Free Republic

He pointed out that it just because it can happen, that doesn’t mean it will happen. The industry has to make it so. “We have to will it to be, because otherwise we’re going to have deep societal upheavals that I think many in our elite are just really ignoring,” Karp said. The warning is especially notable coming from a leader in the AI field. But Karp has also urged the tech sector to take on bigger problems. Amid the debate about AI’s impact on the workforce, Palantir CEO Alex Karp said the technology can have an overall additive effect,...

“Do you want to see my guns?” he asked. One of Karp’s hobbies is long-range shooting, whose targets fall outside the normal parameters of a firearm, he explained. He struck a stance to show the blend of practice and instinct that combines for the perfect shot. Those fans, Karp said, tend to have been through an experience in their own lives that mirrors the skepticism that greeted Palantir. “I said X, everyone in the establishment said Y, and Y meant X was stupid,” he said. He added: “The Y people essentially are complete bigots, by the way. Please write that...

Palantir Technologies (PLTR.N) has cultivated a powerful mythos worthy of being named for a crystal ball from “The Lord of the Rings.” The data-analysis company co-founded by Peter Thiel and run by Alex Karp fetches a big premium to most of its peers. Financial realities, however, suggest the valuation is the stuff of science fiction. Demand is quickly rising for software using artificial intelligence that can make sense out of voluminous and disparate data to flag suspicious financial transactions or defend against military attacks. Yet Palantir’s top line is only expected to grow 16% this year, according to forecasts gathered...

Since rumors began to spread that a startup called Palantir helped to kill Osama bin Laden, Alex Karp hasn’t had much time to himself. On one sun-baked July morning in Silicon Valley Palantir’s lean 45-year-old chief executive, with a top-heavy mop of frazzled hair, hikes the grassy hills around Stanford University’s massive satellite antennae known as the Dish, a favorite meditative pastime. But his solitude is disturbed somewhat by “Mike,” an ex-Marine–silent, 6 foot 1, 270 pounds of mostly pectoral muscle–who trails him everywhere he goes. Even on the suburban streets of Palo Alto, steps from Palantir’s headquarters, the bodyguard...