# Longer assignments let top military talent compound expertise

Markdown copy of https://realalpha.app/s/longer-assignments-let-top-military-talent-compound/ on Real Alpha, the best minutes from long interviews with the people building AI. Cite and link the page, not this copy.

- Speaker: [Shyam Sankar](https://realalpha.app/builders/shyam-sankar/) · Shyam Sankar is Chief Technology Officer of Palantir Technologies. · Runs Palantir's technology as CTO, having joined as employee 13 and pioneered the forward-deployed engineering model.
- Host: [Shawn Ryan](https://realalpha.app/people/shawn-ryan/) · Host, The Shawn Ryan Show
- Show: The Shawn Ryan Show
- Episode: [Shyam Sankar - Chief Technology Officer of Palantir: The Future of Warfare | SRS #190](https://realalpha.app/v/DTG393KqOGc/), Apr 10, 2025
- Moment: 1:55:17 to 1:59:33 of the episode (4 min), playing on https://realalpha.app/s/longer-assignments-let-top-military-talent-compound/; the episode from there: https://realalpha.app/v/DTG393KqOGc/?t=6917

## Quote

> “With AI and the AI revolution, people think, oh, it's going to make the median person better. That's true. But it's going to make **the very best person superhuman**.”
> — [Shyam Sankar](https://realalpha.app/builders/shyam-sankar/) at [1:56:28](https://realalpha.app/v/DTG393KqOGc/?t=6988) · The Shawn Ryan Show

## Takeaways

1. One Army major’s work drove kinetic strikes around the world.
2. The Navy’s nuclear reactor program lead serves an eight-year assignment.
3. Sankar argues AI will amplify the impact of top performers.

## About this segment

Shyam Sankar says a major once did the work of 100 people and argues AI will magnify top performers. He also calls for longer tenures in complex roles, pointing to an eight-year Navy reactor assignment.

From “Shyam Sankar - Chief Technology Officer of Palantir: The Future of Warfare | SRS #190”, Apr 10, 2025. [Watch the full episode](https://realalpha.app/v/DTG393KqOGc/)

## Transcript

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

[1:55:30](https://realalpha.app/v/DTG393KqOGc/?t=6930) I think that's probably one of the most important reforms. First of all, the person is the program. So stop thinking about these programs as independent of, do you have the right human to lead this? And by the way, once you get the right human, don't let them leave. We know this. We're the most important things. The head of the nuclear reactor program in the Navy. It's an eight-year gig. As you well know, most gigs in the military, they're like two to three years. There's a reason we made it an eight-year gig, because there's increasing returns to expertise, and it's a highly complicated thing, and you need continuity there. I actually think in reality, there's many more things that look like that where you need continuity. If you're in a role for two to three years, you don't even know you've made a mistake, let alone had the

[1:56:11](https://realalpha.app/v/DTG393KqOGc/?t=6971) opportunity to learn from a mistake. When I think about the 19 years plus I've been at Palantir, I have screwed so many things up and I've had the ability to learn from all those things to make it better and better. It's just compounded over time. If you somehow had someone do my role where we were just swapping every two to three years, I can't even imagine how much further behind we would have been. So that's one aspect of personnel. The second aspect is With AI and the AI revolution, people think, oh, it's going to make the median person better.

[1:56:47](https://realalpha.app/v/DTG393KqOGc/?t=7007) That's true. But it's going to make the very best person superhuman. And so in a lethal... context. In defense context, that means that's the only thing that matters. Like, who are the very best people? How do we give them the decision advantage to win? And that then, as a consequence, you have to think about who are your best people? I'll tell you, one of the combatant commands, I won't get into all the details, but one of the combatant commands, there is a major, prior police officer, joined the service late, army major. He does the work of 100 people. No shit, 100 people, kinetic strikes around the world that are being driven by his work uh i don't think the military has ever been in a position where it's that asymmetric and so that that has a lot of consequences for your for your for structure and how you think about who should be in what role

[1:57:31](https://realalpha.app/v/DTG393KqOGc/?t=7051) what what are you going to lose when that person rotates out you know um and then our ability you know because the more we took when i said earlier palitzer thinks of itself as a artist colony as opposed to a factory we didn't talk about what is a factory to me a factory is a place where you have this linear progression. You have this chart. Here's the ladder you climb. Here are the rules. Here are the experiences. Everything's mapped out. And that gives the human a lot of comfort.

[1:57:56](https://realalpha.app/v/DTG393KqOGc/?t=7076) It gives the institution comfort. It's easy to understand what to do. You don't have to really think that hard about what comes next or answer hard questions like, am I growing? Or any of these things that people have legitimate questions around. But what it does is deprives you of the sense of what is this human really good at? What are they world class at? What is their superpowers? and how do I maximize that use for lethality?

[1:58:15](https://realalpha.app/v/DTG393KqOGc/?t=7095) You can see that sort of thinking in JSOC, smaller community, more primacy to the outcomes that need to be driven, higher stakes, but the big machine loses that qualitative sense. And so I think that's going to be really important. When I think about the most important projects we've been involved with, there are really a handful of commanders who were so insightful. I think they might be offended to hear me describe them this way, but they are what we would call in Silicon Valley product managers. They are the people with the vision of what they need the software to do so that they can accomplish this thing in the world. And they would not see it as below them. Three-star, four-star generals, they would not see it as below them to sit there and critique your mocks of, and tell you these pixels are

[1:58:59](https://realalpha.app/v/DTG393KqOGc/?t=7139) wrong. I need it to be like this because they recognize that what they're getting is an Iron Man suit, a software Iron Man suit that allows them to control the battle space. It's got to fit them perfectly it's got to be it's got to fit their mind this is they are in this context founder personalities right and as a consequence they can get so much done and I think so much goes wrong when you're trying to think about your software solution independent of the human who's going to be wielding it and operating the principle.