at about in 360 this year after I sat down and had a conversation with Palmer lucky I opened it up to the a360 membership uh it was a vibrant conversation to say the least we had people just you know on the tip of their seats one of the things that Palmer mentioned to the audience was don’t follow your passion follow your talent uh something I’m still trying to understand and think about whether I agree with uh after this I’d love to hear what you think of that so get ready for an intense Q&A with Palmer lucky uh the young entrepreneur revitalizing the defense industry uh and someone who’s changed all of our lives with oculus my massive transformative purpose is to inspire and guide entrepreneurs to create a hopeful compelling and abundant future in humanity and that’s what I’m doing with this podcast to open up every relationship every conversation I have with you to inspire ire you to support
[00:01:01] you in going big in helping uplift Humanity if that’s of interest to you please subscribe to this podcast allow me to share with you the wisdom that I’m learning from the most incredible moonshot entrepreneurs on the planet all right let’s jump in first off I love listening to you I think you’re just hysterical you’re like a brilliant young guy that has a ton of money doing cool stuff in the world but it could be just I’m just like that yeah so I think it was Winston Church it was um about war where where he said uh we stand uh we sleep soundly in our soundly in our beds because of rough men that stand ready in the night willing to visit violence upon those that would do us harm so this is a moral question about I think we’ve been in the middle of a cyber War a psychic war for the last 3 years probably longer but it really came to the surface what is uh I think you’re a freedom fighter I think and I think uh it’s people like you that could maybe
[00:02:00] perhaps save us from uh some of the very communist people that many that run tech companies and uh I I I mean you have to remember that they so far they’ve won I did get fired from my own company after they bought it so so that’s a very very I I I hope that’s true but thus far the Communists running the tech companies sure seem to be pulling a pulling a fast one on me yeah yeah well I think you’re doing something about it so what if you could wave a magic wand and have something happen what is what are you what are you hoping to do with everything that you’re doing right now it’s a defense company but behind that you know I think you know violence is never an option unless it’s the only option right so what do you um what are you hoping to see happen what would you like to see I I mentioned earlier this idea that there’s no moral High Ground in leaving problems as important as defense which is violence to less competent people if you believe that it will be used at all which seems
[00:03:00] a reasonable belief to have then you should want really smart people thinking about how to do it in the best and most limited and most precise way you shouldn’t want people to say um you know what there’s going to be collateral damage because we only have bombs with this level of accuracy and this level of of damage I mean in a perfect world you could have a grain of rice that goes straight into the head of exactly the Isis General that you want to kill and there’s no collateral damage there’s nothing bad that happens outside that very precise strike and that’s also going to limit the potential for humans rights abuses and for M mistakes and it it becomes much more accountable basically if if you can get violence to the point where it’s so precise that it is only acted enacted upon those that you intend it to it’s very easy to today for for someone to say oh well you know that was just collateral damage based on the limitations of the technology in the future you’d say you have you are accountable for every single person that you kill and you have to be able to answer for why they are dead and why you
[00:04:00] killed them I think that makes it easier for our Democratic processes to regulate this like I I don’t think the right way to limit our ability to commit human rights violations is to similarly limit our ability to do the right thing I don’t think that we should give NATO squirt guns like the right thing you can have to do is give them the powerful tools and rely on Democratic institutions to if not be perfect at least course correct away from the from from the the bad decisions that are made intelligence and accountability exactly and and I would I’ll finish by saying if like I I’m I’m more afraid of evil people with pretty good technology than good people with really good technology if our Democratic institutions fall apart they are going to do a lot of harm whether their technology is great or bad it’ll just be different kinds of harm yeah thank you and I hope you use your Brilliance to help eradicate a lot of the evil in the world I hope that our Democratic institutions make the decision to use my technology to do that
[00:05:02] Hey Jag good to see you hello yeah we go hi Ja good to have you here Atlas Society so uh Palmer you mentioned what happened to you at Facebook where you were essentially ousted for not conforming to the dominant political culture looking back there have been some developments Brian Armstrong coinbase saying we’re going to be a mission focused company if you don’t like it we’ll pay you a very generous severance package what Elon Musk has done at Twitter exposing some of what happened there so have things gotten any better yeah I think that things are getting better for two reasons um some are in specific companies like mine where the common mission is what unites people and what brought people in and it’s not partisan so like for example I’m the founder and the CTO of anderol our CEO Brian chimp is a Democrat and he does fundraisers for Democrats and I do fundraisers for Republicans but guess what we get along perfectly fine because there’s so much we have in common on National Security
[00:06:00] and we tell our employees that’s what we’re here to do that’s what we’re here to work on and we can disagree and argue within the realm of what our mission is but if it’s not relevant to our mission you got to do that on your own time because we can’t we cannot afford to be a partisan company when you have to work with the entire country from Administration to Administration from uh you know Congress to Congress um so for my company it’s pretty easy like you know coinbase has been doing this I think the other one is what you’re seeing in companies is other companies that are not necessarily required to be uh you know ideologically neutral are starting to move that way because of rising interest rates I think that crazy political mon monoculturalism was a zero interest rate phenomenon it is the thing that companies can afford to get away with they can afford to get away with it when money is cheap and growth is is for everybody and you you could you can basically just do lots of dumb things and still succeed and I think as companies are having to realize no we do need to compete for talent we do need to
[00:07:01] actually compete in the marketplace we need to make money they realize they can’t afford to have these like this this CRA these crazy witch hunts going on regularly in their own rank so I’m actually optimistic that like it this was kind of like a you know like like kind of like a Sodom situation where it was you know just like oh you know it just it just it it happened because it became things got out of control because it was so easy for your business to succeed even as you were bad so I’m I’m hoping for a return to sanity that’s all nice great question Jag thank you Hara hi this is for you so you mentioned about those robots that you need to control remotely so uh I was working at Microsoft robotics building a lot of humanoid robots and then my team went and started doing Hollow lens and I went and built Hol suit exactly for controlling it’s a full body thing and I couldn’t get into lock heat and all they kind of really as you said this us system was not there so now already Indian army and Indian spaces is using it so please come and visit us here and
[00:08:02] I would love to talk to you and I mean exactly the same kind of problems that startups are having I started it here I had to go to India to get the vision done now I’ve come back to Silicon Valley exactly because of your thing so please uh visit us and we can that’s awesome my dance ticket’s pretty full but send me an email and if anyone else does it’s just Palmer and.com so my name and my website I’m pretty easy to reach I mean the reason you couldn’t get into Lockheed they’re a Cost Plus contractor they make money by making things that they can charge you know percentage of profit on top of they are not incentivized to reuse existing Technologies unless they are forced to by the government requirements and so if they were going to do what you were doing they’re not going to want to license it from you as an existing technology they’re going to want to convince the government oh you need this and you’re going to need to pay us for a 15-year research program where you’re going to pay us to design this from scratch and not look at anything that’s been done out there by the way once they’ve tasted that they’re never going back no and the funny thing is it’s it’s such a it’s such a it’s such a it’s a self-reinforcing negative Loop where yes
[00:09:01] you know yes you can make a lot of money doing that way but only with tiny margins and so their business is always terrible like lock is only worth about $100 billion on$ 67 billion in Revenue isn’t that nuts they’re worth a 1 and a2x multiple of their revenue and it’s because they basically make they make tons of money but their margins are so low that they’re not actually that good of a business so let go to Mike on on on uh mic number two sorry if anyone’s from lockade Charles you’re up next on Zoom where are you and what’s your question Palmer thank you um for um what you’re doing for our country I had a question about um to get your opinion as to the relative strength of the United States on the global stage especially you know we’ve read about the Hypersonic missiles that Russia and China have and we evidently we falling behind that technology but we also listened yesterday to the fact that you know in 5 years years whoever is winning the AI
[00:10:01] race may actually win it for the next century and so I’m just wondering in in in your involvement in the defense industry if you have any thoughts on on where we stand competitively thank you we’re in a pretty good position right now the biggest problem that we have is that China has really pulled themselves up by their bootstraps over the last couple decades enabled unfortunately by a lot of very bad US foreign policy decisions there’s there’s this kind of myth that is unique to America and I think it’s based on our media our comic books our movies our video games our stories about things that are going bad and then at the last second the brilliant guy has the twist of the mind that saves everything with just the exact right idea I think we’re actually past that point with China that that’s not how reality works in the real world you can make bad decisions that cannot be undone without Decades of work so I’m talking about like bringing back Advanced Manufacturing in the United States it’s not about bringing back a few machines it’s about training an entire Lost Generation of manufacturing
[00:11:02] process Engineers fabrication Engineers people who didn’t get into those degrees because there’s no opportunity for them in this country even as China has hugely concentrated their resources there so these are things that are going to be much harder than like one bill one Factory it’s going to take us literally decades to solve it and so we need to figure out how we’re going to get through the next few decades um I think right now we’re in a pretty strong military position but China also gets a lot more for each dollar they spend we people point out that we spend two or three times as much as them well I’ll tell you as someone who has built millions of virtual reality headsets in China they get a lot more than two or three dollar worth of value for every dollar that gets spent in China they are very efficient they know exactly how to most efficiently use that money um and so I get that we’ve got a few things we can hope their economy collapses uh that that’s one thing that could happen and then then there’s if their economy collapses they’ll be too focused internally to be able to go on on these kind of you know escapades abroad and
[00:12:01] you know try to take over over democratic nations uh they’ll probably have to stop arming all of these other countries around the world that wish us harm and wish our allies harm um but but but but at the end of the day the I guess the last thing you said which is there’s this theory that AI is going to you know to to to the winner in AI goes all uh two two quick things there one Russia actually tried to become the leader in military AI before the US was making it taking it seriously one of the quotes that’s in the andal pitch deck actually to our investors was a quote from Putin speaking to a bunch of high school students trying to convince them to work in the defense space uh and he said the the country that leads in artificial intelligence will become the ruler of the entire world I was like wow that’s so honest that’s like James Bond villain type dialogue we will rule the entire world and and he says that CU he thought it was a way that they could potentially asymmetrically oppose the United States China believes the same thing I think that if China gets a head in AI we might have to take drastic
[00:13:01] action on the economic side where people are like oh what if they figure out how to make things for a tenth of the price of the United States won’t we all just buy stuff from China isn’t that economic collapse for the US and to which I’d say history has shown that when situations become that unbalanced the United States and our allies will just decide okay we’re just cutting off imports from them like we we are just we’re cutting it off it doesn’t matter how cheap it is it doesn’t matter the harm we we have to stop this problem I think that that is that is one of their worst case scenarios because they cannot live without for not yet they they they they still need us they still need the West uh they still need us to make Manu microprocessors they still need us to make their technology and they still need us to sell stuff to and to and to sell them agriculture because we grow everything thank you for your question Charles George good to see you all right good to see you too um hey Palmer uh over here uh thank you I loved everything you’re doing everything you said I was on the edge of my seat um I’m a emerging VC here in LA on top Ventures and so my question you mentioned your
[00:14:00] pitch deck so I kind of want to go back to that and pick your brain about um would have loved to have been there when you were starting uh the first VR company what would you advise on special Founders like yourself what what do you think if you as you look back what makes you special especially when you were just starting out 20 years old right and and I’m sure you probably have similar friends in your community what would what would your advice to me and some of the other VCS be here in um being able to work with uh Founders like yourself and help you with your journey to be honest Oculus was very much a case of the right technology in the right place at the right time with very little planning or thought behind it and I wouldn’t model your Investments after that like cuz look I I was working on VR because I loved VR I truly believed in it I decided as a gamer that VR was not just the next thing in gaming but the final thing in gaming and that’s what I wanted to be working on so what what what science fiction was your most inspirational for that by the way oh man we probably of of course Neil Stevenson snow crash um but you know I also like
[00:15:02] sorted online and like as a child my favorite book was 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea which is a highly technical book I wish more writing was like that today but anyway the point is I happened to be working on VR at the time when modern rendering technology and display technology and motion tracking technology simultaneously made good VR viable I could have been just as passionate 5 years earlier and failed I could have been just as passionate 10 years earlier and failed timing is everything it really was and it’s I don’t want to act like I was like this this Savant who saw the future I made an irrational insane decision I was like I’m going to drop out of college and work on my VR toys because that’s what I want to do that sounds like a lot of fun uh and and I would say that is not a good way to start a company I mean like I we’ve talked about this but I I I one of my bits of controversial advice to Founders is don’t follow your passion follow your talents because people are told oh follow the thing you’re passionate about with like andrel was not me following my passion I did not want to work in defense I did not want to be build weapons but I felt like it
[00:16:00] was something really important and I felt like I had the talents that I could use to do really good things in that space people say oh it must be more fun than VR right nope VR is way more fun I had a way better time every single day but weapons is important and so I want to work on that so I think that follow your dreams and follow your passion that was great advice in the 1970s when the number one most desired job for children was astronaut astronauts were fighter pilots PhD mathematicians combined and today do you know what the number one job that kids want to be is content creator no it’s it’s a it’s it’s a YouTuber and then the next one is professional gamer yes uh and like I think it’s really dangerous to tell people follow your dreams when their dreams are so bad and so and and so like what what I what I would advise to you if if you’re if you’re an emerging VC I would say like basically ignore Oculus that that that was we did a lot right but it was crazy good luck too I would look more at andal you want to find somebody who is
[00:17:02] rationally looking and saying I have this certain set of skills and so do my co-founders that’s going to let us solve this problem that matters and that’s what here’s how we’re going to do it here’s why we’re going to do it here’s why we’re Mission driven uh and not because they say oh I just I just love doing this or I you know I just I have this dream I’ve always wanted to be that uh I I in in my experience it’s the ones who are mission driven who who feel like they’re uh who feel like they’re driven by that by you driven by that uh by that goal that are going to be the most successful also invest in people who are angry and have something to prove um I I think that’s a big part of why and’s done so well is because I was fired and I’m enraged by that and I I just I had a big chip on my shoulder uh I’m I’m serious it sounds like I’m just making a a quip but like there’s a lot of Founders I see where some of them were wronged by their former employer some were wrong they felt by their industry others were wronged even directly by their families INF in some financial hardship on them and a lot of there’s a
[00:18:01] lot of good Founders out there say I’m going to show them they’ll see they’ll all see and that’s source of energy it’s infinite we don’t need nuclear thank you George let’s go to Roger hey Roger hi this is a question for everyone uh I’m roer Hamilton from genius group and this time last year Al Summit the big theme was the metaverse right it was that was all about the metaverse and and metaverse never had it like Mass VI wow moment the way AI has this year uh and we know it’s open Ai and now we see Google Microsoft while we see also meta not really talking much about the whole metaverse anymore so it seems to me that the AI Graphics that we’re seeing and what’s happening in terms of rendering virtual world could accelerate the wow moment for the metaverse so my question is uh do you think it’s going to happen sooner rather than later any predictions uh which company would you put your bet on as to who might be the one that creates that wow moment for the
[00:19:00] metaverse uh uh and will it be meta I mean you okay the metaverse parallel world that exists alongside and amongst our own merging the digital in the real you know I I think it’s not just virtual Spa you purely virtual space it’s that combination of the two um I so running backwards in order I don’t think the first big wow moment that we see is going to be from one of the big players why because the big players have to make bets and they can only pick a few of them right they can pick one or two things and bring their massive resources to bear on that handful of bets but that means that they’re competing against hundreds if not thousands of companies that have a few people that are trying furry little mammals yeah it it exactly you you know there the furry little mammals that are eventually going to turn into people there’s a whole lot of them and they’re all trying different things and maybe none of those companies they’re crazy things that big companies would never try there are crazy things that we never try I mean one of the most powerful things with oculus when we launched we started shipping these development kits we got them out to 55 ,000 people and 55,000 I’d say most of
[00:20:01] the game developers made garbage uh maybe a couple hundred made things that were okay but there were a few dozen that really opened your mind you saw and said oh my God this is the future of gaming this is the future of computing I get it even on this primitive hardware and I think it was because we had so many people working that inevitably one of them would find that magical thing I don’t think it’s going to be a big company it’s going to be one of these many why did Google video fail and Larry spent 1.65 billion to buy YouTube yeah exactly it’s it’s exactly the why ocas got bought as well right because the whole mindset of having a bigger company well there’s one reason why they failed what was that the lawyers oh you can’t allow that video to go up on Google on Google video but this is true even today so you have things like Horizon World which is Facebook’s metaverse platform and like it’s it’s one of the reasons it’s bad is the lawyers you know what the best metaverse platform is right now it’s VR chat why because there’s no copyright enforcement
[00:21:00] and mass copyright infringement and anyone can make anything with no lawyers involved because there’s not enough money to be even worth suing the people running the company that’s the that that’s the world that has the most active users the most Worlds the most creativity last question we’re going to go to Josh on Zoom Josh yes hello everyone zooming in from Denver it’s a fascinating chat and absolutely love the obvious passion and the group here it’s a great reminder for us all the dream bigger and specifically as entrepreneurs with these Hightech and very detailed Concepts how do we tie them into our simple daily routines or day-to-day living from a simple basis I mean I often like to look at problems from the perspective of how I would solve them if my technology had you know it wasn’t my technology I see a lot of problems getting solved where people are trying to find every use case for every shiny new thing and like oh we’re going to do VR education so well is it is it actually better than anything or is this just iPads for Education again again where it’s like oh we got to buy iPads for every kid and that’s going to turn
[00:22:00] every kid in the country into a Super Genius no that’s not true people were doing it because it was shiny not CU it was the best solution you know and like look I’m a big believer in for example the metaverse broadly my email signature for 10 years was see you in the metaverse so you can’t accuse me of being a trend jumper I was crazy my my whole career um but but nonetheless there’s so many new companies that are like oh the metaverse solves this problem that problem I have to look at them and say does it really or would this be better with solved with like a a pen and like you’re trying to keep track of the things that are going on in your day so you put on the VR headset and you’re visualizing all of the different places like God you literally just need this that would be better straight like and also phones like phones are actually better than AR and VR for some things and so like when I’m trying to integrate when I’m trying to integrate you know this thing into my daily life I’m trying to make sure I don’t fall into the Trap of using tech for the sake of using Tech in my everyday life for trying to solve a problem that doesn’t need it it doesn’t solve it it’s hard for me cuz I’m a gear Head I’m a I’m a techno head I love the technology but we had a rule
[00:23:00] of no unintentional gimmicks it’s going to be a gimmick make it intentional and lean into it but um otherwise don’t play yourself you can tell everyone else this is incredible as long as at the end of you say this is so dumb all right guys let’s give it up for Stacy for Mike and [Music] p