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The Army’s Newest Recruits: Tech Execs From Meta, OpenAI and More
- aspenmayer 1y agohttps://www.wsj.com/tech/army-reserve-tech-executives-meta-palantir-796f5360?st=jYcYFM https://www.wsj.com/tech/army-reserve-tech-executives-meta-p... https://archive.is/pGSZO https://archive.is/pGSZO
- codingdave 1y ago> The four new Army Reserve Lt. Cols. are Shyam Sankar, Chief Technology Officer for Palantir; Andrew Bosworth, Chief Technology Officer of Meta; Kevin Weil, Chief Product Officer of OpenAI; and Bob McGrew, advisor at Thinking Machines Lab and former Chief Research Officer for OpenAI. I've always said that the FUD surrounding AGI destroying humanity is silly, as long as we aren't so stupid as to bring AI into military decisions. This group of leaders doesn't bode well from that perspective.
- mdaniel 1y agoI would have thought for sure any such transformation would come from the NSA, since they strike me as a more tech-forward organization, or from In-Q-Tel (which I believe is mostly the CIA) that already has a strong relationship with the commercial tech space
- tencentshill 1y agoThe key is those agencies are not under the total control of the commander in chief.
- omnivore 1y agoCivic tech is dead.
- sgnelson 1y agoThis is such a bad idea, I can't even...
- cempaka 1y agoBad for whom?
- thaumasiotes 1y agoWhy?
- snerbles 1y agoO-5 isn't that much power - as a battalion commander, that's leading about 300-1,000 soldiers. They wouldn't necessarily be leading troops, but instead be in advisory roles where the rank might have them be taken a little more seriously by flag officers than if they were commissioned as a company grade officer.
- the__alchemist 1y agoDirection commission officers aren't line-officers (AFAIK), so they are don't command in the way you're describing. That assumes doctor/lawyer/nurse though...
- ceejayoz 1y agoIs it about giving them power? Or making them subject to it?
- susiecambria 1y agoI don't know any tech execs and I am only remotely familiar with the military, but I am hazarding a guess that the cultures in tech and the military are not at all similar. I'm also guessing that there is a massive difference between fighting for Ukraine by using your tech skills and participating in a time-limited, no-real-skin-in-the-game learning exercise. Not to mention that at the same time this is happening, SecDef fired a number of generals, and the military is being used for political purposes, at least according to some.
- bilbo0s 1y agoEverything you said is true. But regarding your last point, I mean, the military has always been used for political purposes.
- thaumasiotes 1y ago> The Army calls the program to recruit Silicon Valley executives Detachment 201: The Army’s Executive Innovation Corps. One of the executives, Andrew Bosworth of Meta (formerly Facebook) posted on X that the “201” monicker was a nod to an HTML coding command, in which a “201” response indicates the creation of a new programming resource. Somehow I imagine that Andrew Bosworth didn't phrase things quite that way.
- genter 1y agoMaybe he did, he was an executive...
- neilv 1y agoIs there modern precedent for this? I thought the modern US military was very big on process and tradition in the development of officers.
- jonas21 1y agoYes, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_commission_officer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_commission_officer And for individuals with the right skills and experience, O-5 isn't unusual. EDIT: Here's a random example: https://www.reddit.com/r/Military_Medicine/comments/1468l1f/coast_guard_commissioninghiring_opportunity_as_o5/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Military_Medicine/comments/1468l1f/...
- spankibalt 1y agoThe Royal Aircraft Factory (Farnborough) during the notorious "White Feather" campaign hysteria of World War I; its workers were given a military rank, its superintendent, Mervyn O'Gorman, got field-promoted to lieutenant-colonel. The somewhat famous quote "Alight here for the Home of Rest with Army Exemption thrown in", a familiar greeting to RAF's working force by Farnborough's tram conductors, is a testament to it.
- fiatpandas 1y agoWW2, William Knudsen, president of General Motors, was directly commissioned in as a 3 star general. He was in charge of War Production. Sometimes, deep industry expertise can’t wait for OCS. Granted, this was wartime.
- ls612 1y agoThese guys are being commissioned into the Army Reserve the idea is that they can get basic military instruction now and when the shit hits the fan the Army can immediately call up their expertise and they will understand how things work.
- pimlottc 1y agoDon’t forget there was already a team of industry-sourced (non-commissioned) tech experts in the Pentagon, the Defense Digital Service, that operated for almost a decade before being sidelined by DOGE: https://www.politico.com/news/2025/04/15/pentagons-digital-resignations-00290930 https://www.politico.com/news/2025/04/15/pentagons-digital-r...
- navbaker 1y agoThe key difference is the DDS folks were not uniformed military. That can make all the difference when trying to sell your product or service to a military decision maker.
- ab5tract 1y agoReally? I would assume that most ranked personnel would be less impressed by a person wearing a uniform that they never earned and don’t deserve. But then again, pomp and circumstance…
- navbaker 1y agoMy take from my time on a major staff is it’s less about pomp and circumstance and more about being included in important discussions.
- ganoushoreilly 1y agoIt's not even that. The biggest difference is by being sworn in, they now have Legal authorities and rights awarded to military personnel, but are also subject to the UCMJ. Depending on how they structure the program they may be able to get Title 10 and 50 coverage and possibly others. This drastically changes what they legally can or can't do on behalf of the USG. There's more to this than people realize. It's also not all that new. In the past they had "Consultants" deeply integrated into agencies to solve the same issues. Palantir, Crowdstrike, many others pretty much started inside the govt and were built around classified information as a means to get their advantage. It's not right, but It's definitely something that happens. Source: I was there for it with both orgs and even back then everyone though Dmitry formely from CS was a dick. I still have the mousepad that Palantir created for the office in lieu of a training guide (just a bunch of printed shortcuts / commands).
- epicureanideal 1y agoAnything to get more clueless corporate management losers out of industry.
- bilbo0s 1y agoUnderstand the sentiment.. but I mean.. why put them in the military? That seems like, I don't know, maybe something that can go south in a lot of different ways.
- ahartmetz 1y agoSuch ranks tend to be mostly for pay grade and they count for some formal but mostly meaningless stuff like who salutes whom first and who gets to tell off whom (in practice for such officers, it's more a shield than a weapon - everyone knows which kind of officers they are) in general situations. These officers aren't going to be leading direct fighting or anything like that. Source: Was a draftee once, talked to a technical officer later.
- snerbles 1y ago> [...] the four executives will all attend the Army’s six-week Direct Commissioning Course at Fort Benning, Georgia [...] Sometimes known as "fork and knife school". I can't speak specifically for the Army, but a particular personal incident comes to mind. When I attended AFROTC field training at Maxwell AFB, in a lot of ways it was a fairly typical boot camp experience, with roaming enlisted training instructors ready to very promptly and firmly correct any deviations from standard in a memorably expedient fashion (much less swearing than Full Metal Jacket, as it's the Air Force). One day during this fine summer camp I found myself on the receiving end of one such chewing out from a TI, for walking around the wrong side of a table in the dining facility. It was in the midst of this comically scathing tirade (something about him threatening to crawl up my nose and living in my nightmares if I dared try it again) that this Technical Sergeant abruptly stopped, wheeled around and was about to tear into another hapless cadet that took the same detour I did. But instead, without a whit of the seething rage he was pouring out just a second before, he calmly patiently explained to this trainee that she was to take a different route, punctuating the instructions with a "right over there, ma'am". It was at that moment that I noticed that she did not have cadet insignia on her lapels, but captain's bars. It turns out she was a proper M.D., fresh from med school, directly commissioned and immediately outranking the sergeant that was giving me the what-for and her polite guidance. So by Direct Commissioning, it is indeed direct.
- duxup 1y agoI remember my grandfather’s descriptions of WWII in the pacific. One was a Marine who made a number of landings and was involved in a lot that “I wish I could forget”. The other was a Navy doctor. An officer, but really because he was a doctor. Their experiences were wildly different. Not so much about risk but the Marine was a grunt and his description oozed what it meant to be at that level of rank. The doctor ... his description was that doctors, while they had rank, were largely left alone to their own devices to do what they needed to do. Rank wasn't really relevant to their daily lives.
- sandspar 1y agoI guess that rank is invisible to military doctors the same way that money is to rich people or positive attention is to good looking people.
- m3kw9 1y agoPLTR stock up or what?
- djeastm 1y agoAs former enlisted myself, I don't understand why they need to be in the military to serve as advisors. No one's going to treat them like real LTCs anyway (outwardly they will, of course, but not with the same respect).
- snerbles 1y agoThat also strikes me as odd. When I was deployed, we had plenty of contractors/DOD civilians to handle various technical things, and to help maintain continuity while the rest of us rotated in and out of the theater. They didn't need to be commissioned. If these execs were experienced engineers that needed to be embedded in a unit in the field, maybe, and definitely not at O-5. Usually these sorts of urgently-needed experts become instructors and teach troops the specific technical skills without the need for being enlisted/commissioned/warrant themselves. Someone more familiar with the political games inside the Pentagon will better understand this decision.
- ericrosedev 1y agoContractors down range used to have something like a company logo or something as their rank, you could always tell because it would be some guy with a gut and long hair in fatigues with a weird rank. Give them that and let them feel like soldiers, not an oak leaf
- UncleEntity 1y agoI was a contractor "down range" and the only dress code we had was no shorts, no open-toed shoes. The only time anyone would mess with us was at the chow hall if we didn't take off our hats or didn't have our helemts/flak jackets during alerts and then they just wouldn't let us inside unless we went to get them. Other than that they wouldn't bother us unless we were blatantly ignoring air raid sirens or smoking somewhere we shouldn't be. When outside the wire we would, of course, follow the directions of the army escorts because they were unequivocally in charge. The only time I can remember anyone chastising us was because we were getting overly aggressive in traffic up in the Kurdish region and there was an incident the previous day where some mayor's son had his engine block shot out so they were like, "you guys need to cut that shit out, these are our allies up here".
- mrbluecoat 1y agoThe reality is that other countries are preparing for Ender's Game style warfare with drones, robotics, and digital sabotage so the U.S. needs to keep pace. This announcement doesn't surprise me at all.
- absurdo 1y agoSame. I encourage this, in fact.
- mindslight 1y agoKeeping pace by helping with other countries' sabotage efforts? If these actions actually ended up benefiting the country rather than being yet another nepotism based snipe hunt for woke, that would be a pleasant surprise.
- esseph 1y agoI have read your 2nd sentence several times but don't understand it. Can you explain?
- mindslight 1y agoTrump's usual approach is to remove or sideline career civil servants in favor of political apparatchiks whose only real goal is to demand obedience, under the banner of fighting the bogeyman of woke. I'm open to possibility that these appointments are different and might actually do some good, but I'm not holding my breath.
- esseph 1y agoThank you. It was the way you used "woke" there that threw me off, but I get it now.
- ausbah 1y agonot sure why ender’s game needs a reference when #1 & #3 have been around for 10-15+ years. i sort of remain doubtful that robotics will play as large of a role with how large much less of a role that infantry has played in modern warfare (think of exoskeletons, robotic carriers, terminator style killing machines)
- oooyay 1y agoThe choice to pick up executives rather than engineers is a bit confusing if the goal is to modernize.
- bilbo0s 1y agoIn fairness, the military is full of engineers.
- whall6 1y agoI think it would have been cool to see them allow a hand chosen direct report join them. And maybe that direct report’s hand chosen direct report too.
- jfengel 1y agoExecutives are obviously more skilled. Just check out their paychecks. Each of them is worth at least a dozen engineers.
- gibbitz 1y agoBy paycheck my company's CEO is worth 95 senior engineers and that's before stock options. With stock options he's worth 265 senior engineers! (Or 240 and 670 junior developers respectively) He's so skilled he splits atoms with his mind. He probably should be president, except he's nowhere near the highest paid executive in the US. Probably not in the top 500.
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- varenc 1y agoMeta basically just paid $14B to acqui-hire an exec.
- paulddraper 1y agoMaybe the lesson here is to be CEO.
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- bgwalter 1y agoThey are part time and this is just another revolving door between the military and industry. They are literally there to sell their products (and brag about "having served"). What are other nepotistic initiatives? https://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/articles/2024/10/10/army-ponders-alternatives-to-microsofts-troubled-ar-goggles https://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/articles/2024/10/10/... "The Army in March 2021 awarded Microsoft a 10-year contract worth up to $21.9 billion for IVAS, but the initial version of the system experienced technical difficulties with a number of soldiers experiencing dizziness, headaches or nausea after wearing the goggles."
- fancyMorsel 1y agoYup, I’d expect a data scientist or equivalent programmer commissioning as a captain, not a c-suite executive that is more of an MBA graduate. It all seems fishy.
- gexla 1y agoI have never been an officer, but the C-suite in the military is like "flag rank" which is above Colonel (Brigadier General.) Colonels are more like high management. But they likely won't be promoted, won't have an actual command, and rank means little more than the title.
- giraffe_lady 1y agoIf private industry were the military, most companies would be headed by O5 or O6; the scope of duties and responsibilities of an eg VP or CFO are actually quite comparable to a lt colonel or navy commander, CEOs are fairly like captains & colonels. These ranks are enough to head a large ship, air base, or training facility with hundreds or thousands under their command. Only extremely large companies (50k+ employees) have anything with a role comparable to admirals or generals.
- blantonl 1y agoCEOs are more like high ranking general officers, not O-6 level (Navy Captain, Army/Air force full bird colonel) O-5 (Lt Col, Navy Commander) would be VP / GM level stuff, GS-13 through GS-14 in the federal government O-6 equivalent in the civilian world equates to a GS-15 in the federal government, and a senior VP in the corporate world O-7 (brigadier general) would be an EVP level position, C-level large org O-8 (general) would be CEO
- Jtsummers 1y ago> The Detachment 201 program is aimed at bringing in part-time advisors from the private sector to help the service adopt and scale commercial technology like drones and robots into its formations. So we're taking executives from companies that sell to the government and military to advise the military on what to adopt. And not only are we bringing them into the fold, we're commissioning so we can give them a pension in 20 years after they've recommended their own employers' services and products.
- chipsa 1y agoYou think they’ll still be in for 20 years? And you need 20 “good years” to get a pension for non-active duty service.
- kotaKat 1y agoIt's just building a club for rich folks to commission in as a field grade officer and give them a fancy dress uniform to wear to official government events where they get to direct contracts towards their parent companies. That's all it is. Normally the officers come up through the ranks and build a grift to retire and peddle back to the military (see things like BeaverFit), but Detachment 201 lets them direct commission the grift back.
- iamleppert 1y agoYeah because someone who spent their days building dashboards or working on the metaverse will have the first clue on how to deploy drones in the military. What a joke!
- okdood64 1y agoTheir not asking them to be mission specialists. They're asking to guidance on how to build out and maintain a tech platform for the product (drone) folks to build on.
- zelphirkalt 1y agoBut they don't have experience to do that in the context of the military. All they have experience with is building leaking spyware platforms. Terribly unfit for the military.
- VectorLock 1y agoDoes this count as "Bought Valor?" Kevin Weil, that tracks...
- austin-cheney 1y agoDirect commissioning is for bringing people in as lieutenants (O1). Think a 22 year old college graduate. Lieutenant colonels are the equivalent of corporate senior directors (O5). This means they could be either a battalion commander, approximate footprint of 300-500 people, or a senior staff officer for a command/division. By that point they are expected to have at least 15 years military experience. The challenge at that level of management is writing and evaluating plans for their organization that must be able to move across the battlefield and roll up all corresponding metrics. Think of that as moving your entire office staff to a new location 50 miles away as frequently as needed. A 6 week bootcamp won’t get you that. As someone with 28 years military experience and a corporate nerd with almost 20 years experience I promise that corporate management is not the same. That part time job can suddenly feel like a full time responsibility. The exception to this are licensed doctors and lawyers. They enter the military as captains instead of lieutenants.
- chipsa 1y agoThe point of commissioning them isn’t for them to take command of a line infantry battalion. It’s to have them have authority to do stuff that requires a Lt col, but is not actually commanding. It’s like how we commissioned a whole bunch of people in WWII to do admin jobs.
- austin-cheney 1y agoI get that. I am a signal officer. Those guys will be signal officers. I have a pretty solid idea of what their level of actual responsibility is. The point is they need some expertise to exercise that level of responsibility. Otherwise they are tiny advisors masquerading as people with real legal authority.
- 1oooqooq 1y agowhy are you trying so hard to not directly assume the latter?
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- AndrewKemendo 1y agoFormer Major, Iraq War Veteran and Air Force academy graduate here. I can’t think of many worse ideas. But here we are
- neonate 1y agohttps://archive.md/fDLHK https://archive.md/fDLHK
- tomhow 1y agoComments merged from : U.S. Army bringing in big tech executives as lieutenant colonels - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44273067 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44273067 - June 2025 Related thread (not merged but down-weighted to avoid more overlapping discussion): I'm the CTO of Palantir. Today I Join the Army - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44270660 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44270660 - June 2025 (55 comments)
- hunglee2 1y agoMilitary-Civilian fusion, with US characteristics
- kriro 1y agoThis strikes me as very odd. First of all, what's in it for the execs. Surely pay is worse so there must be some insider benefit. Or can they hold both positions? That just screams conflict of interest. Secondly, why execs instead of people with actual technical skills. Surely military execs are already better prepared at managing military than some tech execs. Lastly, as a non-U.S. citizen the optics seem horrible to me. Fire generals/people who served "the normal way" and bring in tech execs...that's gotta piss of just about anyone who ever served as a storyline or am I totally off base here?
- lazyasciiart 1y agoOf course the optics are terrible but it doesn’t matter. Everyone is already either pissed off with trump or dedicated to never being pissed off at him.
- CoastalCoder 1y agoI somewhat agree with your thesis. But recent developments with Musk, the FY26 budget proposal, and CA National Guard make me think that the Republican party is starting to fracture more, and some of them must be taking a dimmer view of Trump in the process.
- paulddraper 1y agoSure, it’ll compete somewhere around 2028.
- TeMPOraL 1y agoMaybe this gives US gov an extra leash on them? Surely the standards of what's approaching treason are different for people in service, so maybe it's just a way to trick execs into getting personally under government control, so they'll not be able to shield behind the whole "free enterprise" / "private business" thing when they want to trade with China or EU against the US Gov preferences?
- aweiland 1y agoMaybe they get to pull a pension too? There's lots of examples of Admirals and Generals who "retire", get their pension payouts, but come back as an "advisor" effectively doubling their pay.
- tempodox 1y ago> The recruits won’t work on projects involving their employers, George said, and will be firewalled from sharing information with their employers or participating in projects that could provide them or their companies with financial gain. A laudable goal. Let's see how that works out.
- tdeck 1y agoTo what extent will these folks be legally obliged to follow orders from the executive branch? Can they leave the military at any time?
- fmajid 1y agoReminds me of the scene in “Barton Fink” where the Hollywood producer is made a Lieutenant Colonel immediately after Pearl Harbor.
- TeMPOraL 1y agoPeople wonder why execs, not people with actual tech skills. I'll wager that for the military/government, this is not really about what skills those people bring in - it's about that accepting this role puts them under jurisdiction of military justice, and suddenly all kinds of things that are business-as-usual when e.g. dealing with foreign powers, could become potential UCMJ offenses. Call me conspiracy theorist if you like, but this looks to me like US Gov seeking to put a leash on the tech/AI companies, by tricking execs into getting personally exposed for things that would otherwise qualify as private business. Strategically, that's worth way more than just getting some FAANG engineers as part-time advisors.
- lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 1y agoI had this same thought reading some other comments. It doesn’t seem much of a conspiratorial stretch.
- dugmartin 1y agoFor engineers it would make sense to bring them in as warrant officers which is where you put technical experts that don’t lead.
- esseph 1y ago"When their AI system went wrong and caused that massacre and required a sortie of F-35s to neutralize, we immediately took internal accountability and started processing them through the UCMJ. This kind of thing will never happen again, we are making sure of it."
- Simon_O_Rourke 1y agoSurely the incentives that makes a tech exec capable are wildly different from the sort of capabilities expected from any military innovation context? Regardless of rank or an easy track to a commission, there's no "increasing shareholder value" incentive in the military?
- SideburnsOfDoom 1y agoAh, "the merger of corporate and state power", what's the word for that again?
- el_jay 1y agoAs overt corporatism goes, you can do a lot worse than simultaneously embed tech execs in the military command chain, and military commanders in the tech industry.
- crvdgc 1y agoImagine a former Huawei executive joins PLA, all hell would break loose. Somehow it's more moral or patriotic for these guys. Seems like the hawkish were right all along.
- ericmay 1y ago> Imagine a former Huawei executive joins PLA, all hell would break loose. What makes you think PLA soldiers and officers aren’t embedded in Chinese tech companies already? After all, their executive boards usually have CCP “representation”.
- zkmon 1y agoI also saw a lot of blockchain specialists joining the banks a few years back. Coincidence? Not quite. Defense is probably the largest consumer of technology and also driving force behind tech innovations (ARPANET?).
- cutler 1y agoIt's a short walk from Facebook to Palantir, literally and metaphorically. Meta staffing for a long time has been packed with IDF operatives and AIPAC goons. All hail our not-so-new tech overlords next time you watch footage of a block in Gaza being "precison" targeted, taking out the whole extended family of an AI-generated target.
- blotfaba 1y agoLol this "AI alignment" rap is such a crock in light of all these things.
- detaro 1y agoSo, valid targets for US enemies now?
- tonyhart7 1y agogood, now the military planning to use technology more and more into war machine hope franchise film that build dystopian future (ehm ehm ehm T1000 flashback) did not happen
- jsrozner 1y agomaybe the drones will play tiktok videos to the insurgents and thus render them dumb and thoughtless, or perhaps cause them to fight amongst themselves
- BrandoElFollito 1y agoI got detached, as a professional, to NATO. I got an officer grade despite never having been in the army. The first thing I did when I met the real soldiers was to clarify that I got the grade for reasons, but that I absolutely am a civil and have no intent to be a bighead asshole who will boss them around just because that have less bars on the shoulders than I was given. We started from a very, very good foot and had a wonderful collaboration. Just do not pretend to be what you're not and things will be fine.
- cies 1y agoYou are all the same to me.
- jamesgill 1y agoThis is common w/the Army and Navy, less so with other branches (and uncommon in the Marine Corps). But it's most common for medical skills training, and very unusual to bring them in at this rank. Even MDs typically come in around O-3 (Captain/equivalent).
- Animats 1y agoAre they being run through the Direct Commission Officer Course?[1] That's a six-week boot camp. [1]https://www.army.mil/article/106407/direct_commission_course_trains_develops_officers https://www.army.mil/article/106407/direct_commission_course...
- codedokode 1y agoAm I understanding correctly that this is to make them obey? If they are in the army they must follow the orders of higher-ups. I wonder if they joined volunarily or not.
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- croes 1y agoAre they now legitimate military targets?