The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Atlanta facility builds drones for combat, more
Company is getting ready to make its first delivery to Ukraine.
More than a hundred engineers in a newly opened Atlanta facility are designing, coding and building cutting-edge drones to do dangerous tasks, from tracking hurricanes to flying into active war zones.
That’s the work military defense contractor Anduril Industries is doing at its Atlanta office and production center, which opened this month. Its 220 employees specialize in artificial intelligence and unmanned vehicles, developing automated security and defense technologies all under one roof.
Matthew Steckman, chief revenue officer for the California-based startup, said the new facility along Hills Place and Collier Road is designed to attract Atlanta’s graduates.
“The battle for tech talent it real. It’s tough,” he told The Atlanta Journal-constitution. “We cannot graduate enough engineers, so every company is fighting for the same humans.”
Steckman credited the competition for high-skill talent for Anduril’s $60 million investment in west Atlanta, which is expected to eventually employ more than 500 workers. It also joins Georgia’s flourishing aerospace sector, the state’s second-largest manufacturing industry and the state’s top export.
Steckman said Anduril aims to become one of the country’s largest defense contractors by focusing on artificial intelligence and military software.
“We have to scale smartly,” he said. “As more government contracts come in, we add more people.”
‘To nerd out’
Anduril doesn’t hide its influences or who it tries to attract as workers.
The 6-year-old company got its name from a sword in the “Lord of the Rings” series. A whiteboard in its prototype design area asked Atlanta employees to vote on their favorite video game system, from new hardware to a nearly half-century-old Atari. One of the company’s drone launching methods is called “YEET,” referencing slang coined on social media and internet memes.
“To nerd out for a second,” was a phrase Steckman used multiple times when describing the complex systems and technologies. He said moving to Atlanta’s Upper Westside made sense to capitalize on the city’s tech sector.
Most of the company’s Atlanta employees previously worked in Marietta for Area-i, an unmanned aircraft system manufacturer that had been active in Georgia for more than a decade. Anduril acquired Area-i in 2021 for an undisclosed price.
Most of Anduril’s employees met the criteria for quality job tax credits, meaning they make at least 10% more than the average wage in Fulton County. Anduril received roughly $4.2 million in state incentives to come to Atlanta, mostly consisting of job tax credits and qualified machinery installations, according to documents obtained by the AJC through the Georgia Open Records Act.
Anduril expects to manufacture roughly 500 drones in Atlanta this year and has the capabilities to increase that production tenfold, Steckman said. Anduril’s technologies include its Altius line of drones, its Dive brand of unmanned underwater vehicles and its autonomous sentries that combine sonar, thermal sensors and optical cameras to survey areas.
Anduril also produces multiple types of reusable drone launchers called “PILS,” which Josh Steele, head of Atlanta operations, said was effectively a “militarized potato gun.”
Steckman said many of the company’s technologies aim to replace tedious work done by military personnel, including surveying locations and monitoring security perimeters.
“It never falls asleep. It never blinks. It never gets hungry. It never takes a bathroom break,” he said. “It just sits there, watching.”
Ukraine and hurricanes
Anduril’s innovations aren’t the only reason the startup has made headlines.
The company’s founder is Palmer Luckey, who sold his last startup, Oculus VR, to Facebook for $2 billion in 2014. The 30-year-old tech industrialist is well-known for being fired by Facebook in 2017 over his fervent support of then-president Donald Trump.
Anduril raised billions in funding, including backing from venture capitalist Peter Thiel.
Steckman said the company’s first years received tepid backing from investors in comparison to today, as the ongoing conflict in Ukraine has kept national defense in the spotlight.
“Ukraine was a big moment for everybody, where the world realized yet again that there were bad actors in the community,” he said. “The United States’ ability to project power suddenly became incredibly important again.”
Steele said the Atlanta facility is getting ready to ship its first drones to Ukraine. Luckey, whose Twitter profile image features himself with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, previously confirmed his hardware and software is being used in Ukraine.
The company’s Altius drones have the capability to fly a 35-pound payload for more than an hour before striking a target. Steckman said the distance allows drones to carry out certain missions without putting military personnel at risk.
Some of the company’s drones are used to tackle other dangerous forces — hurricanes.
The company’s drones were used to monitor Hurricane Ian, which caused devastating damage throughout Florida, coastal Georgia and the Carolinas in September.
He said the fact Anduril’s technologies can go from design ideas to being used in action within quick timespans is another recruitment tool for ambitious engineers.
“That’s exciting for engineers,” he said. “Not only do I build this thing in a lab, but somebody’s actually going to use it.”
State Rep. David Wilkerson, the leading proponent for removing portions of the new city of Mableton, has proposed an initial map for a redrawn city that would essentially cut it in half.
A map showing the proposed deannexation would remove everything north of Veterans Memorial Highway from the city, including all four mayoral candidates’ residences and the historic Mable House Barnes Amphitheatre. If approved, it also would cut off a significant portion of the city’s tax base.
Wilkerson’s proposed map includes removing the areas that voted against cityhood in the November election — plus the northwest cor- ner of the new city, which voted in favor of cityhood but has either Marietta or Powder Springs addresses.
No legislation has been officially introduced. Wilk- erson, D-powder Springs, said he hopes his map will be a starting point for the other legislators to include or remove the areas they represent, and legislation would be based on that.
“It’s really up to the legislators. I mean, I’m not going to decide what they want for the area,” Wilkerson said. “They’ve got to respond to their constituents.”
Another map, also sent out by Wilkerson, removes a small residential area in the northern part of the city in Rep. Michael Smith’s district, which Wilkerson said Smith requested.
Wilkerson has been the leading voice at the Capi- tol for residents in Mableton who have been advocating for deannexation since the cityhood referendum was approved in November. Many have expressed con- cerns over how the cityhood movement was managed in the lead-up to the election, and some have said they did not know they were within the city’s boundaries.
Christie Lynn, a resident who helped advocate for deannexation, said she hopes the other lawmakers come to the table to find a com- promise. If not, she wants to see the map move forward anyway.
“It represents the area of citizens who voted against cityhood — and yes, that is about half of the city,” she said.
Mableton residents voted 53% to 47% in favor of cityhood, a difference of just under 1,500 votes.
The map is expected to evolve as lawmakers nego- tiate a plan to appease residents who are pushing to get out of the new city without disenfranchising the voters who want to stay in, which Rep. Terry Cummings, D-MA- bleton, has said is one of her concerns. She represents most of the city and has not said whether she will support deannexation legislation.
Cummings did not respond to requests for comment. Lynn said she has tried to work with Cummings several times but has not received a response.
“That’s sort of an open- ing offer, right? This is the area that we’re requesting to be deannexed,” Lynn said. “If (Cummings) doesn’t say otherwise, we’ll assume that she agrees with that area of deannexation.”
The Georgia Municipal Association does not take positions on local legislation, including municipal deannexations. But its general counsel, Rusi Patel, has said that deannexation could present serious challenges for the new city, particularly if the boundaries differ dramatically from the feasibility study that was based on the proposed city’s tax base.