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Alex Karp is a polarizing founder of Palantir Technologies. This interview shares his early story.
Tags: #Palantir #PLTR #PalantirVision
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Karp argues that data analysis software can simultaneously enhance national security against terrorism and cyber threats while protecting civil liberties through transparent, traceable data handling and predicate-based search rather than broad algorithmic data mining.
- Palantir's predicate-based approach makes government data access transparent and traceable, unlike algorithmic data mining which casts wide nets catching innocent citizens
- Civil liberties and counterterrorism are not contradictory—the same transparency used to find terrorists can be used to ensure government doesn't abuse its data access
- Americans will only support counterterrorism efforts if they believe their civil liberties are protected; democracies lose wars when citizens don't believe in what they're fighting for
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The 9/11 Commission identified collaboration failures between agencies (CIA and FBI) as a key reason the attacks succeeded; Palantir solves part of this problem by providing technical infrastructure that allows agencies to share data while respecting classification levels and access controls.
“one of the big findings in 911 Commission why weren't people able to collaborate people tend to focus on the policy issues but there are also massive technical issues that had to be solved and solved in a way where you can just install it we do that”
Palantir's core value proposition is making large data sets intelligible to human analysts, which is 'a very hard thing to do at scale'—the technical challenge is enabling individuals to perceive and act on patterns that are invisible at massive scale.
“the compelling business idea is uh if you want to make data if you want to interact with data in a way that's intelligible to you so the data that's around you and you're the government it's a very hard thing to do it scale”
Cyber threats are permanent and will persist for the rest of America's existence; as each defensive mechanism is found, attackers find a workaround, creating an endless arms race.
“as long as we have computers that are turned on there will be people that penetrate them every time we find a way to block them they'll find a way in the danger is is real and it's going to be with us the rest of our life”
Cyber espionage has been democratized: what previously required large governmental organizations can now be executed by 'teenagers in a basement with a computer,' making attribution difficult and creating scenarios where a president cannot respond because it is unclear who the actor is.
“the democratization of spy techniques so in this 80s and the 70s only large governments could pull off spy operations now teenagers in the basement with a computer can pull off a spy operation and it's very unclear if it's them or someone else”
The core civil liberties challenge in government data access is not whether government has data (it will accumulate large datasets regardless) but how that data is used: whether it is used lawfully and whether it is prevented from being migrated from one authorized purpose to an unauthorized use.
“the central question in my view of civil liberties is how it's not if the government has data because let's assume the government has as much data as a health insurance company it's how is that data being used is it being used in a way that's lawful meaning do they have the right to use it and is it being migrated into places it's not allowed to be used”
Academic work, while dealing with important ideas, has limited real-world impact because it is typically understood by only 30-40 people in the world, which motivated Karp to transition from academia into business.
“Academia is that it's more interesting to the people in it than it is to anyone else uh you know and uh the impact yes you end up fighting about small things that may be fairly unimportant to other people and I I thought that while the ideas were important that the actual impact they were going to have was was going to be very small I mean the kind of work I I I did was intelligible to probably 30 40 people in the world”
Simple algorithmic data mining fails against sophisticated adversaries because algorithms are static and terrorists are entrepreneurial: terrorists learn how they were caught and adapt their patterns immediately, so defense requires people who are flexible, agile, and can anticipate adversary tactics rather than applying pre-programmed rules.
“the simple reason why simple data mining doesn't work even leaving aside the moral issues it raises is it uses a static algorithm against a non-static and highly entrepreneurial uh adversary that would be the terrorist that's the terrorist and and so what you need to do is have a platform that allows you to interact with the data and see the patterns before they realize they're giving off the patterns”
Building complex products requires hiring people who 'live and breathe' the problem over long periods of time; such people cannot be motivated primarily by paychecks but must be motivated by compelling ideas. This is why venture capital's willingness to fund three years of development with no revenue is crucial to producing world-class software.
“if you want something to really work something really complicated you cannot hire people who are motivated by a paycheck they have to live and breathe it they have to do it over a long period of time”
Attribution in cyber attacks is exceptionally difficult because digital intrusions leave no physical trace (fingerprint, handprint, hair, or photograph) that unambiguously identifies the attacker, unlike physical crime scenes.
“it's very unclear if it's them or someone else and the diagnostic you use is very very complicated it's not like someone breaks into your home they leave a footprint or a handprint or they leave a hair behind or you take a picture of them it's very very tough to find out who they are”
Democracies succeed in warfare and security challenges when citizens believe in what they are defending and lose when they perceive a trade-off between civil liberties and security; therefore, for America to win a cyber warfare conflict, the public must understand that it's possible to fight threats without surrendering civil liberties.
“Democracies tend to win when the country Gets behind it we are kind of the greatest democracy in the world and we tend to win Wars where the people believe in what they're doing where the people think that there's a trade-off between civil liberties and fighting cyber terrorists it's going to be very hard to win”
Karp argues that Palantir found a group living in a village in Iraq was responsible for most of the insurgent attacks and most of the funding in Iraq, which is 'highly actionable information' because it reveals that the threat comes from a single concentrated source.
“we took a data set that lots of people looked at some of the world's experts and we found that there was a group of people that lived in a village that was responsible for most of the attacks in Iraq and we found out they were responsible for most of the money and most of the attacks now that's very valuable and highly actionable information if you know if you know all the real attacks are coming from One Source there's a lot you can do about that”
Cyber attacks on major organizations and critical infrastructure are occurring today with high frequency, and smaller-scale attacks are happening constantly; many organizations are unaware they have been compromised.
“you have what are probably bands of teenagers taking down major organizations these are highly talented highly motivated that's happening today or that the potential to do that is there if what we found with the dalama and our other kind of Open Source operations uh is indicative of what's out there it's out there it exists today there are many cases where we don't know it's happening”
Terrorists and sophisticated adversaries are highly talented, entrepreneurial people drawn from the same pools (top universities and schools) that produce legitimate entrepreneurs; therefore, America's advantage is not that its people are smarter but that it 'works better together' and is 'more likely to be compelled by a big idea and put monetization second.'
“they're nevertheless maybe the most interesting talented people of their society it's the same place we get our entrepreneurs the best schools the best minds or people are just good at something that's very valuable”
Silicon Valley and America more broadly are likely to maintain world leadership in software development because American software products excel not because they are American but because they are 'the best,' and this is enabled by Silicon Valley's unique ability to build businesses around compelling ideas first and figure out monetization later.
“in your judgment and America's leadership in creating software I I think software is probably an area where America will continue to lead I think sou silon Valley will be at the tip of that of that movement uh it's it's it's the place we've Excel that think of the software products you like to use your audience likes to use it they're mostly American and they don't use it because it's built in America they use it because it's the best”
In the case of the Dalai Lama's organization, Palantir discovered that it had been infiltrated by one of the world's most sophisticated and largest cyber networks, indicating that even high-profile organizations with significant security are vulnerable to advanced persistent threats.
“when we looked at the Dal Lama um a case which got a lot of public attention we partnered with citizen lab in Canada and um we discovered that the Dal llama had been infiltrated by one of the world's most sophisticated and uh uh uh largest uh cyber networks”
Palantir uses a 'predicate-based search' approach rather than algorithmic data mining: instead of running algorithms across large datasets to find suspicious patterns, analysts specify a person or entity of interest and then examine what data in the system relates to them, making the search process transparent and traceable.
“the approach that was used at PayPal was essentially an anti- datam mining approach it was anti-am mining in the sense that data mining uses algorithms across large data sets and what we do is we use what legal Scholars call a predicate based to search so we would look at you and then we would go out and say oh there's lots of different things in your life that may be indicative of someone being someone involved in bad behavior but it would also be very clear how the government looked at you”
The ability to distinguish whether government looked at someone because they were engaged in bad behavior (legitimate investigation) versus looked at someone arbitrarily (civil liberties violation) requires making the investigative reasoning transparent and auditable—showing how the government arrived at targeting a specific person.
“it's a very clear what the government is doing and how they're doing it...when the government is looking at you or me it's clear that they're looking at you and me for a reason if they bring a case against us what is the case where did the evidence come from did it come from sources they were allowed to see did they migrate from the the source of one evid of a piece of evidence into another source these are the kind of questions that that Americans care a lot about”
Post-9/11, Karp believed Silicon Valley should be involved in fighting terrorism while protecting civil liberties, and that data analysis using an approach different from traditional data mining could achieve both objectives by making data intelligible to humans and ensuring transparency about government actions.
“post 911 I think the idea again it was Silicon Valley ought to be involved in in in fighting terrorism protecting our civil liberties um and uh and you know terrorism is asymmetric asymmetry presupposed software because you're finding needles and hay stacks actually using an approach that's not exactly like data mining was a critique on some of the data mining approaches uh that had been used at PayPal”
Hiring salespeople would weaken Palantir's business model; instead, Palantir succeeds by exposing clients directly to the product and asking them to compare it to alternatives, which works because the product quality is strong enough to sell itself without intermediaries.
“even when we went to Market we didn't hire sales we still don't have salespeople we have no salespeople working for us at paler we sell the product by exposing clients to it and saying compare us to what you have”
Palantir can help organizations detect if they have been infiltrated by analyzing patterns of data exfiltration, and in cases of attribution uncertainty, can help narrow down the likely location or organization of attackers even when their identity remains unclear.
“what we do is we help people like we did with the Dal Lama figure out if you actually have been infiltrated so what kind of data is leaving and they had been they had been and in a massive way but then two we say these people are likely to actually be this they appear to be teenagers but they are teenagers that are likely being handled by this organization or they actually are teenagers or more likely when you're done with our diagnostic we say we are not sure where who they are but we are sure they are in this building”
Palantir's software is used by various U.S. government agencies including the CIA, FBI, and NYPD, as well as by hedge funds and other financial firms.
“the company's data mining software is used by various government agencies in the United States including the CIA FBI and NYPD is also used by hedge funds and other Financial firms”
Karp studied Stanford Law followed by a PhD in neoclassical social philosophy from Frankfurt, which he characterizes as 'a fancy way of saying a quick path to being unemployed' but was motivated by passion for important philosophical and civil liberty issues rather than financial gain.
“Stanford law wasn't it it was Stanford law uh and then and then you went to Frankfurt then I went to Frankfurt and got PhD neoc classical uh social philosophy which is a fancy way of saying a quick path to being unemployed”
Palantir named itself after the seeing stones from Lord of the Rings because the Palantír allowed the forces of good to communicate and see vast distances, and similarly Palantir's product allows users to see patterns in large databases while not seeing things they are not allowed to see, addressing civil liberties concerns.
“why did you name it paner after the seeing stones in The Lord of the Rings yes the the for those of you who had a social life in in in high school you may not realize what this what Cal here is for those of us who didn't have a social life you immediately jumps out at you as the seeing St in in Lord of the Rings um and uh they allowed the the West to communicate or the forces of good to communicate and see into vast distances and we thought uh it was a fitting name for a product that allows you to see into large databases but doesn't allow you to see things you're not allowed to see”
Palantir was founded with Peter Thiel and other co-founders (not named in excerpt) after Karp reconnected with Thiel, building on Karp's earlier work and ideas about applying technology to important problems.
“and then I reconnected with Peter uh Peter te Peter teal um and uh we began along with a couple other guys to build this company and while there you had the idea for paler yeah”
Karp developed a venture capital-style business model identifying talented people who were good at making money but bad at getting paid, and taught them how to monetize their abilities fairly while building companies around them.
“well it turned out I had a a facility for I was pretty good at making money and um I was very bad at getting paid so I basically turned the ability to make money and get paid into a business where I look for other people who are good at making money and bad at getting paid and I taught them how to make money quicker and to get paid fairly”