Anduril’s Palmer Luckey thinks the future of technology is in the past

You might think it’s strange to hear the founders of a VR company and a social media site publicly complaining about how things got better in the singing days. However, that’s what happened at CES on Wednesday, where Oculus creator Palmer Luckey and Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian gave a fascinating talk about “tech nostalgia.”

Luckey, who first made his fortune in VR and now runs the security firm Anduril, and Ohanian both seem to agree: Things were better in the old days.

The catch, however, is that Luckey and Ohanian weren’t criticizing the technology itself (Luckey said, at the time of his statement, that he supported AI and saw it changing workflows for the better); instead, they were criticizing the beauty of modern technology. He said, consumers’ technology devices of the past are superior to the current ones – and it’s the style and appearance of the past that will determine the future of technology, he said.

“It’s not just nostalgia, it’s better,” Ohanian said of the past.

After a brief discussion about how the original 1999 earthquake shot “Earthquake: Arena is”, Luckey also sang the praises of old journalists. “There is something that was already there in building a music library – whether it is building whole albums or creating mix tapes,” said Luckey, adding that, in the era of endless downloads, you lose “something”.

Luckey also pointed to young people who don’t have a time they don’t remember or connect with. “Why do they think it’s good? It’s not because they’re remembering their childhood. It’s not because they’re just remembering the old times.”

Some buying behavior would seem to indicate that Luckey and Ohanian are on to something. Nostalgia is obviously big across the board these days (check out all the 1980s-era pieces coming out of Hollywood), but nostalgic tech design it is a highly developed niche. Young people are overwhelmed and fed up with the internet. As a result, many have developed new interests in the visual world – such as collecting cassettes and vinyl. Meanwhile, new, low-cost devices with retro designs are also seeing interest (just look Click on the Communicator phone which debuted at CES this year).

Given that consumer preferences are moving in this direction, Luckey and Ohanian’s interest in old technology can also be a smart business strategy. That is, if Americans feel that they have a problem, you can also make money.

Indeed, Luckey has been doing just that. A defensive player, who plays games and ’80s mulletlaunched a project in 2024 called ModRetro Chromatic – a Game Boy-like device that sells for $199, allows for old cartridge games from the 1990s, and is called “the best ever made” about his race.

On Wednesday, Ohanian brought one of ModRetro’s units onto the stage and proudly showed it off to the group. Ohanian, who has been open about his love for Luckey’s game company, also expressed interest in creating his own vintage game.

There were many beautiful moments during Wednesday’s speech, many of which were made by Luckey. At one point, he shared that he’s been coming to CES since he was 16. Astute CES fans will note: You have to be 18 to enter. “I used a fake ID,” Luckey told the CES audience Wednesday, to a big laugh. “I pretended I worked for a company that was showing up here,” the mogul said.

Beautiful retro games may be the future but, too, it is war, it would seem. Since 2017, Luckey has been focusing on his defense against Anduril. Earlier this year, after Series G funding, the company the cost has risen to $30.5 billion. Recently, the company has been collaborating with Meta on headphones for the US military.

Anduril did not appear for Wednesday’s speech, but near the end of the discussion, Luckey briefly discussed foreign policy to make a false claim. “I was part of the problem for a long time, making all my products in China,” he said. “Globally, the United States and China are getting divorced, it’s a messy divorce – and if people think the breakup is reconciliation, they’re blind. It’s not,” he said.