Keen On

War is never pretty, but its privatized high tech future dominated by companies like Palintir and SpaceX is particularly chilling. In Unit X, their FT shortlisted best business book of the year, Raj M. Shah and Christopher Kirchhoff’s explain how the Pentagon and Silicon Valley are transforming the future of war with the creation of a new kind of military-digital complex. As Shah and Kirchhoff explain, Unit X is the elite unit within the Pentagon known as the Defense Innovation Unit which is now the military bridge between Silicon Valley and the Federal government. And with Elon Musk’s deregulatory zeal driving the upcoming Trump administration, expect to see closer and closer cooperation between the Pentagon and cutting edge AI and biotech tech companies. Raj M. Shah is a serial technology entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and former director of the Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Unit. He is currently the managing partner of Shield Capital, an investment firm focused on technologies at the nexus of commercial