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The a16z Show

Palantir CEO Alex Karp on the Zero-Sum AI Race

The a16z Show

a16z

Culture, Business, Science, Disruption, Technology, Software Eating The World, Entrepreneurship, Innovation

4.21.2K Ratings

🗓️ 12 March 2026

⏱️ 33 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This conversation with Alex Karp, cofounder and CEO of Palantir, was recorded at the a16z American Dynamism Summit in Washington, D.C. Karp discusses the role of technology in modern warfare, Silicon Valley's obligations to national defense, and why he believes America's single greatest competitive advantage is its ability to cultivate and protect unconventional talent.

Transcript

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0:00.0

We were The Freak Show, and we spent 20 years for this moment.

0:05.0

We're doing it.

0:07.0

We're doing it.

0:08.0

And I'm sure you're joined this as much as I am.

0:12.0

I just got three things to say.

0:15.0

God bless our troops.

0:17.0

God bless America.

0:19.0

And gentlemen, start your attack.

0:26.0

We are the power that actually has the decisive vote, and that is with military superiority.

0:33.3

If Silicon Valley believes we are going to take away everyone's white-collar job,

0:40.5

the most important thing Pallinger is doing is to make sure that American war fighters

0:47.9

are much more likely to come home.

0:50.0

If we are going to outperform the rest of the world, our single advantage is...

0:56.0

There is a version of Silicon Valley that believes it operates outside of geopolitics.

1:02.0

That the products it builds are neutral, that the rules of great power competition don't apply to software companies.

1:09.7

Alex Carp has spent 20 years arguing the opposite.

1:13.3

As co-founder and CEO of Palantir,

1:15.9

he has built technology deployed on battlefields across the Middle East

1:19.5

and analytics infrastructure embedded in the Department of War.

1:23.9

What has changed in the past year is harder to dismiss.

1:27.6

American operations have demonstrated a level of precision and dominance that adversaries did not anticipate.

1:35.1

Karp argues that is not an accident.

...

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