A high-profile network of investors and founders in Silicon Valley are promoting a new moral vision for the tech industry, in which job choices and other decisions are guided not by the pursuit of wealth, but according to Christian values and Western cultural frameworks.
At an event in San Francisco last week hosted in a former church, Trae Stephens, cofounder of the defense contractor Anduril and a partner at the Peter Thiel–led venture capital firm Founders Fund, characterized the idea as the pursuit of “good quests” or careers that make the future better, a concept that he said has theological underpinnings.
“I’m literally an arms dealer,” Stephens said at one point, prompting laughter from the crowd of roughly 200 people, which included Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan. “I don’t think all of you should be arms dealers, but that’s a pretty unique calling.”
The hour-long discussion was part of a series of ticketed gatherings organized by ACTS 17 Collective, a nonprofit founded last year by Stephens’ wife, health care startup executive Michelle Stephens. The group, whose name is an acronym that stands for “Acknowledging Christ in Technology and Society,” is on a mission to “redefine success for those that define culture,” she says.
In Michelle’s view, tech workers mostly believe in arbitrary metrics of success, like money and power, leaving some of them feeling empty and hopeless. She wants them to believe instead that “success can be defined as loving God, myself, and others.”
People of all denominations—including atheists—are welcome at ACT 17 events. Last Thursday’s event had low-key party vibes. Bartenders served beer and wine, a DJ was spinning light worship beats, and prayer booklets rested on a table. The idea for ACTS 17 and a speaker series on faith actually took root at a party, Michelle says. In November 2023, during a three-day 40th birthday party for Trae in New Mexico, Peter Thiel led a talk on miracles and forgiveness. Guests were intrigued.
“Folks were coming up to us saying things like, ‘I didn’t know Peter is a Christian,’ ‘How can you be gay and a billionaire and be Christian?’, ‘I didn’t know you could be smart and a Christian,’ and ‘What can you give me to read or listen to learn more?’” Michelle says.
The Stephens have long-standing connections to Thiel. In addition to helping start Anduril and working at Founders Fund, Trae was also an early employee at data intelligence firm Palantir, a company cofounded by Thiel that develops data intelligence tools used by the US military.
At the ACTS 17 last Thursday, Trae appeared to echo a number of ideas Thiel has also espoused about technology and Christianity. He emphasized that jobs outside the church can be sacred, citing Martin Luther’s work during the Protestant Reformation. “The roles that we’re called into are not only important and valuable on a personal level, but it’s also critical to carry out God’s command to bring his kingdom to Earth as it is in heaven,” Trae said.
Thiel made nearly identical comments in a 2015 essay arguing that technological progress should be accelerated. Science and technology, he wrote, are natural allies of “Judeo-Western optimism,” especially if “we remain open to an eschatological frame in which God works through us in building the kingdom of heaven today, here on Earth.”
But what do Thiel, Trae Stephens, and other powerful tech figures actually mean when they say it’s possible to build a Christian heaven on this planet? For Trae, the idea is practically literal, and happens through his concept of “good quests,” first outlined in an article cowritten with entrepreneur Markie Wagner in 2022.
In the article, Trae and Wagner argued that Silicon Valley was in a “crisis of nonsense.” Pastimes such as “exiting your first startup only to enter venture capital,” “armchair philosophizing on Twitter,” and “yachting between emails in de facto retirement at age 35” are examples of bad quests. Good quests, on the other hand, tackle massively hard and complex problems, and result in advancements in manufacturing, artificial intelligence, and the extension of human lifespans.
After the essay came out, Trae said a man approached him and shared that he was trying to solve an important problem by building an NFT marketplace. That right there, Trae told the audience at the ACTS 17 event, is an example of a bad quest. “The human brain can convince you anything you’re doing is a good quest,” he said.
Trae, who ran President Donald Trump’s defense transition team during his first term, used the same good versus bad quests frame to explain why he recently turned down the opportunity to serve as US defense secretary. Very few things in life should be able to take you away from your “yes,” or your good quest, Trae explained. “I think the reason for my ‘no’ was understanding what my ‘yes’ was,” he said.
Alex Karp, the chief executive of Palantir, recently criticized what he similarly described as a moral crisis in the tech industry, decrying the fact that ample capital and “legions of talented engineers” were wasted “merely to build photo-sharing apps and chat interfaces for the modern consumer.” Karp went on to say that the “prevailing agnosticism” of the modern era has “paved the way for the market to fill the gap.”
The agnosticism Karp refers to is cultural, rather than spiritual. But like Trae Stephens, he believes the tech sector has been too focused on solving trivial problems and ignoring the most pressing issues of society. The problem, Karp argued, could be solved by rebuilding the United States from the ground up as a technological republic. (Presumably, that would include Palantir selling its technology to the government.)
The Bay Area, where Silicon Valley is nested, has long been a haven for progressive values and is often perceived to be largely agnostic or atheistic. Its prevailing rich-hippie vibes are well documented, with tech workers turning to biohacking, psychedelics, Burning Man, and Esalen retreats as forms of introspection and self-discovery.
Those pastimes aren’t likely to wane in popularity anytime soon, but for some people, the ACTS 17 Collective presents an alternative community, one combining tech startup culture with fervent faith.
“I’ve worked in Silicon Valley since 2005, and my initial impression was that it was anti-Valley to talk about religion and belief systems,” Nate Williams, a startup entrepreneur and investor who attended the event last week, told WIRED afterward. “But now it’s becoming more normalized to wear it on your sleeve,” he says, a trend he attributes partly to people seeking community after the pandemic.
At some moments during the event, the twin themes of work and religion were so commingled that it was hard to make a distinction between the two: Is work the new religion, as it has been and ever shall be in Silicon Valley? Or does religion offer a different framework for how people should think about what constitutes meaningful work?
“When you get into the startup world—there are some things in life you can be casual about, but probably work is not something you can be casual about and have success, do you agree?” Ben Pilgreen, founding pastor of the nondenominational Christian Epic Church in San Francisco and the Stephens’ pastor, said to the crowd. “The themes raised tonight don’t seem to be something you can be casual about.” (Epic Church’s attendance has been steadily rising over the past several months, Pilgreen said in a recent interview with the SF Standard.)
After the talk, attendees swarmed the Stephens couple, thanking them for the discussion and asking questions about future events. One attendee told WIRED he’s now interested in visiting Pilgreen’s Epic Church and attending its dinner series, which, like the house of worship, has a startup-worthy name: Alpha.
