Palantir CEO Alex Karp on the Zero-Sum AI Race

0:00We were the freak show, and we spent 20 years for this moment. We're doing it. We're doing it. And I'm sure you're enjoying this as much as I am. I just got three things to say. God bless our troops. God bless America. God bless America. God bless America. God bless America. We are the power that actually has the decisive vote. And that is with military superiority. If Silicon Valley believes we are going to take away everyone's white collar job, if you're the most important thing Palantir is doing is to make sure that American war fighters are much more likely to come out. If we are going to outperform the rest of the world, our single advantage is... There is a version of Silicon Valley that believes it operates outside

1:00of geopolitics. That the products it builds are neutral. That the rules of great power competition don't apply to software companies. Alex Carp has spent 20 years arguing the opposite. As co-founder and CEO of Palantir, he has built technology deployed on battlefields across the Middle East and analytics infrastructure embedded in the Department of War. What has changed in the past year is harder to dismiss. American operations have demonstrated a level of precision and dominance that adversaries did not anticipate. Carp argues that is not an accident. His warning to the rest of the industry is equally direct. If AI companies don't make common cause with the defense establishment, nationalization becomes the politically obvious move. This conversation with Alex Carp, co-founder and CEO of Palantir, was recorded at the A16Z American Dynamism Summit in Washington, D.C.

2:01Dr. Carp, it is a pleasure to finally have the OG American Dynamism founder on stage with us at the 4th Annual Summit. I think, gosh, if we had this... Can we do this? Like that? Yes. I think if we... I think we have... I don't get that there's a gang science. No, I think we all got the reference. Medi's in the audience. He doesn't get that much. He's like, huh, what is that? This is going to be a great conversation. So I think if we had this conversation 72 hours ago, it would have been very different. But of course, there's been a lot of news. And so I want to get straight to the news and what's happening in the world because Palantir is certainly part of that story. So over the weekend, the U.S. and Israel bombed Iran and Operation Epic Fury, Iatola, how many is dead? The Middle East is now at war. What do you think the situation means for the future of the West? Something you talk a lot about in the future of America? Well, first of all, I'm delighted to be on stage with you. And for many of you in this audience, by the way, I've been talking so much. I'm kind of losing my voice. I wouldn't have probably canceled on anyone but you, but... That means that we're glad you're here. I love to cancel, by the way, for those of you, because it's my favorite thing,

3:04because actually I'm an introvert. Any excuse to cancel, as Palantirians know it. But yeah, you've been such a force in public and behind the scenes for, I think, helping people in the broadly speaking defense tech or let America wins or things are good, broadly defined. And then we also align on something we could talk about later on, like the importance of not putting our youth in straight jackets because they're divergent neurologically, which is a passion of mine. It should be a passion of everyone since you could define our wonderful and great country as a country where everyone who was divergent in ideology, thought, religion, or quite frankly, neurologically came to this country to have a better place where they could express their freedom and had the right to express what they thought. And there's a deep link between expressing what you think publicly and privately, first and fourth amendment, and being able to think it, and if that doesn't work,

4:05being able to defend it with the Second Amendment. And last, not least, our founders did not structure these rights the way they are in, say, where I live for a lot of my life in Germany, as rights granted to us by other bureaucrats. They're given to us, they're inalienable from a higher being. And I would just say before I get into how the world changed, we have American war fighters on the battlefield willing to sacrifice their lives, some of whom have sacrificed their lives. They have families and kids, the kids and families don't know if their loved ones are coming home. And we know in this room, but we should publicly, privately support them and people who are not aware or somehow so effing spoiled that they don't realize what these people do for us, we should publicly humiliate them. And everyone has a role in that. And especially those of us who are writing a crest of intergenerational, cultural, intellectual, courage, advantage, which it is to be an American

5:11nowadays, obviously, should not forget the war fighter who are disproportionately from the middle of our country and disproportionately have gotten screwed. And I'm proud, very proud that at Palantir, we get arrows and people, I mean, half the people attacking us, it'd be good if they spent two minutes on Wikipedia at least learning the talking points they're regurgitating. But, you know, there's some legitimate criticisms of any company, but at the end of the day, the fact is the most important thing Palantir is doing, then I other people in this room are doing and people like you and other people, adjacent or ancillary to building more lethal and deadly weapons, is to make sure that American war fighters are much more likely to come home. And quite frankly, the people who are trying to harm them know that they won't be coming home. And

6:12that's the way you stop people from attacking us, in my opinion, and then on the kind of the leading up to what's going on. But I think that there are probably people in this room who are wildly supportive and they're people who aren't. It is hard to deny that America is exerting a deterrent capability that was eviscerated. You can like, or not like, that's different than ignoring, we now have a deterrent capability that no other country appears to have. And that is, for lots of reasons, and obviously the war fighter, people organize the war fighter generals, the leadership, the president, but one advantage that often gets overlooked for reasons that make no sense is war fighting is technology. I spent half my life in Germany for familiar reasons, and then I wrote my PhD there. And then the rise of America after World War II, the recent America

7:16was able to win World War II, were technological advantages. And if you look what happened in Operation United Hammer, what happened in Venezuela, what's so far happening in Iran, you see one society just totally dominating. That's our society. Now you could get into, I mean, always in fights with my intellectual friends about, they're like, but wouldn't it be better to have a law-based system where everyone is equal? Yeah, sure, in theory. But in this world, it's us or China or Russia. Yeah. And I don't know how you guys feel about those decisions, but I literally believe we're doing the work of a higher purpose by making sure, not just for America, but for the whole world, that we are the power that actually has the decisive vote. And there is only one way to do that. And that is with military superiority. And when I say military superiority, I don't mean that we're arguing on a PowerPoint. It means, so now you get

8:17to what is technology done. Now again, I think whenever people like me are talking about this, you can't say enough that it's the warfighter and their courage. And I'm not doing that. I'm sitting here. And we have Palestinians all over, like I'm talking to them constantly. So they're putting themselves in harm's way. And I am kind of, but not directly. It's mostly all the people who yell at me. And I guess maybe there are some people who want to shoot at me. But in the lifetime of volunteer, there's been the rise of software, which essentially meant your software company that is supplying a stake dinner. This obviously parasitic is not cutting it. Those companies are being eviscerated. The rise of defense tech. And now you have a hybrid software hardware AI, where you really need all three. Interestingly, from an investment perspective, I would say the last company standing before we all have to salute the overlord of the LM will be pound here. But it's mainly we're going to get into that promise. Mainly because it's the

9:17specificity of and the security and the orchestration. But none of that has to make any sense to anyone in this room. I'll tell you what, it makes a lot of sense to our adversaries right now. How is America doing this? Now again, it's specialized ways. It's 25, 30 years of experience in fighting. It's meritocracy. The Department of War is the most meritocratic environment. It integrated in Korea before our society did. It is the most popular institution and most revered institution and probably the only institution in America that is actually revered by the American people across every demographic. And it's revered by the American people across every demographic precisely because it's been meritocratic. If you were a black American, you got your break in America by going to the military. If you wanted to be treated fairly and you were from a group that you felt that every demographic has somebody who is in the military whose life was changed and it

10:19did something noble and wonderful for America. They also have the experience of coming home in America not sticking up for them. We should change that. Now you get to Silicon Valley. My one message for, and again, I'm without getting in specific people or because I'm like, if Silicon Valley believes we are going to take away everyone's white collar job, meaning primarily democratic shaped people, whom I grew up with, highly educated people who went to elite schools or went to schools that are almost elite who vote for one party. And you're going to screw the military. If you don't think that's going to lead to nationalization of our technology, you're retarded. And you might be particularly retarded because you have a 160 IQ. But this is where that path is going. Like you cannot have technologies that simultaneously take away everyone's job. And then be perceived. Again, there's a lot of subtlety here behind behind the curtain. I've been

11:25heavily involved in that subtlety. What can be where it can be deployed? What can be deployed? There's a difference between US military and surveillance. And despite what everyone thinks about here is the anti-surveillance company. I know your person online thinks that's not true, but every technical expert does. So I end up in every conversation that I don't want to be in. But the danger for our industry is that America, you get a famous horseshoe effect, where there's only one thing people agree on. And that's that this is not paying the bills and our industry should be nationalized. And so the societal benefit that is going on in Iran, besides the fact that I think I suspect the Iranian people feel like finally someone's on my side. And it wasn't the Berkeley faculty that was supposed to like me. It's a big lesson for you. But then as America,

12:27we, and the people who are prominent in the tech industry, we have to find a way to make sure that we're not just popular in Palo Alto. Yeah. I want to get back to something you just said, which is that it's either us winning or China winning or Russia winning or another country, that it's a zero-sum game. And it feels like the people in this room in Washington really understand that AI is zero-sum. But that Silicon Valley doesn't. Silicon Valley doesn't like to think in terms of zero-sum. They like to think that everything is a positive-sum game. So how would you explain to the people in Silicon Valley who are, again, building the LLMs, building what they would say as a brand new, net new technology that hasn't existed before and therefore needs to be treated differently. What would you say to them about that? Well, I mean, there's, personally, it's, by the way, I just want to push back slightly. They do think it's zero-sum. They think it's zero-sum versus each other. So like they absolutely are fighting. There will be, like, you know, it's my own rhetoric. If I happen to think it's true, it's going to be chips, ontology, and I suspect in the end, one and a half providers. So they pretend they don't think

13:30it's zero-sum, but then ask them how they feel about their competitor. So it's very, very, I mean, these people are fighting very, very hard for the dominant position. So like what they don't understand is in the world, it's zero-sum. But I actually think the primary issue in the valley is it's going to be zero-sum vis-a-vis you when America decides that, okay, I interact with a lot of political figures. I have a lot of respect. I think in summer, when politicians figure out this is the one winning issue, it is going to be zero-sum. It's going to be your money and your company being zero-sum nationalized. So that's the part they don't understand. Helping people understand that, you know, either we set the rules or de facto, like I'm much more, I'm much more on America should be strong so that we don't have to worry about the enemies, then our enemies are evil kind of thing. So I'm not super neocon. It seems to be very hard in this culture as someone who's lived

14:31abroad a lot of my life. It's very hard in this culture to explain to people that were in a competitive environment because things here are so good, they don't understand how different it will be and how much we will change and how much the pressure will be on America, not just legally, but militarily and culturally, if we fall behind. And one of the things that, again, it's so I personally think the better way to get people to change is to bring people like that to Iowa, bring them to DC and explain to our American political leadership why you make $100 million and why a soldier from Iowa can't explain to his wife he has the best technology. And then go across the hall, so let's classically Republican shape, then go across the hall and talk to progressive Democrats about how everyone of their constituencies not going to have a job. And then leave and imagine what's going to happen to you. You know the funny thing about those

15:33of us who've spent most of our life abroad like in Germany or to a phenomenal culture, we have a much better sense of how fragile this experiment is America. It could go wrong and it will go wrong if all wealth is going to a small number of people and those people do not appear to be on side. Now that perception might is obviously a caricature. It is a caricature in the sense this is new technology and you're not going to be able to use the same kind of framework and you're going to need people who appreciate how it's different. And there are real questions about Fourth Amendment protections like our right to privacy. What is privacy in a world where you could impute what someone's doing at home through technology? How do you protect our right to have our own thoughts, our own ideas, our own practices at home, our own health records? Those are real issues when the technology can also help you to be healthier, live longer, have a higher economic status potentially certainly if you're a vocational worker. But so those issues have to be unpacked and

16:37where Silicon Valley is right is you're going to need a forum to talk about that that doesn't pretend at large language models is the same thing as machine learning is the same thing as software is the same thing as a bullet. They're not. But de facto I very much believe as a critique of the like economic elite especially in the technical area there's there's like to use an economic a kind of overly economic philosophical term they reify meaning they turn it into a thing our rights but those rights you know when I was in Germany I was there and there were I spent a lot of time I did a PhD but I you know there are a lot of older Germans and I would spend time with them in the countryside in the city of course they they didn't know anybody he was a Nazi in the countryside they're like we're all Nazis so I would ask them but one of the more fascinating

17:40conversations is why they became Democrats or not like left right but capital and it was always because it worked and then the unwinding of it that we don't ask if it unwinds you know are it will we will not be protected and it it's just the dialogue we have currently is not acknowledging what's going to happen politically what is happening politically the the wealth tax is a derivative of this because everyone knows the wealth tax isn't going to help the poor it's just going to fuck the rich and that's enough to get it done and if if that's happening just imagine what's going to happen when it's like there's going to be 50 unlikeable people with all the money anybody here like that and you guys are doing well yeah no I want to get back to to kind of the conversation about how how we ensure that the Department of War continues to lead on AI because I think this has been top of mind for everyone in the room for the last 48 hours our adversaries are looking at you know contracting wars that are playing out and press releases you know what is your

18:45view on how we can ensure that we win this AI race against the PRC if you if you're giving advice to all the founders and CEOs of you know the well the first thing part of what I'm doing and what part of isn't I mean besides your charm and importance what part of is going to be here is I want my reputation in the valve every you always have reputations my reputation which I'm not even saying the reputation is true but in my case like I'm viewed as the batshit crazy guy who is often telling you something you don't want to hear and you may not like but is probably right and that's true so yeah and that's why I want you to send this first step we have to they're not understanding the stakes and what I nothing's going to happen until people understand the stakes this will affect you now then the question is like what Hollywood did is Hollywood got together the whole rating system was Hollywood realized if we don't do rating ratings

19:46Washington's going to and Washington is going to butcher it and it's even say Washington doesn't want to butcher it but like it doesn't understand the Metier so the first step is everybody and I'm already on the phone with people saying okay great I understand your issue but you realize the wolves are at the gate and they already are of tasted blood yeah uh the second step is we have to find ways where we get together and say okay like if you just want to go through the issues yes there are you know using technologies in the context of eviscerating it a fourth amendment rights in America is a is something left and right in this country actually don't want it's a caricature to believe that either side wants it there are people on the honestly I mean private rooms there are people on the left who don't care about these issues who pretend to do it in public but there are people and there are people on the right who pretend not to care who do care both parties have significant coalitions and the American people cares care and it's in our

20:51constitution but then you have to get be very granular about what's going to happen on the battlefield because they're the two issues Americans care about are their prosperity and their safety so if the if if the two things that Silicon Valley has to figure out is what are we going to how are we going to ethically talk about what's going to happen to our economy in my view you have you could create a lot of prosperity with trade shaped people uh okay but what is going to happen to the white collar workers and what are we going to do that that's one issue and then we we're not going to agree but we have to have something like we're going to do these initiatives just like Hollywood dude and then you're going to have to have a discussion on the battlefield where you know the rebuttable presumption meaning it doesn't happen is that the we are going to do the maximal amount to make sure our warfighters come home safely and if you are sitting in Silicon Valley

21:56making an argument that somehow would eviscerate that or conversely you're not able to understand what Silicon Valley saying meaning there's going to have to be a medium without going into details on all these breakdowns because I was in the middle of it and I want to stay in the middle of it there are substantive issues and there are cultural issues if we could get rid of the cultural misunderstanding we could get pretty close to agreements here yeah but you're dealing with worlds that never ever ever talk yes and don't have an ability to talk to each other yeah well and you've been building a bridge between these cultures for 20 years I mean that's what's so interesting I mean that's in some ways why we have this conference is to bring together people who speak two different languages very different value sets and try to get them aligned I love your advice for these founders who maybe are new you know it's sort of like that meme the first time meme with the Cohen Brothers film you know where it's like a lot of these people are having their first conversations with the Department of War or they don't or they maybe they don't have any family in the military maybe they never met a warfighter what is your advice to some of these CEOs who are maybe new to these conversations that you've been having for for 20 years now well the best thing

23:00you could do is go to Iowa or go to a base and have a comment like I don't think look this way maybe the first time it's probably not PGA but you know I'm happily not married not divorced so don't follow how I live but you don't have to maybe if you're gonna meet somebody you really want to impress it maybe not maybe you have an advantage if it's your third girlfriend or boyfriend not your first like go have a conversation with somebody like if you're going to meet a general or somebody like that and you've never talked to somebody who's actually done something on the battlefield or someone who has family who's done something on the battlefield and you don't have any and because of that you don't have an ability to emphasize with their perspective that's probably a huge mistake and I it's probably going to backfire last second though you have to be honest to where about where your aptitude is like you know Silicon Valley tech builders broadly defined hardware software

24:06AI I would say we build in the military context essentially software scaffolding much more like in a weird way more like hardware software but it's in software managing LLMs it is the single biggest mistake people make in this area is because they're intelligent in one area they assume they're intelligent in all areas and a big failure mechanism in the valley is every valley person is forced to present as if they're the smartest in all areas at all time and that's like if you don't know who the mark is you're the mark yeah like if you think you're the smartest but so I'm dyslexic and I think one of the reasons I've done so well is I do think I'm one of the better people at certain things at least I believe it and I know I'm not and everything it's a very small it's like but a failure mode for the valley is I'm the smartest on every issue I for example I need to be the

25:07person negotiating this contract yeah what if you have no aptitude for that just because you can do X does not mean you've imputed high aptitude at Y in fact it's very unlikely it's true yeah it's almost certain that you're just not smart enough to realize how bad you are that's probably one of the most important lessons for for company builders in the room I actually I want to end the conversation on Palantir is the OG American dynamism company I think a lot of our founders in this room are indebted they've worked for you they've you know built their playbooks inside of Palantir they built new companies that you know are are epic in their own right but they started at Palantir in many cases and so I want to dive into you brought up the neurodivergent fellowship it's one of my favorite things you've ever done you've done a lot of great things but I think it's it's one of the most extraordinary stands that you've taken in the company but you've always looked for people who are different and somehow cultivated them and brought together people who are Democrats Republicans on the right on the left people who are of all walks of life how do you lead such a diverse group

26:08of people especially at scale like at the scale you are well I mean it's always hard to know when you're reason like I I view myself as an artist so you're really it's like well how do you create the art and it's funny because I mean I look I I like the freedom money gives me and I certainly don't want to like do some bullshit philanthropy to prove that I'm good when because I just something bad because I think what we do is very important but it's like at the end of the day it's like an artistic thing but you know I had it's always helpful I had my parents are among the most talented people I've ever met and I feel they don't agree with me that you know like they should have they could like it's kind of weird I'm so famous put it that way from and I

27:08I and I then there's the American thing where we are I really believe in the magical liberating in Aloeville right for all of us to be individuals and that's what I see as particularly moral and special in the world I don't like these things that like I've been famously anti woke but in the thing I find offensive about it is actually that it's people pretending to be different while all being the same and so I don't like so I tend to gravitate towards people who are unique and yeah I don't really care their politics I care about like their ability to think and do there is an aptitude thing where can you recognize somebody who is truly unique in something you've not done yourself is just something you're born with I do you think it's a form of neurodivergence like outlier IQ is it the a certain way it's not that different than being autistic like you just

28:12can't you're not going to you're not going to decompa problem the way somebody who is just normal smart will and I find that very very charismatic the trick to doing it is you have to it's this very hard thing where somebody who is the best I I believe the Palantirians while manage a Palantir and sometimes in many in most cases presumably after a Palantir I am helping them to express something that only they can do at that moment and if you look at our products and what we've done it is actually true even what we're doing in in like right now it all across the Middle East and obviously in America each single product at each single part was built by the one person in the world that could have done it but that and then I have to somehow get them to do things that they don't actually think are valuable but on their terms and that's basically my job because at that level of aptitude you can't just say do this idiot because they're like why would I do that you're the

29:14idiot and so and and then what I think is very special about the Palantirians ex-Palantirians and current Palantirians is when you're at Palantir you're not learning to to actually follow my playbook you're learning to follow your playbook where I'm inserting some things that may not have occurred to maybe don't know I'm doing that to make sure that your playbook gets rid of your dyslexia basically I'm anti-dyslexifying your playbook it but around you and if you take like the I don't know there's so many really important ex-Palantirians what you'll see is they're a kind of classic people and they're not going to build the same company Palantir was they're also not going to build the same company of the ex-Personalist Palantir and that's why they play such a disproportionate role and at the end of the day that's why Palantir is like playing such a big role because like Foundry, PG, Apollo, Ontology, the management of Ontology, Maven which is like you know we've just like

30:20been able to target in a way no other country can was like the other countries are like what happened here like we were thinking of Afghanistan like what is this meaning our retreat like meaning and like like America has reestablished deterrence that actually just happened it's happened in the last year like that right left center you I don't care what party you're in in private obviously you can't say this in public in private that is a phenomenal asset that America now has that it not have and there are lots of reasons for it but a one maybe not the most important is a concatenation of the most unusual in some cases otherwise maybe not fully functional talent built around building something that was it absolutely scandalous unpopular dream rejected by many people called Maven and that's how this country by the way if we are going to outperform the rest of the world

31:21our single advantage is to augment neurodivergent it highly individual people to be their absolute unique best and protect their first second fourth and fifth amendment rights so that they don't get screwed yeah absolutely well again the OG American dynamism founder thank you so much for all you've done for the country thank you thanks for listening to this episode of the A16Z podcast if you like this episode be sure to like comment subscribe leave us a rating or review and share it with your friends and family or more episodes go to youtube apple podcast and Spotify follow us on x a a16z and subscribe to our sub stack at a16z.substac.com thanks again for listening and I'll see you in the next episode as a reminder the content here is for informational purposes only should not be taken as legal business tax or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any A16z

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