Anduril COO Matt Grimm on hiring veterans and launching a Memorial Day swag drop for the Murphy Foundation

Wy. Chris Wy is the executive director of the Lieutenant Michael P. Murphy Navy Seal Museum. So, I wanted to give it a second to Chris to talk about uh what the Murf Challenge is, why we do it, kind of the story behind it, and a little bit of Lieutenant Murphy's history. So, sounds fantastic.

Uh thank you for having me on. So, uh what we just accomplished today was a onem run, 100 pull-ups, 200 push-ups, 300 air squats, and another onem run. Uh all wearing a nice weighted vest, as you can see. There we go. Yep.

But the whole uh history behind this was that it was Michael's favorite workout when he was deployed. We don't deploy with gym equipment, so you have to kind of improvise and find what you can uh can use in your area so you can have a good workout.

Uh if everybody doesn't know the story of Lieutenant Murphy, the blockbuster movie, The Lone Survivor with uh M uh Wahberg and uh Taylor Kit, that was the portrayal of Operation Red Wings and how Michael stepped out into a hail of bullets to make a phone call to try to save everybody.

So ultimately receiving the Medal of Honor uh after he died that day and just a great workout in a great way to remember all that have s sac sacrifice I'm sorry and suffered uh our own little discomfort today during the the Murf challenge. It's awesome. Uh how long has this been going on?

Uh Andrew's been a part of this for a couple years, but can you break down some of the history of this particular event?

So, what happened was after uh the helicopter pilot recovered Michael and the other guys on that mountain side, uh when he got back home, he uh heard of Michael's workout and then started doing it on his own, calling it the Murf and it spread so quickly through the local CrossFit gyms and then it became uh too much for him to handle and then he involved a family.

So, this has been going on as the Murf Challenge for about 12 to 13 years now and it's just growing every single year. Uh we're hoping to uh continue having this grow and have the partnership with Andrew because they're amazing amazing partners and uh and people here. It's it's been such a touching event today.

That's amazing. Can you talk about Ander's role here? Is this just a bonding event for you guys? Is this for charity? Uh how are you thinking about Anderrol's involvement in your How many people from Andre came out for this?

Well, today we had about 150 Anderillians come out and it's uh for us it's not just about the team bonding part. That is certainly a part of it. You know, kind of team morale, team bonding and the team that uh works together, sweats together, stays together. So, that's certainly a part of it.

But more importantly than that, like we started Andrew to bring the best possible technology to those who serve in defense of our freedoms and our nation and our allies. And uh and a part of that extends to supporting the veterans community.

So, we've been pretty active in uh supporting the veterans community through a couple different ways that I can talk about in a couple minutes.

So today was uh less for us about the morale piece and more about a um sort of a signal or a um a moment to celebrate our veterans both that work at Andre and in the community at large and um our partnership with the Murf Foundation and with Chris himself and and all of that is just a a symbol of that.

How'd you wind up doing Matt? I tried to do it with you over Christmas and I got crushed. Well, you guys don't even look like you broke a sweat. What's going on? Yeah, I I appreciate that. Do another one now.

We we had a we there were 150 of us out there and um I I noticed there were there were two empty vests out there with technology on the front. So if you guys uh want to want to step up next year, we'd be happy to have you and you can come out with us. We'll do it live. Yeah.

I did like three pull-ups today, so I'm getting there. You were repping. I think I did a couple sets of five, but not quite at the hundred in a row yet. Um, talk to me about Chris for for your time and thanks for the partnership and your service and everything you do for veterans. Thank you so much. Yeah, thank you.

Um, I got all right. Cheers. Awesome. Matt, uh, talk to me about uh, the role that veterans play at anderol. Uh people think tech company, military, obviously there's discipline overlaps, but a lot of times there's not so many immediate skill overlaps or do people have that wrong?

Are you hiring software engineers from the military? Are you hiring hardware engineers? Are you hiring operators and finance people? What are the different types of roles uh that veterans are filling at Andreal today? Yeah, happy to talk about uh talk about all of that.

So, we've been um involved in the veterans community since day one of the organization. one of our coh one of our co-founders in fact is a veteran himself and has helped kind of uh lay the foundations for those partnerships.

Right now about 12 13% of our employee base is veterans which is wildly over the national average and uh sign certainly higher than that in in the Silicon Valley kind of technology community.

We have a we have a partnership with a great organization called Skillbridge that's a program run by the DoD for helping um veterans transition. We have a couple of uh recruiting relationships with uh targeted to that kind of transitioning veteran kind of community. And we hire across all roles.

Everything from kind of field op field ops technicians who are installing our products and training users in the field, some of our maintenance and repair technicians, some of our production technicians on the factory floor building products all the way through some design engineers, uh mechies and ees doing work.

Yes, we have some coders, some CS folks who are uh from from the veterans community and all the way up into the leadership ranks, you know, of our of our leadership ranks. We've got um a pretty high v veteran representation. Everything from flag officers to retired colonels through uh through the whole ranks.

So, it's a big part of our part of our culture. It's a big part of our uh kind of the mission of the company and something that we're proud to support. And beyond that, I would say that uh we frequently raise some money for veterans charities. We've got a couple in particular that we support.

I've got my my my notes here in front of me with that. Uh so on uh Veterans Day last year, we had our first big uh public launch of the swag store and we had a swag drop that uh raised about 60,000 some odd dollars uh that went to a Blueest Star Families Foundation.

Um a good teaser for you, breaking news here on the Technology Brothers podcast network. We're launching our next swag drop on Memorial Day in about 10 days. Let's go. Oh. Uh, we'll be raising a whole bunch more money exactly for the foundation that that that Chris runs in, uh, in Lieutenant Murphy's honor.

So, uh, everybody be be be on the lookout for that.

Uh, we've given some money to a great charity called Warriors of Field that is, uh, actually run by one of the Ander executives that specializes in, uh, helping veterans kind of in in distress, kind of going through some bad times by doing some mentorship and some outdoor activities and wilderness adventures and hunting and that sort of thing.

So, trying to build some bonds there to help veterans who are in a tough spot. So, uh, we've been we've been very active through all the years on all this and something that we're looking forward to, uh, continuing doing and scaling as the company grows. Okay. Give us a take about how to get a job at Anderoll.

Well, we've got a a great website, you know, and. com/careers, but more importantly than than the obvious, just apply on the website line is like we look for people with a real mission drive.

We look for people who are really driven by the call to service, who are really uh interested in protecting uh American values and our allies values and um and and and the escalating arms race that is happening across the world.

Whether that's artificial intelligence, whether that's drone technology, whether that's any sort of the the kind of the next generation of what the war war fighters are going to face face in the battlefield.

like we look for people who are just really motivated and really driven and look uh you know want to come honestly grind and work hard on really challenging and rewarding problems to to help defend our country.

So um the the number one thing you could do if you're interested in a job at Android uh obviously apply but more importantly is um you know build up that skill set, build up that engineering skill set, that problem solving skill set and um and that mission drive and uh that's who we look for. That's fantastic.

Jordan, you got anything else? No, this is great. We got to come out for the next one. We got to start working. I mean I think it's doable. I don't I think I would have died this year, but I think I could do it next year if I start training today. John finished the winners today finished in our in our women's division.

She finished in about 45 minutes. Our in our men's division, he finished in 35 minutes doing a mile run, 100 pull-ups, 200 push-ups, 300 squats, and another mile run in 35 minutes, which is uh totally ridiculous and and very impressive. Um and then me myself, I finished in about about an hour and 11 hour and 12 minutes.

Uh, not bad. But you had you had three vests on, but but finished it with the full vest, full reps, all of that. So, pretty pretty pretty happy day. That's amazing. Absolute dog. Absolute dog. Well, congratulations. Thanks for coming by. Uh, love to have you back and to talk more, but enjoy the rest of the day.

For sure. Thanks for putting this on. Bye. I think it's time we take off the mustaches and get down to business. Oh. Uh, yeah. a little I I I thought it might be fun to do a little bit of the news in a mustache. Uh well, you can stay in a mustache. I'm personally going to keep mine on a little bit, John.

Well, first up, um we got Sam Alman with a big announcement. Uh OpenAI is introducing Codeex. It's a software engineering agent that runs in the cloud and does tasks for you like writing a new feature or fixing a bug. You can run many tasks in parallel.

Uh starting to roll out to Chat GBT Pro, Enterprise, and Teams users. And he sends some more info. Um, I think this is interesting because I had this crazy experience with 03 the other day where I wanted to know how uh how high a desk was actually on