Silicon Valley Is Transforming the Military-Industrial Complex

ppaimapi about 3 hours ago 67 commentsRead Article on costsofwar.watson.brown.edu

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slowin•about 1 hour ago

It's up to us, as tech workers to push back against this. I quit my job at Microsoft due to their complicity with Israeli war crimes and oppression (and certainly the US government was involved too). It's tough to leave a high paying job, but I feel good about it every single day. We don't have to be cogs in the MIC machine and we don't have to build systems that terrorize people.

leonidasrup•31 minutes ago

Microsoft has been participating in PRISM program (SIGAD US-984XN) since 2007.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM

There are allegation that Microsoft changed Skype architecture (after buying Skype for $8.5 billion) to make wiretapping easier.

" In July last year, nine months after Microsoft bought Skype, the NSA boasted that a new capability had tripled the amount of Skype video calls being collected through Prism; "

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/11/microsoft-nsa-...

nater5000•5 minutes ago

You know, if enough tech workers at Microsoft felt strongly about these ethical issues, they could influence Microsoft's decisions internally which is probably the most effective position to be in to do so.

But all well, glad you can feel good about yourself by leaving so that someone with less concern about these ethical issues can fill the void and assert their own influence on the company instead.

monideas•28 minutes ago

Well it's good you just left on your own accord, basically you fired yourself rather than wasting their time having to do it. There's an interesting dynamic with this in that the Chinese and Indian (and other foreign born/first gen immigrant) workers at big tech companies don't care about these things at all. There are some very intense ideological dynamics within big tech companies among the employee base but I always found it interesting that the foreign born employees did not care at all, they were just there to work.

PorciiVorbesc•8 minutes ago

>There's an interesting dynamic with this in that the Chinese and Indian (and other foreign born/first gen immigrant) workers at big tech companies don't care about these things at all.

Why do you think the elite business owning class wants to replace you with desperate and malleable foreign workers from countries where morals and human rights are suggestions at best?

You built your nest egg taking Microsoft's money for a few years giving you the luxury to quit on a dime, but there's a lot of people on the planet or even in your country, wishing to do as you did.

You can't just pull the ladder after you and expect everyone make the same sacrifice as you except without their own nest egg.

monideas•4 minutes ago

Because they're intelligent, work hard and have strong family ties. They put their energy into their families instead of trying to derive meaning from political activism. But these things dissipate within a few generations of living in the US, hence the need for more and more foreign workers.

dgellow•about 1 hour ago

Thank you, both for following your values and for sharing it publicly

1234letshaveatw•about 1 hour ago

yes, OC was so brave

slowin•40 minutes ago

I just want to say that I don't think I was brave at all. I actually feel a lot of shame because I knew that Microsoft wasn't compatible with my values when I joined. I didn't know the exact details that came out later, but I took a very high paying job for a company that I thought at best didn't align with my values. I had to live with a growing cognitive dissonance about the choices I made. I also didn't exit tech fully, I still work for a company that seems ethical and nice, but has VCs that are probably involved in the MIC post we're discussing.

I've debated exiting tech fully but I do have people to support. I think that's kind of an excuse though. I also tell myself that anywhere I go, if you follow the money far enough up the chain, it will be unethical. That's also kind of an excuse.

I'm not brave, but I do feel trapped. I think we need some sort of reckoning as an industry, a country and possibly a planet. I don't know what will happen but I'm trying to balance living in 2026 with making choices that I can live with in the future.

buellerbueller•29 minutes ago

Did you realize that sharing personal attacks is, in fact, optional?

sadnvkse•8 minutes ago

At the risk of being downvoted to oblivion. Threads like this always have lots of people agreeing to people quitting the jobs, not even ones that are directly working on that but even ones just associated with the company at hand. This is an honest question, how do you decide what is Ok? A job with a company that was involved in this is not Ok, fair enough. What about working with a company that does business with Microsoft or uses Microsoft products? What about owning Microsoft stock and benefiting off it? what about owning Microsoft stock via index funds? Don't mean to be pedantic, but can I use Microsoft products, can I use outlook? can I use an xbox? What are my other realistic options, considering it feels like every industry (not just tech) has big 2-3 realistic options and they all likely have something bad headlines, even if I don't know about it. How much time can I realistically invest digging and fact checking this? I want to be good, but these threads generally leave me feeling judged.

I understand everyone has their moral compass, and they act accordingly. But, I find it hard to not ask myself, if this is not OK, why is this other related thing Ok? how do I decide what's Ok and seems when you ask the question you get downvotes and lots of judgement instead of answers.

NDlurker•5 minutes ago

I sold my Microsoft stock when they started talking about military AR headsets. Except the index funds. I'm not sure what to do about that.

georgeburdell•30 minutes ago

Do you support the status quo of millions of H1Bs? Those people I doubt can or will take such a principled stance, making collective action by tech workers impossible.

tombert•12 minutes ago

Wouldn't this be an argument for people who can take principled stances to do so?

wartywhoa23•23 minutes ago

That's exactly why they are imported in such huge numbers.

pfdietz•38 minutes ago

> It's up to us, as tech workers to push back against this.

This appears to me to be unrealistic or performative, except if you mean pushing back in the sense that anyone could, as a voter for example. Boycott of defense work won't work; attempting to claim some special authority in debate won't work either.

datsci_est_2015•31 minutes ago

The opposite of performative action is even worse: nihilism or even active support of atrocities.

Too many nihilists in the tech industry with the attitude “if I don’t do it someone else will”, and here we are as a professional class actively making the world an objectively shittier place. The VCs can’t do it without us.

davidw•about 1 hour ago

I feel like tech has lost its way recently. It's a huge, huge field, so there have always been people working on 'bad' things, but IDK, I just don't have the same feeling of optimism about things that I used to and I wish there was some kind of movement bringing that back.

lbrito•about 1 hour ago

I think many people share this feeling. I sure do.

I don't see how it could have gone any other way. The internet became too pervasive, too embedded into too many people's lives, for it to not be weaponized by governments and large companies.

Benjammer•about 1 hour ago

Recently? Blind (teamblind.com) culture has been taking over tech for like a decade at this point.

lbrito•32 minutes ago

I think the parent commenter is referring to a much darker side of tech than just TC-chasing Blind culture, which is pretty harmless in comparison

username_my1•38 minutes ago

This is the problem with capitalism.

Nothing is ever enough, all the top tech companies, it's not enough that the conquered the global market, not enough that they dominated commerce, media, automotive, cloud, space ...

it's not enough that they have the largest headcounts on the planet (outside India / China).

they always need to do more and bigger the next quarter.

no morals, no core market, no other guideline, simply more, and I have to do it because else someone else will.

I really hope the Chinese keep killing everything that gets too big to fail.

endless growth is the same as cancer. unnatural destructive.

MisterTea•13 minutes ago

> I really hope the Chinese keep killing everything that gets too big to fail.

Be careful what you wish for. What happens when China gets too big to fail?

FLeXMurphy•about 1 hour ago

What was your job at Microsoft?

slowin•about 1 hour ago

I was a 68 working on consumer products, but it was still too much for me. Especially the revelation that Satya worked with the IDF to capture all Palestinian phone conversations and host them on Azure. Every day I woke up to go to work after I found that out, I was sick to my stomach. I eventually couldn't take it any more. I took a pay cut and I'm still in the tech industry working for a startup, and still facing ethical dilemmas (with our investors) but at least I'm not on the front-lines of human rights abuse.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/aug/06/microsoft-isra...

FLeXMurphy•about 1 hour ago

War is a massive racket.

swozey•41 minutes ago

I've always figured big tech workers were so compartmentalized that they wouldn't know their new analytic feature was also going to the defense skunks initiative, but that could be conspiratorial thinking.

Guess it doesn't matter now when they have full on defense orgs.

1234letshaveatw•42 minutes ago

TIL an intelligence agency spying on a foreign adversary is human rights abuse. I would be super upset if my country of residence did the same to a neighbor sending rockets my way, would make me sick to my stomach

shimman•44 minutes ago

It should be noted that MSFT is the only tech company that explicitly asked the FBI to surveil about workers that were protesting the Gaza genocide:

https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/latest-news/microsof...

---

Also thank you for your bravery, it is not easy leaving well paid jobs. If you haven't already, I'd start donating some time with your local mutual aid groups. It's very therapeutic to spend time with people that believe similar things while helping others.

chanakya•about 1 hour ago

Serious question: should companies not participate in contracts from their country's defense department? Or is the argument that it's only US companies which shouldn't, because the US is uniquely evil?

afavour•36 minutes ago

I think it’s difficult to come up with hard and fast rules. But the fact that the US government (falsely) renamed their Department of Defense to Department of War is perhaps a useful signal.

0cf8612b2e1e•about 1 hour ago

Other countries probably focus quite a bit more on the defense aspect. How many times has the US military countered a hostile attacking force? Instead, I can think of significantly more instances where the US was instigating the situation.

stickfigure•27 minutes ago

US military power does most of its heavy lifting without throwing bombs. We're seeing the end of Pax Americana and it isn't pretty.

chanakya•about 1 hour ago

That may be partly true, but in recent times, most western countries participated in wars like Afganistan and Iraq, and provided logistical or other support during the current Iran war.

buellerbueller•26 minutes ago

In even more recent times, the US made war on Iran for no apparent reason at all.

hkchad•about 1 hour ago

Transforming? You guys do know where google got it's start right? SV has been DOD funded from the start.

trescenzi•26 minutes ago

Yea how is this comment so low. There was a brief period of time where the military industry complex wasn’t deeply entwined but that period is very much over.

strangattractor•8 minutes ago

Post WWII built SV - it has always been the case.

jeffbee•about 1 hour ago

Tech workers on the way to work: I wonder why this tram stop is called "Lockheed-Martin". I guess we'll never know!

alterom•34 minutes ago

Wait till they find out where the Internet came from.

Or what drove the demand for silicon in the first place.

As for "transforming", that happened some time during the Vietnam war when the laser-guided bomb was introduced. Been a smooth sailing ever since.

paimapi•about 3 hours ago

some interesting tidbits from the longer report:

>Keyhole, a small San Francisco-based company that developed software for creating three-dimensional models of the earth’s surface [was] provided seed funding in 2003 [by a CIA-backed VC firm, In-Q-Tel], and within two weeks, military and intelligence agencies were reportedly using Keyhole’s software to support the U.S. war in Iraq. The following year, Google acquired Keyhole for an undisclosed sum. It was renamed Google Earth.

[...]

>A distinctive aspect of the shifting military-industrial complex is the crucial role played by venture capital (VC). Some observers have noted that the rapid rise in VC funding for defense tech firms has been spurred by recent global conflicts, particularly the war in Ukraine, and more recently, escalating conflicts in Gaza and other parts of the Middle East. According to this line of reasoning, the widely publicized use of drones, satellite imagery, Starlink, and other technologies are generating interest among investors, and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has led to a shifting “ethical red line” that is prompting VC to back defense tech startups.

lbrito•5 minutes ago

Keyhole founder John Hanke also went on to found Niantic and develop Pokémon Go.

tencentshill•43 minutes ago

VCs don't have ethics. The first puppy crushing startup will achieve record valuation in record time. The Torment Nexus is already real enough.

2847aH•about 1 hour ago

The game is always the same. Josh Kushner leads a funding round, then someone in the Trump environment boosts the company:

It happened with Cursor, where Musk completely overpaid (what will he get in return? a new kind of circular deal?)

It happened with Anduril (topic of this submission). Kushner led a round and days after Anduril got a huge Pentagon contract:

https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/trump-admin-hands-mega-d...

HPsquared•about 1 hour ago

Silicon Valley was practically built by the military industrial complex.

pjmorris•about 1 hour ago

True. 'The Secret History of Silicon Valley', Steve Blank, is essential viewing, IMO.

0xWTF•9 minutes ago

Which was written as a call to action. The Valley should remember how trade is kept free, especially all those electronics moving Eastward across the Pacific. Worth reading Mahan if you're confused.

liveoneggs•about 1 hour ago

hoisted by its own petard!

aghilmort•about 1 hour ago

heh upvoted, came here to note same; the continuous net gain of defense R&D

mentalgear•about 1 hour ago

also the new war-profiteers are profiting from a war a certain family member started.

> NEW YORK (AP) — Among dozens of companies competing for Pentagon contracts to supply attack drones, one stands out.

> Powerus is flush with cash and ballooning in size as it buys up rivals and has one other advantage: It is partly owned by President Donald Trump’s two oldest sons.

> The latest Trump venture is hoping to win some of the $1.1 billion set aside by the Pentagon to build up a U.S. manufacturing base for armed drones now that the Trump administration put a ban on importing them from China.

https://apnews.com/article/drones-eric-donald-trump-powerus-...

homeonthemtn•about 1 hour ago

Evidently they want to deplete the military's reserves in order to sell them the refills.

tessierashpool•30 minutes ago

also the new war-profiteers are profiting from a war a certain family member started

this is true but it's also kind of falling into a trap.

first, the weird endless hunger that man has for any and all spotlights draws attention away from the policy issues and rampant criminality, which are a lot more important than his personality problems.

second, he was causing chaos overseas with military in his first administration too. Silicon Valley wasn't all-in on that.

third, Anduril, Palantir, et al represent a consistent philosophy of how the Valley takes over the military-industrial complex. they come from the same financial backer, Thiel, who also put a lot of money behind Trump. so we got a paper here about the real issue, and if we're shifting our attention from that to this clown who kind of just works for Thiel (among other, even more dubious possible bosses), the risk is that the conversation transitions from substance to gossip.

yawnxyz•about 2 hours ago

I've been reading Chip War and it seems like original funding for chip design was for the Space Race and for guided missiles - so basically most of Silicon Valley was started / funded by military all along

hangonhn•about 1 hour ago

Before chips it was radio and radars. The Klystron was invented at Stanford. Lockheed Martin Space and Raytheon have locations in Silicon Valley.

laimewhisps•about 1 hour ago

And ENIAC and ARPANET... what's interesting is how much of this is not capitalism but instead state funded and directed. I fear we're also seeing SOTA AI captured by the state. I am grateful for Chinese open models and a multi-polar world, especially given the egregious ethical violations the US has perpetrated very consistently since its formation.

ozgung•about 1 hour ago

Always has been.

Secret History of Silicon Valley by Steve Blank https://youtu.be/ZTC_RxWN_xo

georgeecollins•about 1 hour ago

Silicon Valley started with companies doing defense contracting. Like many here, I disagree with a lot of current policies of the US. But I don't want the US to be weak or vulnerable. Tech is our strength. Silicon Valley should be transforming the way we do a lot of things, hopefully for the better.

segmondy•about 1 hour ago

They will transform the world. Why? They don't know shit about security nor prioritize it. Hardware will be captured, hardware will be reversed engineered, hacked and duplicated faster than anytime in history. They will essentially innovate and do the hard R&D for the rest of the world. Yup, transformation indeed. That is of course unless they make security top priority and they won't!

bpodgursky•about 2 hours ago

I mean... the market was handed to the prime defense contractors on a silver platter for decades, and they utterly failed to deliver cost-effective or even working solutions.

It's not some 4d chess play by VCs, they just finally realized the market was dominated by the most disruptable enterprises on earth. Good riddance.

generuso•3 minutes ago

[delayed]

dam_jackalopes•about 1 hour ago

We'll still have plenty of utter failures. I was shocked hearing about the IVAS program when it was announced, it was such an obvious loser. I guess it's better to have burned 2billion rather than the full amount but whoever green lit that nonsense should spend the rest of their career peeling potatoes.

tessierashpool•24 minutes ago

I hate to say it, but this is mostly true.

reason I hate to say it is because companies like Palantir and Anduril are clearly pursuing political objectives, including subverting governance by creating tools which set the frame and context that governance happens in.

if Palantir and Anduril were observing the same strict separation between political and military matters, and the same strict separation between domestic and foreign activity, that the military itself observes, then the only thing happening here would be the Valley disrupting a poorly-run industry. I have no issue with that. that is what the Valley's supposed to do.

but that's not what's happening.

It's not some 4d chess play by VCs -- this part is just provably false. they're using military contracting as a Trojan horse for some truly crazy shit.

swozey•about 1 hour ago

I was around FEDRAMP stuff awhile back and there was a huge push to get "warroom" verbiage out of the tech field everywhere but there, like when visiting your normal silicon valley office we had to be careful about speech but you drive on base and let rip, since you had to interact daily with mil.

Wild seeing it come back completely unabated out of Luckeys mouth of all people. Missiles are kewl, bro!

pstuart•12 minutes ago

The irony here is that the origins of Silicon Valley have deep ties to the military as well, and it was the successful commercialization of those technologies that turned it more into a consumer / b2b space.

But yeah, the tech bro elite are now tech fascists.