GoPro is also shifting its focus to defense.

Want to make money? Start building your data center. Alternatively, you can build batteries to power data centers. Or: Focus on defense.

This is not financial advice, but it certainly seems to be appealing to public markets and retail investors these days. Ford’s nascent energy storage business, which is a fraction of Tesla’s size and is expected to be ready by next year, helped push the company’s stock price higher than it has in years. Redwood Materials has raised $425 million from blue-chip companies including Google and Nvidia as it pivots to data center energy storage. Cerebras pulled off one of the most talked-about IPOs of 2026.

Investment continues to flow into defense startups, with Anduril raising another $5 billion this week. Companies with little chance of winning government contracts appear to be trying to do just that.

Now let’s talk about GoPro.

Action camera companies have survived for many years. For a while in the 2010s, the term “GoPro killer” was almost as common as “Tesla killer” or “iPhone killer,” with people claiming that everything from TomTom action cameras to Google’s Clips (remember those?) would dethrone the California company that invented the category.

However, survival doesn’t necessarily mean success, and GoPro has been struggling lately. Sales have fallen, losses have increased, and the stock is roughly flat at about $1 two years ago. So, surprisingly, GoPro announced plans last month to “explore opportunities in the defense and aerospace market.”

This makes some sense for a company that wants to combine top-notch image quality with enough durability to survive a motorcycle crash or a fall from space. And this pivot was enough to nearly double the company’s stock price in a matter of days. But it also came back to earth. As it turns out, the “pivot to defense” idea doesn’t seem as bulletproof as GoPro’s cameras.

You may be able to guess where this is going. On Thursday, GoPro announced it had hired investment bank Houlihan Lokey to help evaluate “a potential sale and other strategic alternatives.” The company’s board of directors recently said, “We have received several unsolicited inbound strategic inquiries from parties in a variety of fields, including defense, consumer, and finance,” which is essentially a “hmm” response.

This isn’t the first time GoPro has considered a sale. Founder and CEO Nick Woodman briefly came under consideration in 2018.

But things are certainly looking even worse for the company now. In addition to its declining financial position, the company announced last month that it would lay off a quarter of its workforce, and its workforce has already shrunk from 1,500 to just over 600.

Fifteen years ago, GoPro was a technology darling. But like many of us, we now navigate a more unstable world. It’s no surprise that a significantly swollen Pentagon budget appears to be a viable path through this mess.