Tech giants usually prefer to avoid Washington politicians and bureaucrats. Congressional hearings, Justice Department lawsuits and Securities and Exchange Commission probes are no fun. But a new generation of tech companies is finding governments are more likely to be customers than adversaries.
That’s clear from the under-the-hood financial details we got this week on startups Anduril and Shield AI, which are selling a growing array of autonomous software and war-fighting hardware to the Department of Defense, the Department of Homeland Security and other agencies. Wartime is a good time for these firms. Sales are swelling. Investors seem willing to accept the high costs of running these businesses. (Anduril’s $8.5 billion valuation, for instance, is 12 times forward revenue, despite the fact it’s a money-losing hardware firm and not a high-profit-margin software firm.)
