From Philosophy PHD to Palantir CEO: Alex Karp's Unconventional Path

00:00You went to law school and you got a PhD in philosophy. Why why law school and philosophy? >> I mean, law school was I I thought I could actually help people with a law degree. What I discovered quickly is hard to help people if you have no interest in what you're doing. So, [laughter] um I that was this weird thing where um a lot in business, one of my theories is a lot of the best decisions happen for the wrong reasons. Like I had a reason for going to law school, it made no sense. Mhm. >> Um I but I spent a lot of time fighting with Peter about political issues and that made a lot of sense. >> Peter Peter Taylor was in your class at law school at Stanford. >> Yeah. And we were in the same dorm and

00:41in the same section and uh we both had um heterogeneous nonconformant views. his leaning to the right, mine more classically, but not completely classically on the left. I spent no time doing anything at there except for reading books and running into people and arguing with them. Peter being the primary one. And so that made a lot later this the Stanford thing really you Stanford is the premier university for tech in the world. It >> it is what connected all of us I guess ultimately in the end. Yeah, >> the [clears throat] Stanford Stanford is a fascinating institution and in and of itself, but it it is the tech university of the world and I didn't think of it that way when I went there. I certainly

01:31was not it was not at all part of my thinking. Um, it also made me think I should go do something I wanted to do because I was unhappy there. And what I wanted to do was write about um basically Germanic post-war thought in in whatever field. I didn't really care that much. But I didn't want to do a PhD in the US because that would have meant doing a master's degree and doing three years of regurgitation. It's like I've already done I've already had a three-year bid. >> Got it. >> Like I don't want to, you know, I've I've escaped my three-year bid. I want to go do what I want to do. Um, and and you ended up studying under Hammer Moss. Was that was he somebody you'd studied previously you were

02:13excited to work with? >> The longer version is I went over the study with him. I was in his colloquium and I and I studied with him. Then we had a falling out and then I finished my PhD with someone else. Um but the not on bad terms it's just I I I discovered while writing my PhD uh that the stakes were very low and the personalities were very difficult and I also discovered partly by in proximity to him but in proximity to other people who were kind of world class. one meeting with Lumman uh watching debates between Habrams and Apo uh people came to the colloquium and Habas that I had certain abilities they didn't have to like be a builder >> and while I was good enough to be in the room with them and argue with them on

03:01where I was a technical expert dedicating myself to reading and writing all day was not what I wanted and they did not seem to understand I I wouldn't have put in these terms cuz I hadn't built anything but they didn't have the right personality for building. >> Yeah. >> Um >> well there's a certain from the business world perspective there's a certain dysfunction to a lot of the smartest academics that they're very good at some things but they can never come out into what we see as the real world. I guess for them that they're in their own real world. >> Yeah this is true. I would say in fairness to people at the level of um like Appel Habas Lumman and others that I ran into Bella came to a speech gave a

03:39speech at Harvard. I think they would have succeeded at anything really there there is a yeah there is a level now maybe it would be have to be low on human management but there are entrepreneurs who are low on human management >> they're just so smart they'd figure they'd iterate and figure it out with their wisdom >> the level of talent that um just take Nicholas Lumman who's wouldn't be for the audience is um probably the most important thinker of social thought post World War II uh wrote more than most of us read in a life um and was developed this kind of theory systems theory which was a way of explaining how humans and systems function that basically is if you were only reading one thing you

04:27would read this this one of the really important things about working with people at that level is you're working with people at that level there's just a way in which the gears are different. And while I don't think they would build or run Palunteer particularly well, I do think that they could materially advance an institution. They might have to have someone below them who could actually interact with the people, but these are people who are just like when we were, you know, building Palry together, our engineers