a16z Podcast · 2 min · Mar 20, 2026

America's central risk is losing the will to address its problems

Shyam Sankar argues America's central danger is loss of will, not China's strength. He links polarization and institutional failures to nihilism, and calls for renewed agency and ambition.

Shyam Sankar is chief technology officer at Palantir Technologies.

Runs Palantir's technology as CTO, having joined as employee 13 and pioneered the forward-deployed engineering model.

Erik Torenberg, Host · General partner, Andreessen Horowitz
Helped build Product Hunt; founded On Deck, Village Global and Turpentine.

About this segment

Shyam Sankar argues America's central danger is loss of will, not China's strength. He links polarization and institutional failures to nihilism, and calls for renewed agency and ambition.

From “Palantir CTO on The SaaS Apocalypse & Preventing The Next World War | a16z”, Mar 20, 2026. Watch the full episode

“I think our biggest risk as a country is suicide, not homicide.”

Shyam Sankarat 38:25 · a16z Podcast38:25

Takeaways

Treat national will as a strategic vulnerability.
Institutional failures can feed nihilism and polarization.
Reindustrialization requires ambition, motivation, and leadership.

In this episode

Transcript

Transcribed by machine (Whisper) from the episode’s audio, so a word may be off here and there.

38:25
Speaking of China, how do we win the AI race, particularly as it moves towards more physical AI and robotics, et cetera? What are the things to make sure we get right or the things we need to fix? I think our biggest risk as a country is suicide, not homicide. You know, I have anyone who knows me knows I'm a big China hawk. And I think part of the challenge with China is it's not enough for the CCP to prosper. America must also fall. Like, look, if you want to buy our soybeans or not, I don't begrudge you. That's a business decision. That's free trade. Great. But when you're trying to smuggle in agricultural funguses so that we can't grow soybeans, that's a different ballgame altogether. And that offends my kind of American Calvinist sensibilities of fair play.
39:05
But, so all that said, that would make it seem like I care a lot about homicide. But I think our problem is actually one of national will and focus. And like, are we actually addressing the problems that we face here? Are we encouraging the agency and our people to believe the world can be better? You know, this manifests in a sense of just kind of like nihilism and polarization, that we forget what makes us, what unites us, and we focus on what divides us.
39:30
And there's this kind of sense like, like, hey, nothing really works, it doesn't really matter, so let's just burn it all down. And a big part of how I think of what Pounder does in the world is it is about the legitimacy of our institutions. Like whether it's doors falling off planes or basic government services working, these institutions should all work excellently. In the absence of them working, it breeds this nihilism.
39:55
And then you get the wrong reaction to it. So that's what I think we should focus on addressing. So now to physical AI, the point of having an ambition like let's re-industrialize, let's be maximalist about this, not some sort of half measure that's like a little bit of friend shoring here or there or whatever. It's like, no, we invented all of these technologies. We invented mass production. We invented nuclear power.
40:16
Thing after thing after thing. It's like the idea that's. Somehow the American people are not capable of this thing. How is that beggar's belief, right? So I think it's actually about will and motivation and leadership. Yeah, no, I think that that is such a good segue into what you're doing in terms of building culture.