Palantir’s CEO is a Mad Scientist – In a good way

Alex Karp has me in stitches

Audio version of this Commentary/Opinion

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THIS COMMENTARY IS FOR ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES ONLY – THE AUTHOR HOLDS A Small LONG POSITION IN THE STOCK AT THE TIME OF THIS COMMENTARY. THIS IS NOT INVESTMENT ADVICE.

The below text is a transcript (may not be word for word in all places) of this video.

Palantir’s CEO is MAD – In the best possible way

If you listen to Alex Karp – the CEO of Palantir, you quickly realize he’s insane. And I don’t mean he is suffering from a disorder or chemical imbalance that affects his ability to maintain control over his cognition or emotions. He is all over the place, he is mad professor-like, and he is willing to play the ‘covert spy’ narrative that made Palantir so interesting to early buyers. The real question is: Is he just the best method actor in A.I. or is he sounding like a crazy person in a way that shows he is ACTUALLY ahead of the market by as much as he believes he is. 

He’s somewhat abrasive, somewhat annoying, and just the right amount of confident. He is also absolutely convinced that his company is the only one with the type of A.I. infrastructure set up to make money today. He alludes to having the REAL KILLER APP of Artificial Intelligence – a structure that is agnostic to specific LLMs (large language models – think: ChatGPT for example), and instead allows you as an entity to take their consulting, their algorithms, and ANY or MANY LLM’s to analyze data and create actual Artificial intelligence that matters to your enterprise today and in real-time. 

This is not a marketing piece for Palantir – for transparency purposes, this author holds a miniscule position in PLTR – and it is so miniscule so as to be basically negligible (a fraction of a percent of total portfolio). That may change, as I like what I hear more and more, everytime I hear Alex Karp talk. He sounds like Doc Brown from the Back to the Future Franchise. Like he just stepped out of a DeLorean, and knows something the rest of the world doesn’t yet. He sounds like he is so far ahead of the rest of the world, that he just cannot be bothered with anyone’s opinion of the company or him. It’s just intriguing enough to make you wonder if you’re missing something.

But he is making some good points. A.I. right now is an infant. Having to be fed. Having to be held. Completely helpless, in many senses. But what he says Palantir has RIGHT NOW, is a way to utilize everything that is good from the existing LLMs, and none of the drawbacks – and you get Palantir’s knowledge and understanding to utilize these concepts and data crunching tools in real-world tools. It’s basically the backbone to what everyone actually wants A.I. to be, in its moderate to mature life cycle. It almost seems too good to be true.

He laughs and looks away from the reporters when they say things like: “ChatGPT is the model” and “other companies are using so-and-so in A.I.”. His answer is always something like: “People think they are using A.I. but what A.I. truly is, is far more advanced than some basic derivative of a LLM.” Then when he’s pushed, he laughs and grins harder. He replies to deeper probing, with things like: “We have products and services today that are iterating on what people already speculate A.I. could be…” 

These are not quotes from him, but these are the types of answers he’s giving. 

When asked about what Palantir offers, he uses some ‘cool guy spy speak’, like: “ask the Russians how well A.I. is working from Palantir.” That’s a glowing endorsement of Palantir – if battlefield targeting, for instance, is able to give Ukraine an advantage against a huge power like Russia, such that this is about as poor a showing as Russia has had since they attempted to lean their population growth in the botched Afghanistan invasion in the latter stages of the Cold War. 

It’s a bit odd to see a wiry-haired guy in a Steve Jobs turtleneck saying things that intonate “if I tell you, I’d have to kill you” vibes.

He says things like: “Maybe we shouldn’t even be sharing some of our A.I. tech with some of the companies we work with”. As if the data, and models, and algorithms are so secret, and so capable so as to win wars. It just makes you wonder – am I missing something by avoiding the massive valuations of PLTR? 

Sure, it could be just a guy who has a fantasy of spycraft, and now has a soapbox to jump on top of, and spread his propaganda to the world. But more and more, it seems like he might actually have something that is more valuable than what the market is admitting. And I say that looking at a stock that’s up 125%+ YTD (at the time of this writing). 

But I think the reason he is the CEO of Palantir is PRECISELY BECAUSE he is this way. It’s in his DNA, and it seems to be a very effective way of luring the inquisitive into the fold. It’s got to be tactical that he is the face of the company. and I’m here for it. if for nothing else but to have my mind blown by his casual attitude when people throw barbs his way. It’s almost a surreal viewing experience.  

The way this guy breathlessly talks about how he doesn’t care if people don’t understand the company, and he doesn’t care that the company doesn’t have a real pricing scheme for their technology, is just the kind of crazy that makes you wonder – in a positive way.

There is something refreshing about a CEO that so firmly believes in his company, and is more worried about pushing the boundaries than pushing pencils.

On the one hand, you don’t necessarily want a CEO that seemingly has no clue how to prioritize earnings or revenue. On the other hand, you can’t help but be intrigued by a CEO that knows his product is so valuable that it doesn’t matter to him, if there is revenue right now. He seems to be carefully riding the line between traditional CEO insanity, and traditional Mad Scientist optimism. I cannot help but love listening to the guy talk. It’s riveting. 

But confidence only works so well, in a market that, while steeped in A.I. optimism, is also hellbent on seeing actual revenue produced by companies. What does Palantir have that other A.I. focused companies do not? That will shake out over the next year or so, surely. But the question right now, despite incredibly rich valuations (by the way PLTR is profitable), is: does any of this fundamental money information, even matter yet? 

I think the market has some tolerance for cocky, or aggressive or confident CEO’s, and if you don’t equate Alex Karp to a mad scientist finding his feet in PR and Marketing, and instead just take him at face value, then there is an interesting story about to unfold in PLTR. If even half of what he alludes to is legitimate – which is hard to dispute because his information is borderline secretive – then Palantir is going to be a big(ger?) player pretty soon.

Again, this is more an observation about why the Palantir stock might be interesting just on the public facing metrics of the company. It’s not an investment recommendation, and regardless of what any pundit might feel about a CEO or a stock, your needs and research requirements should be consulted heavily before getting into any position. 

At the very least, right now, listening to Alex Karp talk about how Palantir is the world beater, is edge of my seat entertainment.