There are other great reasons to join a defense startup besides patriotism. That means the pay is very good.
Thanks to the Federal Funds Accountability and Transparency Act (FFATA), we now know how much Anduril, a defense technology startup valued at $14 billion, pays its top employees. The law requires companies to report maximum compensation after receiving at least 80% of their annual gross revenue from federal awards and earning at least $25 million in annual gross revenue from these awards. (Mr. Anduril reportedly told investors that revenue reached $500 million last year.)
The data in this report also includes compensation amounts disclosed by Anduril itself and published in the government contract database USASpending.gov. However, the website does not list the fiscal year in which executive remuneration is applicable. Sources familiar with defense contracts say compensation disclosures are typically correlated to the previous year prior to the date the contract was modified. Therefore, if the contract is modified to 2023, the compensation data will most likely be from 2022. To estimate the year of compensation, TechCrunch analyzed data from 26 Anduril contracts from 2021 to 2024 and correlated these contracts with previous years. Anduril declined to comment on the period covered by the compensation disclosures in these reports.
However, an Anduril spokesperson said these numbers do not necessarily represent the executives' annual income.
“The reporting requirements behind these numbers are based on rules designed for publicly traded defense companies and do not take into account the complexity of equity compensation for emerging companies,” a spokesperson told TechCrunch, reporting He added that some of the remuneration received “includes the total amount from multiple companies.” Annual equity grants that vest for four or five years and are illiquid until IPO. ”
FFATA reporting requires companies to include everything from bonuses to stock grants to stock options. Mr. Anduril doesn't need to clarify the difference between cash and stock, so these numbers likely include more stock than cash, as is common in executive compensation packages.
This is similar to the system for disclosing executive remuneration at listed companies. Each year, publicly traded companies release annual proxy reports to the SEC that include a summary of their compensation schedules. This table includes estimated amounts of cash, bonuses, stock options, and bonuses set aside for executives during the year, even if they include multi-year bonuses based on performance metrics or other qualifying actions. It is.
Still, the numbers provide a glimpse 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 governments.
And this reward paints a rough picture of how Anduril's focus has changed over the years. According to our estimates, the 2021 list included almost entirely the company's founders. By 2023, the highest-paid employees will include two self-driving car experts and two political veterans.
The top recent executive compensation reported by Anduril is as follows:
Brian Shimp, co-founder and CEO
$19,167,070
(Estimated 2021)
CEO Brian Schimpf spent nearly a decade as an engineer at Palantir before co-founding Anduril in 2017.
Matt Grimm, co-founder and chief operating officer (COO)
$13,767,823
(Estimated 2021)
Matt Grimm was part of Anduril's founding team and currently serves as the startup's COO. He is a former Palantir engineer.
co-founder Palmer Lackey
$10,923,494
(Estimated 2021)
Palmer Lackey sold his virtual reality company, Oculus VR, to Facebook for about $2 billion in 2014. He left the company on bitter terms three years later and became a co-founder of Anduril.
Former CFO Michael Galvin
$4,248,586
(Estimated 2021)
According to LinkedIn, Michael Galvin served as CFO at Anduril for two years before leaving the company. He currently serves as an advisor to several companies, including defense technology startup Mach Industries and cybersecurity company Vectra AI.
Senior Vice President Tom Keene
$3,306,500
(Estimated 2022)
Tom Keane was previously a Microsoft executive leading the teams building Office 365 and Azure. But after working there for 20 years, he stepped up and became Anduril's senior vice president in December 2022, where he is focused on “building large-scale distributed systems capabilities,” according to his LinkedIn. .
Former Senior Vice President Adnan Esmail
$3,279,684
(estimated in 2023)
Adnan Esmail previously worked at Tesla for four years, spending part of that time researching self-driving cars. He joined Anduril in 2018 and eventually became 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 in 2023)
Burhan Muzaffar worked for two years at self-driving car company Aurora. In 2023, he became Vice President of Vehicle Automation and Head of Robotics at Anduril.
Senior Vice President Shane Arnott
$2,953,279
(estimated in 2023)
According to LinkedIn, Shane Arnott worked at Boeing for more than 20 years before joining Anduril in 2021 as chief engineer. He then became Senior Vice President of Programs and Engineering in late 2022.
Senior Vice President Zachary Mears
$2,580,020
(estimated in 2023)
Zachary Mears joined Anduril in 2021 as head of growth strategy and was promoted to senior vice president in March 2023, according to LinkedIn. Previously, he practiced public policy at the law firm Covington & Burling LLP and worked for the Department of Defense.
CSO Christian Brose
$2,350,982
(estimated in 2023)
Christian Brose has a wealth of experience on the Hill. From 2009 to 2014, he served as National Security Advisor to Sen. John McCain. For several years thereafter, he served as staff director for the Senate Armed Services Committee. In 2018, he took this high-paying job as Anduril's chief strategy officer in exchange for a government salary.
Senior Vice President Shane Arnott
$2,209,333
(Estimated 2022)
In a three-year period of executive compensation analyzed by TechCrunch, Arnott was the only employee to earn the highest compensation two years in a row.
Former Senior Vice President Andrea Lessard
$2,009,116
(Estimated 2022)
According to LinkedIn, Andrea Lessard was senior vice president of human resources and culture at Anduril, but left the position in April 2023 after less than a year.
Lindsay Trice Vice President
$1,737,175
(Estimated 2022)
According to LinkedIn, Lindsey Trice spent more than six years at Palantir before joining Anduril in 2020, first as head of product and then as vice president of engineering.
Senior Vice President Gokul Subramanian
$1,632,514
(Estimated 2022)
Gokul Subramanian is also a Palantir alumnus. He currently works on software products as Senior Vice President of Engineering.
Co-founder Joseph Chen
$1,449,812
(Estimated 2021)
Joseph Chen was an early Oculus VR employee at Luckey before joining Anduril's founding team. He previously served in the U.S. Army as a paratrooper.