Caroline Haskins: So one thing happened recently: Palantir had a performance check. And I think this lines up with what you observed, Alex Karp seemed really lively on the earnings call. I think he said it was the best earnings for a software company ever, but apparently the company is hitting nearly $1 billion in revenue for the first time.
It has a top position on the S&P 500. And yet Alex Karp always insists, at least rhetorically, that Palantir, or at least the Palantirians, the employees, are cultural outsiders, underdogs, etc. I was wondering how you see this in the context of the interview, or what you think about the way Alex Karp described it.
Steven Levy: Yes. I asked him about it. I feel like that’s something that cultivates – an outsider mentality. I even linked it to our shared background in Philadelphia, 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 could be Palantir’s motto.
He said, “Look, it’s not fun to be so unpopular, but it’s actually useful for us.” So he admitted that this outsider mentality appeals to him because, he says, “Four out of five people come in and say, ‘Oh man, I don’t want to be unpopular and work for Palantir.’ But the fifth person will say, ‘You know what? That’s pretty interesting.’
At one point he said, “I’m kind of a victim.” This is how he sees himself, even though he’s a billionaire, he has many houses, he lives in this 500-acre estate in rural New Hampshire, but he feels like an outsider. At one point I even told him, “Yes. You seem to be doing quite well, Alex.”