Just jumping right in as a Lt Col? Is there a lot of precedent for that? I know that the armed forces have worked with a lot of scientists before, like in the Manhattan Project, but my understanding is that most of them remained civilians.
Isn't this the sort of thing that warrant officers were created for? Why wouldn't they give him a high warrant officer rank rather than a commissioned rank?
If you bring in people from other organizations, you usually give them titles that reflect their actual roles.
Warrant officers are a leftover from an era when you had to be nobility to become a commissioned officer. Today a lieutenant is just a kid with a college degree, and a lieutenant colonel is someone who did an MBA and was promoted into middle management.
This article is clearly written with an attempt to frame this as a purely patriotic and yet somehow an apolitical ideological decision, but it reads as incredibly fascistic.
It's always good to remember that the "arsenal of democracy" was matched by an "arsenal of fascism" on the other side of WW2 made up of companies like Bayer, IBM, Coca-Cola, Ford, and Mercedes.
Since fascism is more a political philosophy than an economic one, it is hard to define an "objective measure" for this type of thing, but the formal merging of corporate interests with military interests by commissioning C-suite officials is probably as close as we could get.
It might help to contrast it with an authoritarian left-wing approach to this same problem of private and state collaboration. In a system like that, we might expect these companies to be nationalized. But a right-wing system would generally be against that. They would instead keep those companies private, but the company could effectively still become state controlled by intertwining leadership such as we see here.
A free and open society should generally be against the merging of corporations and the state as it allows for too much concentrated power which can lead to both corruption and tyranny. These two sides will of course be aligned generally on the well-being of the nation, but having leadership literally splitting time between the two functions goes way beyond that as it creates problems like inherent conflicts of interest and allows for the circumvention of laws and regulations around how both the government and corporations should work. For example, the government might be prevented from spying on its people such as collecting internet histories and corporations might be prevented from exerting physical power over people like imprisoning them. But if the two groups are acting as one, this distinction doesn't matter. The corporate side can do the data collection to find who needs to be imprisoned and then the state does the dirty work of rounding people up. This would be much easier to implement and hide when it can all be orchestrated by a single person delegating their desires down whatever chain of command can legally accomplish the specific subtask at hand.
And wrapping this all up under the general banner of patriotism is doing them no favors here either as it comes off like the nationalistic propaganda that often accompanies fascism.
> 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.
Oh, great, vertical integration between the violence organizations and the three worst and most amoral companies in tech. I’m sure nothing bad will come out of this.
Where’s Luckey and Anduril? Did he not pass the drug test?
> A decade ago, it would’ve been unthinkable for so many tech heavyweights to openly align with the U.S. military.
It still is. Don’t be fooled by propaganda pieces like this.
It is followed up by two blatant falsehoods:
> But a sea change has taken place in both places because of the urgency and seriousness of the moment.
> Wars in Europe and the Middle East and, above all, the threat of a war in the Pacific have focused the national mind and initiated a scramble for mobilization.
None of this is true in the sense he means it. Businesses have scrambled to have alternatives to China, yes, but that’s nothing to do with the military.
> The Army’s Executive Innovation Corps, under the direction of the Army’s chief of staff, General Randy George, is part of a larger effort by our military to transform the way it prepares for and fights wars in the 21st century.
Expanding the military-industrial complex is of no benefit to anyone other than those in the military-industrial complex (such as the author of this article).
That's probably how Trump says in office indefinitely and makes money off it: either start a giant, unnecessary war and/or push the home front to riot. Cutting Ukraine aid to zero may be part of undermining their efforts so a wider war between NATO and Russia happens, where US might leave NATO and side with Russia.
McKinsey generally ruins most things they touch. Engineering is a different field that McKinsey may claim it has expertise in but has none. Most McKinsey roles are high responsibility and low accountability. Nobody really cares whether their recommendations have worked long term as long as the CEO makes their bonus in the next 6-8 months.
With this I'm not sure what the goal is. If it is to change the process heavy culture of the pentagon to be more automated I'm hopeful. Yes, there is a revolving door between pentagon officials and the prime defense contractors. But I think that is currently a symptom of how the pentagon works, as in, you need to understand the process AND how the product will be used.
> and commission as a lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserve’s newly formed Detachment 201: Executive Innovation Corps.
'New Executive Innovation Corps brings top tech talent into the Army Reserve to bridge the commercial-military tech gap, with four tech leaders set to join as officers.'[1]
lol. As someone else said in this thread, this is basically stolen valor.
It seems likely that the reason they've accepted these titles is because they believe that they will be given roles in which they have direct command authority, not just the role of advisor.
However, it also places them in Trump's direct chain of command as CinC. They might not have thought enough about that.
I wonder what the incentives are here. I am a FAANG engineer with a clearance - but would gladly serve my country in a role if the pay cut wasn't so severe
Today? In this current version of America? You like the idea of being deployed internally against protestors? Or maybe, Greenland sounds like a nice holiday spot?
This feels disingenuous to the max. I have a younger brother who went through USAF Basic, and these tech bros just get bestowed a high rank? It smells of stolen valor.
I mean nothing ill towards the 'mud hut', but seriously? All these listed names seem like people who've never had to roll in the mud with the rest of the grunts.
It might not be stolen valor, but you just KNOW these guys are going to play up their veteran status, the Honor and Sacrifice of these Great Men, (the article is already an example of this) when really this is just a trojan horse to enrich themselves and their companies. They're not even full time positions.
this is absolutely one of the last big steps in the fall of america - letting the preferred and loyal plutocrats take positions in the actual armed forces should be horrifying to absolutely everyone that wants a civilian republic to continue beyond the end of this term.
politicians and judges allowing trump to run again was a catastrophe, as was American citizens voting for him to get to have another go.
Active discussion on front page:
The Army’s Newest Recruits: Tech Execs From Meta, OpenAI and More - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44268547 - June 2025 (60 comments)
https://archive.is/1HnFE
You lost me at “Executive Innovation Corps”. Rich men playing soldier to get some patriotism points as usual
Just jumping right in as a Lt Col? Is there a lot of precedent for that? I know that the armed forces have worked with a lot of scientists before, like in the Manhattan Project, but my understanding is that most of them remained civilians.
And from the wsj link:
> They will have more flexibility than the average reservist to work remotely and asynchronously, and will be spared basic training.
No officer basic training course to teach them how to be an army officer?
They are privileged consultants playing dress up.
There is a long history of direct commission officers <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_commission_officer> in the military.
Isn't this the sort of thing that warrant officers were created for? Why wouldn't they give him a high warrant officer rank rather than a commissioned rank?
If you bring in people from other organizations, you usually give them titles that reflect their actual roles.
Warrant officers are a leftover from an era when you had to be nobility to become a commissioned officer. Today a lieutenant is just a kid with a college degree, and a lieutenant colonel is someone who did an MBA and was promoted into middle management.
2 replies →
Manhattan Project scientists were civilians. Doctors were often drafted as captains, I'm led to understand (via MAS*H).
Yes, I believe some folks who joined the Defense Digital Service received similar rank.
Who?
This article is clearly written with an attempt to frame this as a purely patriotic and yet somehow an apolitical ideological decision, but it reads as incredibly fascistic.
It's always good to remember that the "arsenal of democracy" was matched by an "arsenal of fascism" on the other side of WW2 made up of companies like Bayer, IBM, Coca-Cola, Ford, and Mercedes.
> incredibly fascistic.
What do you mean by this? Is its some feeling you have or do you have any objective measure?
Since fascism is more a political philosophy than an economic one, it is hard to define an "objective measure" for this type of thing, but the formal merging of corporate interests with military interests by commissioning C-suite officials is probably as close as we could get.
It might help to contrast it with an authoritarian left-wing approach to this same problem of private and state collaboration. In a system like that, we might expect these companies to be nationalized. But a right-wing system would generally be against that. They would instead keep those companies private, but the company could effectively still become state controlled by intertwining leadership such as we see here.
A free and open society should generally be against the merging of corporations and the state as it allows for too much concentrated power which can lead to both corruption and tyranny. These two sides will of course be aligned generally on the well-being of the nation, but having leadership literally splitting time between the two functions goes way beyond that as it creates problems like inherent conflicts of interest and allows for the circumvention of laws and regulations around how both the government and corporations should work. For example, the government might be prevented from spying on its people such as collecting internet histories and corporations might be prevented from exerting physical power over people like imprisoning them. But if the two groups are acting as one, this distinction doesn't matter. The corporate side can do the data collection to find who needs to be imprisoned and then the state does the dirty work of rounding people up. This would be much easier to implement and hide when it can all be orchestrated by a single person delegating their desires down whatever chain of command can legally accomplish the specific subtask at hand.
And wrapping this all up under the general banner of patriotism is doing them no favors here either as it comes off like the nationalistic propaganda that often accompanies fascism.
2 replies →
It reads as incredibly fascistic because it is.
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Oh, look. The surveillance capital complex that was always unofficially part of the US state is now officially part of the US state.
Army press release: https://www.army.mil/article/286317/army_launches_detachment...
> 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.
Oh, great, vertical integration between the violence organizations and the three worst and most amoral companies in tech. I’m sure nothing bad will come out of this.
Where’s Luckey and Anduril? Did he not pass the drug test?
You are not a real corporatocracy until you don't have military ranks just for your C-suite pals
Probably just waiting for him to get the IPO he's been teasing done first.
If it makes you feel better, Bob McGrew is ex-Palantir too.
The people in that list all sound sketchy. Where are the "good guys"?
It is not my impression that the federal government is currently in the business of hiring "good guys".
Is this a fascist piece or a neocon one? I can't decide. Makes sense that he's from Palantir though.
It's a military profiteer drinking the cool-aid thing. Although...TBH he's never going to get shot at seeing the rank he's getting from the start.
“Fascist” and “neocon” are not mutually exclusive.
> A decade ago, it would’ve been unthinkable for so many tech heavyweights to openly align with the U.S. military.
It still is. Don’t be fooled by propaganda pieces like this.
It is followed up by two blatant falsehoods:
> But a sea change has taken place in both places because of the urgency and seriousness of the moment.
> Wars in Europe and the Middle East and, above all, the threat of a war in the Pacific have focused the national mind and initiated a scramble for mobilization.
None of this is true in the sense he means it. Businesses have scrambled to have alternatives to China, yes, but that’s nothing to do with the military.
> The Army’s Executive Innovation Corps, under the direction of the Army’s chief of staff, General Randy George, is part of a larger effort by our military to transform the way it prepares for and fights wars in the 21st century.
Expanding the military-industrial complex is of no benefit to anyone other than those in the military-industrial complex (such as the author of this article).
Such transparent self-serving.
>But all free called to serve.
Yeah sure serve. In a full fledged war they were the first to hide in bunker or flee the country
A takeaway I have is that the US and UK are now very actively and strongly preparing for a world war.
That's probably how Trump says in office indefinitely and makes money off it: either start a giant, unnecessary war and/or push the home front to riot. Cutting Ukraine aid to zero may be part of undermining their efforts so a wider war between NATO and Russia happens, where US might leave NATO and side with Russia.
It is part time, they get a high rank immediately and will facilitate purchases from Palantir:
https://www.wsj.com/tech/army-reserve-tech-executives-meta-p...
This is just another part of the revolving door that also enables ex generals to get board positions at Lockheed. This time it is the reverse way.
Given that McKinsey ruined the German army, let us see whether this will even improve anything.
McKinsey generally ruins most things they touch. Engineering is a different field that McKinsey may claim it has expertise in but has none. Most McKinsey roles are high responsibility and low accountability. Nobody really cares whether their recommendations have worked long term as long as the CEO makes their bonus in the next 6-8 months.
With this I'm not sure what the goal is. If it is to change the process heavy culture of the pentagon to be more automated I'm hopeful. Yes, there is a revolving door between pentagon officials and the prime defense contractors. But I think that is currently a symptom of how the pentagon works, as in, you need to understand the process AND how the product will be used.
Cosplay for absolute losers.
> and commission as a lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserve’s newly formed Detachment 201: Executive Innovation Corps.
'New Executive Innovation Corps brings top tech talent into the Army Reserve to bridge the commercial-military tech gap, with four tech leaders set to join as officers.'[1]
lol. As someone else said in this thread, this is basically stolen valor.
[1] https://www.army.mil/article/286317/army_launches_detachment...
> Twenty years ago, that calling brought me to Palantir, a company founded in the aftermath of 9/11 to answer the challenges of our generation.
Ah yes, the "challenges" of sucking up as much data as possible on people around the world (including U.S. citizens) to stop "terrorism"
If you work for an old army contractor, it might be time to find a job elsewhere.
What a joke - they couldn't 'serve' their advisory roles without playing dress-up and commissioning directly as Lt Cols?
There is a long history of direct commission oficers <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_commission_officer> in the military.
* In times of war. This ain't it.
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It seems likely that the reason they've accepted these titles is because they believe that they will be given roles in which they have direct command authority, not just the role of advisor.
However, it also places them in Trump's direct chain of command as CinC. They might not have thought enough about that.
Officially-sanctioned stolen valor.
I wonder what the incentives are here. I am a FAANG engineer with a clearance - but would gladly serve my country in a role if the pay cut wasn't so severe
Today? In this current version of America? You like the idea of being deployed internally against protestors? Or maybe, Greenland sounds like a nice holiday spot?
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This feels disingenuous to the max. I have a younger brother who went through USAF Basic, and these tech bros just get bestowed a high rank? It smells of stolen valor.
I mean nothing ill towards the 'mud hut', but seriously? All these listed names seem like people who've never had to roll in the mud with the rest of the grunts.
>stolen valor
... is a term with a specific definition, which a direct commission officer in no way matches. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_commission_officer>
>roll in the mud with the rest of the grunts
Neither have you, yet you presume to speak on their behalf.
It might not be stolen valor, but you just KNOW these guys are going to play up their veteran status, the Honor and Sacrifice of these Great Men, (the article is already an example of this) when really this is just a trojan horse to enrich themselves and their companies. They're not even full time positions.
2 replies →
I believe that I am equally qualified for the role as they are ;)
AI by proxy just joined the army.
this is absolutely one of the last big steps in the fall of america - letting the preferred and loyal plutocrats take positions in the actual armed forces should be horrifying to absolutely everyone that wants a civilian republic to continue beyond the end of this term.
politicians and judges allowing trump to run again was a catastrophe, as was American citizens voting for him to get to have another go.
The author writes as though this is the first time that Silicon Valley and the military meet.
Let's not forget about the Defense Digital Service [1]. Of course I'm not sure how much of that is left under the current administration.
[1]: https://www.dds.mil/
Are they now legitimate military targets?
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