On Monday’s earnings call, Palantir executives took shots at elite education while expressing optimism about “blue collar” workers who use the company’s software products.
“If you did not go to school, or you went to a school that’s not that great, or you went to Harvard or Princeton or Yale, once you come to Palantir, you’re a Palantirian, no one cares about the other stuff,” CEO Alex Karp said. “We are making a new credential independent of class and background at Palantir.”
Such rhetoric seems increasingly par for the course for Karp as well as Silicon Valley founders and investors who have rejected higher education in favor of nontraditional paths to careers in tech, like founding a company out of high school or joining Palantir instead of enrolling in college. That’s the goal of the company’s Meritocracy Fellowship, which launched in the spring.
“We’re asking people to work in an environment, when they come in here, that is very different than anything they’ve ever worked on,” Karp added. “Most of them come from university, where they’ve just been engaged in platitudes.”
The Trump administration has also espoused this college-skeptical viewpoint. At the Winning the AI Race Summit in Washington, DC, in July, Vice President JD Vance told the crowd that some college students “feel like they’re living in a North Korean totalitarian-style dictatorship” while at university. “I think the entire university system in this country is broken,” Vance added. He was met with applause from the audience of venture capitalists, policymakers, and founders.
Karp also said on Monday’s call that people without college degrees are using some of Palantir’s products, though he didn’t specify which ones: “People with less than a college education are creating a lot of value — and sometimes more value than people with a college education — using our product,” Karp said.
While a degree from an elite college might not mean much to Palantir, Karp thinks working at his company is a strong career signal: “This is by far the best credential in tech,” he said. “If you come to Palantir, your career is set.” (Business Insider has previously reported that tech recruiters are mixed on whether working at Palantir alone can predict strong career outcomes.)
Palantir posted strong earnings Monday, notching over $1 billion in revenue this quarter, a first for the company.
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