Should Startups Work With the Military?
YES. IT’S YOUR DUTY
When Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella faced an employee protest about a nearly halfbillion-dollar contract with the Army, he said it had been the result of a “principled decision … to protect the freedoms we enjoy.” It’s a patriotic perspective shared by many tech leaders—even when it comes to building tech that enhances weaponry. “At the end of the day, we use drones. We use drones to kill people,” says Senseye’s David Zakariaie. “If the drone needs to identify if someone is a threat or not before we pull the trigger, we better have the best A.I. possible.”
NO. NOT UNLESS YOU’RE ALL IN
Trae Stephens, a partner at Founders Fund and co-founder of defense contractor Anduril Industries, sees most startups as a bad fit with the Pentagon. “It doesn’t work for a mostly commercial business,” he says. “Your people are not ideologically aligned with that kind of work. That’s when you get Google pulling out of Project Maven,” the controversial program to improve dronestrike accuracy. So, what’s the solution? “We need to build new prime defense contractors,” he says, “so people can work knowingly on military applications. We won’t get the best defense-relevant tech out of commercial industry.”
MAYBE THERE’S A THIRD WAY
New York City–based A.I. startup Clarifai experienced both the peril and the promise of working with the Pentagon when it agreed to help out on Project Maven. While some Clarifai workers protested, the company also recognized a promising line of business. Last December, Clarifai announced a new division called Neural Net One, based in Washington, D.C., that would focus solely on defense work while the rest of the company remained dedicated to commerce.