Transcript
Introduction
Patrick
My guest this week is Trae Stephens. Trae is a partner at Founders Fund and Co-Founder and Executive Chairman of Anduril. Trae’s philosophy can be boiled down to finding good quests, which has led him to investing in businesses that work closely with the government on societally important issues. Clearly, that extends to co-founding Anduril, and I would highly recommend listening to my Business Breakdowns episode on Anduril if you haven’t already.
In this conversation, we discuss the importance of lobbyists, why the high-tech defense firms of the past became stale and how he hunts for disagreeableness in Founders. Please enjoy my conversation with Trae Stephens.
Businesses That Positively Impact Human Progress
Patrick
So Trae, I’ve heard you say in a couple of spots that most high-margin businesses, I think you were talking specifically about high-margin software businesses, but let’s just say high-margin businesses tend to have either no positive impact on society or sometimes even negative impact on society. Why do you say that? What is behind that belief?