[HN Gopher] The Army's Newest Recruits: Tech Execs From Meta, Op...
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The Army's Newest Recruits: Tech Execs From Meta, OpenAI and More
Author : aspenmayer
Score : 213 points
Date : 2025-06-13 13:51 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.wsj.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.wsj.com)
| aspenmayer wrote:
| https://www.wsj.com/tech/army-reserve-tech-executives-meta-p...
|
| https://archive.is/pGSZO
| codingdave wrote:
| > 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.
|
| I've always said that the FUD surrounding AGI destroying humanity
| is silly, as long as we aren't so stupid as to bring AI into
| military decisions. This group of leaders doesn't bode well from
| that perspective.
| mdaniel wrote:
| I would have thought for sure any such transformation would come
| from the NSA, since they strike me as a more tech-forward
| organization, or from In-Q-Tel (which I believe is mostly the
| CIA) that already has a strong relationship with the commercial
| tech space
| tencentshill wrote:
| The key is those agencies are not under the total control of
| the commander in chief.
| omnivore wrote:
| Civic tech is dead.
| sgnelson wrote:
| This is such a bad idea, I can't even...
| cempaka wrote:
| Bad for whom?
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| Why?
| snerbles wrote:
| O-5 isn't _that_ much power - as a battalion commander, that 's
| leading about 300-1,000 soldiers. They wouldn't necessarily be
| leading troops, but instead be in advisory roles where the rank
| might have them be taken a little more seriously by flag
| officers than if they were commissioned as a company grade
| officer.
| the__alchemist wrote:
| Direction commission officers aren't line-officers (AFAIK),
| so they are don't command in the way you're describing. That
| assumes doctor/lawyer/nurse though...
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Is it about giving them power? Or making them subject to it?
| susiecambria wrote:
| I don't know any tech execs and I am only remotely familiar
| with the military, but I am hazarding a guess that the cultures
| in tech and the military are not at all similar. I'm also
| guessing that there is a massive difference between fighting
| for Ukraine by using your tech skills and participating in a
| time-limited, no-real-skin-in-the-game learning exercise.
|
| Not to mention that at the same time this is happening, SecDef
| fired a number of generals, and the military is being used for
| political purposes, at least according to some.
| bilbo0s wrote:
| Everything you said is true. But regarding your last point, I
| mean, the military has _always_ been used for political
| purposes.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > The Army calls the program to recruit Silicon Valley executives
| Detachment 201: The Army's Executive Innovation Corps. One of the
| executives, Andrew Bosworth of Meta (formerly Facebook) posted on
| X that the "201" monicker was a nod to an HTML coding command, in
| which a "201" response indicates the creation of a new
| programming resource.
|
| Somehow I imagine that Andrew Bosworth didn't phrase things quite
| that way.
| genter wrote:
| Maybe he did, he was an executive...
| neilv wrote:
| Is there modern precedent for this?
|
| I thought the modern US military was very big on process and
| tradition in the development of officers.
| jonas21 wrote:
| Yes, see:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_commission_officer
|
| And for individuals with the right skills and experience, O-5
| isn't unusual.
|
| EDIT: Here's a random example:
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/Military_Medicine/comments/1468l1f/...
| spankibalt wrote:
| The Royal Aircraft Factory (Farnborough) during the notorious
| "White Feather" campaign hysteria of World War I; its workers
| were given a military rank, its superintendent, Mervyn
| O'Gorman, got field-promoted to lieutenant-colonel.
|
| The somewhat famous quote "Alight here for the Home of Rest
| with Army Exemption thrown in", a familiar greeting to RAF's
| working force by Farnborough's tram conductors, is a testament
| to it.
| fiatpandas wrote:
| WW2, William Knudsen, president of General Motors, was directly
| commissioned in as a 3 star general. He was in charge of War
| Production. Sometimes, deep industry expertise can't wait for
| OCS. Granted, this was wartime.
| ls612 wrote:
| These guys are being commissioned into the Army Reserve the
| idea is that they can get basic military instruction now and
| when the shit hits the fan the Army can immediately call up
| their expertise and they will understand how things work.
| pimlottc wrote:
| Don't forget there was already a team of industry-sourced (non-
| commissioned) tech experts in the Pentagon, the Defense Digital
| Service, that operated for almost a decade before being sidelined
| by DOGE:
|
| https://www.politico.com/news/2025/04/15/pentagons-digital-r...
| navbaker wrote:
| The key difference is the DDS folks were not uniformed
| military. That can make all the difference when trying to sell
| your product or service to a military decision maker.
| ab5tract wrote:
| Really? I would assume that most ranked personnel would be
| less impressed by a person wearing a uniform that they never
| earned and don't deserve.
|
| But then again, pomp and circumstance...
| navbaker wrote:
| My take from my time on a major staff is it's less about
| pomp and circumstance and more about being included in
| important discussions.
| ganoushoreilly wrote:
| It's not even that. The biggest difference is by being sworn
| in, they now have Legal authorities and rights awarded to
| military personnel, but are also subject to the UCMJ.
| Depending on how they structure the program they may be able
| to get Title 10 and 50 coverage and possibly others. This
| drastically changes what they legally can or can't do on
| behalf of the USG. There's more to this than people realize.
| It's also not all that new. In the past they had
| "Consultants" deeply integrated into agencies to solve the
| same issues.
|
| Palantir, Crowdstrike, many others pretty much started inside
| the govt and were built around classified information as a
| means to get their advantage. It's not right, but It's
| definitely something that happens. Source: I was there for it
| with both orgs and even back then everyone though Dmitry
| formely from CS was a dick. I still have the mousepad that
| Palantir created for the office in lieu of a training guide
| (just a bunch of printed shortcuts / commands).
| moandcompany wrote:
| Adding some additional context on most of the above:
|
| Yes, as commissioned US military officers they become
| subject to UCMJ.
|
| USDS and DDS employees are/were civilian federal employees
| with capacity for legal authority to act on behalf of the
| US Government.
|
| DoD and its branches have uniformed service members subject
| to UCMJ, but they also have many civilian employees with
| decision making authority and ultimately the services
| report to civilian secretaries; the ratio of uniformed
| service members (e.g. enlisted, and commissioned officers)
| to civilians can vary greatly by service. Another main
| difference to consider beyond UCMJ would be eligibility to
| be considered a combatant versus not; not all uniformed
| personnel should be considered combatants. "Authority" is
| not exclusive to uniformed personnel.
|
| Many DoD programs can be led or managed by civilians,
| typically a GS-15 which is roughly equivalent to O-6 (e.g.
| Army/Air Force/Space Force Colonel, Navy Captain)
|
| If I recall correctly, Palantir's main starting point
| beyond some of its fraud-tracking origins at Paypal were
| through its attempts to compete in the DCGS-A / replacement
| acquisition in DoD.
|
| Crowdstrike had Dmitry, but its main US Government ties
| were through Shawn Henry, a former director of
| investigative operations at the FBI; Crowdstrike had a few
| business lines in its early days, which included its
| intel/research/analysis services, breach
| investigation/remediation services, while it was developing
| its endpoint protection products/platform.
|
| ---
|
| And to the upstream parent comment:
|
| > The key difference is the DDS folks were not uniformed
| military. That can make all the difference when trying to
| sell your product or service to a military decision maker.
|
| A lot of DoD acquisitions, developments, operations
| decisions end up being materially informed by civilian
| personnel that are direct employees of the US Government,
| contractors supporting the US Government via Federally
| Funded Research and Development Corporations (FFRDCS, labs,
| etc.), other contractors, etc. In some cases, it seems like
| the DoD programs are entirely reliant (i.e. dependent) on
| their contractor support (via FFRDCs, labs, etc).
|
| Some of this comes from the fact that the typical active
| duty officer's assignment duration in a particular role
| (e.g. acquisition program manager, chief engineer, etc)
| ends up being two years or less before a permanent change
| of assignment (PCA). Having organic civilian staff in these
| roles can be essential for maintaining continuity and can
| be a key part of a program/mission's success.
|
| (Also worth noting that in a lot of cases where the head of
| a program is a civilian employee, it's not uncommon to find
| that are military retired, prior service but separated,
| and/or also a reserve officer in the same or very adjacent
| field)
| epicureanideal wrote:
| Anything to get more clueless corporate management losers out of
| industry.
| bilbo0s wrote:
| Understand the sentiment..
|
| but I mean..
|
| why put them in the military?
|
| That seems like, I don't know, maybe something that can go
| south in a lot of different ways.
| ahartmetz wrote:
| Such ranks tend to be mostly for pay grade and they count for
| some formal but mostly meaningless stuff like who salutes
| whom first and who gets to tell off whom (in practice for
| such officers, it's more a shield than a weapon - everyone
| knows which kind of officers they are) in general situations.
| These officers aren't going to be leading direct fighting or
| anything like that.
|
| Source: Was a draftee once, talked to a technical officer
| later.
| snerbles wrote:
| > [...] the four executives will all attend the Army's six-week
| Direct Commissioning Course at Fort Benning, Georgia [...]
|
| Sometimes known as "fork and knife school". I can't speak
| specifically for the Army, but a particular personal incident
| comes to mind.
|
| When I attended AFROTC field training at Maxwell AFB, in a lot of
| ways it was a fairly typical boot camp experience, with roaming
| enlisted training instructors ready to very promptly and _firmly_
| correct any deviations from standard in a memorably expedient
| fashion (much less swearing than _Full Metal Jacket_ , as it's
| the Air Force). One day during this fine summer camp I found
| myself on the receiving end of one such chewing out from a TI,
| for walking around the wrong side of a table in the dining
| facility.
|
| It was in the midst of this comically scathing tirade (something
| about him threatening to crawl up my nose and living in my
| nightmares if I dared try it again) that this Technical Sergeant
| abruptly stopped, wheeled around and was about to tear into
| another hapless cadet that took the same detour I did. But
| instead, without a whit of the seething rage he was pouring out
| just a second before, he calmly patiently explained to this
| trainee that she was to take a different route, punctuating the
| instructions with a "right over there, ma'am". It was at that
| moment that I noticed that she did not have cadet insignia on her
| lapels, but captain's bars. It turns out she was a proper M.D.,
| fresh from med school, directly commissioned and immediately
| outranking the sergeant that was giving me the what-for and her
| polite guidance.
|
| So by Direct Commissioning, it is indeed _direct_.
| duxup wrote:
| I remember my grandfather's descriptions of WWII in the
| pacific. One was a Marine who made a number of landings and was
| involved in a lot that "I wish I could forget".
|
| The other was a Navy doctor. An officer, but really because he
| was a doctor.
|
| Their experiences were wildly different. Not so much about risk
| but the Marine was a grunt and his description oozed what it
| meant to be at that level of rank. The doctor ... his
| description was that doctors, while they had rank, were largely
| left alone to their own devices to do what they needed to do.
| Rank wasn't really relevant to their daily lives.
| snerbles wrote:
| > One was a Marine who made a number of landings and was
| involved in a lot that "I wish I could forget".
|
| My grandfather landed at Tarawa. He only talked about
| privately, it to family members that were in the service.
|
| > The doctor ... his description was that doctors, while they
| had rank, were largely left alone to their own devices to do
| what they needed to do. Rank wasn't really relevant to their
| daily lives.
|
| From my experience, military doctors tend to be doctors that
| happen to wear a uniform. They already have the skills
| actually needed by the service (unlike most military jobs,
| where it's assumed that you know little to nothing of the
| job), the direct commissioning training is mostly so they can
| function and fit in that environment.
| duxup wrote:
| Yeah the Marine talked openly about it maybe a handful of
| times with me, I got the feeling he left a lot out, even
| then they were never happy stories. I got the feeling he
| carried his experiences like a weight his entire life and
| he didn't ever describe it in any good terms, none of it.
| Didn't help that he lost his brother (also a Marine).
| Aeolun wrote:
| I think it'd be fairly odd to describe any experience in
| which you have actual combat experience in a positive
| light.
|
| At least, my experiences talking with a combat medic and
| the weather corps couldn't be more different.
| technothrasher wrote:
| My great uncle was a Naval supply officer in WWII, and
| wrote a bunch of letters to my grandmother. He never left
| the ship during battles, so he couldn't have had as
| intense a combat experience as others. But he describes
| his time at the battle of Iwo Jima, killing Japanese
| soldiers who were swimming at the ship with explosives,
| and watching people die as Japanese fighters strafed the
| decks. What was interesting to me is that he doesn't
| particularly characterize it in a positive or negative
| light, but mostly just as completely surreal. He several
| times says he felt like he was in a movie. Unfortunately,
| he died before I was born and he never wrote anything
| after the war was over about his war experience. So I
| don't know how the reflection of time effected his
| thoughts on it.
| Kon-Peki wrote:
| > military doctors tend to be doctors that happen to wear a
| uniform. They already have the skills actually needed by
| the service
|
| Sure, most of them join either during med school or during
| residency, with Uncle Sam picking up the financial
| obligations.
|
| Funny story - good friend was an army doc and we managed to
| both get time off at the same time/location. Hanging out
| along the ocean and come across a little kid that got hurt.
| So he goes into doctor mode and talks soothingly to the
| kid, who is very apprehensive. He says "I know you're not
| so sure I'm a doctor. It's because I haven't asked your
| parents for their insurance info yet" and smiles at the mom
| and dad.
|
| Later on he says that never dealing with insurance is one
| of the perks of being a doctor in the military.
| jakebasile wrote:
| > Later on he says that never dealing with insurance is
| one of the perks of being a doctor in the military.
|
| Despite not being anything close to an MD, a social media
| app I use has determined that I am. I get recruiting ads
| from the Navy that says this, in effect: "Don't worry
| about malpractice or insurance, just your patient". It's
| a pretty good sales pitch, I imagine.
| neilv wrote:
| > _" Don't worry about malpractice or insurance, just
| your patient". It's a pretty good sales pitch, I
| imagine._
|
| If only the rest of government aspired to that. :)
| hnlmorg wrote:
| They kind of do, only their sales pitch is
|
| > _don't worry about your constituents nor breaking the
| law, just your own self interest._
|
| It really is about time politicians were locked up for
| their equivalent of malpractices.
| theoreticalmal wrote:
| And here I am thinking the threat of malpractice, and
| malpractice insurance costs, are part of the reason
| healthcare is so expensive in the USA
| ryandrake wrote:
| What happens in other countries when the doctor amputates
| the wrong leg or operates on the wrong patient? Does the
| government pay damages arising from malpractice?
| halper wrote:
| In short: in some, yes. In my country, one's private
| insurance company may pay damages for injuries caused by
| medical malpractice. This may be included in the home
| insurance or some health/injury/accident insurance.
| Otherwise and in addition, you are covered by the
| provider's malpractice insurance. Private medical
| providers must have malpractice insurance. There is also
| a national scheme, regulated by law, that covers all
| public providers, which in practice would be all the
| emergency departments etc.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| They are. Those $10M+ lawsuit verdicts get paid one way
| or another, and everyone is doing unnecessary cover your
| ass work to be able to not be in the line of fire for
| that lawsuit.
| isleyaardvark wrote:
| It's a small fraction: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/artic
| les/PMC3048809/#:~:text=Ov...
|
| The bigger reason is profit-minded middlemen taking
| advantage of inelastic demand to jack up prices, a
| problem that does not exist in other countries.
| bee_rider wrote:
| It actually seems like an interesting bit of phrasing.
|
| I think the ad, and you, are talking about malpractice
| insurance and other documentation to prove that you
| didn't do malpractice.
|
| The comment you replied to is actually taking about the
| underlying act of malpractice.
|
| The first line of defenses against actual malpractice is
| that professionals are supposed to have some self-respect
| and standards. But of course our society is structured
| against professionalism. The insurance company or
| hospital admin doesn't care if you are a real
| professional who does the right things when nobody is
| looking, that's too hard quantify.
|
| The ad is offering the opportunity to be a professional.
| DiggyJohnson wrote:
| I think that would lead to even less civilized
| relationships between politicians and parties.
| Politicians throwing their rivals into courts and prison
| is not usually an aspect of a healthy civil society.
| krapp wrote:
| Politicians being above the law is not an aspect of a
| healthy civil society.
|
| Throwing politicians into courts and prison after due
| legal process for crimes they actually commit is an
| aspect of a healthy civil society.
|
| If your judicial system is so corrupt that every
| accusation against a politician is a ruse manufactured by
| their enemies and no fair trial is possible, then you
| don't have a healthy civil society either way.
| CoastalCoder wrote:
| In my corner of the DoD, we absolutely aspire to work
| like that.
|
| It's beyond frustrating to have politicians use us as
| rhetorical punching bags. The stereotypes they espouse
| about civil servants are largely inaccurate. I say this
| from having worked decades inside the DoD an in non-
| defense private sector.
| DiggyJohnson wrote:
| Amen, similar experience here. There are parts of the US
| federal government that aspire to and excel in the way
| you have described.
|
| Of course the opposite is true too. But it bothers me
| that much of the discourse on both sides tend to ignore
| the high functioning projects and sectors. It's a cool
| professional experience to take part in.
| neilv wrote:
| Agreed. I was unclear, but I meant to refer to government
| policies around healthcare (especially insurance
| companies), not about civil servants.
| more_corn wrote:
| Have you considered med school? Maybe the advertising
| platform knows something about you that you're not aware
| of yourself.
| franktankbank wrote:
| LOL.
| jt2190 wrote:
| My wife and I were at a formal event dinner banquet related to
| her med school. We were in a small group chatting: On one side
| an Air Force ROTC med student in his dress uniform and his
| wife. On the other side another med student and her Navy NCO
| husband in his dress uniform. I remember distinctly that the
| Navy NCO kept politely saying "sir" when he addressed the Air
| Force ROTC.
|
| The Air Force officer mentioned that he got a "light" version
| of basic training. The Navy NCO said nothing. His ROTC's wife
| added that it must have been petty light, because she
| remembered a call from him where he mentioned that they ran out
| of ice cream.
| snerbles wrote:
| Having been through both: AFROTC field training is about half
| the length of USAF enlisted basic. In fairness to the cadets,
| they attend training throughout their college years before
| and after Field Traning - the whole experience is more of a
| slow long ramp of goofy BS that tries one's patience in ways
| most enlisted troops won't quite comprehend until they're an
| experienced NCO. It's also much easier to "just be a number"
| and muddle through enlisted BMT. Try that in officer
| training, and you'll be ranked bottom of the class with
| limited career options.
|
| In terms of physical exertion, enlisted BMT is a bit more
| intense. Job-specific training might be _much_ more intense,
| for the handful of AFSCs that see ground combat.
| yardie wrote:
| I'm reminded of an ex who was inquiring about paying for dental
| school on a ROTC scholarship. She tells the recruiter that she
| was worried about all the yelling she'd have to deal with at
| bootcamp since she has severe anxiety. And the recruiter told
| her the medical officers don't do any of that, she had nothing
| to worry about.
| breppp wrote:
| Reminds of the story of Major Major from Catch 22 who was
| promoted due to a computer bug to the rank of Major and
| outranked everyone in flight school
| seansmccullough wrote:
| I also went to ROTC field training at Maxwell, and had a
| similar experience. Once on the way to the dinning hall with
| another cadet, we were saluted by two new medical officers who
| were very confused.
| m3kw9 wrote:
| PLTR stock up or what?
| djeastm wrote:
| As former enlisted myself, I don't understand why they need to be
| _in_ the military to serve as advisors. No one 's going to treat
| them like real LTCs anyway (outwardly they will, of course, but
| not with the same respect).
| snerbles wrote:
| That also strikes me as odd. When I was deployed, we had plenty
| of contractors/DOD civilians to handle various technical
| things, and to help maintain continuity while the rest of us
| rotated in and out of the theater. They didn't need to be
| commissioned.
|
| If these execs were experienced engineers that needed to be
| embedded in a unit in the field, _maybe,_ and definitely not at
| O-5. Usually these sorts of urgently-needed experts become
| instructors and teach troops the specific technical skills
| without the need for being enlisted /commissioned/warrant
| themselves.
|
| Someone more familiar with the political games inside the
| Pentagon will better understand this decision.
| ericrosedev wrote:
| Contractors down range used to have something like a company
| logo or something as their rank, you could always tell
| because it would be some guy with a gut and long hair in
| fatigues with a weird rank. Give them that and let them feel
| like soldiers, not an oak leaf
| UncleEntity wrote:
| I was a contractor "down range" and the only dress code we
| had was no shorts, no open-toed shoes. The only time anyone
| would mess with us was at the chow hall if we didn't take
| off our hats or didn't have our helemts/flak jackets during
| alerts and then they just wouldn't let us inside unless we
| went to get them. Other than that they wouldn't bother us
| unless we were blatantly ignoring air raid sirens or
| smoking somewhere we shouldn't be.
|
| When outside the wire we would, of course, follow the
| directions of the army escorts because they were
| unequivocally in charge. The only time I can remember
| anyone chastising us was because we were getting overly
| aggressive in traffic up in the Kurdish region and there
| was an incident the previous day where some mayor's son had
| his engine block shot out so they were like, "you guys need
| to cut that shit out, these are our allies up here".
| lazyasciiart wrote:
| It's probably a fun ego boost for the execs involved. And it
| makes them subject to following orders, to military jail for
| not obeying, etc, which is presumably a nice thing to have in
| your back pocket when managing egostistic jerks.
| snerbles wrote:
| A Lieutenant Colonel in an advisory role would have to
| engage in an astoundingly epic screwup to court-martialed
| under the UCMJ. They'll be counseled behind closed doors
| long before getting formally charged with Article 90 or 92.
|
| An Article 88 (or 133!) case involving these guys would be
| a _really funny_ scandal, though.
| bee_rider wrote:
| Is this just aristocrats buying commissions, but for tech
| nerds?
| VectorLock wrote:
| Get those sweet "Veteran" plates.
| Bender wrote:
| _Get those sweet "Veteran" plates._
|
| In my state that only requires a DD-214 with honorable
| discharge and $50.
| EPWN3D wrote:
| It's an ego trip. That's all.
| scotty79 wrote:
| It's kind of weird how getting owned by the state might be
| ego boost for those people.
| krapp wrote:
| These are probably the kind of tacticool dork-ass losers
| who worship ancient Sparta and Rome. They want to be strong
| men created by hard times.
|
| They won't actually suffer so much as a hangnail, of
| course, but inside their heads they're kicking Persians
| down the well all day every day.
| CoastalCoder wrote:
| I'm guessing it's vaguely related to the "stolen valor"
| dynamic.
| KaiserPro wrote:
| In Boz I can't think of anyone less suited to the task.
|
| At every stage of the RL expansion there has been a stunning
| lack of both solid direction and attention to detail. Not to
| mention piss poor logistics.
|
| The default position for anything in meta/facebook is to just
| throw people at the problem. Which I suppose is a good match
| for a stereotypical view of the army.
| 1oooqooq wrote:
| > The default position for anything in meta/facebook is to
| just throw people at the problem
|
| sounds like a perfect match for the military
| closewith wrote:
| Possibly to subject them to military law and therefore exert
| significantly more control over their commissioned period.
| ludicrousdispla wrote:
| I wonder which vaccines they'll be required to take and
| whether they'll be subjected to drug testing :)
| tclancy wrote:
| Because this is a different country now. I imagine someone who
| lived under a military dictatorship would not be shocked by
| this new approach.
| paulddraper wrote:
| Your comment doesn't really make sense.
|
| It's too late to edit, but it could use significantly improve
| clarity/elaboration.
| mrbluecoat wrote:
| The reality is that other countries are preparing for Ender's
| Game style warfare with drones, robotics, and digital sabotage so
| the U.S. needs to keep pace. This announcement doesn't surprise
| me at all.
| absurdo wrote:
| Same. I encourage this, in fact.
| mindslight wrote:
| Keeping pace by helping with other countries' sabotage efforts?
| If these actions actually ended up benefiting the country
| rather than being yet another nepotism based snipe hunt for
| woke, that would be a pleasant surprise.
| esseph wrote:
| I have read your 2nd sentence several times but don't
| understand it. Can you explain?
| mindslight wrote:
| Trump's usual approach is to remove or sideline career
| civil servants in favor of political apparatchiks whose
| only real goal is to demand obedience, under the banner of
| fighting the bogeyman of woke. I'm open to possibility that
| these appointments are different and might actually do some
| good, but I'm not holding my breath.
| esseph wrote:
| Thank you. It was the way you used "woke" there that
| threw me off, but I get it now.
| ausbah wrote:
| not sure why ender's game needs a reference when #1 & #3 have
| been around for 10-15+ years. i sort of remain doubtful that
| robotics will play as large of a role with how large much less
| of a role that infantry has played in modern warfare (think of
| exoskeletons, robotic carriers, terminator style killing
| machines)
| iLoveOncall wrote:
| Have you not followed the war in Ukraine at all? It's all
| about drones.
| esseph wrote:
| What exactly do you call modern warfare, because I've been
| "involved in warfare" pretty recently, and without a lot of
| infantry nothing really happens.
| timewizard wrote:
| > so the U.S. needs to keep pace.
|
| Yea! We can't fall behind as the worlds leading weapons
| manufacturer. It's important that we tap even Silicon Valley to
| continue producing weapons of war and death.
|
| > This announcement doesn't surprise me at all.
|
| Our burgeoning legacy hasn't surprised me since the 90s.
| wiseowise wrote:
| > It's important that we tap even Silicon Valley to continue
| producing weapons of war and death.
|
| What else do you propose? NATO, NATO aligned, Ukraine,
| Taiwan, and Axis of Evil take each other's hands and start
| singing Kumbaya?
| aquariusDue wrote:
| Darnedest thing about group relations no matter the size
| just one bad apple is enough to ignite the powder keg even
| if most of the keg agrees to keep the peace, so the old
| adage remains true and will remain true probably: Si vis
| pacem, 9mm rimless.
| wiseowise wrote:
| > Si vis pacem, 9mm rimless.
|
| Amen.
| timewizard wrote:
| You can't destroy liberty to create peace.
| timewizard wrote:
| So unless we recruit Silicon Valley CEOs into the military
| these nations will suddenly have to find peace through
| extraordinary means or face sudden death?
|
| Are you familiar with brainwashing?
| wiseowise wrote:
| > So unless we recruit Silicon Valley CEOs into the
| military these nations will suddenly have to find peace
| through extraordinary means or face sudden death?
|
| Your words, not mine.
| tehjoker wrote:
| reality is closer to that than you imagine. its us
| continuing attempts at world domination that cause many
| fights
| wbl wrote:
| Look up everything from Assault Breaker we didn't develop
| because the funding ran out. Drones guiding artillery? Been
| there done that. Digital sabotage? Little thing called Stuxnet
| comes to mind.
| TheOtherHobbes wrote:
| If I was in charge of preparing for drone war, tech company
| execs are the last people I'd hire. (With one or two
| exceptions.)
| oooyay wrote:
| The choice to pick up executives rather than engineers is a bit
| confusing if the goal is to modernize.
| bilbo0s wrote:
| In fairness, the military is full of engineers.
| whall6 wrote:
| I think it would have been cool to see them allow a hand chosen
| direct report join them. And maybe that direct report's hand
| chosen direct report too.
| jfengel wrote:
| Executives are obviously more skilled. Just check out their
| paychecks. Each of them is worth at least a dozen engineers.
| gibbitz wrote:
| By paycheck my company's CEO is worth 95 senior engineers and
| that's before stock options. With stock options he's worth
| 265 senior engineers! (Or 240 and 670 junior developers
| respectively)
|
| He's so skilled he splits atoms with his mind. He probably
| should be president, except he's nowhere near the highest
| paid executive in the US. Probably not in the top 500.
| varenc wrote:
| Meta basically just paid $14B to acqui-hire an exec.
| paulddraper wrote:
| Maybe the lesson here is to be CEO.
| knallfrosch wrote:
| Through hyperbole, you imply that he's overpaid by market
| forces. If he manages 20.000 people and increases
| productivity by just 10%, he'd be worth 2.000 "normal guy"
| salaries. So a 100 factor doesn't seem far fetched to me.
|
| What strategy would you suggest to arrive at a better price
| for his work?
| jfengel wrote:
| To calculate the market price you have to know about the
| competition. Is there someone else who could increase
| productivity by 9.99% but request only half the salary?
| That person could be better for the bottom line.
| cempaka wrote:
| It's about pushing an agenda and selecting the people with the
| correct (lack of) morality to do it.
| mter wrote:
| Officers are management, a lt col is similar to a director at a
| tech company.
|
| If they're trying to modernize the strategy and direction of
| the organization before bringing in additional SMEs, this makes
| a lot of sense. Good leadership and a good direction really
| does matter.
|
| After the overall direction and vision is in place, then they
| can bring in technical SMEs who are hopefully also direct
| commissioned in and not just contractors hired for a year or 2.
| bgwalter wrote:
| They are part time and this is just another revolving door
| between the military and industry. They are literally there to
| sell their products (and brag about "having served").
|
| What are other nepotistic initiatives?
|
| https://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/articles/2024/10/10/...
|
| "The Army in March 2021 awarded Microsoft a 10-year contract
| worth up to $21.9 billion for IVAS, but the initial version of
| the system experienced technical difficulties with a number of
| soldiers experiencing dizziness, headaches or nausea after
| wearing the goggles."
| fancyMorsel wrote:
| Yup, I'd expect a data scientist or equivalent programmer
| commissioning as a captain, not a c-suite executive that is
| more of an MBA graduate. It all seems fishy.
| gexla wrote:
| I have never been an officer, but the C-suite in the military
| is like "flag rank" which is above Colonel (Brigadier
| General.) Colonels are more like high management. But they
| likely won't be promoted, won't have an actual command, and
| rank means little more than the title.
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| If private industry were the military, most companies would
| be headed by O5 or O6; the scope of duties and
| responsibilities of an eg VP or CFO are actually quite
| comparable to a lt colonel or navy commander, CEOs are
| fairly like captains & colonels. These ranks are enough to
| head a large ship, air base, or training facility with
| hundreds or thousands under their command. Only extremely
| large companies (50k+ employees) have anything with a role
| comparable to admirals or generals.
| blantonl wrote:
| CEOs are more like high ranking general officers, not O-6
| level (Navy Captain, Army/Air force full bird colonel)
|
| O-5 (Lt Col, Navy Commander) would be VP / GM level
| stuff, GS-13 through GS-14 in the federal government
|
| O-6 equivalent in the civilian world equates to a GS-15
| in the federal government, and a senior VP in the
| corporate world
|
| O-7 (brigadier general) would be an EVP level position,
| C-level large org
|
| O-8 (general) would be CEO
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| I think you're just assuming the highest corporate role
| must be equivalent to general and working back from that.
|
| For understanding their actual scope of responsibility I
| think my model is more useful.
| rpdillon wrote:
| Former U.S. Navy Surface Warfare Officer. This checks
| out, based on my experience working as a civilian since
| 2004.
| rjsw wrote:
| Making military doctors and dentists colonels is mostly about
| putting them on an equivalent place on the pay scale to where
| they would be in civilian life.
| blantonl wrote:
| The pay scale isn't really equivalent. For military doctors
| and dentists the typical lure is they will pay off all your
| student loans for a specific time commitment to the
| military.
| VectorLock wrote:
| >They are literally there to sell their products (and brag
| about "having served").
|
| Gets you free priority boarding on all flights you take.
| alexgartrell wrote:
| Not sure it's relevant in the cloths these guys take
| dmd wrote:
| Some airline someday is going to figure out that _if_ you
| guarantee overhead luggage space, people will pay more to get
| on the plane _last_ instead of first.
| majormajor wrote:
| I've long thought this for economy tickets.
|
| But if you really want to pay more, and are flying on
| higher fares, getting on the plane first turns back into a
| perk cause you get some free booze. And your seat is now
| more comfortable than the airport seats (even many airport
| lounge seats, where the best seats can go quickly when it's
| busy).
| dehrmann wrote:
| First class effectively has guaranteed overhead space, and
| you still see them boarding first so they can get
| champagne.
| pjc50 wrote:
| Long ago the British Army used to sell commissions. A form of
| highly institutionalalized corruption. Mostly about social
| status.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purchase_of_commissions_in_t...
|
| Maybe it's going to be a system for allowing tech companies to
| deploy their personal defense battalion against riots?
| bee_rider wrote:
| Notably, it was not formally possible to buy a commission in
| the British Navy. This is because the British Empire was an
| island and so their Navy actually mattered and couldn't be
| lead by a bunch of idiots with vanity titles.
| 0xbadcafebee wrote:
| Before the Royal Navy was professionalized, there were
| plenty of officers who were mostly useless. Rich people in
| high society used connections and favors to get the role,
| and this gave them higher standing in society. In fact, it
| was kind of the point: "gentlemen" were expected _not_ to
| have a profession, as that would lower their social
| standing. They were just supposed to sit around being
| wealthy, and at some point lead troops into battle.
|
| It was only at the end of the 17th century that Samuel
| Pepys introduced the officers apprenticeship, which of
| course, was mostly open to (again) high-born kids and
| people who got favors from the crown, but at least they had
| to have years of experience first and pass an exam. So the
| Royal Navy Officers were still literally nepo babies.
| klelatti wrote:
| > He was named "Horatio" after his godfather Horatio
| Walpole, 1st Earl of Orford (third creation),
| (1723-1809), the first cousin of his maternal great-
| grandmother Anne Turner (1691-1768). Horatio Walpole was
| a nephew of Robert Walpole, 1st Earl of Orford, (second
| creation) the de facto first prime minister of Great
| Britain. [1]
|
| Horatio Nelson
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horatio_Nelson,_1st_Vis
| count_N...
| Jtsummers wrote:
| > The Detachment 201 program is aimed at bringing in part-time
| advisors from the private sector to help the service adopt and
| scale commercial technology like drones and robots into its
| formations.
|
| So we're taking executives from companies that sell to the
| government and military to advise the military on what to adopt.
| And not only are we bringing them into the fold, we're
| commissioning so we can give them a pension in 20 years after
| they've recommended their own employers' services and products.
| chipsa wrote:
| You think they'll still be in for 20 years? And you need 20
| "good years" to get a pension for non-active duty service.
| kotaKat wrote:
| It's just building a club for rich folks to commission in as a
| field grade officer and give them a fancy dress uniform to wear
| to official government events where they get to direct
| contracts towards their parent companies.
|
| That's all it is. Normally the officers come up through the
| ranks and build a grift to retire and peddle back to the
| military (see things like BeaverFit), but Detachment 201 lets
| them direct commission the grift back.
| iamleppert wrote:
| Yeah because someone who spent their days building dashboards or
| working on the metaverse will have the first clue on how to
| deploy drones in the military. What a joke!
| okdood64 wrote:
| Their not asking them to be mission specialists. They're asking
| to guidance on how to build out and maintain a tech platform
| for the product (drone) folks to build on.
| zelphirkalt wrote:
| But they don't have experience to do that in the context of
| the military. All they have experience with is building
| leaking spyware platforms. Terribly unfit for the military.
| VectorLock wrote:
| Does this count as "Bought Valor?"
|
| Kevin Weil, that tracks...
| ImJamal wrote:
| Are they buying their position?
| superkuh wrote:
| Yes.
| austin-cheney wrote:
| Direct commissioning is for bringing people in as lieutenants
| (O1). Think a 22 year old college graduate.
|
| Lieutenant colonels are the equivalent of corporate senior
| directors (O5). This means they could be either a battalion
| commander, approximate footprint of 300-500 people, or a senior
| staff officer for a command/division. By that point they are
| expected to have at least 15 years military experience.
|
| The challenge at that level of management is writing and
| evaluating plans for their organization that must be able to move
| across the battlefield and roll up all corresponding metrics.
| Think of that as moving your entire office staff to a new
| location 50 miles away as frequently as needed. A 6 week bootcamp
| won't get you that. As someone with 28 years military experience
| and a corporate nerd with almost 20 years experience I promise
| that corporate management is not the same. That part time job can
| suddenly feel like a full time responsibility.
|
| The exception to this are licensed doctors and lawyers. They
| enter the military as captains instead of lieutenants.
| chipsa wrote:
| The point of commissioning them isn't for them to take command
| of a line infantry battalion. It's to have them have authority
| to do stuff that requires a Lt col, but is not actually
| commanding. It's like how we commissioned a whole bunch of
| people in WWII to do admin jobs.
| austin-cheney wrote:
| I get that. I am a signal officer. Those guys will be signal
| officers. I have a pretty solid idea of what their level of
| actual responsibility is. The point is they need some
| expertise to exercise that level of responsibility. Otherwise
| they are tiny advisors masquerading as people with real legal
| authority.
| 1oooqooq wrote:
| why are you trying so hard to not directly assume the
| latter?
| lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote:
| They don't seem to be. I read their comments as directly
| calling out that they are "tiny advisors masquerading as
| people with real legal authority", strictly because they
| do not have the requisite experience to be anything else.
| runlaszlorun wrote:
| Signal Corps shout out. Been out a long while though.
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| Isn't there already a system in place for that sort of thing.
| I know a couple civilian experts who worked as consultants in
| iraq (think like water treatment plant engineers) who were
| given "effective" officer ranks to smooth out interactions
| with the military members they worked with directly, clarify
| who they could and couldn't tell what to do. But they didn't
| wear uniforms, weren't saluted, weren't considered members of
| the military for most purposes, are not counted as veterans,
| etc.
|
| If it were simply that, this is a problem the military has
| run into before and has solutions to it. This is something
| else: at best weird propaganda at worst I don't really know.
| ganoushoreilly wrote:
| Not necessarily the same thing, in addition to their rank
| there are legal authorities conveyed as Officers. Title 10
| & 50 for example.
| jltsiren wrote:
| > The exception to this are licensed doctors and lawyers. They
| enter the military as captains instead of lieutenants.
|
| And chaplains, I think. The three professions corresponding to
| higher faculties in a medieval university. Many weird things in
| the military make more sense when you recognize them as
| leftovers from ancient social structures.
| austin-cheney wrote:
| Chaplains are complicated. The Army has a dire shortage of
| chaplains so they may enter as first lieutenants (O2) as they
| attend their seminary education on condition they must attain
| a divinity masters and sponsorship from a religious
| organization. It used to be they would enter as captains just
| like doctors and lawyers.
| runlaszlorun wrote:
| Are they doing that now? I was looking at going through as
| an Army chaplain back in 2018 and I'm not sure if I'd heard
| about that. But I was just over the age cut off to go back
| in.
| nonameiguess wrote:
| It's rare as hell, but you _can_ commission directly at higher
| ranks if you have the required experience and credentials and
| there is sufficient need in the service. The CO of the dental
| unit at Fort Hood that did my gum grafts 14 years ago direct
| commissioned at O6.
|
| As there isn't really any civilian equivalent to combat
| branches of service, however, they won't direct commission
| anyone into the infrantry at that level, sure, at least not
| since the civil war era.
| blantonl wrote:
| I've seen some specialist docs with extensive experience direct
| commission as an O5
| AndrewKemendo wrote:
| Former Major, Iraq War Veteran and Air Force academy graduate
| here.
|
| I can't think of many worse ideas.
|
| But here we are
| neonate wrote:
| https://archive.md/fDLHK
| tomhow wrote:
| Comments merged from :
|
| _U.S. Army bringing in big tech executives as lieutenant
| colonels_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44273067 - June
| 2025
|
| Related thread (not merged but down-weighted to avoid more
| overlapping discussion):
|
| _I 'm the CTO of Palantir. Today I Join the Army_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44270660 - June 2025 (55
| comments)
| hunglee2 wrote:
| Military-Civilian fusion, with US characteristics
| kriro wrote:
| This strikes me as very odd. First of all, what's in it for the
| execs. Surely pay is worse so there must be some insider benefit.
| Or can they hold both positions? That just screams conflict of
| interest.
|
| Secondly, why execs instead of people with actual technical
| skills. Surely military execs are already better prepared at
| managing military than some tech execs.
|
| Lastly, as a non-U.S. citizen the optics seem horrible to me.
| Fire generals/people who served "the normal way" and bring in
| tech execs...that's gotta piss of just about anyone who ever
| served as a storyline or am I totally off base here?
| lazyasciiart wrote:
| Of course the optics are terrible but it doesn't matter.
| Everyone is already either pissed off with trump or dedicated
| to never being pissed off at him.
| CoastalCoder wrote:
| I somewhat agree with your thesis.
|
| But recent developments with Musk, the FY26 budget proposal,
| and CA National Guard make me think that the Republican party
| is starting to fracture more, and some of them must be taking
| a dimmer view of Trump in the process.
| paulddraper wrote:
| Sure, it'll compete somewhere around 2028.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Maybe this gives US gov an extra leash on them? Surely the
| standards of what's approaching treason are different for
| people in service, so maybe it's just a way to trick execs into
| getting _personally_ under government control, so they 'll not
| be able to shield behind the whole "free enterprise" / "private
| business" thing when they want to trade with China or EU
| against the US Gov preferences?
| aweiland wrote:
| Maybe they get to pull a pension too? There's lots of examples
| of Admirals and Generals who "retire", get their pension
| payouts, but come back as an "advisor" effectively doubling
| their pay.
| paulddraper wrote:
| > Surely military execs are already better prepared at managing
| military than some tech execs.
|
| That's an assumption
| tempodox wrote:
| > The recruits won't work on projects involving their employers,
| George said, and will be firewalled from sharing information with
| their employers or participating in projects that could provide
| them or their companies with financial gain.
|
| A laudable goal. Let's see how that works out.
| tdeck wrote:
| To what extent will these folks be legally obliged to follow
| orders from the executive branch? Can they leave the military at
| any time?
| fmajid wrote:
| Reminds me of the scene in "Barton Fink" where the Hollywood
| producer is made a Lieutenant Colonel immediately after Pearl
| Harbor.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| People wonder why execs, not people with actual tech skills. I'll
| wager that for the military/government, this is not really about
| what skills those people bring in - it's about that accepting
| this role puts them under jurisdiction of _military justice_ ,
| and suddenly all kinds of things that are business-as-usual when
| e.g. dealing with foreign powers, could become potential UCMJ
| offenses.
|
| Call me conspiracy theorist if you like, but this looks to me
| like US Gov seeking to put a leash on the tech/AI companies, by
| tricking execs into getting _personally_ exposed for things that
| would otherwise qualify as private business. Strategically, that
| 's worth _way_ more than just getting some FAANG engineers as
| part-time advisors.
| lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote:
| I had this same thought reading some other comments. It doesn't
| seem much of a conspiratorial stretch.
| dugmartin wrote:
| For engineers it would make sense to bring them in as warrant
| officers which is where you put technical experts that don't
| lead.
| esseph wrote:
| "When their AI system went wrong and caused that massacre and
| required a sortie of F-35s to neutralize, we immediately took
| internal accountability and started processing them through the
| UCMJ. This kind of thing will never happen again, we are making
| sure of it."
| Simon_O_Rourke wrote:
| Surely the incentives that makes a tech exec capable are wildly
| different from the sort of capabilities expected from any
| military innovation context?
|
| Regardless of rank or an easy track to a commission, there's no
| "increasing shareholder value" incentive in the military?
| SideburnsOfDoom wrote:
| Ah, "the merger of corporate and state power", what's the word
| for that again?
| el_jay wrote:
| As overt corporatism goes, you can do a lot worse than
| simultaneously embed tech execs in the military command chain,
| and military commanders in the tech industry.
| crvdgc wrote:
| Imagine a former Huawei executive joins PLA, all hell would break
| loose. Somehow it's more moral or patriotic for these guys. Seems
| like the hawkish were right all along.
| ericmay wrote:
| > Imagine a former Huawei executive joins PLA, all hell would
| break loose.
|
| What makes you think PLA soldiers and officers aren't embedded
| in Chinese tech companies already? After all, their executive
| boards usually have CCP "representation".
| zkmon wrote:
| I also saw a lot of blockchain specialists joining the banks a
| few years back. Coincidence? Not quite. Defense is probably the
| largest consumer of technology and also driving force behind tech
| innovations (ARPANET?).
| cutler wrote:
| It's a short walk from Facebook to Palantir, literally and
| metaphorically. Meta staffing for a long time has been packed
| with IDF operatives and AIPAC goons. All hail our not-so-new tech
| overlords next time you watch footage of a block in Gaza being
| "precison" targeted, taking out the whole extended family of an
| AI-generated target.
| blotfaba wrote:
| Lol this "AI alignment" rap is such a crock in light of all these
| things.
| detaro wrote:
| So, valid targets for US enemies now?
| tonyhart7 wrote:
| good, now the military planning to use technology more and more
| into war machine
|
| hope franchise film that build dystopian future (ehm ehm ehm
| T1000 flashback) did not happen
| jsrozner wrote:
| maybe the drones will play tiktok videos to the insurgents and
| thus render them dumb and thoughtless, or perhaps cause them to
| fight amongst themselves
| BrandoElFollito wrote:
| I got detached, as a professional, to NATO. I got an officer
| grade despite never having been in the army.
|
| The first thing I did when I met the real soldiers was to clarify
| that I got the grade for reasons, but that I absolutely am a
| civil and have no intent to be a bighead asshole who will boss
| them around just because that have less bars on the shoulders
| than I was given.
|
| We started from a very, very good foot and had a wonderful
| collaboration.
|
| Just do not pretend to be what you're not and things will be
| fine.
| cies wrote:
| You are all the same to me.
| jamesgill wrote:
| This is common w/the Army and Navy, less so with other branches
| (and uncommon in the Marine Corps).
|
| But it's most common for medical skills training, and _very_
| unusual to bring them in at this rank. Even MDs typically come in
| around O-3 (Captain /equivalent).
| Animats wrote:
| Are they being run through the Direct Commission Officer
| Course?[1] That's a six-week boot camp.
|
| [1]https://www.army.mil/article/106407/direct_commission_course..
| .
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