is materially culpable for the death and rape of children at the border, among other atrocities there. But he will tell you the truth about his bloodlust, everytime.
“I will say that ChatGPT has probably been more helpful to Anduril with customers and politicians than any technology in the last 10 years,” Luckey said. “It’s not because ChatGPT is actually powering our products. It’s because all of a sudden, these people who never really understood AI, they never really understood autonomy at all—all of a sudden, you’ll have [a] congressman who will go and use ChatGPT and he’ll type some stuff in and he’s able to use it and he’s able to see that it does things that he never imagined a computer could do. And then when I see him next he says, ‘You know, I think I really understand what you guys were talking about with AI being a big deal, this seems like it’s gonna be really important.’ It sounds crazy, but it’s just been so true. There’s so many people in the Pentagon and on Capitol Hill who have had that come to Jesus moment just because of the hype cycle around ChatGPT, which I am very happy to leverage in getting them excited about the future.”
I think one of the most salient points about this, is that ChatGPT is literally funded by the SAME PEOPLE as Anduril — a16z and Founder’s Fund venture capitalists. Here we see how these technologies are very much part of the same agenda. In all the havoc and chaos about AI, and about its speculated potential to basically become conscious and kill us all, we lose the reality that ChatGPT is being *used to forward war agendas* supplied by the same people.
Lethal AI is already here in these many weapons startups, which also include, Palantir of course, but also critical to understand that this is a whole fleet: Toka, Hadrian, Skydio, ShieldAI, Mach Industries and others. Here, direct evidence that ChatGPT is being used to forward the war agenda of this portfolio.
Other comments from Palmer confirm our recent discussion that the primary motive of venture capital enflaming these tensions with China and an overall war agenda — using aggressive FUD about military competitiveness — ACTUALLY is about ensuring that *venture capitalists* *get their returns*:
“With global tensions rising over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and China’s desire to claim Taiwan, Luckey sees opportunity for Anduril as Silicon Valley cozies up to the idea of war. “Everyone who cares about Ukraine is also watching Taiwan, because they know that Taiwan going south is an actual existential threat to many of their investments,” he said. “And so I think you’re seeing a lot of hawkishness on the part of venture capitalists, that is largely tied to their investment in companies that cannot survive if Taiwan either shuts down temporarily their semiconductor industry, or permanently has it burned to the ground or something like that.”
Emphasis my own. We have venture capitalists trying to aggravate war so that they can make returns. Right from the top.
And one of the things they need a return on investment from is Anduril itself, which has raised $2.2 billion so far in funding, again, from the same money behind ChatGPT. The other companies have raised a lot of funding as well. Skydio, AI-piloted weapons drones, has raised $570 million. Hadrian, a weapons factory startup, has raised nearly $100 million. Toka, a “cyber defense company” based in Israel, another bad actor state heavily investing in high tech weaponry, has raised $37.5 million. ShieldAI, focused on military AI applications, has raised about $573 million. Mach Industries, which is “better defense systems for the US and its allies, fueled by hydrogen”, recently raised $5.7 million — its not much, but more funding will come, and importantly, Mach Industries is the first defense startup that Sequoia, our 70-year old VC firm, has made in its entire history, caving to pressure from a16z who also went in on the round and has been the biggest culprit and site of the new weapons agenda.
Furthermore, a16z announced a $500 million fund in May to back the creation of additional new weapons companies; the fund is called “American Dynamism” and is where this agenda hides in a very fake patriotism — venture capital has never cared, and never will, about America.
It only cares about its returns.
So, there you go. Venture capital is trying to fake-scare you about lethal AI while it literally goes on a war path to sell it to the Pentagon and provoke a new level of geopolitical tension between super powers, all because it wants returns on its investments, because it doesn’t want to address the shortcomings and dependencies of its portfolios, because it knows it can make a ton of money selling this fucking bullshit to the Pentagon, and it is going to drag all of us into hell with it if we don’t stop it.