Brian Schimpf

Schimpf grew up in Rochester, New York. His mother was an industrial engineer and his stepfather was also an engineer; both worked at Eastman Kodak. He became interested in computers and robotics as a boy, worked on solar cars and stage lighting in high school, and as a ninth grader in the late 1990s spent a summer writing code at Kodak.⁠[1]

Schimpf studied at Cornell University, earning a Bachelor of Science in operations research and industrial engineering. He had been due to finish in 2006 but stayed an extra year and is a member of Cornell’s Class of 2007.⁠[2][1][3]

At Cornell he founded and led the university’s autonomous vehicle research program, starting the team for the 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge with Matt GrimmMatt GrimmMatt Grimm is a co-founder and the chief operating officer of Anduril Industries, responsible for global operations including procurement, manufacturing, and supply chain. He graduated from Cornell University and previously worked at Booz Allen Hamilton, Palantir, and Mithril Capital Management.Open the full entry; the team’s vehicle, Spider, hit a wall and finished 20th. Schimpf co-authored the team’s after-action report in the Journal of Field Robotics.⁠[4][1]

For the 2007 DARPA Urban Challenge, his team modified a Chevrolet Tahoe called “Skynet,” which completed the course.⁠[1]

In 2007, after a conversation with a former classmate, Schimpf joined Palantir Technologies’ Washington office as one of its early hires and met Trae Stephens there. He began as a forward deployed engineer adapting software for government, police and military users, and later spent a year working with commercial customers.⁠[1][5][4]

He rose to director of engineering, leading the technical teams that built Foundry, Palantir’s commercial software platform, and overseeing its engineering and product work. During his time there Palantir grew from about 60 employees to more than 2,000. He stayed at Palantir for nearly a decade.⁠[1][5][4]

He recalled that his time at Palantir showed him he had “an aptitude for the management and strategy side.”⁠[3]

In 2017 Schimpf co-founded the defense technology company Anduril Industries with Palmer LuckeyPalmer LuckeyPalmer Luckey (born September 19, 1992) is an American inventor and entrepreneur. He founded Oculus VR and developed an Oculus Rift headset prototype in 2012; Facebook acquired the company in 2014. In 2017 he cofounded defense technology company Anduril Industries. He subsequently established retro-gaming hardware company ModRetro and helped found Erebor, a bank serving the technology industry.Open the full entry, Trae Stephens, Matt Grimm and others, and became its chief executive. He was the fifth co-founder to join, signing on after Luckey and Stephens pitched the idea to Palantir directors.⁠[1][5][6]

In its early days the company built its first product, the autonomous solar-powered Sentry surveillance tower, in the California desert. Schimpf recalled: “We were operating out of this mobile office trailer.” A co-founder said Schimpf was chosen as CEO “because engineers want to work for brilliant engineers.”⁠[6]

Schimpf wrote much of the software for the Sentry tower and the Ghost unmanned helicopter, and engineered and patented a mesh networking system for Sentry that is now used in other Anduril products. He is also closely associated with Lattice, the company’s software platform for autonomy.⁠[1]

As CEO he sets the company’s strategic direction and product roadmap; under his leadership Anduril has won defense contracts including the U.S. Army’s robotic combat vehicle software integration work and the U.S. Air Force’s Collaborative Combat Aircraft program.⁠[7][2]

On July 12, 2024, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in response to U.S. arms sales to Taiwan, announced countermeasures under China’s Anti-Foreign Sanctions Law against six U.S. defense companies and five senior executives; Anduril Industries and Schimpf, listed as its chief executive officer under the name Brian William Schimpf, were both included. The measures freeze their assets in China, bar organizations and individuals in China from transactions or cooperation with them, and deny the listed executives visas and entry, including to Hong Kong and Macau.⁠[8]

In an April 2025 profile in Arena Magazine, Schimpf, using Kodak as an example of the decline of large companies, said: “The erosion of these big companies is that they kind of forget how to do the basics.” On product development he said: “No one is smart enough to figure out what these products need to be.”⁠[1]

On November 12, 2025, Schimpf spoke to nearly 150 people at eHub in Collegetown at Cornell University, at an event hosted by Entrepreneurship at Cornell. He said Anduril had 15 business lines ranging from surveillance and attack drones to autonomous fighter jets and space sensors, revenue in the low billions of dollars, and an expected workforce of about 7,000 by year-end. He also said hypergrowth requires constant change and comfort with failure.⁠[3]

Schimpf has argued that Anduril’s work is nonpartisan and that its products matter under any administration, supporting U.S. military strength relative to China and Russia. “It doesn’t matter who’s in charge,” he said. He also said only a minority of Anduril’s revenue came from U.S. Customs and Border Protection.⁠[5]