Palantir co-founder and CEO Alexander Karp opened his new book with a provocative manifesto: “Silicon Valley is lost.”
Over the past decade or so, KARP has largely moved away from the focus of attention as data analytics companies grow in cooperation with the U.S. military and intelligence. Last year, The New York Times’ Rare Interviewhe described himself as “progressive but not waking up” with a “consistent pro-Western perspective.”
Now, inThe Technical Republic: Powerful Power, Soft Faith and the Future of the West“(co-authored with Nicholas Zamiska, legal counsel for Palantir’s corporate affairs director and CEO), Karp wrote some manifesto. In fact, he and Zamiska described it as behind Palantir “The beginning of theoretical expression”.
Silicon Valley tells the story of a close alliance between technology companies and the U.S. government that created early success. They believe the alliance has collapsed, the government “challenges the challenge of developing the next wave of breakthrough technologies to the private sector”, and Silicon Valley “turns inward, focusing its energy on narrow consumer products rather than speaking Projects, not those that speak. And address our greater safety and welfare.”
The two criticized Silicon Valley output as dominated by “online advertising and shopping as well as social media and video sharing platforms,” suggesting it was caused by an industry that didn’t need to ask what’s worth building or why.
“The main argument we make in the subsequent page is that the software industry should rebuild its relationship with the government and redirect its efforts and focus to build technology and artificial intelligence capabilities to address the most pressing challenges we face together. ” Karp and Zamiska wrote.
They also believe that the “engineering elite” in Silicon Valley has an affirmative obligation to participate in the defense of the country and to clarify the national projects – what this country is, our values and the position we face.”
The reviewer has not yet fully won. At Bloomberg, John Ganz complain That “Technical Republic” is “not a book at all, but a company’s sales materials.”
In the New Yorker, Gideon Lewis-Kraus suggestion The book is “outdated”, probably written before Donald Trump won the November 2024 election. Now, Lewis-Kraus writes: “Its vision for the reciprocity relationship between Washington and the Silicon Valley has almost become quaint.”
Indeed, one thing Karp and Zamiska criticized was that “many business leaders were reluctant to risk in any meaningful way, except for occasional and dramatic businesses, which was the most important social and cultural debate at the time.”
Of course, we are now seeing at least one business leader who will be serious about politics because Trump allies Elon Musk attempts to remake the federal government Through his government’s Ministry of Efficiency.
