Alexander C. Karp

The co-founder and CEO of Palantir Technologies, one of the most powerful and contested firms in the world, Karp is an unlikely figure for American tech. A trained philosopher who studied under one of Europe's most prominent political theorists in Frankfurt, with a law degree from Stanford and a stint running a small investment firm in London.

Palantir, which builds data analytics software for defense and intelligence agencies across the Western world, made Karp one of the most polarizing figures in Silicon Valley: outspoken, philosophically minded, and unapologetic about working with governments and militaries at a time when much of the tech industry preferred to avoid the association.

The Technological Republic: Hard Power, Soft Belief, and the Future of the West, co-authored with Palantir's Nicholas Zamiska and published in 2025, channels that stance into book form. A number one New York Times bestseller, it argues that Silicon Valley has lost its sense of national purpose and that renewed collaboration between the tech industry and Western governments, especially around AI, is both necessary and urgent.