STEVE INSKEEP, BYLINE: We have a portrait of the CEO of one of the world's most valuable companies. Palantir is a leader in analyzing data, a skill that's at the heart of the economy and surveillance. Its software finds patterns so that businesses save money on logistics. U.S. or Israeli intelligence agencies may use it to track a person in hiding. U.S. immigration authorities may use it to find people to detain. Palantir's leader, Alex Karp, is an intellectual known for his big hair and bigger personality. Onstage at a New York Times event, he pushed back on critics suspicious of his company.
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ALEX KARP: My biggest fans started off as Palantir skeptics and Palantir haters. I believe that someday almost everyone in this audience is going to agree with me. You may not like me now, but you're going to agree later.
INSKEEP: Palantir says its mission is defending the West. Karp has also grown supportive of President Trump. Michael Steinberger of The New York Times wrote a book about Alex Karp, which calls him the philosopher in the valley.
MICHAEL STEINBERGER: He's a very distinctive figure in the tech world and in the business world more broadly. He is biracial. His father's a Jewish pediatrician. His mother's a Black artist. He grew up Jewish, severely dyslexic, has a law degree from Stanford and a doctorate in social theory from Goethe University Frankfurt, where, for a time, his mentor was Jurgen Habermas, one of the most acclaimed philosophers of the second half of the 20th century. Karp had no background in computer science or business when he joined Palantir in the early 2000s, and yet 20-plus years later, he has turned this company into a $400 billion colossus.
INSKEEP: In spite of that liberal arts background - not a computer science or business background - Peter Thiel reached out to him to run this company. Peter Thiel, who, as you remind me in the book, is just foundational to so many things that happened in Silicon Valley, 20, 25, 30 years ago. Why did Peter Thiel choose this person?
STEINBERGER: Thiel and Karp first met at Stanford Law School, and they bonded over their shared dislike of law school and their love of political argument. Karp had grown up in a very left-wing household, and he considered himself a socialist when he got to Stanford Law. Thiel was an arch libertarian, already a figure of some fame and notoriety. Out of these debates, a strong friendship developed, and Thiel was viewed with suspicion by a lot of people, certainly on the left. You know, having Karp, a self-described socialist, running this company that was at the nexus of technology and national security, gave people some assurance that the company could be trusted. And at the very least, it was disarming for people who would have been otherwise inclined to view Palantir with suspicion.
INSKEEP: Do you trust him?
STEINBERGER: (Laughter) That's the million-dollar question. I would say, look it, you know, it's important to recognize that it's Palantir's clients, not Palantir, that controls how Palantir's technology is used. In one sense, you can say it's really, you know, do you trust the people using Palantir to use it responsibly? But that also kind of absolves Palantir of any responsibility. And then certainly, the question at this particular moment is, you know, are there red lines for Karp and Palantir?
INSKEEP: I'm just trying to think this through on a very basic level. If the United States conducts a drone strike and kills a suspected terrorist in the Middle East somewhere, Palantir platforms may well have been used by the U.S. government to analyze data to locate the right person. But you're also telling me that if ICE shows up in a Chicago suburb at a particular date and time to pick up somebody on their way to work, Palantir software may have been used to locate that person. Am I right?
STEINBERGER: That is correct. It is used for a wide variety of purposes. Most of what it does is pretty benign. It's used by many corporations to make their operations more efficient. It's enterprise software, but it is used by the military. It's used by the military for targeting, and it is being used by ICE to facilitate Donald Trump's immigration crackdown.
INSKEEP: Immigration is a big issue for him. I want to listen to a little bit more of Alex Karp on stage, talking about his issues.
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KARP: I care about two issues - immigration and reestablishing the deterrent capacity of America. And on those two issues, those two issues, this president has performed.
INSKEEP: Did that surprise you when he said it?
STEINBERGER: No, because I know he's been moving in that direction for some time. The key point, the real pivot point, came after October 7. You know, Karp was a staunch supporter of Israel, and October 7 was for him, like for many American Jews, an appalling event, a shocking event. And his view on immigration hardens. Before October 7, he saw immigration as a toxic issue for the Democrats, that if Democrats and progressives didn't take those concerns seriously, voters would turn to someone who would. And, yeah, but after October 7, Karp decides that immigration is not just a toxic issue for the Democrats, he sees immigration as bad for American Jews, and this is what ultimately leads him to get on board with Donald Trump the second time around.
INSKEEP: Would you just describe his lifestyle - where he lives and how he lives?
STEINBERGER: Yeah, it's interesting. And just as an aside here - you know, in the book, I say, you know, how modest his homes are. I don't know if you just saw, he just bought $120 million place in...
INSKEEP: OK.
STEINBERGER: (Laughter) So I guess I gave him too much credit in the book (laughter). But he just...
INSKEEP: Nevertheless, he's got multiple homes in multiple parts of the world, even before that.
STEINBERGER: He does. He is a - he lives a very distinctive lifestyle. He's single, no children. He's involved in several concurrent long-term relationships. One Palantir colleague described him as, quote-unquote, "geographically monogamous" (laughter). He owns a lot of homes, many of them chosen for their proximity to cross-country skiing trails. I think he's up to around 20 different properties at this point.
INSKEEP: Help me understand what feels like a contradiction. He is standing up for American values as he sees them, standing up for American culture and Western culture and maybe a little more traditional idea of values, and yet he has all these different homes. He doesn't have anything like a traditional family. He moves around continuously to the point where people close to him think he's fleeing from something. And even when you go to what is supposedly his main residence, it feels like a corporate apartment. It doesn't seem that he lives anywhere.
STEINBERGER: No, and he's on the road all the time. He is - he rarely spends more than a night or two in one place. One of his colleagues said to me - you know, Karp has always said that he has to do this. He has to go see clients. He has to go see Palantirians, as they're called, wherever they work. But one of his colleagues did say to me it feels like the guy is running from something, and he likes solitude.
INSKEEP: Michael Steinberger is the author of "The Philosopher In The Valley" about Alex Karp and Palantir. Thanks so much.
STEINBERGER: Thank you for having me.
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