00:03:19 · S1, Palmer Luckey, S2
[00:03:19] S1: Where do you start? It's really tough. We've been working on this for years. [00:03:24] S0: There's so many things where we've sent them overseas and it's not just about the chips. Qualcomm has announced that they're going to be making the chips in Arizona and The thing is the chips aren't enough. One of the problems with the US subsidies and investments in semiconductors is at the end of the day, we don't have any ability to package them and then turn them, transform them into useful products. So from a certain point of view, American semiconductor subsidies have really just been a subsidy of Chinese made laptops, of Chinese made computers, because that's where they go to actually get turned into products. We want to make sure that America is capturing that entire value chain here. And it's really tough. We're working with suppliers who either have never been in the computer industry or they haven't been in the computer industry for about 20 years now in the last U.S. plant shutdown after the elite sold us out and sent everything overseas. [00:04:13] S2: We are live on Bloomberg Television and on Bloomberg Radio speaking to Parmalaki, the founder of Anduril, about Blue Chip, which is an initiative to have a 100% U.S. manufactured computer, a laptop, and I think future. [00:04:27] S1: Products may come in the future. Starting with a laptop. We'll get to the rest later.
00:04:27 · S1, S2, Palmer Luckey
[00:04:27] S1: Products may come in the future. Starting with a laptop. We'll get to the rest later. [00:04:30] S2: Starting with a laptop. I mean, you know, the question that you're raising is, is it realistic? Is it even possible to reduce dependence on China 100% at the component level and the raw materials level? [00:04:44] S0: Look, I think that I have a more realistic view than this than almost anybody. One of the problems with all these analysts that are telling you that it's going to cost $ 37, 000 to build an American iPhone or $ 100, 000 to buy an American computer. They're trying to prop up a status quo that the mega corporations want to keep going. They want to outsource everything. They want to hire cheaper, non-American laborers. and they are willing to say and do anything to convince you that it can't be fixed, that it can't come back, that America is this helpless, neutered, post-relevant empire, and it is just not the case. [00:05:17] S1: How do I know that? [00:05:18] S0: Because I have to make stuff in America every day, because I work in the defense industry. The stuff that Anduril makes every day is not actually that different from a computer. [00:05:27] S1: My drones are basically computers. [00:05:30] S0: They have memory, a GPU, a CPU, sensors, batteries, a rugged integration. The only difference between an Anduril attack drone and a laptop is a keyboard and a screen. [00:05:42] S1: And that is not.
00:05:42 · S1, Palmer Luckey, S2
[00:05:42] S1: And that is not. [00:05:42] S0: That hard to figure out, especially for a guy like me who started Oculus and comes from the consumer electronics space. And so we're not going to let people lie about what America can and can't do anymore. [00:05:53] S2: We're just going to do it. And that was my question. What is Anduril's advantage here in doing this? And I think you've outlined it. You also said you tried. [00:06:01] S0: One of the few companies that actually has had to get good at this. Look, I'm personally sanctioned by the Chinese Communist Party. I'm a separatist terrorist, according to them. Anduril is sanctioned, too. So we've had to develop a. We've had to develop a life independent of China in a way that most American companies say they cannot, but in reality just don't want to do. [00:06:23] S1: And so we're the right company to be able to do this. [00:06:25] S0: And I think that our experience over the last 10 years, learning how to build these advanced systems without a reliance on our foreign adversaries, that's why I'm so confident that this is going to be, maybe not a piece of cake, but there's a reason I know this is doable. [00:06:43] S2: A question I got for you from the analysts, for what it's worth, is who are you going to convince to manufacture displays in the US? [00:06:51] S1: That is a great question.
00:06:51 · S1, Palmer Luckey, S2
[00:06:51] S1: That is a great question. [00:06:53] S0: The official answer is that we're going to have more to announce in 2027. I'm hoping that we have something to say at CES, but to tell you a little bit more, we're talking with multiple vendors right now, and we've got a plan with multiple vendors to solve that specific problem. [00:07:07] S1: So I'm not ignoring it. [00:07:08] S0: Right now, the display is made in another country in these prototypes we've been showing. The glass on it is made in an American company. Much of the assembly of the display is made in the United States. but the actual panel itself currently is made in another country. We're about 90% US and allies right now, but we have a clear technical roadmap to 100% US. I can't tell you just who it is just yet, honestly, because we're still negotiating it. [00:07:36] S2: I want to shift gears slightly. I haven't actually caught up with you this year, which is unbelievable, but our colleagues at Bloomberg Intelligence, which is our in-house research, launched coverage of Anduril back in August. [00:07:48] S1: And they're very. [00:07:50] S2: closely following the balance between your software business, Lattice, and a manufacturing ramp that's happening in Ohio. And I think that it would be really useful to hear how you're balancing that, those two programs, how they're integrated.
00:07:50 · S2, Palmer Luckey, S1
[00:07:50] S2: closely following the balance between your software business, Lattice, and a manufacturing ramp that's happening in Ohio. And I think that it would be really useful to hear how you're balancing that, those two programs, how they're integrated. [00:08:04] S0: Well, look, at its core, Anduril is an AI company. Our name, Anduril Industries, the acronym is AI for a reason. But we started 10 years ago when AI wasn't cool, when no one was paying attention to it. We've got more people working on software in Anduril than in all our hardware products combined. Lattice is the AI brain that makes all of our fighter jets and submarines and missiles and everything go. And we're applying that software expertise to this as well. So we have to build a laptop that's not just running Microsoft Office or a web browser to check your Gmail. We have to work with a lot of legacy government applications that were designed in the 2000s, the 90s, even the 80s. We need to be compatible with a lot of things that most consumer laptops never even need to think about. We need drivers to be able to interface with legacy systems that similarly, hardware systems that have been around for a decade. That takes a lot of software work. And so, again, Anduril is in a bit of a different place than most other companies where we're not just a hardware manufacturer. We are a very, very competent software developer as well. [00:09:03] S1: And we're doing things that nobody else is doing.
00:09:03 · S1, S2
[00:09:03] S1: And we're doing things that nobody else is doing. [00:09:06] S2: This is also the first opportunity I've had to ask you about Project Meridian. You, Elon Musk, Newt Grinch leading that project. I know this might sound like an odd starting question, but what are those meetings actually like? Like when you guys get together, what are the problems that you debate with each other? [00:09:24] S1: Well, a few things. One, there's actually about 20 people that are on Project Meridian. You're right.