if you want to tackle the POV of the true believers at Y Combinator*: look, flock can't be that effective if all it takes is a guy with a ladder to defeat it, right? same thing with pervasive facial detection, you can wear a mask. you don't have to go into all this philosophical stuff to see how the promises will not be fulfilled.

*Garry Tan has been characterized as a True Believer, in that he sincerely believes Flock's vision will reduce crime and not be misused. on the flip side they don't invest in Palantir, Anduril, Applied Intuition, etc. or other defense stuff. so it's very exceptional for them.

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nerdsniper 17 hours ago | parent | next [-]

YC is definitely pivoting into Defense. Besides 9mothers, there’s a list of 22 defense startups accepted into YC just this year so far:

https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/industry/defense

And beyond this there are a number of defense-dependent companies like ProvenMetal (whose value proposition largely depends on a customer’s deep need to do onshore manufacturing)

It makes sense. From 2000-2015 it was pretty difficult for anyone to break into defense and really own a brand. Breakout companies like EOTech were really rare. Generally founders would be at the mercy/grace of the major defense incumbents ('primes'), getting scraps from their tables.

That’s changed lately. For a wide variety of reasons (political, technical, and on active battlefields) there’s a lot more room for startups to really own their own slice of the industry and build some moats of their own.

	▲	doctorpangloss 15 hours ago \| parent [-]
		they invest in defense stuff now, that's new! but. paul graham doesn't like defense stuff. there were plenty of great defense seed investments (palantir), and he runs the best seed venture firm in the world, always has, so his opinion matters. but it was out of a righteous place, it wasn't because he thought it couldn't make money. y combinator is a much bigger fund now with lots of people in charge. the "2000-2015" era you are talking about: valuations of everything were 1/10th of what they are now. it's hard to make any definitive comparisons about venture trends.

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giancarlostoro 17 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> or other defense stuff. so it's very exceptional for them.

9 Mothers.

https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/9-mothers-corporation

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etc-hosts 17 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

the Thiel Anti Christ Chats at Garry Tan's house is run by Anduril founders.

https://www.christianitytoday.com/2025/08/michelle-stephens-... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trae_Stephens

It's hard for me to understand how any of this is very Christian.

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iepathos 17 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

For additional context, for first I've ever seen their rfs specifically asked for startups focused on military applications and warfare "The Future of American Defense" https://www.ycombinator.com/rfs

Disappointing to see this is the future they are trying to invest in.

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SlightlyLeftPad 17 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Palantir and Terminator enter the chat.