Anduril’s Palmer Luckey Thinks the Future of Tech is In the Past
Anduril’s Palmer Luckey and Reddit’s Alexis Ohanian argue old tech aesthetics are superior—and shaping tomorrow’s devices.
Matilda
Anduril’s Palmer Luckey Thinks the Future of Tech is In the Past
Old Tech Is the New Tech, Say Anduril’s Luckey and Reddit’s Ohanian At a time when AI chips and quantum leaps dominate headlines, two of tech’s most influential voices are urging a surprising pivot: look backward. At CES 2026, Palmer Luckey—founder of Oculus and now CEO of defense tech firm Anduril—and Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian delivered a joint keynote that doubled as a love letter to analog-era design, arguing that yesterday’s tech wasn’t just nostalgic—it was better . But what exactly do they mean, and could retro aesthetics really define the future of innovation? Credit: Google Tech Nostalgia Isn’t Just About Memory—It’s About Quality Luckey and Ohanian weren’t pining for slower internet or floppy disks. Instead, their critique zeroed in on the intentionality and tactile richness of older tech. “It’s not just about nostalgia for the old; it’s about the fact that it’s just objectively better,” Ohanian declared, citing everything from physical keyboards to album artwork as example…