In Alex Karp’s World, Palantir Is the Underdog

Caroline Haskins: So one thing that happened recently is that Palantir had its earnings call. And I think sort of consistent with what you observed, Alex Karp seemed really exuberant during that earnings call. I think he said that it was the best earnings for a software company in history, but the company is doing reportedly almost $1 billion in revenue for the first time.

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

Steven Levy: Yeah. I asked him about that. It’s my impression that this is something that he cultivates, the outsider mentality. And I even tied that back to our shared origins in Philadelphia quoting Jason Kelce, the Philadelphia Eagle, after they won their first Super Bowl, where he got up there and said, “Nobody likes us, and we don’t care.” And I thought that could be a Palantir motto.

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

At one point, he said that, “I’m kind of the sacrifice.” So he sees himself, even though he’s a billionaire, he’s got multiple homes, he lives in this 500-acre compound in rural New Hampshire, but he feels that he is an outsider. At one point, I even said to him, “Yeah. You seem to be doing pretty well, Alex.”