Anduril's VP of Marketing on brand building in defense tech: no renders, only anime, and billboards that sell fighter jets

Speaker 2: You too, brother. Please.

Speaker 1: Every every guy should have, like, 20 or 30 jackets like this. That is a good idea.

Speaker 3: '92.

Speaker 1: Build it up over time.

Speaker 3: From eBay. Did not smell great when I first

Speaker 1: got the that's the problem. That is that's the problem. Great to have you here.

Speaker 2: Great to be here. For those who aren't familiar, please introduce yourself.

Speaker 3: My name is Jeff Miller. I'm the VP of marketing at Anderil.

Speaker 2: How'd you wind up there?

Speaker 3: Long windy story. So I was starting out in advertising. I was inspired by those old Spike Lee commercials, It's Gotta Be The Shoes. I always knew I wanted to work in advertising and marketing. Worked on Ogilvy, then went to PepsiCo where you build great classic brand marketing principles. Yeah. And then I decided I wanted to go and do something that felt much harder, much much more foreign to me. Yeah. So I went to LA, spent six years here working at Snap, and had an incredible experience there building pre IPO as as they went public and beyond. And I had a global team at one point, but the way I describe it there was like a great formative experience, it felt a lot like eating potato chips. It was it was really fun, but it it was, you know, tasted good in the second, but didn't leave any sort of meaningful impact on me beyond just the moment. Yeah. And so I was looking for something more more impactful, that's what drew me to Andoril.

Speaker 2: How how do you think about, like, who you're targeting with Andoril marketing? Because it feels like I've never bought an Andoril product. I love the brand. Yeah. Yeah. Is that relevant?

Speaker 1: Alternate In timeline, you would have worked at the company.

Speaker 2: Yeah. So is it recruiting focused or are you actually trying to do brand marketing that will hit with like the buyer in DC? Do you think about it that way? Are you at all quantitative or is it like way is it just a way higher level?

Speaker 3: The way we think about it is that we, of course, are thinking about the operators with within that are gonna use our actual products Sure. And thinking about the Pentagon, the people who gonna buy it. Yeah. Yeah. But ultimately, we're also thinking about our employee base Yeah. Future employees.

Speaker 1: So Yeah.

Speaker 3: How do we be thinking about brand as a talent magnet?

Speaker 2: Mhmm.

Speaker 3: But even broader than that, we think about Americans at large.

Speaker 2: Sure.

Speaker 3: For us, we believe defense deserves really strong brands. Mhmm. The war fighters deserve strong brands. And I think if you look at the current administration, what they're doing with the Department of War and their storytelling or even let's give an acknowledgement to the marines. The two hundred and fiftieth anniversary today of the Wow. Of the marines. Wow. And you look at the content they put out over the weekend, it just makes you want to enlist. And for us, it's been a historically opaque industry that has really lived in the value of not telling clear stories. Yeah. And we see the complete opposite. Yeah. We think that this story deserves to be told for our war fighters

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker 3: For the American taxpayer to understand what we do and why it's so important.

Speaker 1: Yeah. What was the what what was the historical marketing strategy of of the primes? Did they did they do like, how how did they even think about their marketing? Because I'm obviously, you came in and you're like, hey, let's reinvent marketing in this iconic

Speaker 2: brands. Like like, there's just no denying that every if you just walked down the

Speaker 1: street And the question that I the question that I have is, like, know. Iconic because when you look at some of the products that they've made Yeah. Specifically, like, fighter aircraft Sure. Certain firearms Yeah. Etcetera. Like, they are iconic products. Yeah. Like, make you you know, people post, like, the b 21 raider as, a meme. Yeah. Yeah. It's like, when you're you know that you're onto something if your product is being turned into a meme. But I just wonder if if there was any history of them doing saying, hey, let's do an out of home campaign.

Speaker 3: Yeah. Because What I think you're hitting on is a really important point. When we talk about brand here, it starts with the product itself.

Speaker 7: Mhmm.

Speaker 3: Product is brand, I think, in our category as much as as any.

Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 3: Because it's it has this great ability to speak to national security in a way that will rally the country to really think about what's great about America, about advanced manufacturing, about innovation, about what Americans hard at work can can achieve. So if you look back at the fifties, sixties, seventies, there's incredible advertising that you would see from Lockheed and and from the other primes. And that's something that

Speaker 1: And were these like Porsche style ads where it's like a lot of text and just like a picture of it and it's like, you know, the the f 16 is not just a fighter jet.

Speaker 3: Know what's so great? So I worked at a company named Ogilvie Mather and David Ogilvie is famous for starting that style of ad.

Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 3: The long lead copy. And I think why that resonates so well in the context of Porsche is because ultimately, it's just a really great story Yeah. A product that isn't for everyone, but resonates with a specific set of people. And in a lot of ways, those are the principles we use today.

Speaker 2: Yeah. Walk through, like, how you actually think about a a whole campaign. I feel like Andrew launches a lot of products, and there's a lot of different tools in the tool chest. Like, I'm thinking about the Eagle Eye launch. Mhmm. There was obviously a video. There was also, like, a Joe Rogan appearance

Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2: Which is, like like, is that all in one, like, project brief or deck? Or how do you think about, like, all the different touch points? Because there's so many with something like Andoril where product marketing for a new launch might be a dinner in DC or it might be a Joe Rogan experience. There's so much that you can do that's not just like, okay, make sure the Facebook ads are turned on.

Speaker 3: Well, what I think you're you're seeing rather than something like Facebook ads is we're really speaking to capabilities versus selling ads in the way that we think about it. And I wanna give a a real credit to the team behind here. So Shannon Pryor, our VP of Communications Jen Buchi, our VP of Design Andrew Lee, who's our Director of Product Marketing. All of these people together are working closely with our division, with their business line, with their founders on how do we tell one cohesive story. And I think what's important here, it's not a template that we use. Depending what that product launch is, depending on the message that we're trying to communicate, depending on who the core customer is, all of those influence the approach that we take. So those those elements that you spoke about for Eagle Eye, all of those were worked in close coordination.

Speaker 2: Mhmm.

Speaker 3: What was true and I think is always true of the products that we launch is it's always first and foremost about demonstrating real capabilities. We have a rule that comes straight from Palmer. No render rule. And what that means is that we're never gonna fake our capabilities. We're gonna always demonstrate the work that we do in a way that's reflective of the actual capabilities themselves. So what you see on screen here is is a real capability of Eagle Eye. It's mission planning.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker 3: With another vignette that spoke to our our heightened survivability, our our lethal capabilities. And what I give a lot of credit to our our design team is the way they thought about this was actually showing the real first person perspective

Speaker 2: Mhmm.

Speaker 3: That is a true capability of of the product. And then our social team, what we were really clear on is you've got to drop people straight into the action. Mhmm. The way that you're gonna get them to buy in is actually showing it and not doing a lot of buildup before you get to the capability.

Speaker 2: You did an out of home you did an out of home campaign for don't work at Andoroll. Are you doing an out of home campaign for Eagle Eye? Is that relevant? How do you decide where to do what?

Speaker 3: So I personally am the biggest fan of out of home. Really? And I think there's there's reasons that I I love it that translate to things like NASCAR.

Speaker 2: It's

Speaker 3: an undervalued asset when you think about it in the context of a marketer.

Speaker 2: Sure.

Speaker 3: If you really understand how to use a canvas in an intentional way, you can really stand out. So when we think about outdoor, we're thinking about how it's gonna show up on social You guys do an amazing job of that as you think about the clips on on the show. Sure. For us, every time we're talking in outdoor Yep. We have one simple rule, say less. And and that it's like you have to have I it's another old Ogilvy role.

Speaker 2: Yep.

Speaker 3: He says seven words or less. I like to say five words or less on on it. So Yep. For Eagle Eye, we had a very simple line. Superpowers for superheroes Yep. And we demonstrate the capabilities. Or when we showcase Fury, which you guys were talking about with with Soren, we say, fight unfair. Yeah. And so you have these lines that have a really clear perspective that should make people immediately think about what you're saying. Whether they understand it in the moment or not, it should stick with them.

Speaker 2: Yeah. And I think it just we we we've seen we we review our out of home campaigns all the time on the show because we see them hit the timeline. We talk about them. And

Speaker 1: We love advertising.

Speaker 2: We love advertising. More than anyone else. Genuinely.

Speaker 1: I'd like to Maybe you like advertising as much as us, but there's not many.

Speaker 2: I'm loving it. The comments

Speaker 1: making doubt. For sure.

Speaker 2: But but it is it is hard when if you're a new startup and you're selling a piece of software that isn't highly visual and people aren't familiar with your brand, just like, as much as you might wanna be, ah, I'm David Ogilvie. I got this good tagline. It's just not gonna break through as opposed to, okay. If you show me a picture of a plane, even if it's a little bit look if even it looks different and the landing gear's a little bit different, I'm gonna know that's a drone. That's a plane. I'm that's a piece of military technology. There's all these cues that you can lean into. Also, Andrew is so big now. Like, just

Speaker 1: You must you must driving driving aware of it. Driving on the one zero one into SF. Yeah. The disparity and quality of the outdoor Tell the story.

Speaker 2: Tell us the story. Alright.

Speaker 3: So Trey tweets at me at, like, on Monday at 07:36AM. He's he's going to the office of Founders Fund and he's looking at his thirty seventh terrible enterprise SaaS ad on the on the 101. And he says, can we please just put a fury on a billboard on the 101 so I have to stop looking at these ads? And he tags at me directly. I I take this as a personal challenge. So when I worked at Gator, we talked about moving at the the speed of sport.

Speaker 1: Sure.

Speaker 3: So for me at this point, it was the challenge is on. We have to have something live the very next day. Yeah. So by the next day, we had an ad on the one zero one and I tweeted. I didn't even tell him I was doing this like right back at him. And credit to our team, again, moving quickly.

Speaker 2: Wow.

Speaker 3: It was a giant fury that said enter it said AI for fighter jets, not enterprise SaaS.

Speaker 2: Oh, there

Speaker 1: you go. That's amazing.

Speaker 2: I love that.

Speaker 1: Last time last time actually, it wasn't last trip but a a few trips ago to SF, I saw a billboard. I was so confused by it

Speaker 2: Mhmm.

Speaker 1: That I went to the website because I was like, who is

Speaker 2: This is happening.

Speaker 1: Who is running out of home in such a confusing way? I land on the website, still don't know what the product is. What are they doing? So I think that just that that clarity with out of home is so important where I not only saw the ad, I went, I I did what they wanted, I imagined, go to the website and I'm still come away from it being like, what what does this company do? They have enough money to to buy billboards. But, yeah, I still I mean, I still we we work with AdQuick. Obviously, we're biased. But I still think that out of home is the most undervalued form of advertising.

Speaker 3: 100%. You hit one of the keywords on the head. We don't look at marketing as superficial or fluff. Marketing for us brings clarity. And when you apply clarity with with context, that's when out of home can be created, really any medium. Mhmm. But a couple examples I love are in Dayton Airport. If you fly into there, it's about ten minute drive to Wright Patterson Air Force Base. Mhmm. So, where we have our customer for what you referenced earlier, YFQ 44 A, is right there outside of Dayton. For those of you that know the history of Ohio, Dayton was also the the cradle, the birthplace of aviation where the Wright brothers were working on their original Wright Flyer. In fact, you're in that airport, you will see a replica of the Wright Flyer hanging from the ceiling. Right behind that, you will see a full scale Fury where it simply says actual size. And so that context, that ad would only work in the context of that airport. You put that in any other airport in America, it becomes less relevant. So whether it's on the 101 or whether it's in Dayton Airport, we're always thinking about the media placement as much as as the message. And you had Kugen asked about the Don't Work campaign. That's the one time we intentionally leaned into confusion.

Speaker 7: So Sure.

Speaker 3: Our campaign there, the brief to Jen and her team was was simple. I won an ad campaign. It reminds me of that campaign, if you remember, from Netflix. Netflix is a joke. Yeah. Where when you first see it, you're not sure if it's for Andruil or against Andruil.

Speaker 2: Sure.

Speaker 3: So the creative they came back with with which was beautiful and and just really thoughtful, was that we would do a corporate campaign that says work at Androl, and then of course was graffitied, was tagged, and everything that's was graffitied was saying don't work there. And what I gave our team a lot of credit, we'd already bought both URLs. So whether you go to work at androl.com or don't work at androl.com, you're still gonna land where we want you to land. But it just became provocative in a way that whether you're Boston, Seattle, or Atlanta, the three markets we're really focused on with our people team to recruit, you were gonna see our message and you couldn't you couldn't miss it. It was undeniable.

Speaker 1: What did some of your early mood boards look like for Anderol? I feel like Anderol had effectively first mover advantage in marketing in this new category of of like new players in defense and a lot of the like, when I think about the visual surrounding Andoril, I think like this is what a modern defense tech company should look like. Maybe that's because I grew up playing Call of Duty and Andoril looks like a lot of the visuals and even even the UI and stuff feels like it just fits into those worlds. And I know a lot of I'm sure a lot of our our armed forces feel the same way. But what what was like when you were mood boarding? I don't know if that was process that you went through with with Jen or other people on the team early on. Like, what kind of inspiration were you were you pulling in?

Speaker 3: Well, you hit there on a few words that are really important for us. When when we think about building this brand, we think about building it in a way that is open, that is modern, that is honest, and we do it in a way that we're really conscious that we're building it for the generation that ultimately is going be responsible for building national security of the present and the future. Mhmm. So, the ability to speak in a language, whether that's our voice, which I'm responsible and our team is responsible for, or our our identity that Jen and her team are responsible for, we're always thinking about the way that we can land something that feels really, really unique. And so, full credit in terms of the identity work goes to Jen and her team and Palmer and how they're building. And this extends from everything from the product identity to our industrial design, environmental to how we think about the brand identity. And then what I think our team does really well is really establish a clear voice that whether it's on the identity or on the voice, we talk about it as brutalist. Meaning, we're not speaking in opaque terms Mhmm. That is typical of the category. We're talking in really, really simple language that a fourteen year old person can understand.

Speaker 2: Mhmm.

Speaker 3: If a 14 year old can't see that and say, I get it, then Yeah. We've missed the mark.

Speaker 1: Yep.

Speaker 2: No render policy, only anime policy. There's a lot of anime. When do you pull anime off the shelf? Is there gonna be an anime video for Eagle Eye? Yes or no? And why or why not?

Speaker 3: Sure. So we talk a lot about this as the Andoril Cinematic Universe Yes.

Speaker 11: Is the way

Speaker 3: we like to describe it internally. And obviously, it's born out of Palmer's

Speaker 2: Of course.

Speaker 3: Passion for anime early on. But it's something that I'm so proud of in the context of of what our team has built Yeah. Because all of it is it's not using AI. It's all done, like, through digital

Speaker 1: Yeah.

Speaker 3: And brush, and it's, like, a really powerful tool for us because now we've created an aesthetic around it specific to us.

Speaker 2: And it makes it clear that any you can look at one frame and you're not confused. You're like so you can go into the future, and you can actually tell the story of what Andoril might be doing in ten years, and you're never confusing and you don't even get in the comments and debates, oh, that's CGI. It's like, of course, it came from a computer. Exactly.

Speaker 1: And it's right. We we we I I won't name the company, but John and I were having this debate over a a, defense tech, hard tech company that we were we there was a three minute video and we were just going frame by frame. And I was convinced that it was that it was like CGI or like AI generated. John was like, like I kinda wanna believe it was real. It They

Speaker 2: were cutting between so bad. So so they actually had a thing that would take off and fly.

Speaker 1: This is a company this is a company that's this is a company that's that's public. Right? So they're putting Who

Speaker 2: is it?

Speaker 1: Name names. No. It can yeah. Yeah. It it

Speaker 2: it can do vertical takeoff, but not move or something like that. It was weird. It was bizarre. Yeah. Small problem. But yeah. So so so for Eagle Eye, like, when when would you use that and why and and Well, I

Speaker 3: think you're speaking to what's important when we make these choices. It's a creative choice first.

Speaker 2: Sure. Sure. Sure.

Speaker 3: And we're thinking about it in the context of where is the really great room for lore and story building. Yeah. So what I'll tell you is with with Eagle Eye, we had great ability by showing the first person perspective. We thought that was the the most impactful way in. But what I will confirm is that there will be a chapter three

Speaker 2: Mhmm.

Speaker 3: To the animatic, the Androle Cinematic Universe. Okay. So just be ready. It's coming 2026.

Speaker 2: That's exciting. That's exciting. Talk about sports marketing. Is that also underrated like, out of home? What's your been your strategy? Did you dip your toe in with small tests? Now you're doing something big with NASCAR. Walk me through the thesis and what

Speaker 3: you're thinking. Right. So we dipped our toes with the the Chargers who are a partner of ours. They actually shared property with us. Their old training

Speaker 2: facility That's right.

Speaker 3: In Costa Mesa. They've now moved to a beautiful facility in El Segundo. But if you're at the game last night, Sunday Night Football where Aaron Rodgers looked like old man Rodgers, but the Chargers Is that

Speaker 1: good or bad? I didn't call it.

Speaker 3: Oh, Steelers got smoked. Luckily, I'm an Eagles fan, so I don't mind.

Speaker 1: Okay. Aaron Rodgers is on the seat?

Speaker 3: He's on the Steelers. Oh, come on, Jordy.

Speaker 1: No. Seriously. I seriously we don't know.

Speaker 2: I thought he was just on the Pat McAfee show.

Speaker 3: He might be full time

Speaker 2: thought he was full time Pat McAfee.

Speaker 3: So if you were there though, what I think is super cool about a partnership like that is we dipped our toes Yeah. Is we had 16 veterans from Andoril

Speaker 2: Okay.

Speaker 3: That were there. Cool. And the way they got to go to that game is that a colleague from our our office, from our team nominated them and said why. And it was grounded in their character. It was grounded in their service. Why they were selected to represent our company.

Speaker 1: Mhmm.

Speaker 3: And so if you were there watching on their eighties 80 yard infinity screen, you saw our veterans being recognized there. And also

Speaker 11: That's true.

Speaker 3: How much it meant to them Yeah. To be there. So everything when we look at sports marketing, we look at it as a way to to find the ways that we can, yes, find value

Speaker 1: Mhmm.

Speaker 3: But also to stand out in a way that we have the ability to do something unique Mhmm. And that we can honor and and reach the military and defense community. Mhmm. So that's why you see us leaning into things like NFL or, of course, NASCAR. NASCAR, more than any other sport, over indexes on that military and defense community. Has about four x the ratings of f one in America. Of course. And so while we see so much over saturation in f one Yeah. The amount the economics of a deal there

Speaker 2: Mhmm.

Speaker 3: To be a mid level sponsor on a mid level team are

Speaker 1: I still know. The the disparity in earnings too from when you look at the you know, let's say that the twentieth person on the grid is probably making a couple million a year from a salary standpoint, and then some of the you could be like top 20 in NASCAR too, and you're just you're earning a good living. And so the opportunities for companies to support a sport that so many Americans love and be able to have be a meaningful player in that is is amazing.

Speaker 7: And this

Speaker 3: is a call to great brands in this country, consumer brands, who have exited that sport.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker 3: I mean, NASCAR is on on the up and up. And for us, we had this exceptional opportunity to sponsor a race on a military base. It could not be more of a direct target for And what I what I love so much about our company, this applies to whether you're working in design, video production, marketing, comms, is we have the full trust of our founders

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker 3: To make these calls. We keep them directly in the loop. But they they trust us to make these big swings. And so next June on that base, we're gonna show up in a way that no one else in the sport does. And we have a partnership directly with Hendrix Motorsports.

Speaker 2: Okay.

Speaker 3: And so that's Jeff Gordon's team.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker 3: And we've got William Byron who won the regular season. Yeah. Hendrix also has a defense division. Like there's all these connective tissues that we can do storytelling year round.

Speaker 2: Yep. Talk about the menu of options for working with NASCAR broadly. It sounds like the Andoril two fifty, it's sponsored of a race. There's also team level sponsors, individual driver sponsorships. I mean, I'm sure some brands are out there paying for promoted posts on the some drivers' Instagram, one off. Right? How did you land on where you landed, and do you think this will continue to grow and mutate? Because, you know, what we've seen with, like, Red Bull, like, they have one f one team. There's no there's no Red Bull race in f one. It's just the team. And so I'm interested to think about what what's out there on the menu, how you landed, where you landed.

Speaker 3: Sure. And I'll talk this about this in the context of NASCAR relative to another big swing of ours Ohio State.

Speaker 2: Sure.

Speaker 3: Sure. So with NASCAR, it was about how do we make a a big splash on a major state. Yep. Especially with America two fifty coming up. Totally. I mean, it rights itself especially in that first year. Sure. And with that deal, we have the rights to to activate with a specific team. There's actually an activation fund built into our deal

Speaker 2: Okay.

Speaker 3: To work with this specific team.

Speaker 2: Oh, okay.

Speaker 3: We met with eight teams on the grid Cool. And found the one that really aligned with our values. That's how we end up with Henrik

Speaker 2: and we Makes sense.

Speaker 3: With Williams specifically as our driver. But there's many different ways in. For us, we see this as a relationship that we fully intend to grow. Yep.

Speaker 2: We're gonna

Speaker 3: be with the sport for at least five years. I I expect that to be much Yeah. Much longer than that as the sport itself is growing. And then you look at that in contrast with Ohio State. Yeah. Why did we do the deal with Ohio State? Well, we're building Arsenal One

Speaker 9: Of course.

Speaker 3: Our 5,000,000 square foot manufacturing facility about ten minutes away from the heart of Ohio State campus. We're bringing 4,000 jobs directly, another 4,000 jobs indirectly through the build of Arsenal 1. And so for us, we know the the best way to win the hearts and minds of of Ohioans is talking to Ohio State and not doing it in a superficial way about just a sport sponsorship

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker 3: But actually thinking about the ways in which we're gonna work together for job placement

Speaker 7: Yep.

Speaker 3: For STEM programs, for community engagement, for military community, and how we make sure that they have skill bridge. And so for us, those are examples where we go broad with NASCAR and we go deep with Ohio State.

Speaker 2: That's a great deflection from just the truth, which is the Tray's from Ohio. And so he's gotta go

Speaker 1: all in.

Speaker 3: I mean, Tray would have a sponsor in the Bengals right now if

Speaker 2: he could. Yeah. No. I wouldn't be surprised.

Speaker 8: You're gonna be

Speaker 3: seven? I don't know.

Speaker 2: He's he's gonna do it. He's gonna do What what so what else is is special about this about this race? Walk me through, like, what race weekend, what race week looks like. I mean, I imagine a bunch of people from the company are coming out. Like, what are all the different ways that you are getting the lift out of it?

Speaker 3: 100%. We see already, whether it's from people on the hill Yeah. To our our Sure. Investor community.

Speaker 2: Bringing out.

Speaker 3: The second we announced that we're doing a race, we were getting calls from from everyone.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker 3: And I'm really excited because I think this will be a moment that becomes a real focal point

Speaker 1: Cool.

Speaker 3: For American two fifty at large. So we're really hopeful for everyone that you could possibly imagine to to show up to this race. Yeah. So as we lead up to it, I think what you'll see is us start to drop content away that you typically don't see in sports. So Sure. Whether it's the scheme which we just finalized on Friday

Speaker 2: Oh, sure.

Speaker 3: When we finally released that

Speaker 2: Mhmm.

Speaker 3: I mean, our design team, like, knocked out of the park to the helmet To steam delivery essentially? Exactly. Delivery to the fire suit Mhmm. To the die cast cars. We're gonna make every single thing a moment. And then we got space on the base that we could do some really special demonstrations of our product capabilities. Yeah. So we're working right now with NASCAR and with the Navy to think about the ways that we can showcase our our product on this.

Speaker 2: So in in theory, like, yeah, like a

Speaker 1: Fury flyover?

Speaker 3: Fury flyover? I mean, sooner or later. I'd like to see. Is what I'll say. That Test

Speaker 2: that we've done

Speaker 1: or something.

Speaker 3: Last week, as you alluded to earlier, our first flight Yeah. And just a massive shout out to our our air dominance division. Like, for them to accomplish what they did in just over five hundred days from clean sheet to first flight. Wow. It's unreal. It's unheard of in in the industry. All like at the touch of a button. Yeah. And it was really cool to to be a small part of that and to observe it. But I think it goes from there to first flight to how do we start to think about ways that we can demonstrate this more clearly in public.

Speaker 2: Dive LD demo. You gotta be just like, yeah, it's down there.

Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1: Guide makes Yeah. Can't see it.

Speaker 3: Dive We're gonna put our

Speaker 2: Dive XL. Yeah. It's down there. Yeah. Trust us. It's down there.

Speaker 1: Gotta do a live show from from under the seat.

Speaker 2: You'll like, and we're showing off our new stealth technology.

Speaker 1: Space in there.

Speaker 3: I wanna share some fun facts Please. To from the Don't Work at Andruil campaign.

Speaker 2: Oh, yeah.

Speaker 3: You can pivot back. There's two stories I'd love to share here. One is how this originated. Mhmm. So, I'm about three months in and friend of the show, Matt Grim Yeah. I get a Slack from him that simply says, why do you hate interns? And I'm trying to distill like the context behind this. And I realized it's because I had responded to to our recruiting team about a week earlier. They had shared a post from I'll also redact the name of this company. Their intern post where it's like 30 smiling interns in front of the logo saying Okay. First day company. And they said, hey, can we do this? And I said, absolutely not. We're not putting that out there. That's not the ethos of our company.

Speaker 2: Sure.

Speaker 3: And so, I said to Grim, I'm like, I don't hate interns. I hate shitty x company inspired intern posts. I said, if we're going to talk about what it's like to work here Yeah. We should tell the people all the reasons they shouldn't.

Speaker 2: Sure. Sure.

Speaker 3: And so, Grimm and I went back and forth and started to outline what ended becoming the the working script. And it was largely drawn from Palmer's own words Yeah. Yeah. Trey's words Sure. Lulu's words early days of saying, hey, we're a weapons company.

Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 3: And if you don't want to work on that, if you don't believe in the mission, if you don't understand why we build what we build, if you're not ready to work your butts off here nonstop if you don't love America and are proud to say it

Speaker 7: Yeah.

Speaker 3: Then don't work here. It's like no disrespect. But the sooner we understand that about each other, the better. And what I love so much about Grimm, two words, ship it. Yeah. And from there, that's all we needed. And then it was a group of five of us with the our talented creative team, Trevor, Alex, Ben, with Jen in a Was room

Speaker 2: there ever a moment where you felt like if you didn't put that out, you would run the risk of people showing up just because Andrew was like a hot stock? And they would be like, wait a minute. Like, I actually have like, I think because it seems crazy to

Speaker 3: me. 100%. Mean, what we'd out is what I'd call the mercenaries. The people that are just there, like, try to get the Andoril equity.

Speaker 2: Sure. Sure.

Speaker 3: Who are saying, this is extremely hard.

Speaker 2: It's gonna be hard.

Speaker 3: Guess what? Like, you're not gonna have fun here. If all you care about is cash

Speaker 2: Okay. Yeah.

Speaker 3: Trying to get equity Yeah.

Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 3: Do not come here. No. You know, we see it because I do the orientation every two weeks Yeah. And we have one fifty, 200 new people coming in. And I ask people, I'm like, who saw this before you started? Every single hand goes up. So what you're speaking to is the greatest measure of success

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker 3: Is that it was a filter Yeah. For the people that were not mission aligned.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker 3: Yeah. On top of that, you talk about metrics, 30% lift in applications because of that campaign.

Speaker 2: Yeah. Wait. Wait. What is the intern cycle like now? Because it feels like there's more and more people dropping out of college early. Is Andrew all set up to deal with that? I mean, I feel like there's some people who might start intern and then take a gap semester and then wind up just hanging out forever and like right there. Tyler started as an intern and then he took a gap semester. And

Speaker 3: Is Tyler required to dress like you every day?

Speaker 2: Well, yeah. We have like a, you know, general if ever if everyone's wearing

Speaker 1: White suits today because the markets are up.

Speaker 2: The market's up, so we wear white. Love it. But, but I am interested. Like, Palantir has the meritocracy thing going on. There's definitely this idea I mean, this goes to back to Peter Thiel and Founders Fund and, like, a lot of, just the idea that, like, is the internship even necessary? Like, what are the roles where the internship makes sense versus just, hey. You're ready. Get in get in the league.

Speaker 3: It's it's a perfect question, especially for right now because we're talking about this all the way through our executive ranks and with our people team about what it actually means to to come here and what matters.

Speaker 1: Yeah.

Speaker 3: And we we call it the the Andoril Forge program, but we're working on the campaign right now that will be the the next sequel, if you will, to to Don't Work With Andoril

Speaker 1: Sure.

Speaker 3: That won't tell people what we aren't. It's gonna speak about what we are Sure. And what it means to work here and and the importance of of work. Cool. And so it matters way less to us

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker 3: About your quote unquote credentials. We don't care. Yeah. We care about the the work that you're gonna do, the alignment to the mission, and your ability to add value.

Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. It's awesome.

Speaker 1: Does By the way, I don't know

Speaker 3: if you know this even, Jordy, but we started our our campaign for Don't Work at Andoril with our intern Yeah. Taking over. So like midnight, my buddy Sean and I were crushing, I think, Core's lights. And we we posted just simply

Speaker 1: That's great.

Speaker 3: Don't work at Andoril. Yeah. And we had somebody give us really good counsel because it was just gonna be And this this man of mystery, that, rhymes with Don Hugen said to us, he said, you gotta go way way harder than that.

Speaker 2: Like There's such a fertile ground. Like, there's so much Andoril lore that there's so many different elements that you could pull from, from different things Palmer said, sword art all online. Pacific rim? Pacific rim robots.

Speaker 3: So there's about ten ten tweets that our intern wrote that are actually ghostwritten by

Speaker 2: I think I sent you like 25 and, and and you picked you picked

Speaker 1: Oh, right. Right. Right. I know. I know this.

Speaker 2: I know this story. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. One day we need to post the ones that didn't make the cut because I love it. There might have been some over the line. So good.

Speaker 1: Last question. Do you think that advertising has changed in the last fifty years?

Speaker 2: Even

Speaker 1: in the last hundred years? Because when I when I hear you talk, you're speaking, you know, running the marketing organization of of one of the best modern brands. Right? People can debate people can debate on on whether they like the brand or not because it's obviously polarizing, but great brands are polarizing. And when I think about the strategy, it's like ultra clear communication, strong visuals, leveraging out of home strategically, you know, having these sort of layered strategies, thinking about all these different architects. Feels like all the conversations that a that a strong marketing brand organization would be having fifty years ago. And so it's interesting. I I think it's interesting that we have the Internet, which is like the best marketing channel in history, and yet the marketing strategy hasn't changed very much at all since the old days, you know.

Speaker 3: Yeah. What you're describing to me is that what's changed is the medium. Mhmm. What hasn't changed is the desire from an audience for a really clear story.

Speaker 1: Mhmm.

Speaker 3: Yeah. And ultimately, that's what we're doing, is we're bringing great craft to our storytelling, which most importantly is highlighting the incredible important work that our engineers and operators are doing for our warfighters. And that's the thing that is consistent with us. And and the other thing I think you said is that we understand that we're it's not for everyone. You know, what was important to us is that we have a really, really clear message that people understand what we stand for whether you agree with it or not. And that is what I I love because I'm so mission aligned to what we're building that I find it a great privilege and responsibility to bring the same type of disruptive approach to marketing that we are bringing to how we approach contracts, how we think about research and development, how we think about engineering or AI or design. And ultimately, there's no other place on on Earth I'd rather be.

Speaker 1: Fantastic. That's a great place to end it.

Speaker 2: Well, thank you so much for coming I'm so excited for the Andoril two fifty next year.

Speaker 3: Next year.

Speaker 2: We'll be there. I want to be there.

Speaker 1: By the way, here's

Speaker 3: a final idea for you guys. Yes. My second time officially on.

Speaker 2: Yes.

Speaker 3: You guys need like an SNL Yes. Five timer jacket.

Speaker 2: Oh, yeah.

Speaker 3: When you guys get to that level

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker 3: That'd be great. You guys break out some new swag.

Speaker 1: For sure. We got it. For sure. Got some got see got some way.

Speaker 3: You guys.

Speaker 7: Great to

Speaker 1: see you.

Speaker 2: Thanks so much for coming by. Oh. What else? You you got something else in the bag?

Speaker 1: What do we got? What do we got? Oh. There we go. Fresh out of cool. The twenty four.

Speaker 2: Size. Great. Thank you.

Speaker 1: We go. This is hard. Very cool.

Speaker 2: Thank you so much.

Speaker 1: Good to see you. See you soon.

Speaker 2: This is good. Every everyone needs a number for sure. There you go. I like it.

Speaker 1: Linear. Let's Purpose built tools. Back to Linear.

Speaker 2: Planning and building products. Meet the system for modern software development. Streamline issues, projects, and product road maps. There is a video of an office tour, that has been burning up the timeline. I feel like we should play this.

Speaker 1: Play it.

Speaker 2: If we can pull it up. It's gonna be about, two minutes of the, from Philip Cozara. I spent $1,500,000 building our office after raising a seed round. The seed one point five used to be the total seed round. Now, I guess it's a $30,000,000.