# Karp says his outsider background shaped Palantir’s worker focus

Markdown copy of https://realalpha.app/s/karp-says-his-outsider-background-shaped-palantirs-worker/ on Real Alpha, the best minutes from long interviews with the people building AI. Cite and link the page, not this copy.

- Speaker: [Alex Karp](https://realalpha.app/builders/alex-karp/) · Alex Karp is CEO and cofounder of Palantir. · Co-founded Palantir with Peter Thiel and has run it as CEO, selling data and AI software to governments.
- Host: Molly O'Shea · Founder, Sourcery · Ex-Upfront Ventures investor; has interviewed Alex Karp and Palmer Luckey.
- Show: Sourcery
- Episode: [Alex Karp, CEO of Palantir: Exclusive Interview Inside PLTR Office](https://realalpha.app/v/RG9fdLzxTaw/), Nov 11, 2025
- Moment: 8:36 to 13:08 of the episode (5 min), playing on https://realalpha.app/s/karp-says-his-outsider-background-shaped-palantirs-worker/; the episode from there: https://realalpha.app/v/RG9fdLzxTaw/?t=516

## Quote

> “Who does the **dying and bleeding for us**? Soldiers, people on the factory floor.”
> — [Alex Karp](https://realalpha.app/builders/alex-karp/) at [10:29](https://realalpha.app/v/RG9fdLzxTaw/?t=629) · Sourcery

## Takeaways

1. He sees his outsider background as a bridge to working-class Americans.
2. He says soldiers and factory workers bear costs that elites can avoid.
3. He says Palantir has argued for its core policies for 20 years.

## About this segment

Alex Karp links his outsider upbringing to soldiers and factory workers, who he says bear the costs of national policy. He argues Palantir has held the same positions on defense and workers for two decades.

From “Alex Karp, CEO of Palantir: Exclusive Interview Inside PLTR Office”, Nov 11, 2025. [Watch the full episode](https://realalpha.app/v/RG9fdLzxTaw/)

## Transcript

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

[8:38](https://realalpha.app/v/RG9fdLzxTaw/?t=518) work. Is this why you're so committed to the American worker? And even in the recent earnings call, you called out you're giving venture returns to retail investors. You've created a really amazing cult behind wall street bets and a lot of retail so how do you feel about well i think you know i always think there's the economic and there's a psychological and really powerful things are aligned so like you know i i in no way like i hate these victimhood bs things and and honestly when you're almost everyone who believes in that is a mark whether they realize it or not but i I mean, like they may not realize it, but you are the mark.

[9:21](https://realalpha.app/v/RG9fdLzxTaw/?t=561) And that's frustrating because a lot of these people who believe in that really deserve better. But it's hard to give better if you believe in an ideology that can't work. But I did come from an environment where it was not expected that I would be co-founder and have a but-for role in building arguably one of the greatest companies ever built. And I don't mean that even like in like the half trillion dollar market cap or whatever it is, or I just mean in terms of how it's changed the lives primarily of Americans on the battlefield as investors and also, you know, on the factory floor.

[9:59](https://realalpha.app/v/RG9fdLzxTaw/?t=599) But the thing is, if you come from nothing and you're this amorphous, racially dyslexic person from a very specific kind of culture, not even Jewish culture, it's like super acribic, Germanic, left-wing culture, you assume the world may not work out for you and is definitely not looking out for you. Okay, so what other group of people in this culture have exactly the same vibe? Yeah. Soldiers, people on the factory floor. Who does the dying and bleeding for us? Soldiers, people on the factory floor. Who gets killed because somehow constitutional legal scholars only read the Constitution so it's expansive to protect their rights?

[10:43](https://realalpha.app/v/RG9fdLzxTaw/?t=643) So their right to be happy, their right to be go to Yale, their right to be wealthy, their right to be safe. But somehow the Constitution cannot be read to stop the reality of like in the last two years, more people have died of fentanyl than every single person who's died as a soldier since World War II. But they can't. And part of it is like they have a lot of intellectual reasons, but the real reason is they don't see themselves as having had the same fate.

[11:11](https://realalpha.app/v/RG9fdLzxTaw/?t=671) But if you're me, you look at those people. And then, quite frankly, look at the U.S. Army. Look who fought and died for our rights today. By the way, it was mostly working class people from what the elite calls flyover states. It still is. and then look at the U.S. military. It integrated, first to integrate, first to bring meritocracy. It still fights for meritocracy. It's the first major institution in the world to say, I don't care where you're from. And they did it way before American society. So that's that version. Then there's the economic stability version. My version of what, and by the way, a fair thing to ask people is, what were you saying 10 years ago? So one of the most amazing things about Palantir.

[12:01](https://realalpha.app/v/RG9fdLzxTaw/?t=721) And you know this, but you go online and people who are like, you know, whatever, some people don't like my vast words of wisdom. And they're like, he's saying this now. What did he say 10 years ago? It's like, we're saying this, we've been saying this for 20 years. Close the border, get rid of the identity politics, victimhood bullshit. It's especially bad for people who need it. Have a strong military, make that military the strongest in the world. Give an unfair advantage to America. Do not treat all cultures as equal. Simultaneously, do not get on the whole neo- con, make the whole world like America thing, because it doesn't work, be skeptical of immigration, built technology will be the determinant variable in who runs the world. All this stuff you're learning at Berkeley about people are just going to inherently absorb American values is really

[12:46](https://realalpha.app/v/RG9fdLzxTaw/?t=766) just downtrend from our military superiority. You don't know that, but our adversaries absolutely know that. We've been saying this for 20 years. And the only difference now is people who are skeptical of us are forced to realize we could be right, which is why they run to short sellers and analysts who still can't rock where we're at. There was a part in the book where you had just