Overview
Axel Springer CEO Mathias Döpfner sits down with Palantir CEO Alex Karp at Karp's home in the mountains of Idaho for a conversation that spans two decades of friendship and the largest questions facing the West. Döpfner opens with the puzzle at the heart of Karp's public image: a Habermas-trained intellectual who considers himself a progressive is routinely portrayed in European media as a sinister figure of the far right. Karp's answer is that the caricature is functional. Palantir's products stopped enough terror attacks in Europe and proved effective enough in Ukraine that critics feel they can afford to attack the company, and portraying it as a surveillance threat is easier than confronting why Europe has no comparable technology of its own.
The core of Karp's argument is that Europe's problem is not moral but technical. He describes the AI stack in four layers: chips, data integration, the application layer, and the large language models themselves. Palantir's application layer is, in his telling, precisely the technology that protects data from being abused by model providers, which makes the surveillance accusation backwards. Europe's bureaucrats moralize about companies they dislike because moralizing is easier than admitting a competence gap, and every year of moralizing makes the gap harder to close. His prescription is blunt: a European leader, ideally the German Chancellor, must stand up and declare a crisis, then import proven builders the way America built its postwar industry on German scientists, create economic zones where competition works like it does in America, China, or Israel, and let local talent learn by doing.
On the AfD, Karp threads a careful needle. He says its rise was completely predictable once large-scale migration proceeded without public buy-in or honest discussion of consequences, and he believes the party polls even stronger than reported. But he states plainly that he would not vote for it, rejecting its sympathy for Putin and the CCP. Döpfner goes further, cataloguing the party as intrinsically pro-Russia, anti-capitalist, and anti-American. Both men converge on the same diagnosis: extreme parties are the consequence of weak centrist leadership and of politicians telling voters not to believe their lying eyes on migration, energy, and AI, which converts frustration into protest votes.
The conversation closes on the AI era itself. Karp compares large language models to uranium, valuable but requiring careful processing, and he criticizes Silicon Valley for overselling AI while its leaders grow egregiously wealthy and tell ordinary workers their jobs are doomed. He sees the decoupling of extreme wealth from median wage gains as a political problem more dangerous than the technology. On the race with China, he argues the West's chief weakness is political rather than technical: China's engineering class can shift budgets and procurement at will, while Western adversaries actively fund domestic movements that treat technology as witchcraft. The West can win, but only if it stays honest about its strengths and weaknesses and keeps buying the things that work.
Why This Matters
This conversation is a primary source on how one of the most consequential figures in defense technology thinks about power, and it captures a framework that travels well beyond Palantir: moral debates are often downstream of competence problems. When an institution attacks something it cannot replicate, the attack itself is diagnostic. That lens applies to technology policy, to organizational politics, and to any market where incumbents moralize against a superior product instead of competing with it.
The four-layer AI stack framing is durable analytical equipment. Chips, data integration, application layer, and models are distinct businesses with distinct sovereignty implications, and most public AI debate collapses them into one word. Anyone evaluating AI vendors, national AI strategies, or investment exposure benefits from asking which layer is actually under discussion and who controls it.
The political economy analysis is equally transferable. Karp's account of protest votes as the predictable output of leaders who deny observable reality, and his warning that decoupled wealth in the AI era is a political time bomb, are testable claims about the next decade of Western politics. They matter for anyone doing electoral analysis, market forecasting, or strategy work that depends on political stability.
Finally, the interview preserves a rare articulation of the pro-democracy case for defense technology, made by someone who insists on progressive credentials while building for the battlefield. Whether one accepts or rejects it, the argument is stated at full strength here, which makes the page a strong reference for future work on AI, sovereignty, and geopolitics.
Key Points
- Karp argues that European attacks on Palantir are only possible because its products worked: terror attacks were reduced enough, and Ukraine held out well enough, that critics feel safe treating the company as a villain rather than a necessity.
- The surveillance accusation is backwards in Karp's telling. Palantir's application layer and ontology are, he claims, the only products available at scale that protect data from abuse by large language model providers, making them tools against surveillance rather than instruments of it.
- Europe's core problem is framed as competence, not morality. Moralizing about American tech companies is described as downstream of not wanting to solve the technical problem, and bureaucrats whose primary goal is protecting the market from American firms make everything else worse.
- The AI stack has four layers: GPUs and chips, data integration, the application layer, and the large language models themselves. Karp says Europe cannot lead in all four, so sovereignty strategy means choosing which components actually advance European industry.
- Nothing changes in Germany, per Karp, until the Chancellor publicly declares a crisis, in the way Einstein's letter to the president framed the atomic problem. Reform then requires importing proven builders like Thiel, Lütke, or Schindler into significant roles and creating economic zones where competition works like it does in America, China, or Israel.
- Karp says the AfD's rise was entirely predictable once large-scale migration proceeded without public buy-in, and that its real support runs higher than polls show. He nonetheless would not vote for it, citing its sympathy for Putin and the CCP, while Döpfner adds that the party is intrinsically pro-Russia, anti-capitalist, and anti-American.
- Protest votes are explained as the rational response to leaders who tell citizens not to believe their lying eyes on migration, nuclear power, and AI. When the political class has low legitimacy, voters conclude everyone is lying and vote to burn down the house.
- Karp compares large language models to uranium: enormously valuable but dangerous to touch raw, requiring processing layers before safe use. He considers American AI fear partly appropriate because Americans understand the technology better, and he criticizes lab leaders for overselling doom while getting rich.
- The politically explosive feature of the AI revolution is decoupling: median workers may see real wage gains while the people running the labs become ten to a hundred times wealthier, and the two groups no longer share schools, neighborhoods, or social fabric.
- On the China race, Karp sees Western weakness as political rather than technical. China's engineering-led system shifts budgets and procurement easily, while AI-era weapons feed fewer families than legacy hardware programs and so lack a natural political constituency in the West.
- Adversaries actively fund Western movements that treat technology as witchcraft, in Karp's view, because the best outcome for Russia, China, and Iran is that the West simply refuses to buy the things that work. Chinese open-weight models are a genuine opening he takes seriously.
- Karp closes by describing far left and far right as structurally similar, arguing that many modern self-described progressives are philosophically closer to Heidegger than Marx, demanding group-defined rights and sameness, which he considers classically right-wing ideas relabeled. The society he wants is merit-based, rule-of-law, rights-for-people-you-dislike, with proceeds distributed enough that everyone feels they participate.
Quotable Moments
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Alex Karp
"The moral thing is way downstream of the competence problem."
Why It Works: Six words that carry the entire thesis of the interview. It inverts the standard European framing of Palantir and gives the listener a reusable analytical tool: when moralizing spikes, look for the capability gap underneath it.
Alex Karp
"Old-school European values mean the products are the best in the world and they actually are morally superior because of the competence involved."
Why It Works: Karp reclaims the moral high ground by redefining European values as engineering excellence rather than regulatory caution. It reframes the entire sovereignty debate as a return to tradition instead of a surrender to America.
Alex Karp
"Nothing's going to work before the Chancellor gets up and says we have a crisis."
Why It Works: It names the missing precondition for reform in one sentence. Every technical fix Karp proposes, imported talent, economic zones, budget shifts, sits behind a political act of honesty that has not happened.
Alex Karp
"If they find out that in your local culture there are people who view technology as witchcraft, you can bet your last dollar they're going to fund those people."
Why It Works: A vivid, falsifiable claim about information warfare. It converts abstract talk of adversary influence into a concrete mechanism: anti-technology sentiment as a funded attack surface.
Alex Karp
"The chief technological weakness we have in the West is kind of political. It's not technical."
Why It Works: The summary judgment on the China race. It relocates the competition from labs and fabs to legislatures and procurement offices, which is where Karp believes the outcome will actually be decided.
Mathias Döpfner
"That's one of the most beautiful sentences of democracies. We agree to disagree. In that case, I have to say we agree."
Why It Works: The closing line lands the interview's meta-point. Two friends who argue for an hour about morality versus competence end by modeling exactly the open-society norm the whole conversation defends.
Concepts and Ideas
Core Frameworks
Competence Precedes Morality
Karp's central framework holds that moral debates about technology are usually downstream of capability gaps. Europe attacks Palantir as a surveillance threat, in his view, because admitting the real issue would mean admitting that Europe built no application layer of its own and must import critical infrastructure from America. The framework generalizes: when an institution moralizes intensely against something it cannot replicate, treat the moralizing as a symptom. Solving the competence problem dissolves most of the moral debate, while arguing the moral debate directly changes nothing.
The Four-Layer AI Stack
Karp decomposes AI into four distinct layers: GPUs and chips, data integration, the application layer, and the large language models themselves, both open and closed. Each layer is a different business with different sovereignty implications, and no European country can realistically lead in all four. Serious sovereignty strategy therefore means selecting which components actually advance a nation's industry rather than demanding independence everywhere. The application layer is where Karp locates data protection: it controls how models touch data, what gets purged, and what rights are enforced, which is why he calls it the anti-surveillance layer.
Large Language Models as Uranium
Karp's preferred metaphor for foundation models is uranium: a natural resource of extraordinary value that is dangerous to handle raw and only becomes safely useful through processing. The processing here is data integration, ontology, and application layers that constrain what models can do and to whom. The metaphor cuts against both camps in the AI debate. Pure enthusiasts ignore that raw models have real negative externalities, while pure alarmists moralize about the substance instead of building the processing infrastructure that makes it safe.
Crisis Declaration as the Precondition for Reform
Karp argues that no technical fix works in Germany until a leader publicly names the crisis, the way Einstein's letter to the president framed the atomic problem as dangerous to the present and future of society. The declaration matters because it authorizes everything that follows: importing proven operators into significant roles, redirecting capital, and changing working conditions. Karp says he has delivered this message directly or indirectly to every Chancellor and major German politician for ten to fifteen years. Without the declaration, reforms are absorbed by the existing system and neutralized.
Import Proven Builders, Then Localize
The rebuild model Karp proposes follows what America did after World War II with German scientists, and what Israel and China do today: bring in people who have already built at the frontier, give them real authority over capital and hiring, and let local talent learn by working alongside them before building independently. He emphasizes that the constraint is talent, not money, and that Germany and France have as much raw talent per capita as anywhere. The complement is the economic zone: a carve-out where competition, working hours, and team composition operate like they do in America, China, or Israel rather than under standard European employment rules.
Political Observations
Protest Votes as the Price of Denied Reality
Karp's explanation for the AfD's ascent, and for populism generally, is that when leaders tell citizens not to believe their lying eyes on migration, energy, or AI, citizens eventually vote to burn down the house. The vote is not primarily an endorsement of the extreme party's program; it is a message to a political class with low legitimacy. He notes that friends who swore they would never vote AfD now do, and that support runs meaningfully above polling because of social desirability effects. The mechanism implies the cure: honest acknowledgment of observable problems by centrist leaders, before the protest hardens into conviction.
Understanding Without Endorsing
Karp repeatedly separates two moves that public debate fuses: explaining why a movement succeeds and supporting it. He has deep understanding of why the AfD rises and would still never vote for it, rejecting its sympathy for Putin and the CCP. The same discipline shows in his reading habits: he studies Mao and Deng Xiaoping while agreeing with Mao on nothing, because nobody in a bad situation can afford not to learn. The concept extends to his defense of Peter Thiel: the right question is not whether one likes the person but whether Germany can afford not to learn from him.
Lutheran and Calvinist Attitudes Toward Success
Karp offers a cultural generalization for the transatlantic gap in how wealth is perceived. Lutheran cultures, with Germany as the archetype, view massive success acquired in one lifetime with deep skepticism. Calvinist cultures, with America at the extreme, ascribe financial success to moral worth, possibly too readily. Both have strengths and weaknesses, but the European excess of moralizing about successful people, in his view, functions as a socially acceptable way to avoid solving problems, with Palantir and Thiel as archetypal targets.
The Decoupling Problem
Karp identifies the political time bomb of the AI era not as job loss but as decoupling. In past technological revolutions, the person at the bottom might see wages double while the person at the top became five times wealthier. In this one, median workers may gain fifty to a hundred percent over a decade while lab leaders become ten to a hundred times wealthier, and the two groups already live in separate but non-equal societies with no shared schools or social fabric. Worse, the wealthy figures telling workers their jobs are doomed are people voters find neither relatable nor likable, which converts economic anxiety into political rage.
Horseshoe Structure of Modern Extremes
In the closing stretch Karp argues that today's far left and far right are structurally similar, and that many self-described progressives are philosophically descended from Heidegger rather than Marx. The tell is what they demand: identity-defined sameness, rights reserved for a favored sect, and exclusion of those who think differently, which he classifies as classically right-wing ideas relabeled as progressive. His counter-definition of a real progressive is someone willing to defend the rights of people they dislike, who wants to help the poor without burning the rich, and who supports equal inputs with outcomes determined by aptitude, discipline, and luck.
Strategic and Geopolitical Concepts
Battlefield Validation as Commercial Moat
Karp argues that having products proven in Ukraine, in Israel's confrontation with Iran, and in Western counterterrorism creates knowledge that cannot be acquired theoretically: what works, what fails, and how systems behave under fire. This is presented as a genuine Western advantage over China, whose systems remain largely untested in modern peer conflict. The same logic explains Palantir's commercial position: solving the moral and legal constraints of democratic battlefields uncovered technical problems, and solving those produced products that win on merit in civilian enterprises too.
China's Real Advantages and Disadvantages
Karp resists the standard claim that China wins because it has more data and no ethics. He rates battlefield data access as roughly equal and notes too much data can be a liability depending on processing capability. China's genuine advantages are structural: an engineering class in government that can be reasoned with technically, and a system that shifts budgets to new technologies without fighting the political constituencies attached to legacy hardware programs that feed millions of families. Its disadvantages are talent repulsion, since world-class people do not want to live without democratic or economic rights, and the absence of battlefield learning. The best open-weight models being Chinese is the opening he flags as very real.
Adversaries Fund Your Anti-Technology Movements
A recurring warning: Russia, China, and Iran benefit most when the West declines to buy the things that work, so they fund domestic movements that treat technology as witchcraft. Karp presents this as observable across issues in America and in campaigns against Palantir specifically. The strategic implication is that a society's internal discourse about technology is itself contested terrain, and that inexplicably durable anti-capability narratives deserve scrutiny of their funding and amplification.
Trust Collapse as the Meta-Problem
Döpfner names the thread running under every topic: trust. The political class has low legitimacy on both continents, media credibility is damaged, and voters default to assuming they are being lied to even when they cannot say why. Karp's explanation of Palantir's brand strength inverts the usual framing: the company is popular with ordinary people precisely because it says unpopular things, that the West is superior, that adversaries are real, that competence decides outcomes, while everyone else tells audiences what they want to hear. In a low-trust environment, visible willingness to say costly things becomes the scarce asset.
Implementation
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Run the Competence Test on Moral Debates
When you encounter intense moralizing against a technology, company, or person, ask what capability gap the moralizing might be covering. Write down what the critic would have to build or admit if the moral framing were removed. If the answer is a hard technical or economic problem, treat the moral debate as a symptom and direct your analysis, investment, or strategy at the underlying gap instead.
Map Every AI Discussion Onto the Four Layers
Before evaluating any AI claim, vendor, or policy, identify which layer is actually in play: chips, data integration, application layer, or models. Ask who controls that layer, whether it can be substituted, and what data rights it enforces. Most confused AI debates collapse the layers into one word; separating them clarifies where value, risk, and sovereignty actually sit.
Name the Crisis Before Attempting the Fix
Apply Karp's Chancellor principle to any organization you influence. If a turnaround is needed, the leader must state plainly that there is a crisis dangerous to the present and future of the enterprise before any structural change will stick. Reforms launched without that declaration get absorbed and neutralized by the existing system. If you cannot get the declaration, expect the fix to fail and plan accordingly.
Recruit People Who Have Already Done It
When building capability you lack, follow the postwar model: bring in operators who have built at the frontier, give them real authority over capital and hiring rather than advisory roles, and structure the work so your own people learn by doing alongside them. Treat talent, not money, as the binding constraint, and evaluate candidates by what they have shipped rather than by whether you like them.
Create Zones Where Different Rules Apply
Where the surrounding culture or rule set prevents frontier work, carve out an explicit zone with its own conditions: working intensity, team composition, and the ability to move people off teams that they do not fit. Do not try to change the whole institution at once. Karp's point about worker protections is instructive: the software engineer who could work at a frontier lab does not need the same protections as everyone else, so do not apply one rulebook to both.
Decide Empirically, Not Ideologically
Adopt Karp's habit of asking questions in the empirical register. Which countries or companies are embracing the technology, and what are their measured results? Who has battlefield or market validation? Where GDP, wages, or outcomes diverge, follow the divergence rather than the narrative. Study adversaries and rivals you disagree with, the way Karp reads Mao and Deng, because nobody in a bad situation can afford not to learn.
Watch for the Lying-Eyes Signal
Use denied reality as a leading political indicator. When leaders tell the public not to believe what it directly observes about migration, energy, jobs, or AI, expect protest movements and protest votes to follow, and expect polling to understate them. For electoral analysis or market forecasting, track the gap between official narrative and lived experience as a predictor of volatility, and remember Karp's observation that real support for stigmatized parties runs above stated support.
Communicate Like the Trusted Contrarian
In low-trust environments, credibility flows to whoever visibly says costly things. Build your positioning the way Karp describes Palantir's: state unpopular truths your audience can verify, acknowledge your product's limits and externalities instead of overselling, and never tell people their observed reality is false. The audience assumes everyone is lying; demonstrated willingness to pay a price for honesty is the differentiator.
Stress-Test Plans Against the Decoupling Problem
For any AI-era strategy, ask who gets ten to a hundred times wealthier and who gets fifty percent, and what political reaction that gap produces. If your business, investment thesis, or policy depends on public acceptance of AI deployment, build in the distribution question early: how do the people affected come to feel they are participating in the proceeds rather than watching unrelatable strangers get rich while being told their jobs are doomed?
Tools and Resources
Mentioned Resources
| Resource | Description |
|---|---|
| Palantir Technologies | Karp's company and the subject of much of the conversation. Its Gotham platform (referred to as PG) is credited with stopping terror attacks in Europe, Foundry with enterprise data integration, and its ontology with serving as the application layer used in Ukraine. |
| Axel Springer | Döpfner's media company, discussed as an unusual owner-operated business in Germany and as a target of political criticism similar to that aimed at Palantir. |
| MDMEETS Channel | Mathias Döpfner's interview series featuring unedited conversations with influential figures across politics, science, arts, and business. |
| Nvidia | Referenced by Karp in the context of Palantir's work with Nvidia on model deployment where weights can be controlled, part of his response to the rise of Chinese open-weight models. |
| Einstein's Letter to Roosevelt | Karp's model for crisis declaration: the 1939 letter framing atomic technology as a danger to the present and future of society, which he says a European leader must replicate for the tech crisis. |
| Frankfurt School and Jürgen Habermas | Karp's intellectual background. He studied under Habermas at Goethe University Frankfurt, and he contrasts the genuine progressivism of that tradition with the Heideggerian character of modern identity politics. |
Suggested Resources
| Resource | Description |
|---|---|
| The Technological Republic by Alex Karp and Nicholas Zamiska | Karp's 2025 book expanding the arguments made in this interview: the case for Silicon Valley re-engaging with national purpose, defense, and the survival of the West. |
| Zero to One by Peter Thiel | The clearest written statement of the worldview of Palantir's co-founder, whose treatment in Germany is a major topic of the conversation. |
| The Age of AI by Henry Kissinger, Eric Schmidt, and Daniel Huttenlocher | A complementary treatment of AI as a geopolitical and civilizational force, useful for comparing against Karp's stack-based and battlefield-first framing. |
| Palantir Newsroom | Primary source for Palantir's own accounts of its work in Ukraine, with Western governments, and in commercial AI deployment referenced throughout the interview. |
| Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China by Ezra Vogel | The standard biography of a figure Karp says he studies closely, illustrating his principle of learning from people you disagree with. |
Source Material
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[00:04]
[music]
Good morning Alex. We are sitting here in the middle of the mountains of Idaho. Near you in your beautiful house. I remember very well when we met for the first time. It was in 2003. It was at a party in southern France. And somebody introduced you to me preparing me by saying Alex Karpis is a super interesting guy. He studied at the Goethe University in Frankfurt. Jürgen Habermas was his professor. He's an intellectual. Unfortunately, he has no job. Uh penniless, but an interesting guy. We met. We got along very well and I had the feeling this is a guy who is rather on the left side of the political spectrum. A very intellectual personality. Cares a lot about the state of democracy, about individual rights. And [clears throat] today this guy has launched one of the most successful companies of recent business since history, Palantir. Market cap currently north of 300 billion. And suddenly people are describing you like a kind of Darth Vader. Uh a sinister figure of far right-wing ideologies and almost like a warmonger. Please tell me what happened? Did you change?
Well, first of all, that that that the thing is Palantir is a hundred more ex-fans and and and people who describe me that way. In fact, my personal experience, including in Germany, including and especially in Germany, is you you the media version, and I'll get to that, is yeah, something like, you know, bringing war to peace times or something.
[laughter]
Um but the actual rational human being on the street is a Palantir fan. Uh part of our success there's the product side, um which we could talk about. There's also like plus wait, every single person in Silicon Valley who finances things would cut off their right arm to have the fans we have. And their and your left arm. So, but there there there there there's many many things in your question, and I remember meeting you too and thinking, oh, this is a really interesting person. Um and you know, well, how does somebody who studies music end up running what I mean, for those who are not in the German-speaking world, it's funny, outside the German-speaking world, people do not understand the impact of Axel Springer. Um and it which Axel Springer Verlag, which you it's you know, it's easy to say you run, but it's it's different, you know, in Germany, there really aren't that many I can't think of any other Eigentümer someone who owns a significant stake in the company that's also running it. So, it's a very very unusual setup. It's it's more similar to America, but then we don't have essentially a second-generation business run by uh an owner. So, even in America, that the whole setup is very very unusual. Uh and then, you know, yeah, I mean, what I think uh bound us together from beginning is you're your it it it doesn't translate well to English but a music scientist. So we don't really have science and music and I guess in America but it sounds kind of fake even though I'm sure there is a faculty that but in any case um uh that's a very unusual setup on your end.
Yeah, we are both outsiders. That's absolutely true and we both are polarizing. That's also fair to say. I just tried to get it why a person that I met almost a quarter century ago and whom I've met during that time very regularly and I did not observe any change in your worldview or in your personality. And now the description of you the outside picture of you is in sharp contrast.
Yeah, let me let me let me ask answer the question and it's the exact right framing but I still want to push back on uh it there's almost no one else in tech maybe one or two that were who has anything like the fans I have. So it's there's this both the outside kind of I would say especially in your much less so here version of me Palantir Peter which is
[05:03]
exactly what you described but I I just want to also highlight the dynamic that these people also create fans. Like whenever I do something I'm basically only talk to Germany through you now. And I get hate but I would say a hundred times more fans writing hey could you please thank you for helping Germany. Especially young people who are want to do things in Germany as an example. So any case but let me get to let me answer your question directly without the caveat. Um But I do think there's a European and American difference here but our products PG um changed the course of history by reducing basically. I mean there have been minor terror attacks, and terror attacks can always happen. But, since we launched the product, you have it has stopped hundreds and hundreds of terror attacks.
But, Alex, would you then simply describe the mission of Palantir, what you think Palantir is to doing to society? What is the mission in order to help people to decide whether they should feel safe or not?
Well, again, but I let me just answer the I'm trying to get to the question you're asking, which is a really deep question. Why would people want to portray us so inaccurately? Is my version of the question. And I think there's a functional reason for that. And the function there it's really twofold, and I here I'm going to use Europe as an example. One, the products works too well, so people can afford it. The terror attacks in Europe have basically been reduced to something that's not something people are afraid of, even though there are way too many attacks on the streets, especially of Germany, and that but people view it as an immigration problem, not as a terror problem, right or wrong. And two, our products play a significant role in Ukraine. So, Russia and Russia doesn't appear to be winning. So, I I think the setup to to to answer the Palantir attack thing, especially in Europe, you also have to say, why can Europe Why does Europe believe they can afford to attack Palantir? And I'm telling you, the primary reason is cuz And this is a Palantir problem. Our products were well were powerful enough that people believe they can afford it, which is again, okay. So, um then what it what And so, like So, then you the So, that's I think the backdrop. Then, why would you want to perceive us that way? And then I do think there's a European and American difference, and it basically comes down to America is hyper-charging AI and tech, and has these phenomenal And that that's where I do think the reason why you're kind of a bridge between America and Europe. There are lots of reasons, but one of them is you look like more like an an business person, like you own the company This is a big like that's a banality, but it's also true. And if you are saying like essentially just take a neutral example, American businesses versus European businesses. American businesses believe they're at war all the time. So if you show up with a product that is demonstrably better on all scores in America and in Europe, you're going to have a very different reception. In America, it's going to It's not going to be I like or do not like the person. Although most your American businesses love pound you. But it's going to be how does it work? Why does it work? Does it transform my business? Does the technology work? Is the technology stealing my IP? And in Europe, you can't really afford to ask these questions or or they're not being asked correctly because the answer to the question will be some significant part of that infrastructure is going to have to be imported from America.
I mean you you have described me many times that your main goal, your mission is to protect democracy. And that's what you are doing, I think quite efficiently. Nevertheless, the debate in Europe is mainly these guys are collaborating with the American secret service. That's bad. That's dangerous. What do we get wrong? I mean to work with the secret service of democracy to protect democracy, I think is a good thing. But why why is that perceived problematic? Boycotting Palantir and portray you as a force of evil, although you are obviously on the side of democracies.
I just But nobody sees it that way outside of you. I mean we have Europe that's a widespread sentiment in Europe. And if the point I the point I would say to especially Germany where I care is is that really the wide sent is that that is I think that's way downstream of very bad decision-making. So, they perceive Palantir by the way again, I really really deeply believe the they here are the professional media, left of center politicians, people who equate Peter and me with an an old version of Germany, which they do not want. And that the vast majority of
[10:01]
Germans, the vast majority of Germans would prefer a world where the decision-making was rational enough so you could evaluate Palantir in a rational way. That that's what I believe.
Are you rather
let me let me just get to the but but the the the the technical point that I think is very important is the decision-making is objectively wrong. From the perspective of how would you protect the data? You need an application layer. And so the crazy thing about what's happening in Europe is we have the only industrial industrial user application layer in the world. That application layer protects your data from being essentially abused by law large language model providers. So, what you have in Europe are technically illiterate bureaucrats that in the name of protecting their people from a company they don't like because they don't like basically what Peter and I represent, which in my view is actually old-school European values. Old-school European values mean the products are the best in the world and they actually are morally superior because of the competence involved. And every single one of our products is like that. Those products cannot touch. So, I So, you're framing it as a moral thing. I'm saying the moral thing is way downstream of the competence problem. And if you were to solve the if you were to solve the competence problem in tech in Europe, which is the bigger problem. Europe is It's a relevant market for Palantir except for that I care.
But the main accusation is data surveillance. Palantir is a form of espionage, and the most aggressive term was you are techno-fascists. You are rather on the side of data surveillance, or are you rather on the side of
Well, first of all, data protection The most interesting, like, fascinating thing, if it wasn't said, and and very very childish, is the products we provide. PG, for which is what she used in the police forces and intel services in Europe. Foundry, ontology, which is used in the Ukraine, and ontology is essentially a application layer. These products are the products you will need, and the only ones available at scale that I'm aware of, to stop what people mean by surveillance. What do we mean by What what what what should Europe mean by surveillance? What what it What it should mean is the IP, the indigenous know-how that still powers Europe, gets migrated to a different company in a company that's not European, that has no interest in Europe, that is not going to protect you to the rights, meaning your right to privacy, your right to that data being purged. Also, your right to have I mean, in Europe, one of the things I've always embraced is in America, we have rights that are basically moral rights. In Europe, you have economic rights, and they're intertwined, which is always the vexing discussion. So, the vexing discussion between America and Europe is, from the American perspective, you don't protect rights enough vis-a-vis your government. So, Europe No European country has anything like a First or Second Amendment. That's vexing. And the Fourth Amendment in Europe is probably the closest in America's closest to what you have, meaning the right to privacy. But even there, without going into technical details, we have widely divergent ideas of how to do that. Basic and so and then the the vexing thing from a European perspective is Americans have all these rights vis-a-vis the government, but you have no right of protection vis-a-vis companies and there are basically you have a right to succeed or fail here. You don't have a right to economic justice. I mean, that's maybe something people want politically, but in the Constitution that is not enshrined. So, you have a completely different idea of rights. I actually am a classic progressive. I'm more I'm I'm still American in that I I like my first, second, and fourth amendment, but I would like to see a better treatment for poor. Okay, so
still describe yourself as a progressive, correct?
Oh, I I would describe myself as one of the few last standing actual progressives in that I believe Well, first of all, I'm willing to defend the rights of someone I don't like. Okay, that somehow has gone and again, it's particularly gone in Europe. Like, they frame this as I don't like you. That How is that relevant? Like,
Why do we moralize everything? Also, it is about Germans who have been very successful in America in the Silicon Valley, Peter Thiel, uh Tobi Lütke, Schindler, Philip Schindler. So, there are a couple of Germans who made impressive careers in the Silicon Valley and we in Europe and in Germany do so far not really take advantage of it, but first we moralize. We say, "Well, there must be something
Well, there's there's there's there's
[15:00]
there's a difference in like I mean, as a generalization Germany is a very Lutheran culture and we're a Calvinist culture. So, that like we equate success with being like the Swiss are Calvinist, the Dutch are Calvinist, but as a generalization, I would say Europe in general and Germany, obviously in particular, is a Lutheran culture where Lutheran culture tends to view massive success you've you've acquired during your lifetime with great skepticism. Calvinist we're like peak Calvinism. Maybe we even take it too far where we ascribe financial success to moral success. Both have their strengths and weaknesses. The the the way I tend to want to frame the question is but the excess in Europe immoralizing more moralizing is clearly in my view downstream from not wanting to solve the problems. And so and and then and I think Palantir is the archetypical example. You can say basically against all technical evidence that Palantir are techno-fascist. What would that mean and that we're engaged in surveillance when our products are actually the ones that stopped that. Or you can ask the more serious question, what has gone wrong in our culture that we have no other application layer that would allow us to do this.
Probably the most impactful and successful German of recent decades is Peter Thiel. You know him well. He was the co-founder of Palantir. Is he an anti-democrat? Is he a religious fanatic? Could you
No, I mean I so actually the way I would reframe the beginning of the question is I think my treatment in Germany is it's not what it should be but it's honestly given that how much money I've made fairer than you could think. I think the treatment of Peter is atrocious. Um
Why?
Well, first of all again, it's one of the things I really you're you're I would start with again and it's a very German concept. See again, I I think what is happening what what scares me a lot in Germany is it's an importation of a version of America on top of German ideals that are of kind of are are attenuated, um and uh and so the real question to ask is I think the question historically one would have asked in Germany is can we afford this? Can we afford not to learn from this person? And I think that's the right question Germany has asked.
Well, I make a point and could say, well, it depends on where the person stands with regard to values. So, if somebody is intrinsically anti-democratic or has a leaning towards authoritarian
First of all, I I I It's a different thing than this person I think should go should not be a role model. A question is here, is it a misunderstanding of the person or is there a point?
No, no. I'm going to First of all, it is a misunderstanding, it's not true, but I'm sure I'm going to push back on that.
Mhm.
I don't I you can I am reading books on Deng Xiaoping. I read a book on I'm reading books on Mao. I I've read a lot of books on I learn I've I'm learning a lot from Mao and Deng Xiaoping. I don't agree with Mao on anything. Like so, like I don't believe anyone can afford not to learn. And I And if you're in a very bad situation, let's just take an obvious example, the German tech scene. The German tech scene should be the number two in the world. By any historical standard, honestly, the German tech scene was the number one in the world. So, number two is already like maybe shouldn't be the aspiration. It's on no one's list. You're one of the more successful investors in Germany. You know that you probably know successful companies in Germany, but the the most largest company in Germany by market cap I think is Siemens and Palantir is significantly larger, even where we're obviously undervalued. So, currently. So, my first cut and and you see this in this like where you you know, you and I have been friends and we we actually agree on the moral stuff pretty much one-to-one on pro-democracy, what does democracy mean, pro-data protection, alignment with the West. We should have an alliance that is those of us who don't agree, that alliance should be Western Europe, America, the Five Eyes, and Israel, and Japan, and Korea. So, we we agree on those things and many other things almost deckungsgleich, meaning with almost but where I think there is distance would be my approach, which is I would the first question I would ask is can can Germany afford not to learn from Peter, even if all those things were true. Now, you're right. It has It should be clarified. I I've known Peter since we were poor students at Stanford. Um we had conversations as like just poor students fighting about intellectual things. He was always heterodox right. I was always heterodox left. I don't think much has changed. He's still heterodox right, meaning he's
[20:01]
very frustrating to classic Republicans. I he I He's never been a neocon. Like a lot of the thing He He He does He's never He actually does not really believe in classic uh Republican economic theory. Uh he was the first person to flag and so will always flag like in conversations you tend to have people on the right basically explaining all problems as the result of capitalism not being driven far enough. That's just not Peter's view. Uh he he's not he's not a simplistic or caricatured thinker on the right. Meaning and he's definitely not the caricature that the left wants to present. But what's fascinating to me is why is it so important to spend so much time uh blocking Peter from the German market. Forget Palantir. Like forget It's not like I want to help Germany cuz I care about Europe and because I have a I mean because of historical fa- family and also I just felt at home in Germany for a long time. Uh but but for me that's cuz like let me just reframe the moral thing. It's so obviously thin. What they're saying about him, what they say about Palantir, so obviously doesn't make sense on the merits. You only need 10 minutes, 5 minutes on Google to see this isn't true. Why do people want to and need to believe that truth? Was the question that I believe. And by the way, it's not that different. I mean, you're talking about Peter and me, I could ask you the same question. Like, I've known you for not as long as I've known Peter, but and you were very successful before I was. Um, I I mean, I don't the German non-German audience may not realize how Axel Springer is discussed. Okay, so like there I think there are very important political figures in Germany without naming names that see no difference between you and the right side of the AfD. Okay, it's absurd. I I I believe most of my left-wing friends in Germany think Axel Springer wakes up in the morning and tries to make the world worse and goes to bed with a smile when the world is worse. This obviously not true.
What is your take actually on the rise of the AfD in Germany as somebody who has studied in Germany, speaks German, cares very much about the well-being of the country. We see now this kind of polarization of society, the very left and the far right are on the rise and the AfD, what is it for you? Is it a normal party or is it
I I think the AfD is very complex and I'm not reading all the news all the time. I I I I give you um I I think first of all, the rise of the of extreme parties was super predictable and I may have been talk shouting about this for the last 10 years. You can't If you're going to bring in uh a doing wide square very deep and large migration into Germany without the buy-in of the German people and what without an honest discussion of the consequences. Again, I understand why this is hard to do in Germany and it's completely about history, which you know, if my family hadn't left Germany, I would be a lampshade. I mean, they left before the Holocaust. I'm very Everybody understands that and is sympathetic. But we haven't You have in Europe, but especially in Germany, just an impossibly difficult painful inability to talk about obvious facts. But the average person on the street is living with these facts, okay?
You're avoiding my question. What do you think about the AfD?
I was going to say keep
No, no, as Palantir is
No, no, I was going
in Ukraine against Russia, the AfD is asking Ukraine and just recently one of the leaders said, "We have to force Ukraine at the table to negotiate with Russia." That is turning history and perpetrator and
No, no, I I no, no, I totally I totally I I'm going to get to the point where I agree with you. I just I I I Again, we're we're like you're starting with the moral thing, I'm starting with the economic reason and cultural reason why this thing exists. So the question you asked is, "Why have they Why are they in ascendancy?" And they're much AfD is much stronger than they appear because I have friends who 5 years ago were telling me they would never vote for the AfD, who are voting for the AfD. Well, like people who are Social Democrats. And And then, when the AfD is polling at 40%, there's another 10 points above that that would vote for them if they weren't the AfD. And so
I think the AfD is just the consequence of a weak leadership in the center of political spectrum. Uh but that does not necessarily mean that that disruption is done by a force by a political force that has a concept that will be good for Germany. And I personally think that the AfD is just not an alternative because it is intrinsically in large parts of the party pro-Russia, pro-China, even with a certain tolerance to uh
[25:00]
Well, I mean I have
authoritarian forces in the Middle East. It is in large parts intrinsically anti-capitalist. It is in large parts anti-American. Just recently we heard that Germany is divided in two parts. We have East Germany where are the German Germans and then we have West Germany where are the American Germans. Okay, so this is just not a alternative.
No.
Uh and I just would like to
a bone to pick with you because
some people are accusing Peter or you or that you have a certain leaning or understanding for that
No, no, no, okay, then I see.
Well, this is again, I basically agree with everything you said, but the point I would push back on I have a deep understanding for why they're succeeding. So, it's like I would not vote for the AfD if I were able to vote and were voting in Germany. And um but that's different from I think part of the reason they're successful is that first of all, no one actually believes like let's just say the parties the classic parties are actually going to take migration seriously, but no one believes they're going to do it. So, you get people voting for AfD basically because you know it's a protest vote. And you know, you know, you're Germans and people who care about Germany like me have been screaming and been right and no one listens. And not only does no one listen and you are a great example of this. You are honestly pretty left wing on most issues as far as I can tell. And I've known you for 20 years. And and and you're kind of classically, if I were to describe you, classically left-leaning person who's a little bit more bought into the capitalist narrative than I am. That that's how I would describe and if I would describe you probably so okay. You get pilloried and and and you tell everybody I'm against the AfD. God knows you have no sympathy for anyone who's pro-Russia. I mean, like you believe for that? Like we're on the front line.
Pro-Putin.
I should always clarify we have nothing against the Russians. We have nothing against the Chinese, but we have a lot against
I'm I'm I'm just kidding. Yeah, I I I'm a Tai Chi I'm an expert in one of the four great treasures in China. I'm reading all these things about I I I have a deep appreciation of Russian culture, Russian math. I have a So, we agree on that, but shorthand if I were to say what I think motivates you after watching you for 20 years is you are deeply pro-democratic. You're kind of progressive on most issues except for you do not like you don't want anything that's stupid and won't work. And if I had to say where you're kind of a zealot it's on the you know, anti-Putin, anti-China stuff. And actually on no tolerance for anti-Semitism. So, that's your those are those those are your
Those positions are I mean, they're solidly mainstream. And I can tell people who are listening and want to hear this like if like even in private discussions they're like I'm much more on like yeah, I want to understand why still I of course I'm not going to I'm not interested in voting for them, but I understand why and you're more on the they're wrong, they're wrong, they're wrong, which is why our dialogues are fun. This is basically like it would be in private. Okay. So, the I how much you're we something I am actually frustrated with in Europe is again, the anti-terror things would be very different and Ukraine would not have been able to succeed they're Okay, let me just finish this. But so, obviously I'm not interested in supporting a party that is deeply sympathetic with Putin, is interested in like I think I think Europe made a like the season that is sympathetic with the CCP and and quite frankly these parties are complex but they're you know they have to it does contain people that I kind of would suspect would not like me very much. Um Okay.
But Alex, I think the frustration of people is very much driven by a failed migration policy, a failed energy policy, and the journey in Europe is completely
And the GDP decline.
exactly. It's not delivering on economic growth. And that has to do with a lack of startup culture, of risk culture. In America, people deploy millions to a new idea and just believe that the impossible is possible. Whereas in Europe and in Germany, we have to a large degree a very risk-focused culture.
Yeah, but but here we are entering the era of AI and whether it's an opportunity or a threat and I think we should also discuss the culture differences between America and Europe and Germany in the context of these developments. I I think we could turn it around and we could say this is an opportunity because I see a lot of AI skepticism in America. I see in America almost more AI skepticism at this moment
[30:00]
than in Europe among normal people. If we have an all hands in America, people are raising posters and saying AI is killing our jobs. If we do the same in Germany or in Europe, people are saying, "Well, we want to learn. We want to understand. We want to take advantage of it." Do you think that there could be
Well, yeah, but not without acknowledging that there's a crisis for the very simple reason. First of all, the the debate is different. Europe is partly not skeptical of AI because you are not like for example take the Palantir example. We are the only product available that makes AI useful on the battlefield and safe and useful and safe and commercial. It It's very hard to discuss AI when what they mean are largely companies being slightly unfair that would not be able to compete in America. So, you're talking about AI light, but the thing is
But at least talk also about the opportunity.
Yeah, I get it and we agree that Germany has not delivered Europe has not delivered.
Let me finish Let me just finish this. It you It is nothing's going to work before the Chancellor gets up and says, "We have an a crisis." Because who fix the problem? Again, you are going Who's going to fix the problem? The problem is you are going to have to bring in a Tobias or a Schindler or a Thiel as in a very significant role. You can't rebuild with people who've never done this before. And so, and then who's going to build under what conditions? What are the working conditions? How do you bring the whole society along? How how How much can someone work per day? Tech works because people work are dedicated like doggedly dedicated around the clock for years. And by the way, if somebody doesn't belong on the team, you can move them out of the team or out of the company. By the way, the the for tech people again, I'm wildly I think people I got along with best when I was on boards in Germany were the unions. So, I'm not saying but you don't need worker protection for someone who isn't a software engineer that could work at an LLM lab. So, but to get this to work, you have to have someone saying, "This is a crisis." I think you're also going to have to say, "This is an economic zone. We are going to create an economic zone in Germany and in that economic zone competition is going to look exactly like it looks in America or does in China or does in Israel."
Why are people in America more afraid of AI than in Europe at the moment? Do they know more? Or is it
Well, first of all, yeah, I mean, really honestly, yes. And so, like again, I think So, do think the fear is appropriate? Of course. It's a These are It's like the simple metaphor that is simple but works is the the large language models are like uranium. Okay. You can use it for a good cause or for a bad cause. No, no, they have to be processed. And in the processing, they become First of all, just touching them probably is not a good idea. But so, using them Like again, Yeah, but if you use the metaphor of uranium, I think it's very appropriate because you can use it for bad or for good causes. And here again, people start to have a moral discussion or discuss whether it's good or bad instead of saying, "Let's make sure that we use it for for good causes." I mean, it's Again, there is this comparison to a knife. You can use a knife in order to prepare food, and you can use a knife in order to kill people. So, we should not But the the reason why But but it it is both true and Again, this is why I think these things are actually economic and technical first. It is you have to understand what the technologies do. You have to have people who are working natively with these technologies. And those people have to be involved. And again, here it's like you basically have different parts of the stack. You have the GPU part of the stack, so that's chips. You have essentially an You can in an enterprise you can have a data integration part of the stack. You can do that by hand. If you want civil liberties, you're going to We do that. You have an application part of the stack, so ontology. What does it mean? How does it mean? How is it deployed? How is it safely deployed? How do you process? How do you use? And you have the large language models, both closed and open models. And the closed and open models have different advantages to the world. Here, to have a tech scene in Europe, you need world-leading components in all those parts. That's not realistic. So, you're going to have to figure out which components are actually the ones that can advance European industry, European sovereignty. The The sovereignty issue is a completely technical issue. And in in it It's not just Germany, honestly. It The what's really happening in Europe is you have bureaucrats whose primary idea is how do I protect the market against American companies? And And everything else is downstream.
Let me again try to twist it towards an opportunity. If this kind of anti-AI sentiment is ongoing in America,
[35:01]
and I fear that Americans could see an election campaign where the two parties are basically competing in order to explain that their party is protecting their people better against AI. I think that's a very dangerous place, but that's what what's
Yeah, that's happening and has already started.
So, if that's ongoing, and every kind of new data center is a big issue and raises a lot of protest and so on, wouldn't that be an opportunity for Europe and say, "Okay, Europe, welcome. Keep building the data centers here.
I I Matthias, I feel like I'm more German than you. I'm just going to put that out there. You're playing the American. I'm playing it Like, okay. Of course it's an opportunity, but it's only an opportunity if it's technically credible. So, like, if you ask me, I'm in charge of Germany or in charge of France or some great nation, you have to say, "First, we have a crisis. We We are going to get the best people in the world to come. We're going to call the best people in the world and say, "What
Wait, what?
would stop you from By the way, I told I haven't told this to this Chancellor, but I've literally told directly or indirectly to every Chancellor and every important politician that you can think of for the last 10-15 years. You got to do what Israel does, what China does, what America would do, what what we did after World War II. Do you Do you Like, we built our industry on German scientists. Like, it's like and the people who built the bomb, like when we built the bomb, like Einstein writes the president, the massive opportunity begins with I know we have a problem that is dangerous for the present and future of our society and has to be solved. There's only a political leader in Europe has to make that statement. It would be best if that was Germany for the leaving all of our emotional attachments to Germany simply because Germany once had the best tech scene and still is the driving economic motor of Europe and there is no Europe without Germany. Okay, but then sorry, let me just then the question is you're going to have to bring those people over and they're going to have to be the ones distributing the capital, hiring the people, saying how you do this. Of course, what happens is the local people I mean, Germany has more talent and France is the same thing that any other country per per square Okay, those people learn how to do it and then build their things themselves and that's and by the way, another thing, it's talent not money. It's like it it is part of the problem here. Let me give you a different version. Part of the reason it's hard to do the optimistic thing is every day Europe makes another decision that makes it harder to fix the problem.
Okay, Alex, I I agree absolutely on the opportunity and on the necessity to bring back to Germany the best talent. Unfortunately, we have a lot of people who made their careers, who know how things are working and who still feel a certain degree of patriotism or in any case want that Europe and that Germany succeeds. So, let's bring them back, let's take advantage of them or let's use them where they are. We agree on that. But, a fundamental for would be that people believe in the opportunity and believe in the necessity to embrace AI to be at the forefront of these developments. Could you briefly explain why AI is more of an opportunity than a threat if you think if you think
Well, I mean again, it's I'm just going to start at the battlefield is not where you want me to start maybe, but without AI systems Russia would have won. And by the way, without pre-AI, but things that can almost do that, you the parties that, you know, you're very focused on would be running Europe because you would have terror attacks that are rampant. So, Europe is already completely existing because of these technologies. Europe, as we know it now with all its problems, would not exist without these technologies being used actively. So, that's like the baseline. Then you get to okay, Germany has now has to compete with China. And to do that it's going to have to rebuild how it builds cars, how it processes chemicals, how it re- changes its historically dominant industries into industries that can compete against America and China. Uh and it has a limited workforce and in migration is failing. Okay, how would you get how would you raise GDP where you have very strict laws, but some of which may have to change. You have energy things which probably will change, but it's going to take a long time where it where migration has not worked. There is only one technology that can do this. And by the way, I tend to think these things should be always asked and answered in the empirical. There are two and a half countries that are embracing these technologies. America, which has
[40:00]
GDP growth that part of the problem we have politically is it works almost too well. It's just not widely distributed. China seems to be working and Israel seems to be working. Where have people not embraced these technologies? And so, that that's like it but again, if you just start with the core problem Germany has, it's an export culture. Its products have to be better than everyone else's or no one's going to buy them. And you can basically ask Germans do you think your products are going to be responsible for your for your economic health, bullstand, or is it going to be your diplomatic service that's going to deliver that? You're going to you're going to rely on German popularity. And so the opportunity is it's I tend to think like the opportunity is that if you want to succeed and thrive, there's only one set of technologies that can do this. How are you going to rebuild your car industry so it's as good as China's? Just start there. Like again, that and people are doing that. We have partners. How are you going to rebuild these industries so you can compete and win? There there is no other way.
Alex, I think we are living in one of the most exciting times of civilization. There is so much change. There is so much progress. There is progress on so many levels in highest in accelerated speed. It is the case for space. It is the case for health. It is the case for computing and robotics. It is the case also for defense. Unfortunately, we need that. So my question is although we are at the eve of an incredible accelerated productivity gain and uh potentially a better form of living in civilization. I really see that opportunity. Nevertheless, it is one of the most skeptical times. There is a lot of fear. There is a lot of anger. How do you explain that? Is it simply the speed of change?
it's too much and now let me just focus on America. I
And by the way, that is not a European origin.
And it is arguably bigger problem here? This is where I do think America might have like I think Okay. Europe has an obvious tech problem with political consequences that are really bad. America has a more of a political problem where left far left far right have just like they it's more hurt the people are successful than any solution. And they're very serious about that. And you know the the idea they couldn't win is not true unfortunately. Um the the the the the the central framing I'm skeptical of here with people so people I agree with probably you and definitely people in my tech world. Um it's always like this is going to be a bastion of plethora of good things that everyone's going to profit from and there are no dangers. Not saying you say this but but it is a commonly held view and the the tech people want everyone to like to stand up and say that and I think that is not credible. What but I what I think is actually just like the overselling of AI in this country is really really somewhat disconcerting but it's also depressing because you don't have to do it. This is a natural resource that is net net excruciatingly valuable for the betterment of humanity. But it does have some negative externalities. First of all, we don't know where it's going to go. It's these things are not deployable without processing engines, application layers, ontology, etc. Um it And the biggest problem in this country is it does it while it will raise the standard of living of the average person the people involved are like going to get 10 100 times wealthier than they already are. That's a problem for society. Like, you know, the the way I try to explain to my Silicon Valley colleagues is
Do you think that the wealth I mean, if we go back to history, then innovation and new technologies have always led to uh growth, to prosperity, and to an improvement of the standard of living of all people. Particularly of the lower income income classes. That has started uh centuries ago. It was true when the wheel was invented. It was true when the steam engine was invented. It was true when computers were invented. It has, in the end, if we draw a line, contributed to the well-being of people, and it has improved the shape of society. Nevertheless, at the beginning, there's always the concern the steam engine is going to destroy
[45:00]
Let me just Sorry.
jobs.
We are always here afraid
So, my my point is that I think that life is not different Let me give you a different first. Let me give you a different the answer that I think sums up a lot of the problems in Europe and America. This is new playbook. Like, there or there is no playbook. Like why am I doing so well? Because this is a neuro diversion age. And what the people had skills So, so this is a different revolution. And even if that is true, and let's assume it is that everybody will do well, I think that's not I think most people will do better.
You You think the society is going to divide into a very few with incredible wealth
the mass that has nothing. No, no, I'm No, I'm not saying that. Again, I think that's like that's kind of the the It That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying most people who are middle and lower and little class will do better. Everybody People who are willing to change their jobs are likely to do better. But not everyone. But that's not the real political problem. We have a political problem in this country, not a tech problem. In past revolutions, uh the person at the bottom maybe their salary doubled and the person at the top became five times wealthier, but like it was very unusual to be a billionaire 40 years ago, right? You now have a revolution where, you know, I could become 20 times wealthier than I am now. And the person who is working out here could become, you know, they could have their salary could go over certainly could go up significantly by any normal standard over a period of 10 years. Go up 50% or double, okay? It When you have a complete decoupling of like unimaginable wealth and normal and that unimaginable wealth and then this is where we're not really allowed to say this, but it's done by people that you don't really relate to. Like these are like very oddly shaped IQ specimens that, you know, you probably wouldn't want to have over for dinner. If they were over for dinner, you have nothing to talk to them about. And by the way, vice versa. And you know, and then our whole fabric is not like I got screamed at for like first of all, wasn't a draft. It was like we should have some kind of service. By the way, by that I meant hospital, taking care of old people. Our our fabric of our society's already strained. Wealthy people, it's not like in the '50s and '60s where people actually knew each other, went to the same schools. We're already totally separate societies. Right? It basically is. I mean, it's inflammatory, but we already live in a separate but non-equal society. And then you hypercharge it with like extreme economic wealth. Like like ex- egregiously extreme while everybody else is kind of growing and even if it's not true, people are afraid, even if it is true that most people are raised, the actual fear people have is I'm going to lose my job. Now, that fear, even if it's not true, the people running the lab companies, who are the leaders, told you it's true. They're telling you your life is going to suck, and they're also getting very wealthy, and you don't find them very likable.
And people who used to be on the winning side of history are now suddenly very much afraid that they would lose their job. I traveled to the Silicon Valley three times over the last few weeks, and the the level of nervousness is really surprising. A lot of people think we have only 6 months until our jobs are going to be gone, and that is the tech community, that is developers, and they they work day and night in order to reinvent themselves because they are afraid that in a few months
And and again, [clears throat] and then no income.
And then and then the political version that scares me a lot, and I do think that I'm yelling at everyone in Silicon Valley in private and on public, I've been a Democrat, despite what you may be reading about me, most of my life. I'm still a '70s progressive, which is actually a real progressive, meaning I want to help the poor. I just don't want to burn the rich. The the Silicon Valley line basically is don't believe your lying eyes. Okay, this doesn't work politically. And by the way, it's the same problem Germany and Europe have about all these issues. And if you if you tell people don't believe your lying eyes, you know what they do? They protest vote. That's what happened, and they protest vote cuz what they're really saying is you are telling me not to believe everything I know to By the way, also, just overarching in Europe and in America, the political class has low legitimacy. So, what you know, what your version of reality is, they're always lying to me. I don't know why they're lying. That's hard to figure out, but you people believe they're always lying to me. And again, to just overly tie this in to, annoyingly, why I'll give you a different version. Why is Palantir the most popular brand in the world? People always frame it as the most unpopular. We have For every time you read someone,
[50:00]
we have 100 times that. I'll tell you why we're the most popular brand in the world, and that's why they attack us often. We're the most popular brand in the world cuz I might be crazy. I am saying things you don't want to hear like the West is superior, national service, which means helping out old people. Doesn't mean no uh industry should be fully aligned with the country. Uh we have to fight for these things. We have real adversaries. If we're not competent, we'll lose. These things are Technologies are not perfect, and you have to listen to annoying people. And by the way, you can't blame everything on a country you hate, whatever. Okay. And you know why we're so popular? Because everybody else is telling you they're only trying to figure out what you want to hear so they can That's the felt version. And that's why when you when politicians in this country or anywhere else say, "Hey, don't believe your lying eyes on migration. Don't believe your lying eyes
on nuclear.
Don't believe your lying eyes on AI." They get up, and they vote for people like, "Screw these people. I'm going to burn down the house."
What you are addressing is I think one of the most important topics. It is trust. It is about trust. Trust is lost, and trust has been lost in large parts of the political spectrum and the political scene, and trust has also been damaged with regard to media and their credibility. So, we could have a long discussion about that. Would be super interesting, but we have to come to an end sooner or later, Alexander. That's why I would like to touch upon geopolitics. And here the arms race mainly in AI, but not only also in conventional military aspects between America and China or perhaps even ideally between America and Europe on the one side and on the other side China and Russia and Iran and other evil forces. How do you see that thing going to develop? How is the chance that America is continuing to have the upper hand on AI and the developments and how likely is it that China, simply because there is no ethical limitation and there is more access to data of an incredibly large population. I mean, that China is going to win the race. Let me reframe annoyingly it as the inverse. That our moral standards, the advantage America has and Europe does have and I really hope and and Ukraine proves. Um, so it it's very deep in the European history and can be really exposed is that solving the moral issue often uncovers a technical issue about which you're not aware. So, again, Palantir is the data protection platform. It is the sovereign platform that drives our revenue. It is why Ukrainians did so well, why Israel against Iran over performed, why America over performed. And then in tech, there is an advantage if you've actually been on the battlefield that so that China has those they're actually disadvantages. Access to data, I I think actually honestly that might be roughly equal given signal collection on the battle but China has for example medical data of 700 million people. China has full You're talking transparency through complete surveillance with regard to behavioral data of their people. I think that's a different quality because there's simply no democratic Again, we we should have that's a longer technical and it depends what you mean by informatics, machinery, or battlefield. Battlefield I would push back on that. Um, and and I would also also there's not the correlation between too feel too much too much data can also be a problem. It really depends on their processing capabilities. Also, the depending on whether Europe and America changes, the the we there's a lot of complexity in that statement. It it is both true and not true. It depends on the thing. I I'll give you an advantage I think China really does have, which is these technologies pound chairs like 4,000 people 4,200 or something were were on every major battlefield. It The reality is there are very big hardware projects that are still about still valuable in in in in in if you look at Iran as opposed to Ukraine heavy hardware plane ships other things played a big role. Those things employ thousands millions of people. They they end up with a political constituency. One of the biggest problems we have in the West that China doesn't have is these technologies are clearly the future combined with others, but you just are feeding fewer families. And so it's much harder for us to shift the budget to exactly where it should go. Whereas in a like China and also China's run by more of an engineering class. So I think they they I would suspect they have a better like if you I I'm pretty sure if you went to the Chinese level like two levels below the person at the top and you did that in any European country, you would find somebody I could explain the technical issues to. I don't I don't know where
[55:00]
that person is in Europe and it's harder in the West. So I think that that's the advantage. The disadvantage they have is one, people like you and me and the people that Europe could recruit really don't want to live in a country where they have no democratic rights or economic rights. Uh uh two, um the actual again, this is where I think the commercial and battlefield thing of American industry is at battle. These things are not theoretical. And China like America for again, I've been against I'm not pro-war despite what people think, but one of the advantages Ukraine Israel America has just quite frankly is we know a lot about war, what works, what doesn't, how it works, what products work, what products don't work. Um so, I would say knit knit, that again, the chief political the chief technological weakness we have in the West is kind of political. It's not technical.
Okay, but if you had to take a bet now, would you rather bet that China is going to win the race in 10 years down the road, or will the US keep winning?
Well, again, it it 10 years too far out. We don't know That's impossible to answer because also, again, I think the chief problem we have is political. Like would China win if you start banning the ability to pure procure like Look, again, I'm not saying all the anti-poverty stuff is fine funded by our adversaries, but it's also funded by the adversaries. What is the best thing that can happen to Russia and China and Iran? Is you don't buy the things that work. So, like that these things And you know who knows this? I mean, these people, again, they are excruciatingly intelligent and ruthless. And if they find out that in your local culture, there people who view technology as witchcraft, you can bet your last dollar they're going to fund those people. And you see this in America on all sorts of issues. You see it vis-a-vis us everywhere. Like the most inane things that actually kind of work, but you know, so it's like does the Is the West able to continue to produce these things? By the way, but again, I think Silicon Valley in this country and your people who think they're advocating for sovereignty in Europe are, you know, could really have to do a better job. Um and so, but if you asked if we can mitigate that risk by by being more honest and more frontal and and more realistic both in America and Europe about our strengths and weaknesses, we have a very good chance of winning, but it is very good chance. Like it's like you can't Like just take the actual technical things. The best open models in the world now are Chinese. That's a problem also because the closed model some of the closed model providers are actually trying to monetize your data. And if you have China offering models that are where they're encouraging an application layer like ours, interestingly, and you can control the weights, and that's why we did this whole thing with with Nvidia, but it's like the the the openings here for China are very, very real. And again, I'm just repeating myself, but if they can control the political apparatus because it's one tribe, one person, one gender, and we somehow can't do that, that's a that's a problem.
Alex, the very last question of our conversation. We are living in the world where most of the centrist countries and their leadership is stumbling or weak, where populists and autocrats are on the rise. We are challenged by opportunities, and there is a lot of fear, and anger, and at the time time, a lot of opportunity. We have an incredibly unpredictable geopolitical situation. Wars are part of daily reality. A couple of years down the road, do you think that what we're experiencing now, all these discussions, all these changes, are the beginning of the end of the open society model, and we will have in 5 to 10 years a more autocratic world, where strongmen and autocrats are dominant, or do you rather think that what we're experiencing now is the healthy wake-up call, is the beginning of a reinvention, of a rejuvenation, of the centrist, rules-based, open society model.
Well, thank you. That's a great way to end. Like just if like when I'm saying China and our adversaries have an advantage in procurement because of like very narrow selection and like what I'm trying to say is we don't know the answer to this question, but we have to fight like hell to make sure we are not in societies where they're like the crazy thing is the functional allies of our adversaries now uh who claim to want these progressive
[01:00:00]
things, both actually far right and far left, which are actually structurally very similar, are helping to fight for structures that would not include anyone like them. Like so I want a society where it is the best people succeed, those people every the inputs are very as as equal as they can be, the outputs depend on your aptitude and discipline and honestly and fortunately luck and other variables. Um where their rule of law is enforced, including if you do not like the person. So there's a right of free speech whether you like the person or not, there's a right of privacy whether you to put checks on the government whether you know they like you or not, where we are able to do creative things and the people who do them get to keep some portion of the proceeds, but where those proceeds are distributed enough so that everybody feels like they're participating, that we have an idea of national order, but that's actually national, but progressive. Like you know, you get to be Swiss if you're Swiss, but you also believe that people who aren't Swiss have a valuable culture. You get to be American if you're you know, the the the the people who are working the hardest to destroy that those concepts and are the most effective in destroying these concepts call themselves progressive. And they're not progressive. or they call themselves, you know, uh I don't know, super far right. They're not even right-wing. Like, you know, one of the one of the things I think is hilarious, though, on that score is, you know, I spent a lot of time in Germany uh talking to people who, you know, some of them regretted, some of them didn't regret their role in in history and dark times. I think they would be very amused to know that people who've taken up their mantle on the right are mostly uh uh people of color, gay, and or Jewish. So, we've had some progress in our societies.
[laughter]
We now people on the far right are very diverse on all fronts. And uh but um people on the uh and the people on the far left, I think in the people I hung out with in the Frankfurt School, which is a truly was left of center from where I was, but true progressives would be somewhat not amused to know that the the the actual philosophical background of most modern actual non-progressive progressive is not Marx, it's Heidegger. And it they're not actually left-wing. They're actually asking for things that are classically right-wing. What are those things? They're asking for we all get to be the same. We're all defined by who we are, by how we were born, or what we impute ourselves to be. There are only rights for a sect of people, the a sector of people. The rights do not apply to people who are not like us because of wealth or because they think differently. And that we want a society that is essentially looks communal and it is no way These These are like prototypical non-progressive classically right-wing thoughts, just reapplied to people who call themselves progressive. And that's the society that Palantir and I are effectively working against. By By How are we working against it? By by people giving people more sovereignty, whether they believe it or not, giving people, protecting people from terrorism with civil liberties,
[music]
by making businesses wealthier, better, where the businesses keep their actual alpha, by helping Ukraine, Israel, and America establish a dominant position. That's actually helping. [music]
That's one of the most beautiful sentences of democracies. We agree to disagree. In that case, I have to say we agree. Thank you very much for the discussion.
[music]
Take care.
AI Implementation Prompt
AI-generated from source material. Verify important details against the original source. Copy the prompt below into a fresh AI session to work with this material.
AI Implementation Prompt
CONTEXT You are working with the ideas from a July 2026 MDMEETS interview in which Axel Springer CEO Mathias Döpfner interviews Palantir CEO Alex Karp at Karp's home in Idaho. Karp is a Habermas-trained intellectual who describes himself as one of the last actual progressives, yet is portrayed in European media as a far-right figure. His core thesis: the attacks on Palantir are functional. The products worked well enough, stopping terror attacks in Europe and powering Ukraine's defense, that critics feel they can afford to attack the company, and moralizing about it is easier than admitting Europe never built comparable technology. The interview's major frameworks are: (1) moral debates are usually downstream of competence problems; (2) the AI stack has four layers, chips, data integration, application layer, and large language models, and sovereignty strategy means choosing which layers to contest rather than demanding independence in all of them; (3) large language models are like uranium, enormously valuable but requiring processing layers before safe use; (4) reform in Germany requires a leader to publicly declare a crisis, then import proven builders and create economic zones with frontier working conditions; (5) protest votes such as the AfD's rise are the predictable output of leaders telling citizens not to believe their lying eyes on migration, energy, and AI; (6) the AI era's political time bomb is decoupling, where median workers gain modestly while lab leaders become ten to a hundred times wealthier and the two groups share no social fabric; (7) the West's chief weakness against China is political, not technical, since China's engineering-led system shifts budgets and procurement easily while Western adversaries fund domestic anti-technology movements; (8) far left and far right are structurally similar, and much modern identity politics descends from Heidegger rather than Marx. KEY PRINCIPLES 1. When moralizing against a capability spikes, look for the competence gap underneath it. The moral debate is a symptom. 2. Decompose every AI question into the four layers before answering. Who controls each layer determines value, risk, and sovereignty. 3. Raw models are uranium. Value comes from processing: data integration, ontology, and application layers that enforce rights and constraints. 4. No structural fix works until leadership publicly names the crisis. Reforms launched without that declaration get absorbed and neutralized. 5. Talent is the binding constraint, not money. Import people who have already built at the frontier and let locals learn by doing. 6. Understand why movements succeed without endorsing them. Study people you disagree with, because nobody in a bad situation can afford not to learn. 7. Denied reality produces protest votes. The gap between official narrative and lived experience is a leading indicator of political volatility. 8. In low-trust environments, credibility flows to whoever visibly says costly, verifiable, unpopular things. 9. Battlefield and market validation beat theoretical capability. Ask what has been proven under real conditions. 10. Decoupled wealth is a political problem even when everyone's income rises. Distribution of felt participation matters as much as the median outcome. KEY LEVERS The primary leverage points in this material are: crisis declaration by leadership as the unlock for all structural change; control of the application layer as the decisive position in the AI stack for both commerce and data protection; talent importation and economic zones as the mechanism for rebuilding lost industrial capability; empirical evaluation (who is embracing the technology and what are their measured results) as the antidote to ideological debate; trust and honest communication as the scarce asset in politics and branding; and distribution design in the AI economy as the difference between broad adoption and political backlash. WHAT THIS IS NOT This is not a framework for defending every action of Palantir, Peter Thiel, or Silicon Valley; Karp himself criticizes the overselling of AI and the political blindness of lab leaders. It is not an endorsement of the AfD or any populist party; Karp explicitly would not vote for them and rejects their sympathy for Putin and the CCP. Understanding a movement's causes is not supporting its program, and the material insists on that distinction. It is not a claim that AI automatically benefits everyone; Karp rejects the utopian framing and treats negative externalities as real. It is not standard left-right analysis; the material argues the extremes are structurally similar and that labels like progressive are often misapplied. And it is not a data-maximalist view of AI power; Karp argues too much data can be a liability and processing capability is what counts. IMPLEMENTATION MODES You can help me work with this material in these modes: 1. Apply: take one framework (competence test, four-layer stack, crisis declaration, lying-eyes signal, decoupling stress test) and apply it to a specific situation I describe. 2. Diagnose: analyze an organization, market, policy, or political situation I bring you using Karp's lenses, and identify whether the presenting problem is moral framing over a competence gap. 3. Build: help me design a plan that uses these levers, such as a capability rebuild, a talent importation strategy, a positioning strategy built on trusted-contrarian communication, or an AI adoption plan that addresses distribution. 4. Critique: stress-test my existing plans or beliefs against Karp's arguments, and separately stress-test Karp's arguments themselves, steelmanning the European regulatory position he attacks. 5. Teach: explain any concept from the interview at whatever depth I need, with examples beyond the source. 6. Content Creation: help me draft analysis, posts, or briefings grounded in this material, keeping claims tied to what was actually said. 7. Decision Support: when I face a choice touching AI strategy, vendor selection, political analysis, or market positioning, walk me through it using the relevant frameworks. 8. Opportunity Discovery: identify where these frameworks reveal underpriced opportunities, such as application-layer businesses, jurisdictions likely to declare crisis and reform, or markets where denied reality signals coming volatility. 9. Research Expansion: point me to adjacent sources, thinkers, and data that extend or challenge this material. 10. Scenario Analysis: run forward scenarios on the China race, European reform, or AI-era politics using Karp's stated mechanisms, and mark clearly where the source ends and speculation begins. AI OPERATING INSTRUCTIONS Remain grounded in the source material described above; when you go beyond it, say so. Focus on practical implementation over commentary. Avoid generic motivational advice. Ask clarifying questions when my situation is ambiguous. Challenge weak assumptions in my thinking, including uncritical acceptance of Karp's claims; he is a motivated participant in the debates he describes. Draw connections between the frameworks when useful, and keep the distinction between explaining a phenomenon and endorsing it as sharp as the source does. GUIDED DISCOVERY Ask me up to three questions, one at a time, to determine: (1) what I am trying to accomplish, (2) which ideas from this source are most relevant to my situation, (3) how these concepts could be applied most effectively. Once you understand my situation, help me build a practical implementation plan.