HN

Comments (168)

• abeppu
  I do think that for those of us who got into tech in the last couple of decades, the history can be rather obscured, but from the Fairchild semiconductor days, the military was a main customer, right?I think there's a real question: would the world be a better place had Fairchild and peers e.g. refused to build ICs for missile systems (including the minuteman), for example? Would the same tech have been developed with purely civilian funding? Would missiles built with other tech have caused some awful disaster?To the extent that the internet descended from ARPANET, and the internet is now both how we access a range of information and also hospitals get shut down by remote attackers, would the world have been better if researchers refused to build it b/c it was from military funding and motivations?In retrospect it does seem like in the 1950s-70s the military was willing to fund some stuff that was actually not especially close to applications of killing people. I don't know that the kinds of things listed in this research are likely to lead to broad other applications in the future like microchips and networks did. But neither do I think it's straight forward to just condemn this stuff as purely evil and say we shouldn't do it.
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  chanakya
  Serious question: should companies not participate in contracts from their country's defense department? Or is the argument that it's only US companies which shouldn't, because the US is uniquely evil?
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  hkchad
  Transforming? You guys do know where google got it's start right? SV has been DOD funded from the start.
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  slowin
  It's up to us, as tech workers to push back against this. I quit my job at Microsoft due to their complicity with Israeli war crimes and oppression (and certainly the US government was involved too). It's tough to leave a high paying job, but I feel good about it every single day. We don't have to be cogs in the MIC machine and we don't have to build systems that terrorize people.
• bookofjoe
  >Andreessen- and Thiel-backed defense startup opens U.S. missile factory as it exits stealthhttps://www.cnbc.com/2026/09/09/defense-tech-covenant-anthem...
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  paimapi
  some interesting tidbits from the longer report:>Keyhole, a small San Francisco-based company that developed software for creating three-dimensional models of the earth’s surface [was] provided seed funding in 2003 [by a CIA-backed VC firm, In-Q-Tel], and within two weeks, military and intelligence agencies were reportedly using Keyhole’s software to support the U.S. war in Iraq. The following year, Google acquired Keyhole for an undisclosed sum. It was renamed Google Earth.[...]>A distinctive aspect of the shifting military-industrial complex is the crucial role played by venture capital (VC). Some observers have noted that the rapid rise in VC funding for defense tech firms has been spurred by recent global conflicts, particularly the war in Ukraine, and more recently, escalating conflicts in Gaza and other parts of the Middle East. According to this line of reasoning, the widely publicized use of drones, satellite imagery, Starlink, and other technologies are generating interest among investors, and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has led to a shifting “ethical red line” that is prompting VC to back defense tech startups.
• mrobot
  the ideal shape may be a null pointer stored in an 8-bit processor which is then placed in the sewer
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  HPsquared
  Silicon Valley was practically built by the military industrial complex.
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  yawnxyz
  I've been reading Chip War and it seems like original funding for chip design was for the Space Race and for guided missiles - so basically most of Silicon Valley was started / funded by military all along
• vjvjvjvjghv
  I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, maybe they will be more efficient than the usual defense contractors whose main goal is to charge as many hours as possible. Similar to SpaceX who have accelerated innovation while also lowering prices for launches.On the other hand, it looks like Silicon Valley has run out of ideas for consumer stuff and are now looking to merge with the government to extract tax dollars while building the perfect surveillance state.The way it looks right now, we are probably more going in the direction of Silicon Valley becoming a part the military industrial complex while also providing plenty of money making opportunities for people who are connected to Washington DC.
• bossyTeacher
  "Making the world a better place." the Silicon Valley mantra that every dev out there and in here drank like a drug. People like Graham arguably have played a part in the transformation mentioned in the article. And many of us here have been directly or indirectly participants too.
• tsunamifury
  SV was literally founded as a part of national defense and the military industrial complex.
• georgeecollins
  Silicon Valley started with companies doing defense contracting. Like many here, I disagree with a lot of current policies of the US. But I don't want the US to be weak or vulnerable. Tech is our strength. Silicon Valley should be transforming the way we do a lot of things, hopefully for the better.
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  2847aH
  The game is always the same. Josh Kushner leads a funding round, then someone in the Trump environment boosts the company:It happened with Cursor, where Musk completely overpaid (what will he get in return? a new kind of circular deal?)It happened with Anduril (topic of this submission). Kushner led a round and days after Anduril got a huge Pentagon contract:https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/trump-admin-hands-mega-d...
• tamimio
  >published April 17, 2024Now that spending is definitely x10 more than 2023, at least.
• ozgung
  Always has been.Secret History of Silicon Valley by Steve Blank https://youtu.be/ZTC_RxWN_xo
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  bpodgursky
  I mean... the market was handed to the prime defense contractors on a silver platter for decades, and they utterly failed to deliver cost-effective or even working solutions.It's not some 4d chess play by VCs, they just finally realized the market was dominated by the most disruptable enterprises on earth. Good riddance.
• segmondy
  They will transform the world. Why? They don't know shit about security nor prioritize it. Hardware will be captured, hardware will be reversed engineered, hacked and duplicated faster than anytime in history. They will essentially innovate and do the hard R&D for the rest of the world. Yup, transformation indeed. That is of course unless they make security top priority and they won't!
• swozey
  I was around FEDRAMP stuff awhile back and there was a huge push to get "warroom" verbiage out of the tech field everywhere but there, like when visiting your normal silicon valley office we had to be careful about speech but you drive on base and let rip, since you had to interact daily with mil.Wild seeing it come back completely unabated out of Luckeys mouth of all people. Missiles are kewl, bro!
• pstuart
  The irony here is that the origins of Silicon Valley have deep ties to the military as well, and it was the successful commercialization of those technologies that turned it more into a consumer / b2b space.But yeah, the tech bro elite are now tech fascists.
• ariwilson
  [flagged]
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  mentalgear
  also the new war-profiteers are profiting from a war a certain family member started.> NEW YORK (AP) — Among dozens of companies competing for Pentagon contracts to supply attack drones, one stands out.> Powerus is flush with cash and ballooning in size as it buys up rivals and has one other advantage: It is partly owned by President Donald Trump’s two oldest sons.> The latest Trump venture is hoping to win some of the $1.1 billion set aside by the Pentagon to build up a U.S. manufacturing base for armed drones now that the Trump administration put a ban on importing them from China.https://apnews.com/article/drones-eric-donald-trump-powerus-...