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Author, Speaker, Advisor, Founder of the Pentagon’s Silicon Valley Office
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Founder of the Pentagon’s Silicon Valley Office
Author of Unit X: How the Pentagon & Silicon Valley are Transforming the Future of War – a Financial Times “best business book of 2024”
Former Director for Strategic Planning at the National Security Council
Christopher Kirchhoff founded the Pentagon Silicon Valley’s office and served as the National Security Council’s Director for Strategic Planning. He is the author of Unit X: How the Pentagon and Silicon Valley are Transforming the Future of War, a Financial Times “best business book of 2024.” Unit X chronicles the Pentagon’s Silicon Valley office, Defense Innovation Unit, which piloted flying cars and microsatellites in military missions and created a new acquisition pathway for start-ups now responsible for $70 billion dollars of technology acquisition by the Department of Defense.
During the Obama Administration Kirchhoff served as the National Security Council’s Director for Strategic Planning, the senior civilian aide to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and in the White House Chief of Staff’s office. Kirchhoff went on to work for Google CEO Eric Schmidt and the AI company Anthropic
An expert in the future of war, strategic forecasting, artificial intelligence, technological systems, and the social impacts of technology, he has penned four landmark government reports: the Obama Administration’s Lessons Learned Report on Ebola, White House Big Data Report, Hard Lessons: The Iraq Reconstruction Experience, coined “the Iraq Pentagon Papers” by the New York Times, and the Space Shuttle Columbia Accident Investigation report.
A graduate of Harvard College, he holds a doctorate in politics from Cambridge University. Kirchhoff has been awarded the Secretary of Defense Medal for Outstanding Service and the Civilian Service Medal for hazardous duty in Iraq. From 2011-2014 he was the highest ranking openly gay advisor in the U.S. Department of Defense.
Discover more at christopherkirchhoff.com
