- Palmer Luckey’s Anduril startup produces futuristic weapons of war.
- But the billionaire founder has his own collection of James Bond-style military vehicles.
- Luckey gave Bloomberg a glimpse into his 1980s-designed home and his private collection of “boy toys.”
Defense technology startup Anduril is making some of the most futuristic autonomous weapons on the market as it attempts to reinvent the military wheelhouse.
But the company’s forward-thinking vision didn’t stop founder Palmer Luckey from amassing his own collection of older military vehicles and boys’ toys.
The billionaire’s collection includes a boat purchased from the US Navy, six helicopters and a former Marine Corps Humveefighter from 1985, he revealed on the latest episode of Bloomberg.The circuit“.
This covers land, sea and air.
Luckey’s Mark V special operations ship, which he purchased from the Navy, is the fastest boat the force has ever built with just over 5,000 horsepower, he told reporter Emily Chang as he took him for a ride on the ship around Newport Beach.
“It was designed specifically for Navy seal insertion and extraction missions. It works really fast and it’s a lot of fun.”
He still has the real M2 50 BMG heavy barrel machine gun that came with the boat, but he keeps fake ones “most of the time”.
“Most of my neighbors like it, and a few hate it.”
Luckey first made a name for himself by founding a virtual reality company Oculus in 2012. Two years later, he sold the company to Facebook, now known as Meta, for $2 billion in cash and stock.
In 2017, a year after being fired from Facebook, Luckey founded Anduril. Since then, it has risen to the top of Silicon Valley’s defense technology boom.
But his passion for the military began when he was young, Luckey told the Circuit.
“I grew up watching the Marine Corps train offshore in their helicopters. Watching Navy ships drill gets in your brain and doesn’t leave.”
He is now the proud owner of six helicopters, including a UH-60 Blackhawk.
In addition to military-grade vehicles, Luckey owns a 1967 Disneyland Autopia, a toy car used in Disney theme parks, designed by legendary park designer Bob Gurr and Walt Disney himself.
“As far as I know, mine is the only complete Autopia that is outside the parks. Mine has the original mechanics, the original gearboxes, the original wheels, everything else,” Luckey told Chang.
The little vehicle, usually seen tearing up the race tracks at Disneyland, suffered a minor breakdown mid-maintenance and had to be repaired with a flathead screwdriver.
The founder also took cameras into his 1980s-designed home in Los Angeles. Outfitted with two-inch-thick teal shag carpet and a 6,500-gallon aquarium, Luckey’s house exudes “good Miami Vice vibes,” he told Chang.
The coffee table is adorned with a map from his Dungeons & Dragons campaign, where he plays a “chaotic neutral wizard named Nilrim V.”
As the billionaire founder himself admits, “I’m a bit of a caricature.”
But where to keep the largest collection of video games in the world?
“I put it in one of my missile bases. 200 feet underground,” Luckey told Chang.
News Source : www.businessinsider.com
Gn bussni
