Move Fast and Kill Things

Oct 17, 2025

Silicon Valley sold us a myth. A story of idealists in hoodies changing the world for the better. It was a lie.

The same people who built your social networks and smartphones are now building autonomous weapons, surveillance systems for dictators, and AI that decides who lives and who dies.

“Move fast and break things” became “move fast and kill things.”

A New Blueprint

In 2017, Palmer Luckey founded Anduril Industries. He was the 20-something creator of the Oculus VR headset, fired from Facebook after donating $10,000 to Nimble America, a pro-Trump political group that created billboard advertisements during the 2016 election.

He named his new company after a sword from Lord of the Rings, rebranding war as fantasy heroism.

Backed by Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund, he hired engineers from top tech companies, promising to fix defense contracting with Silicon Valley speed.

This became the template: frame weapons as “autonomous systems,” hire tech workers who believe they’re saving democracy, get venture capital to fund it.

Meanwhile, Thiel’s other company, Palantir, proved you could make billions building the surveillance state for the CIA, NSA, and ICE, all while avoiding consumer backlash.

The Death of Conscience

There was a moment of resistance. In 2018, over 4,000 Google employees revolted against Project Maven, an AI contract with the Pentagon to analyze drone footage.

They won. Google backed down. It was the last time tech workers successfully stopped their company from building weapons.

Then Russia invaded Ukraine, and the war provided perfect cover. Suddenly, building weapons was heroic. Palantir deployed AI targeting systems used for “most of the targeting in Ukraine.” Anduril shipped autonomous drones.

The employee resistance of 2018 melted away, replaced by patriotic fervor to arm allies. The war legitimized the pivot to military tech, and Silicon Valley saw its opportunity.

Techno-Warlord

No one embodies this new power more than Elon Musk. He provided Ukraine with Starlink satellite internet, becoming the backbone of their military communications.

Then he showed the world who was really in control.

In fall 2022, he ordered Starlink coverage shut down near Kherson during a Ukrainian counteroffensive, causing communication blackouts. He also refused to activate Starlink in Crimea for Ukrainian operations, citing fears of nuclear escalation.

One unelected billionaire, accountable to no one, changed the course of a battle with a single command. He later threatened to cut off service entirely unless the Pentagon paid him hundreds of millions more.

This is a new class of billionaire warlords who own the infrastructure of modern warfare and use it as leverage.

Some will argue this technology is a necessary evil, a tool to defend democracy. But when one man can turn off a nation’s defenses on a whim, that is not democracy.

When the same surveillance AI used to target Russian tanks in Ukraine is also used to target immigrants for deportation in America and Palestinians in Gaza, it’s not a moral cause. It’s a business model. The highest bidder wins, and you and I always lose.

The Integration

By 2025, the line between Silicon Valley and the Pentagon has been erased.

Tech billionaires are now in government. Elon Musk is appointed to a federal efficiency post. Peter Thiel installed JD Vance as Vice President, and advises on intelligence. Palmer Luckey has the ear of the President on military procurement.

The people selling the weapons are now writing the policies.

Andreessen Horowitz, a top VC firm, launches an “American Dynamism” fund explicitly for defense tech, declaring that America must build weapons.

In early 2025 Anduril took over Microsoft’s contract worth up to $22 billion over 10 years to develop combat headsets for the U.S. Army.

The future is killer robots made like iPhones.

The Price of Power

Nowhere is the moral rot clearer than in Palantir’s partnership with Israel.

As the death toll in Gaza surpassed 41,000, the company boasted of providing advanced technology to support Israel’s war effort.

When asked about an Israeli AI targeting system that killed thousands of civilians, Palantir co-founder Peter Thiel simply said, “My bias is to defer to Israel... they’re broadly in the right.”

When asked about an Israeli AI targeting system that killed thousands of civilians, Palantir’s co-founder Peter Thiel simply said, “My bias is to defer to Israel... they’re broadly in the right.”

When genocide is profitable, and the men enabling it say it’s not their place to second-guess, the message is clear: power is its own justification. Profit is its own morality.

Welcome to the new Silicon Valley. A system where a $1 trillion Pentagon budget flows to the same companies cutting social programs. Where AI that selects human targets is celebrated as innovation. Where unelected billionaires control who wins wars.

They didn’t sell out. It was always about power and money.

The myth of changing the world for the better was just the first round of funding.

Now they have the power, the funding, and they’re coming for your electricity, your social insurance, and the world.

Image: AI Generated

Sources:

Elisabeth P. Montgomery, Ph.D.

The scariest part is that Matt Gaetz is married to Ginger Luckey, Palmer Luckey's sister !

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Lori

Aaaargh! I was writing a long comment but lost it. Hussein, sometime we should talk: I started working in consulting in 1993, based in San Francisco. You name the tech company and they were either a client or I knew people on the inside having worked with them as clients elsewhere. The long and short of it is that the evolution of the tech industry has been a fascinating one to watch.

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