Alex Karp Interview Palantir Analysis: PLTR’s Prowess, Unique Offering, Philosophies, Focus, & Stock

On Tuesday, March 16th, Wilfred Frost, the Co-Anchor of CNBC’s Closing Bell, joined Alex Karp, the Co-Founder and CEO of Palantir for a near hour-long discussion.

The discourse was focused around the following prompt: Technology as Sword and Shield. How do we uphold civil liberties and privacy rights in a world of big data?

A supercut of the event featuring highlights which you can watch after reading my analysis since there is certainly a lot to parse through and make sure we understand as those interested in this company:

In this post, I’ll be sharing some of what I found to be the key points from the event after watching it in its entirety and taking a few pages of notes. Everything you need to know pertaining to PLTR coming up…

I’ll segment my analysis into sections: Alex Karp, Palantir’s Prowess, PLTR’s Unique Offering, Palantir’s Philosophies, Enterprise Focus, and PLTR Stock.

Alex Karp

I do want to briefly talk about CEO Alex Karp just off the bat here. This interview I feel was the best look we’ve had into him speaking freely for a long amount of time. One of the hosts described him as a different person, a patriot, and a man willing to stand up for what is right.

In some comments spread throughout the discussion, commenting on his own appearance, he called himself a “mad looking CEO.” And said when people ask where to get the best software for their business, they are told by others to surely go to the “crazy looking CEO with the 12 year olds.”

So, I found this banter quite funny, but more seriously he said that he does feel accepted by providing value even while looking weird and living his own life, not being conformist.

The bottom line I think is that he is very self-aware and open. That is quite encouraging to me as an investor.

Palantir’s Prowess

• Palantir’s software has been deployed under four U.S. presidential administrations
• Palantir remains very engaged with each administration
• Their engagement is not a political game, it’s just their job
• Palantir provides world-class software to the most important companies
• In a world where software is a disaster, Palantir supplies software that is exceedingly useful and crucial on the clandestine/military and enterprise sides of work
• Alex Karp: What you’re already seeing in modern day is that companies that are good at software are exceedingly valuable
• There will be a wider distribution of tech companies across the country away towards the mid-west away from Silicon Valley monoculture
• For government software, using Palantir is straight up common sense
• Palantir pushed the U.S. government to embrace it as the best free market option
• Medium-sized companies are very good for Palantir
• Will be very happy with Palantir’s platform performance
• The smaller the company the easier to utilize fast data analysis
• Side note: said companies must be adaptable and hungry to thrive
• Some larger corporations are making (saving) billions a year because of Palantir
• The most important company for supply software to governments
• There is no second in line

PLTR’s Unique Offering

• Palantir had a crazy dream to do what it does today
• If you’re not a software engineer it’s very hard to understand which offerings today are the best
• Along these lines, Palantir has very best client list in the world
• Despite Alex Karp as the front man
• No other company in the world can compare in this industry
• Big, big companies
• “What is your software doing to help somebody”
• “If you are on the cutting edge and profit maximizing, you have a responsibility to protect your country”
• Is tech a sword or a shield?
• Strong tech is a sharp instrument that can be abused
• Any tech can be abused
• The aggregate advances usually outweigh any negative consequences
• Software is non-linear to the extreme in terms of performance
• Palantir’s software platform is in relation to “the moon”
• You cannot spend to make up the difference in software
• There needs to be parity in delivering software for Palantir

Palantir’s Philosophies

• Never underestimate your adversaries
• Palantir needs to focus on itself, not its competition to put its best foot forward
• Important clients using Palantir
• Growth comes from questioning how a business can best execute on a given objective
• You have a crisis, we can solve it, after that you can pay us
• Ask others how our software is doing for them
• The best way to evaluate with a challenging problem
• Throw out ideologies that don’t work
• Single best decision as CEO:
• Personally being involved with the hiring of the first 350 people to build the culture that has powered everything good about PLTR
• Instill and be a shepherd of that culture
• Worst decision as CEO:
• First commercial product was an unmitigated disaster
• We make mistakes

Enterprise Focus

• IBM/AWS
• Largest global footprints of any software companies
• Very easy to work with these great product companies
• Companies at their level of talent know how difficult it is to build what Palantir has
• They want what Palantir has
• Working cultures together helps both
• Respect for what PLTR has done
• Palantir’s modularity is the best on the market
• Wall Street doesn’t understand it but the best software companies in the world do
• Enterprise software utility
• 1% of the time
• 5% of the cost
• Has a view that many will buy software as a finished product once possible to do so
• Palantir offers the whole stack not individual parts of the stack
• But Palantir’s optional modularity actually supports its own stack

PLTR Stock

• The public offering
• Jokes about the lawyers involved with any action
• Palantir is in the resistance
• Battling against sort-termism
• Long-term health
• Product development is of the utmost importance
• Battle against Wall Street
• Not all
• Mixed bag
• Neurotic and introverted
• Like retail investors
• Evaluate the offering
• Dispel inaccurate critiques
• Very happy with direct listing
• Normal people, own opinion, own money
• “We are working at Palantir for a long-term outcome. . . . There will be ups and downs — my lawyers won’t let me say more than that, but it’s obvious. And if you want something else . . . do something else! . . . I’ll see you in a couple years.”
• In for the long-haul there will be ups and downs
• Buy some other stocks
• Great future ahead
• I’ll see you in a couple years
• Working in our shop
• Not trying to make anyone happy in the short term

I hope that rundown was helpful! Until next time…