As a former military person now working with tech, it's a bummer to see that the "neo" defense industry outside Ukraine (for obvious reasons) is trying to play the "Silicon Valley recruitment tale" without understanding the difference between the kind of people that you want to attract versus the class of people that have "mental elasticity" (sic.) to be willing to work for you.
When dealing with very important but abstract/distant terms in our daily lives like nation, war, death, patriotism, and patriotic sacrifice, you require some sort of people that are definitely not like your regular SWE.
One thing that I learned in military/defense is that the spectrum of people that ends there is between the "I went for the wrong reasons" and "hyperpatriotic on the border of being a zealot". Damn, we had guys in my Company that just went to the Army because they watched "Rambo: First Blood" and found it amazing.
Seeing the Anduril folk in the thread trying their best to recruit people in a completely different vibe related to tech, it's not only unintentionally comic but also shows how the defense tech is drunk with the VC/LP lore of "Let's get the best talent in the market and pay them well".
Edit 1: Anduril is going to learn the same thing that most of the professional military services in the world have already known for decades: Forget this misleading nerd Silicon Valley archetype and go to the Rico's [1] of the world: People willing to do things for the wrong reasons and/or naive enough to occasionally become the people that you want.
Your comment has changed substantially from its initial version.
For the latest version: I think Anduril knows who they're looking for and how to get those people. This commercial, for example, is quite deliberate in filtering out the people they don't want https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXQrci3Wff8
The idea being that you wield so much more power than your enemies, and have so much knowledge of their movements, that they are not an actual threat to you, and their knowledge of this prevents them from actually committing violence? And that force can be used to stop them from committing violence before they actually get the chance to hurt you?
I'm not trying to pull a gotcha, I'm legitimately curious to see if that is an inaccurate framing.
edit: my comment no longer makes sense after the parent comment was edited, the original talked about how after being on both sides, they've seen how tech can be an effective deterrent
>still those new players cannot recruit a broader base of folks.
to be fair this comment from the thread after the author clarified that non-citizens can apply sums the situation up:
"Would you be willing to assist the United States in an invasion/annexation of Greenland? As a Danish citizen, I think it would be slightly counterproductive to work for a company that may potentially invade me in the coming future."
I would actually sleep better if the PR damage is big enough so that the recruitment base shrinks until the risk of invading a free and democratic ally is off the table
The weirdest thing is that Denmark is a member of the European Common Security and Defence Policy. EU countries would be obligated to help defend Greenland. Any military action toward Greenland would essentially mean that US declares war on Europe. Nobody seems to mention this. We live in a weird post-facts world.
It's not so much the mission, as it is Anduril, and despite the fallability of taking an early survey of comments, I'd wager a good set are communicating something similar.
When dealing with very important but abstract/distant terms in our daily lives like nation, war, death, patriotism, and patriotic sacrifice, you require some sort of people that are definitely not like your regular SWE.
One thing that I learned in military/defense is that the spectrum of people that ends there is between the "I went for the wrong reasons" and "hyperpatriotic on the border of being a zealot". Damn, we had guys in my Company that just went to the Army because they watched "Rambo: First Blood" and found it amazing.
Seeing the Anduril folk in the thread trying their best to recruit people in a completely different vibe related to tech, it's not only unintentionally comic but also shows how the defense tech is drunk with the VC/LP lore of "Let's get the best talent in the market and pay them well".
Edit 1: Anduril is going to learn the same thing that most of the professional military services in the world have already known for decades: Forget this misleading nerd Silicon Valley archetype and go to the Rico's [1] of the world: People willing to do things for the wrong reasons and/or naive enough to occasionally become the people that you want.
[1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b07887ZzKiw
Edit 2: I hit submit early and I reframed my post, sorry for the confusion.