Brian Schimpf, CEO of one of America’s biggest defense tech startup Anduril recently old CNBC at the Allen & Co. Sun Valley Conference that the company is in no rush to go public given the current market conditions. “A bad time to do that is in the middle of a hype cycle. So we’re not in a rush to go out,” he said, adding that a successful IPO should be measured by investor returns three years after listing. Anduril which deals in drones and AI-powered weapons, doubled its valuation in May to $61 billion amid surging demand fueled by President Donald Trump’s military reindustrialization push. The US defense budget is on track to reach $1.5 trillion, driving record spending in the sector. Despite this, Schimpf cautioned that valuations across tech are “crazy high” and not necessarily rational.
Lessons for AI giants OpenAI and Anthropic
The comments made by Schimpf come as OpenAI and Anthropic have both confidentially filed to go public, with valuations near $1 trillion. Schimpf suggested that rushing into IPOs during hype cycles could backfire, echoing investor skepticism about whether public markets will support such lofty valuations.Even after SpaceX’s record offering last month, shares have slipped about 25% from their peak, underscoring volatility in tech IPOs. Other defense tech startups like Shield AI and Saronic have raised large funding rounds this year, but Schimpf warned that overvaluation could pose risks. “I do think a lot of companies are dangerously leading into overvalued territory in a way that could backfire,” he said.
Brian Schimpf warns that modern conflicts are no longer primarily about destroying military assets
In related news, last month, Schimpf revealed he feels that he nature of modern warfare has changed significantly. He noted that economic disruption is increasingly becoming a primary objective in modern warfare. Speaking at Fortune’s Brainstorm Tech conference in Aspen, Schimpf said modern conflicts are no longer focused mainly on destroying military assets but on targeting the infrastructure that keeps economies running.“The economic warfare that is effectively the Strait of Hormuz, this is the new normal of what these conflicts are going to look like. The US and Israel did something like 10 times as many strikes in the first month of the war as they did in the entire Gulf War. This is the new normal of what these conflicts are going to look like,” Schimpf said.According to Schimpf, assets such as data centres, oil refineries and critical shipping routes have become key targets in modern conflicts. He argued that the rise of relatively inexpensive drone technology has made it easier to disrupt economic activity at scale.