Brian SchimpfCo-founder and CEO, Anduril Industries

We are about eight years in, around 7,000 employees, and we have doubled revenue every year. Even after crossing a billion dollars in revenue, growth continues. We scaled people, products, and production much faster than expected because demand and global conditions accelerated everything.

A mix of timing and execution. The world became less stable faster than expected, and governments needed these capabilities now. Customers were ready to move quickly, and we were building the right things at the right time, which pulled growth forward.

We look for real adoption in three to five years, a clear technical edge, and customers who are ready to buy now. We avoid projects that are ten years out or disconnected from where the military is actually heading.

Early on, smaller drones made sense given capital and expertise. Over time, we moved into much harder problems like autonomous fighter jets and long-range systems. As the company matured, we became capable of building much larger and more complex platforms.

Software is the foundation. We built a shared platform for sensors, compute, autonomy, and communications. That lets us move fast without reinventing everything. We reuse and refine components, which allows rapid deployment and continuous improvement.

Future battlefields will be contested and disconnected. Systems must operate autonomously without constant links. Everything we build aligns with that belief. If a product does not make sense in that environment, we do not pursue it.

Our products should be far cheaper than traditional alternatives. We prefer fixed-price models and even cases where we do not get paid if we fail. That accountability makes us better and delivers better outcomes for the government.

The government often takes all the risk while companies get guaranteed profit. That leads to slow delivery and rising costs. We prefer taking risk ourselves, which forces speed, discipline, and real performance instead of endless complexity.

The world is clearly more unstable. Countries want assured supply, faster delivery, and local production. That creates demand for companies that can scale quickly, adapt software, and produce systems at speed.

Australia had a real capability gap and moved fast. We shared risk, built local teams, and delivered quickly. It showed what is possible when both sides commit and prioritize speed and execution.

Some systems take five to fifteen years to deliver, which is unacceptable during real threats. Nations want certainty that what they order will arrive. Speed and reliability are now strategic, not optional.

The capacity already exists in commercial industry. The mistake was isolating defense. You cannot mass-produce extremely complex systems without designing for scale from day one using existing industrial capacity.

Rare earths, magnets, and semiconductors are national policy issues. Defense-only solutions are too expensive. We need commercially viable supply chains in the US or allied countries to maintain resilience and independence.

Talent density matters more than comfort. Truly talented people are opinionated and challenging, but that friction creates innovation. Empowering brilliant people to own problems beats layers of management optimizing outdated systems.

We avoid optimizing for stability too early. Middle management can kill creativity. We need people who can adapt and invent because we constantly face new technical and geopolitical challenges.

Success pulls us into bigger and harder problems. We are becoming deeply involved in shaping global defense. That scale and impact, combined with speed, is incredibly motivating.

I always think we are undervalued. If the world needs more autonomous and affordable defense systems, then we are undervalued. Most signals suggest demand is increasing, not shrinking.