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Besides patriotism, there’s another big reason to join a defense startup: it pays really well.
Thanks to the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act (FFATA), we can see the total compensation that defense technology startup Anduril, valued at $14 billion, pays to its top employees. It requires action A company must report the highest compensation after the company has earned at least 80 percent of its annual gross revenue from federal awards and has generated at least $25 million in annual gross revenue from such awards. (Anduril reportedly told investors that his revenue reached $500 million last year.)
The data in this report, which includes compensation figures disclosed by Anduril itself, is published in the Government Contracting Database USASpending.gov. However, the website does not state which year executive compensation covers. Sources familiar with defense contracts told us that compensation disclosures typically relate to the prior year before the contract amendment date. So, if the contract was modified in 2023, the compensation data would likely be from 2022. To estimate the year of compensation, TechCrunch analyzed data from 26 Anduril contracts between 2021 and 2024 and linked these contracts to the previous year. Anduril declined to comment on the time period covered by the compensation disclosures in these reports.
However, an Anduril spokesperson told us that these numbers do not necessarily represent the amounts executives earn each year.
“The reporting requirements behind these numbers depend on the rules designed “For publicly traded defense companies and does not take into account the complexities of emerging equity compensation,” the spokesperson told TechCrunch, adding that portions of this reported compensation include “the total value of multi-year equity awards that vest over four or five years and remain illiquid until IPO.” General.
For FFATA reporting, companies must include everything from bonuses to stock grants and stock options. Anduril isn’t required to spell out what cash versus equity is, so these numbers likely include more stock than cash, as is common in executive compensation packages.
This is similar to how public company executive compensation disclosure is conducted. Each year, public companies issue an annual proxy report to the Securities and Exchange Commission that includes a summary compensation schedule. This table includes cash, bonuses, the estimated value of stock options, and awards allocated to the executive that year, although they may be multi-year awards contingent on performance metrics, or other qualifying actions.
Still, the numbers give a peek into how Anduril, which has raised more than $4.3 billion to date according to PitchBook, is luring top talent away from big tech companies and from government.
The compensation paints a broad picture of how Anduril’s focus has shifted over the years. By our estimates, in 2021, almost the entire list was made up of company founders; By 2023, the highest-paid employees include two autonomous vehicle specialists and two career politicians.
Here are the most recent executive compensation highlights as reported by Anduril:
Co-Founder and CEO Brian Schimpf
$19,167,070
(Estimated year 2021)
CEO Brian Schimpf spent nearly a decade as an engineer at Palantir before co-founding Anduril in 2017.
Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer Matt Grimm
$13,767,823
(expected year 2021)
Matt Grimm was part of Anduril’s founding team and now serves as the startup’s COO. He is a former engineer at Palantir.
Co-Founder Palmer Lackey
$10,923,494
(expected year 2021)
Palmer Luckey sold his virtual reality company Oculus VR to Facebook in 2014 for about $2 billion. He left the company at Bitter terms Three years later, he co-founded Anduril.
Former CFO Michael Galvin
$4,248,586
(expected year 2021)
Michael Galvin was Anduril’s CFO for two years before leaving the company, according to The Verge. His LinkedIn. He currently works as a consultant for several companies, such as defense technology startup Mach Industries and cybersecurity company Vectra AI.
Senior Vice President Tom Kane
$3,306,500
(Estimated year 2022)
Tom Keane was previously a stalwart at Microsoft, where he led the teams that built Office 365 and Azure. But after two decades there, he packed his bags and became a senior vice president at Anduril in December 2022, where he focused on “building capabilities for large-scale distributed systems.” According to his LinkedIn profile.
Former Vice President Adnan Ismail
$3,279,684
(Estimated year 2023)
Adnan Ismail previously worked at Tesla for four years, spending some of that time working on autonomous driving. He joined Anduril in 2018, eventually becoming Senior Vice President of Engineering. He left Anduril earlier this year to start his own AI company, Physical Intelligence, according to LinkedIn.
Vice President Burhan Muzaffar
$3,125,757
(Estimated year 2023)
Burhan Muzaffar spent two years at self-driving car company, Aurora. In 2023He became Vice President of Vehicle Autonomy and Head of Robotics at Anduril.
Senior Vice President Shane Arnott
$2,953,279
(Estimated year 2023)
Shane Arnott He spent more than two decades at Boeing before joining Anduril as chief engineer in 2021. He then became senior vice president of programs and engineering in late 2022, according to To his LinkedIn.
Senior Vice President Zachary Mears
$2,580,020
(Estimated year 2023)
Zachary Merz joined Anduril as head of growth strategy in 2021, before being promoted to senior vice president in March 2023. According to his LinkedIn profile. Previously, he ran public policy operations at the law firm Covington & Burling LLP and did a stint at the Department of Defense.
CSO Christian Bruce
$2,350,982
(Estimated year 2023)
Christian Bruce has extensive experience on the hill. From 2009 to 2014, he served as National Security Advisor to Senator John McCain. For the next few years, he was staff director for the Senate Armed Services Committee. In 2018, he traded his government salary for this well-paying job as chief strategy officer at Anduril.
Senior Vice President Shane Arnott
$2,209,333
(Estimated year 2022)
For the three years of executive compensation analyzed by TechCrunch, Arnott was the only employee to receive the highest pay two years in a row.
Former Vice President Andrea Lessard
$2,009,116
(Estimated year 2022)
Andrea Lessard was Senior Vice President of People and Culture at Anduril, before leaving in April 2023 after less than a year. According to her LinkedIn.
Vice President Lindsey Trice
$1,737,175
(Estimated year 2022)
Lindsey Trace spent more than six years at Palantir before joining Anduril in 2020, first as head of product, then as vice president of engineering. According to her LinkedIn.
Senior Vice President Gokul Subramanian
$1,632,514
(Estimated year 2022)
Gokul Subramanian is another Palantir alum. He is currently Senior Vice President of Engineering, working on software products.
Co-founder Joseph Chen
$1,449,812
(expected year 2021)
Joseph Chen was one of the first employees at Luckey’s Oculus VR company before joining Anduril’s founding team. Previously, he served as a paratrooper in the US Army.
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