Palantir CEO Alex Karp & Rep. Ritchie Torres on Innovation & The West | Hill and Valley Forum 2024

Today on Upstream, we're releasing a conversation from the 2024 Hill and Valley Forum between Palantir CEO Alex Karp and Congressman Ritchie Torres. They discuss higher education, Palantir's culture, contrarianism, and more. Keep an eye out for the 2025 Hill and Valley Forum, which will take place on Wednesday, April 30th. You can learn more in the description. Please enjoy the episode.

I'd like to invite Dr. Alex Karp, the CEO of Palantir Technologies, and Congressman Ritchie Torres for tonight's first informal discussion. Let's give them a warm hand.

Thank you.

We're like in grade school. High chairs.

So thank you for giving me the honor to interview you. So I think when I think of Alex Karp, you know, the word that comes to mind is fearlessness. You're fearless in a world of fear. You project moral clarity in a world of moral confusion. And, you know, I believe that the greatest threat to our democracy is not the far left or the far right, but it's the center that lives in fear of the extremes. Right. We see so-called leaders in higher education, in corporate America, in American politics that live in fear of students and faculty and employees And what I find striking about you is that you refuse to live in fear. You speak with moral clarity. And so I'm curious, what, you know, why do you speak out when others choose to remain silent? Where does that come from?

Well, first of all, I'm hugely honored to be here and very honored to be on stage with you. And I remember, you know, I met you the first time a couple of weeks ago. And, you know, I know I read— I've read op-eds about about you and, you know, you speaking out on lots of subjects, especially antisemitism. And, but I, you know, I've done a lot of meetings, I do a lot of meetings. And I remember you were telling me about— you told this story about, you know, you have 2 brothers, both of whom are in and out, I think are still in prison. And then you went—

They're out.

to the person who put them in jail and said, hey, you owe me. You've got to help me get my election started. And we may have to switch, actually. We can— it's like sharing.

Yeah.

It's like sharing an illicit substance. And, you know, I left that meeting really super motivated, because I think a lot of the people on both sides look past and don't have enough empathy with the average person.

And so I don't know, I'm hugely honored to be here because what I saw in that statement was you actually care about people like your brothers and literal brothers and what actually happens to them, not some theoretical agenda that you might have learned by heart at an elite school, but may not believe in or absorb the consequences of. And I thought that was one of the more motivating interactions I've had, and hugely honored to be on stage.

Is it really loud, or is it just me? It's like, I feel like, you know, one of the One of— I think it's almost like out of a movie. And you know, it's interesting, one of the ways you test for dyslexia, if you have someone who doesn't speak English, is you give them something to draw and then you give them ambient noise and then they stop drawing. So I'm hugely dyslexic and I might go on, go off, go off even more, of course. You know, I don't really see myself as courageous. He's referring to, you know, we were the first people in defense tech. We were the first people in Silicon Valley to push back against being, you know, people who thought we shouldn't support the government. I was the first person in Ukraine. I've been openly pro-Israel. I lambast people who attack minorities of all kinds, but in this case especially Jewish people. And I built together with my co-founders, one of whom is here, and Palantirians, not just Palantir, but, you know, almost every defense tech company that's succeeding is somehow succeeding with Palantirians. How did you get started? And I think there's a link between disruptive products and clarity inside your culture and clarity outside your culture. And so that if you want to actually build something that will change the world for the better, whether that's fighting terrorism with civil liberties, targeting our adversaries in software, and/or building a successful commercial business. The standard playbook is you kind of build a thin tech, thin product. You take the product and then you hire salespeople and you wander around the world pretending you believe in things you don't believe in. And I don't think that actually works very well. And I know it will not work in an enterprise, and you will not attract and retain the best engineers. Certainly not in year 20. Right now, Palantir is one of the most competitive environments in the world for the best talent. You know, Harvard, Yale, and Stanford had— I'm pro-Stanford, but their degree was more valuable than a Palantir degree. It's not now. And that's simply because we are honest on the inside and honest on the outside. And a lot of these things that people advocate for, like, taking over Columbia University and discriminating against people who are Jewish are either done by people who have fallen into the pit of the thin religion that they identify with their narrowly defined identity, or by people who don't believe in it. And if you subscribe to those ideologies, you will never attract the best and the brightest And the most interesting people. In fact, you know, I have a lot of relationships here that are quite powerful. And in most cases, it's because truly interesting, talented people don't want to hear some thin BS that they do not believe. And if they did— of course, we all have to listen to things that we think are inane. That's part of how you survive in this world. But it's quite refreshing to hear something that is obviously not in me, and then you build great relationships. So I don't know, it's—

for me, a lot of things that people call courageous, it's more like, why does a painter use this color as opposed to that color? I don't know, I just— yeah.

You know, so speaking of lack of courage, I want to ask you about really the leadership crisis in higher education. You know, what do you make of the crisis of antisemitism unfolding on college campuses? Do you see it as symptomatic of a deeper rot in our society?

I don't think it's a deeper rot in our society. I do think it's a deeper rot in our elite educational institutions.

And I don't— I think I I personally believe one of the more fascinating things about the obvious dysfunction of, and hate in our larger, especially elite schools, is if you leave the tethering of what our founding fathers set up, and broadly speaking, liberalism, you would think you would fall down a story or two, but you actually fall back to what amounts to a pagan religion. And they believe this religion. It's like, it is not the case. And one of the more interesting things about that religion is that you can simultaneously dedicate yourself to the eradication of prejudice and prevent people who come from a group that's been discriminated against for 3,000 years from entering the building, and you don't see a contradiction. So you can ask, what is it about that religion that reduces their cognitive capacities to the point where the obvious contradiction of being an institution dedicated to the eradication of basic human impulses, which includes prejudice of all kinds, which everybody in this room would celebrate, and simultaneously embracing the most apparent and radical discrimination you've ever seen. If you asked a university professor, what would you do if a group experiences this, most non-gun-wielding intellectuals, of which I am a member, would say, I'd go get a gun. But not in this case. And so that Well, we— and I also think we in this room and other places, we bear responsibility. But the main responsibility we bear is to call out— I'm not saying you have to agree with me or you on Israel or me and you on Ukraine or whatever we— but this is basic dysfunction. And believing in this religion is a straight path to a society that will not work, to tech companies that cannot be built, to a GDP which declines, to a military which cannot work, to adversaries which eat us up slowly and then destroy us. And to the extent you agree with that, especially like I've historically— I have a PhD from a German university. I come from a progressive family. I've been a a donor to many, certainly almost every progressive in this room. I am a large supporter of Biden.

We have to speak up. This is, in a weird way, our battle. This is happening on our watch. Those universities claim to be progressive. They are not progressive. And we should not allow this to happen in our name. which is de facto what is happening. And it is absolutely wrong and disgusting to allow over-discrimination at institutions we pay for of any kind. And we have to stand up, especially those of us who have PhDs, who are part of that environment, who know that environment on the inside like I do. That's our battle. And especially If you have, you know, you've been, you know, had some kind of success, it's time to use it. And that— and those voices may be too small, but I think— I do think we're at a crescendo event with especially what's happening at elite universities, if only because all of us know their value because we participated in some way at those universities. And the best things that have happened to our country, i.e., Silicon Valley as an example, is only possible because of elite educational institutions broadly defined, including the small colleges, University of Illinois, technical training that happened in our country that was also and is the magnet of this world. Like if you look at the tech community and the people who are hosting this conference, we are either disproportionately from abroad or have spent a lot of our lives abroad, and we are very appreciative of this country and its educational institutions.

I've heard you use a phrase repeatedly, non-playbook players. Can you elaborate on that concept?

Yeah, I often get— especially in Europe, because I spend a lot— I speak German, I did a PhD there, and To a lesser extent in France, but often abroad, like in Germany, the question is, what went wrong and how can we fix it? They have almost no GDP growth. There's no, basically, minimal tech scene. If you took a table here, any random table, the tech scene at that table would be larger than all of Germany. One of the things that we have as a resource here is we generate people who can act without a playbook. Like, to build an important institution, a tech company, one that's disruptive, as an example, you have to build things where there is no one that can teach you how to build it. And that is a rare asset. that we have disproportionately in this country that really no one else has at scale.

You know, obviously we're here at the Hill and Valley Forum, and I think it's fair to say that there's been an acrimonious marriage between Capitol Hill and Silicon Valley. You know, each side sees itself as a battered partner of the other. We speak foreign languages. You know, how do we make that dysfunctional marriage work for the good of the country?

Well, you know, I guess I would normally say make up sex, but it's— well, you know, sometimes dysfunctional relationships are more fun. You know, not every dysfunctional relationship is bad. And I think the relationship is a lot better. I mean, look, I have a lot of complaints, but I think it's structurally a lot better than in most countries. My experience with legislators is quite positive, actually. You have to establish that you are aligned broadly with America, and many people in the House and Senate are actually technical experts. You have, in our case, a lot of people who work in the staff. Some senators and congressmen are ex-military or have dedicated themselves to the military. And, you know, there are a number of people in the Senate especially, but also in the House, if and when they fire me at Palantir, And they randomly called and said, do you want to have a beer? I'd be like, great.

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So, you know, the world is changing rapidly at a pace and on a scale that we've never seen before, especially with AI.

You could just start over the internet, do the whole thing from the beginning.

Yeah.

Do you have confidence in the federal government's ability to adapt to a world of exponential change?

You know, um, there— you can always compare things in absolute or relative terms. Of course, the US government could do better. Um, but if you compare the US government to any other government, we— our product is used basically everywhere in the Western world, with some restrictions we've self-imposed. We never sold to adversaries, obviously not to China, Iran. Iran.

Russia.

If you compare the US government's procurement to any country of relevant, even comparable size, we're much more meritocratic. The US government has ways of procuring things when it really wants it. And yet, we obviously need to do better. We obviously need ways of verifying what things are working, you know, Obviously, the US government buys a lot of things that it shouldn't buy. And, you know, if we're looking at a tightening budget, and in general, if we want to outperform China, we're going to have to actually purchase things that are built by things that, you know, that America does well, primarily software. And those things have to be proven on the battlefield or proven commercially. There is no watching a PowerPoint and buying the best software. You have to actually test it. That's what Israel does. That's what Ukraine does. That's what our DOD does in part, but not always. And then you have to be able to scale it quicker. One of the big challenges— a lot of the challenges are just software challenges, the way institutions are run. Institutions love lots of hierarchy. Software likes meritocracy. Institutions like the idea you'll have multiple people providing the same product. By and large in software, there's one person, one company that provides one product. Large institutions, the US government doesn't like that. Software is built by people that tend to be very focused on saying things that are annoying, obnoxious, unpleasant, and true. Large institutions don't always like to interact with people like that. Software, Silicon Valley, is built on attracting and retaining people who are between 1 in a million and 1 in 100,000 at whatever they do. But they may, you know, they may be 1 in 100,000 bad at explaining to a general or someone how they would actually implement the system. You know, it's a huge cultural shock, and a lot of what has to change is not even stuff that has to be mandated.

It's just like you have to learn to like or at least work with the people that produce the most valuable thing. And for us in this country, that is deployable and usable technology, especially technologies, hardware and software, that are powered by companies that are younger and built all across America, disproportionately in Silicon Valley. And that's like, if you, you know, when you're building a business, you really do grow to like the people who perform very quickly, or you will not have a business. And, you know, at Palantir, as an example, I manage the most interesting, difficult, and, in times, off-kilter people you could ever imagine. And we have built some of the more interesting products in the world, and it would not be possible without those people. And you can't just say, well, that person's annoying, that person has views I don't like, that person can't integrate. Yeah, but they build the best products in the world. And that's a cultural shift, and we have to make— we have to go through that, because otherwise, like, China and Russia have a huge advantage. Russia's very good at manufacturing, China's very good at engineering, their leaders are engineers. They're not very good at organising and building a tech scene. And, you know, in our business, there are no Chinese or Russian competitors, not one. Do you think that's going to change? Just think about that. We have no competition from those countries. Not at all. I mean, not even like fake competition. Nowhere in US commercial, at any adversarial country. I've never even heard of someone saying we're choosing between Palantir and the Russian or Chinese product. And believe me, I've heard about people choosing between us and like 108 Software. My uncle makes it. And he throws a great steak dinner. Like, that is like, this is an absolute disproportional— in fact, the delta is so disproportional, most Americans don't really believe it, because they're like, okay, well, the trains and the schools work better in China and Russia, their leaders seem very bright, why would their software suck?

And it's very hard to explain, actually, why we are so good at producing innovative tech companies that disrupt, but there are some obvious things that we have no one else has. The best immigrants, the best schools, we had the best schools, the best ways of organizing, fairness, meritocracy, these kind of weird, simple ideas. And I lived half my life abroad trying to get something to work fair, in a fair fashion at the German university. Like, in Germany, I was always fighting, as naive as I was, to hire the most qualified person. And people would say, but why would you hire the most qualified person? No one hires the most qualified person. That person never gets a job. I'm like, okay, I guess I'm just American, but we in America, we occasionally hire the most qualified person. And, um, uh, and like these things metastasize and give you a structural advantage that is truly unique. And our basic job as tech leaders and leaders who care, and in Congress, people who care and people who are actually courageous, is to actually just make sure these things get implemented in the US economy and in our— for our warfighters.

So, a question about US-China competition. Who's winning the tech arms race? And even if you assume that the United States will out-innovate China, do you worry, as I do, that China could be more effective at integrating emerging technologies into their government, into their military-industrial complex?

Well, look, we're— I mean, I think it's obvious we're somewhat ahead. We're not so far ahead that we couldn't screw it up. I, you know, of course, what I'm supposed to say, and I believe, is we have to move quicker, we have to spend more. I do think, like, making sure we figure out how to reform our elite institutions so that they're not completely destructive, dysfunctional, and anti the progressive values that represent America broadly defined, is a really big issue for our country. And you might be surprised how, if we fail at that, the other things kind of don't work as well. So, I mean, obviously, it's my self-interest is that we should spend more, we should spend better. It should be meritocratic. That's hugely an advantage for Palantir. But if we can get a way to come together, left people on the— who are of decent values, right, left, and center, and say, these are the lines, we shouldn't cross them, I think that's much more important than anything else.

Thank you.

You know, there are commentators who worry about generative AI, large language models. You know, there are those who fear that we're becoming like Dr. Frankenstein. We're creating a monster that we can neither fully understand nor fully control. And I get the sense that despite the fear of the unknown, you feel like we should embrace what you've described as this Oppenheimer moment. So can you talk about that?

Look, there are 2 issues. One is that it is the key to keeping our GDP growing, growing the GDP of America, and that is actually important. If you look at France, a country I spend a lot of time in and admire, between '61 and '91, their GDP grew roughly like ours, maybe a little less. We were 164%.

164%.

They were 164%, we were like 184%. And then in the last 30 years, it's been— I think it's been significantly less. But you kind of have a feeling like America's GDP story led by tech will shift. And, you know, our— we haven't announced last quarter, but the quarter before, Palantir grew 70%. And no one thinks that's because of our sales. So it's because, you know, you just have massive absorption of technology. You can now build a Japanese manufacturing plant in the US with AI. You can manage American workers as if they were Japanese engineers in the US. You can power hospitals with low margins and do it ethically and make sure that discrimination is not part of the selection process of who's the patient and verify it.

There's just a myriad of use cases that change the productivity of US institutions. And then you get to, again, what is the central advantage America could have over its adversaries?

Advantage is defined not by what you can do, but what they can't do. Because you always have to ask, is this something that we can do they suck at? In every aspect of competition. And so I do think there are real dangers, but it'd be very good—

you know, we should— and then, you know, we should embrace what we have in this country. Figure 8.

Figure 8.

figure out how to regulate it in a way that makes sense. There's been a lot of effective discussions here. And run like hell so that our competition doesn't beat us. And again, I don't have to remind people in this room, but it is— you'd be— you know, we assume that the world embraced liberalism broadly defined because it was a better idea, but I think it embraced liberalism Because people looked at the US and thought, well, that's a better way of organizing my life for my citizens. And that was backed by US power. That would not have happened simply based on winning ideas alone. It was idea— right ideas, charismatic ideas, and superiority on the battlefield. And you need that combination. That is the combination that allows people people to see the value in things that are obviously valuable. It's not ipso facto that they absorb those ideas.

I guess final question, you founded Palantir 20 years ago in a post-9/11 world. You know, what are your hopes and ambitions for the next 20 years?

I mean, look, I— there's world peace, but Leaving world peace aside, you know, I do see— I do think the Palantir project and its success is a harbinger for other people doing things that would make the world a better, fairer, more equitable, decent place. And so in that narrow sense, I'm— when we meet again in 10 years, I think we will be—

I'm optimistic.

10 to 20 times bigger.

Well, 20 years from now, I'll still be considered a young member of Congress, but I think we're done.

So thank you. You'll be a seasoned member of something. Yeah. Thank you for your time.

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