In Alex Karp’s World, Palantir Is the Underdog

Caroline Haskins: So one thing that happened recently is Palantir had its earnings call. And I think that kind of fits with what you observed, Alex Karp seemed really exuberant on that earnings call. I think he said these were the best profits for a software company in history, but the company would have had revenue of almost a billion dollars for the first time.

It’s one of the best performers in the S&P 500. And yet one thing that Alex Karp always emphasizes, at least rhetorically, is that Palantir, or at least the Palantirians, the employees, are culturally outsiders, outsiders, et cetera. I was wondering how you saw that in the context of the interview or what you thought of the way Alex Karp described that.

Steven Lévy: Yeah. I asked him about it. I feel like that’s something he cultivates, the outsider mentality. And I even tied it to our shared origins in Philadelphia by quoting Jason Kelce, the Philadelphia Eagle, after they won their first Super Bowl, where he stood up and said, “Nobody likes us and we don’t care.” »And I thought that might be a Palantir motto.

He said, “Look, it’s not fun being so unpopular, but it’s actually helpful for us. So he admitted that this outsider mentality works for him, because he says, “Four out of five people come in and say, ‘Well, I don’t want to be unpopular and work for Palantir.’ But the fifth person will say, “You know what? It’s quite interesting.'”

At one point he said, “I’m kind of the sacrifice.” » So he sees himself, even though he’s a billionaire, he has several homes, he lives in this 500-acre compound in rural New Hampshire, but he feels like an outsider. At one point I even said to him, “Yeah. You look like you’re doing great, Alex.”