First published 2025
Alexander Karp argues that Silicon Valley has abandoned its historic mission. The Palantir co-founder and CEO, working with Nicholas Zamiska, examines how tech's brightest minds once partnered with government to build world-changing technologies that secured Western dominance. Now those same engineers create photo-sharing apps and marketing algorithms instead of tackling urgent challenges. Karp traces this shift from ambitious innovation to shallow market pursuits, showing how complacency has infected academia, politics, and corporate boardrooms. He contends that an entire generation has embraced narrow economic demands over transformative goals. The book demands that software companies recommit to solving critical problems, including the artificial intelligence arms race, while government must adopt engineering principles that drove Silicon Valley's earlier success. Karp and Zamiska insist leaders must reject intellectual weakness and preserve space for ideological conflict, arguing that willingness to face crowd disapproval drives technological and economic superiority. The authors reveal Palantir's internal workings and political mission while issuing an urgent call for Western nations to confront new global realities.
Genres: business, 21st-century, artificial-intelligence, current-affairs, computer-science, academic
Vibes: intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: intellectual-conflict, technological-superiority, urgent-challenges
Setting: Silicon Valley
Period: 21st Century
320 pages · Hardcover · Crown Currency