Trae Stephens

What Trae Stephens said

1. Minus One · Nov 5, 2026

   What Nobody Tells You About Building Defense Tech Companies | Trae Stephens

   7 moments · 34 min

   6:23
   1. 23:45

      High valuations can make even successful startups poor investments

      “you have to be responsible in the way that you raise because otherwise you're literally playing a game of chicken with your company”

   2. 30:28

      Anduril grew out of a search for software-led hardware

      “I thought I had the ace in the hole. I was like, well, you know, Peter, Palantir and SpaceX were both founded by billionaires.”

   3. 34:20

      Anduril started with a deployable product, not its ultimate ambitions

      “The company was started in June. We had a test unit in September. We had first towers deployed in December.”

   4. 39:18

      Defense startups must expand beyond a single product category

      “There is no free space left in defense.”

   5. 12:01

      Palantir took a decade to reach $1 billion in revenue

      “it took us five years to get our first 10 million in revenue. It took us 10 years to get to a billion.”

   6. 17:24

      Twelve companies generated over 95% of Founders Fund's returns

      “12 companies have returned 95 plus percent of all the returns to the fund.”

   7. 2:50

      Palantir's culture won him over by turning ideas into action

      “And after spending two and a half years working in the government, I believed nothing more than that the bureaucracy needed to be broken.”

2. All-In · Apr 6, 2026

   The State of Modern War: Palantir & Anduril Execs on Drones, AI, and the End of Traditional Warfare

   6 moments · 21 min

   2:59
   1. 12:20

      Modular factories can restore munitions production quickly ProPro pick

      “The problem is that once we burned through our inventory in the warehouses of stingers and javelins, the assembly line to build stingers and javelins didn't exist.”

   2. 27:39

      Defense startups can raise less at a lower price

      “But you can also raise less at a lower price.”

   3. 47:08

      Autonomous weapons still need human accountability

      “There's a person on that boat that is responsible for whatever actions that weapon system takes.”

   4. 20:33

      Palantir's field traction gave Anduril a faster path into defense

      “what took Palantir, I guess, probably about five years to get to 10 million annually in revenue. We did that in 22 months.”

   5. 23:58

      Trae founded Anduril after finding almost nothing to fund

      “There was nothing else. And even like looking in retrospect, like we didn't miss anything. There was just nothing worth investing in.”

   6. 55:44

      Vietnam and social distance shaped Silicon Valley's defense divide

      “There were, like, less than 12 documented cases where someone got access to data that they shouldn't have.”

3. The Shawn Ryan Show · Oct 16, 2025

   Trae Stephens – Anduril’s AI Weapons, Palantir Myths, Antichrist and War with China | SRS #245

   1 moment · 7 min

   6:35
   1. 58:10

      Anduril built one software stack for many autonomous systems ProPro pick

      “the exact same backend that we used for every subsequent product.”