Despite reaping billions in the weapons industry as cofounder of the military-tech company Anduril, Trae Stephens says he does not believe that “wartime profiteering is ethical, really, in any way.”

That was just one takeaway from an hourlong conversation he had with Gwyneth Paltrow on her Goop podcast last week, during which Stephens held forth on God, great power conflict, the male loneliness crisis, and what he thinks the Pope really meant when he said “Jesus does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war, but rejects them.”

At first glance, they make a strange pair: Paltrow’s known for hawking vaginal eggs and antidepressive flower essences; Stephens sells drones. But the Goop podcast is actually the perfect stage for Stephens to do a little reputation-management for Anduril, which develops unmanned submarines, border-surveillance towers, missiles, and “smart battlefield” technology, with the aim of killing thousands more........

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