Before Anduril was a unicorn, it was a black sheep. Today it’s a multi-billion dollar company, an icon of defense tech, and a household name (at least in households with a gun safe or an Eight Sleep). But in the first couple years after the company’s 2017 founding, young progressives were overwhelmingly hostile to the military, making Anduril’s mission anathema to many tech workers, investors, and reporters.

In those early years, I had the privilege of managing Anduril’s communications as an advisor to the founders Palmer Luckey, Trae Stephens, Brian Schimpf, Matt Grimm, and Joe Chen. With their permission, I’m sharing for the first time the details of our campaign to win hearts and minds, so it can serve as a guide for other mission-driven founders.The work was cut out for us. Palmer’s name had been dragged through the mud for supporting Trump, to the point that he was physically assaulted at a conference. When the media took an interest in Anduril, they tended not to focus on the product but on gotcha political questions. When Elad Gil led a round, people sent him angry texts including one accusing him of making a “fascist” investment. And when Anduril hosted a recruiting session at Cornell, the university had to provide armed police escorts due to violent threats from pacifist students (yeah — I know).A high profile defense writer not only refused to speak with Palmer, but refused to speak with Trae for working with Palmer, then stopped speaking with me for suggesting it at all. Google, citing a violation of their terms around promoting harm, literally canceled the company — cutting off Anduril’s access to Google business solutions, analytics, and even YouTube (for anyone who wondered why the Ghost 4 launch video was on Vimeo). The list goes on.