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What happens when a philosopher becomes the face of America’s most controversial data company?
In The Philosopher in the Valley, journalist Michael Steinberger traces the rise of Palantir and its CEO Alex Karp—a dyslexic, German-PhD’d idealist who built a company meant to “defend the West,” and in the process became a lightning rod for the surveillance age. Palantir’s software can stitch together oceans of messy data into real-time decisions—helping the U.S. government evacuate Kabul, track COVID logistics, and support Ukraine’s battlefield targeting. But its work with police departments and ICE, plus its proximity to Trump-era politics, has fueled fierce civil liberties backlash.
This summary explores the paradox at the center of Palantir: a mission framed as protection, powered by tools that can also enable control. If you care about tech, power, and where privacy goes to die (or survive), you’ll want to read this.
