Palantir CEO Slams Silicon Valley's "Engineering Elites" Social Justice Warriors
Somehow, we missed this little easter egg buried in Palantir's S-1, which was released Tuesday afternoon. In what was titled a "Letter from Palantir's Chief Executive Officer", Palantir's CEO Alex Karp lambasted Silicon Valley's monolithic progressive culture ensconced within companies like Google-owner Alphabet, where employees have rebelled against the company's work for the DoJ. In the letter, Karp defended Palantir's government work, and challenged the Silicon Valley "elite" to try thinking for themselves for once, instead of kowtowing to every progressive whim. "The engineering elite of Silicon Valley may know more than most about building software. But they do not know more about how society should be organized or what justice requires," Karp wrote. Palantir's decision on who to hire are among the most deliberative decisions made at the company, and Karp insisted that its hiring is geared around one principle: "the creation of effective software," a prerogative upon which "our welfare and security depend". Karp shared Palantir's strategy of "flexible" leadership, and insisted it has helped the company tamp down on preening managers and egotistical "producers" who actually contribute little to the final product.
Karp directly takes American tech behemoths to task for their sanctimonious moralizing after they deliberately misled the American people about the true nature of their business models. Our company was founded in Silicon Valley. But we seem to share fewer and fewer of the technology sector’s values and commitments. From the start, we have repeatedly turned down opportunities to sell, collect, or mine data. Other technology companies, including some of the largest in the world, have built their entire businesses on doing just that. Software projects with our nation’s defense and intelligence agencies, whose missions are to keep us safe, have become controversial, while companies built on advertising dollars are commonplace. Finally, the letter directly addressed the company's reputation as being on the innovative cutting edge of surveillance and spyware. In a triumph of form and function, the most impactful part of the letter arrives at the conclusion, where Karp sets forth a new principle that clarifies the relationship between "the public" and its new technology overlords in Silicon Valley. The world’s largest consumer internet companies have never had greater access to the most intimate aspects of our lives. And the advance of their technologies has outpaced the development of the forms of political control that are capable of governing their use. The bargain between the public and the technology sector has for the most part been consensual, in that the value of the products and services available seemed to outweigh the invasions of privacy that enabled their rise. Americans will remain tolerant of the idiosyncrasies and excesses of the Valley only to the extent that technology companies are building something substantial that serves the public interest. The corporate form itself — that is, the privilege to engage in private enterprise — is a product of the state and would not exist without it. Our software is used to target terrorists and to keep soldiers safe. If we are going to ask someone to put themselves in harm’s way, we believe that we have a duty to give them what they need to do their job. We have chosen sides, and we know that our partners value our commitment. We stand by them when it is convenient, and when it is not.
Karp doesn't make himself widely available to the press or the public, which is one reason this letter is so important. Read the entire letter.
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/palantir-ceo-slams-silicon-valleys-engineering-elites-social-justice-warriors
CEO Letter:
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1321655/000119312520230013/d904406ds1.htm#rom904406_3