Trae Stephens

Trae Stephens holds a degree from the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, combining a deep understanding of international relations with Arabic language studies. His foundational career included serving in the intelligence community and spending several years at Palantir Technologies, where he led deployments and managed international growth. This unique intersection of national security, defense software deployment, and venture capital investing gave him the exact strategic blueprint needed to launch Anduril.

Trae Stephens is a co-founder and Chairman of Anduril Industries, as well as a prominent partner at the venture capital firm Founders Fund. Alongside Palmer Luckey and Brian Schimpf, Stephens recognized a catastrophic lack of innovation within the traditional U.S. defense industrial base, which heavily favored slow, cost-plus contracting over rapid technological iteration. He co-founded Anduril in 2017 to aggressively inject Silicon Valley's fast-paced, privately funded software and hardware development cycles into military procurement. At Anduril, Stephens plays a critical strategic role, leveraging his deep connections in Washington D.C., his expertise in venture capital, and his understanding of asymmetric warfare to help the company navigate the exceptionally complex bureaucracy of the Pentagon and secure massive defense contracts.