Trae Stephens

An early employee at Palantir, cofounder and board chairman Peter Thiel called Stephens one day to recruit him to Thiel's VC firm Founders Fund.

Stephens cofounded the defense tech company Anduril in 2017 alongside Oculus founder Palmer Luckey. Stephens remains executive chairman of the company.

Stephens led Founders Fund's investment in the supply chain logistics platform Flexport and his company, Anduril, which private investors valued at $30.5 billion in its latest funding round in June 2025.

Stephens is also a cofounder of Sol, a startup making eyeglasses with Kindle-style lenses for "immersive reading."

He began his career in the office of then-Congressman Rob Portman and in the Political Affairs Office at the Afghan embassy in Washington, D.C.