Homeschooling, Electronics & The Oculus Genesis
Growing up in Long Beach, California, Palmer Luckey was homeschooled and developed an obsessive passion for electronics, building high-voltage lasers and modifying gaming rigs. In his parentsโ garage, he assembled the world's most advanced virtual reality headset prototypes, launching Oculus VR on Kickstarter in 2012.
The Facebook Acquisition & Defense Awakening
In 2014, Facebook acquired Oculus for over $2 billion. In 2017, Luckey departed Silicon Valley to address a glaring vulnerability: the US defense industrial base was sluggish, bureaucratic, and dominated by legacy cost-plus contractors unable to write cutting-edge software.
Anduril Industries & Lattice OS
Luckey founded Anduril Industries with Founders Fund partners, pioneering Lattice OSโan AI operating system connecting autonomous drones, counter-UAS interceptors (Roadrunner), and autonomous submarines (Dive-LD). Under Luckeyโs leadership, Anduril achieved a $30.5 billion valuation, proving software-defined defense manufacturing can outpace legacy primes.