There is some question about whether Alex Karp is putting on a “Mad Scientist” act to make Palantir intimidating, or is he on drugs, or is this his authentic persona? His approach strikes me as representing the approach of an A-plus moron: someone who has a high IQ but acts foolishly — what I’ve previously called “A-plus Moron”. His company is the leading military-intelligence contractor that did/does:
Israel’s military and intelligence AI, conducted surveillance and targeting in Gaza, as depicted by Naza the film
ICE / DHS: Surveillance and targeting
US Army: $10 billion contract
Maven Smart Systems: $1.3 billion. “battlefield intelligence”
IRS / Treasury: $1.5. Mega API unified internal database
CDC/HHS: $443 million: disease surveillance
USDA: $300 million: farmland management and food supply chain security, SNAP fraud detection.
UK: £800 million: National Health Service
Ukraine: battlefield intelligence and targeting
An example of A-plus Moron-style thinking is proposing that it would be a victory to engage in a nuclear war which would result in 10 million Americans surviving, while only 10,000 Russians survive.
Another example is an advanced technical solution that ignores history or morality.
Here are a few Alex Karp clips which show naked American arrogance:
Alex Karp tells the journalists what they should ask him.
Wildly Celebrating Investor Success
46 min: Is this the purest statement of Trumpian American Empire?
QUESTIONS:
What do think of Alex Karp’s persona? To what do you attribute his frenetic behavior?
Do you agree with Karps’s description of how Palantir helps working class white men?
Do you believe that the USA is a superior culture that must maintain its dominance so that it is not ruled by its adversaries? (NYTimes ~ 43 min)
What effect do you think dyslexia has had on him? (NYTimes ~40 min)