Der Unsichtbare - Tech-Milliardär Alex Karp, Palantir und der globale Überwachungsstaat

by Michael Steinberger, Heiko Grauel (Narrator), Bernhard Schmid - Übersetzer

Alex Karp - der Mann, der alles über uns weiß

Das Softwareunternehmen Palantir vertreibt eine der weltweit leistungsstärksten Technologien zum Sammeln von großen Datenmengen. Damit handelt Palantir mit Informationen, die westliche Demokratien schützen sollen, aber auch ihren Zusammenbruch herbeiführen könnten. An der Spitze des Unternehmens steht der unkonventionelle CEO und Mitbegründer Alex Karp, der in Sozialtheorie promovierte und überraschende politische und philosophische Ansichten vertritt. Erstmalig hat Michael Steinberger vom New York Times Magazine exklusiven Zugang zu Alex Karp und beleuchtet in seinem Buch die Wahrheit hinter der öffentlichen Fassade dieses Mannes. Er liefert dabei eine treffende Analyse der Risiken von Big Data für unsere Privatsphäre und Bürgerrechte und zeigt auf, wie uns die Existenz von gefährlichen Datenmengen in Zukunft beeinflussen wird.

Genres: Biography, Nonfiction, Business, Technology, Politics, Science, Philosophy

Audible Audio

Published November 11, 2025

Reviews

[George Finkbohner · Rating 2 out of 5]

wasted opportunity

The book is supposed to be a biography of Karp, but the author’s politics gets in the way and is distracting and annoying. Look, I voted democrat for 30 years, so what!! The author presents Karp and Palanter through a philosophical and judgmental left wing progressive moral prism. What does the reader learn from this book? Answer: The author hates trump, loathes and detests him. Truly good biographers may reveal their personal political opinions from time to time in a biography ; great biographers almost never do. The author here is neither. So, this was a disappointing read.

[James D Hayden · Rating 1 out of 5]

the author tainted a great biography

Alex Karp is Fascinating, but the author and all of his wokeness, destroyed the great insights about Alex. I wanted to read a book about the life of Alex Karp, not to hear the opinions of an author riddled with TDS.

[taylor · Rating 5 out of 5]

I devoured this book. Read paragraphs any empty moment I had. Thus the rating. Perhaps I read a different book than some of the reviewers. I did not find the book biased by author's politcal point of view. But of course that could be me. I read Karp's book but found this much more informative on the man himself.

One cannot escape the irony of his background, 1/2 black, Jewish, no formal education in management or technology, a self-proclaimed progressive who for most of his adult life had no respect for Trump. Yet here he is, a successful CEO of perhaps the world leading intelligence gathering companies, where his biggest customers are military and police, and various other government organizations.

His ideology seems to the opposite of Thiel's even as Karp began to be a Trump supporter, Thiel no longer supported the President, and had some fairly harsh words for Trump.
His job as CEO of a public company is to raise profits and stock price. You can check both of those boxes. IPO of around $10, and is currently $167.

Certainly the company has made many ethical/moral mistakes, and perhaps Karp's admiration of Trump is nothing more than a ploy to gain more government contracts, but equally true is that the software they distribute have saved 1000s of American lives.

They are at the forefront of the conflict between personal privacy vs global security. An easy target for many groups.

The trend continues. I have not yet met a CEO of a public company I would like to have dinner with. Great read, expertly written. A few points off for not interviewing Karp and Thiel at the same time and asking the tough questions with both in the room.

[uk · Rating 2 out of 5]

Alexander Caedmon Karp
is an American businessman and entrepreneur. He is the co-founder and chief executive officer (CEO) of the software firm Palantir Technologies. Karp began his career investing in start-up companies and stocks, and established Palantir in 2003 with Peter Thiel. […] In 2025, Time magazine named him on the Time 100 list of the world's most influential people […] his net worth exceeded $18 billion.
[Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopaedia]


Alex Karp
is all in all unfortunately just another moneyed, cunning, ethically unkempt dingbat feeling entitled by a higher power aka himself to have the final say in the life of billions of human beings on the basis of the size of his bank account.

[anika · Rating 2 out of 5]

it's absolutely hilarious that the negative reviews of this book come from maga losers who are complaining that steinberger is biased for reporting on the criticisms of karp/palantir and well-meaning progressives who criticize karp for his support of a genocide.

news flash. EVERYONE is biased. the only coverage you will find unbiased is coverage you agree with. so yeah, if you're maga, you'll probably find this book biased because steinberger does not worship at the feet of alex karp and peter thiel. if you're progressive, you'll find this book biased as it does not explicitly condemn genocide.

what i will add to this clusterf*ck:
- this book was not very well-written. it read like a long-form wikipedia article rather than a piece of journalism (which is what i would expect from a journalist like steinberger). i wanted more! give me something that wouldn't be there in a wikipedia article.
- also, the audiobook for this book was really weird. i have no idea who this narrator is, but he mispronounced multiple words.

[Jimmy Neville · Rating 3 out of 5]

For a biography about Karp, it is weird to walk away knowing more about the author’s personal political beliefs

[Ali · Rating 3 out of 5]

Karp is a complex character and mostly controversial where the latter seems to be a bit intentional. Like Hollywood celebrities, he likes putting on a show at Davos or Washington or wherever he gets the mic so that Palantir makes the headlines and then of course its stock gets the spike. I guess, as the maxim goes, there is no such thing as bad publicity. Despite this facade Karp seems to like his solitude with his twenty some properties mostly close to skiing pistes where he enjoys in a Palantarian's wording of geographically monogamous hermit life. Karp's political/ philosophical evolution from his far-left progressive roots to hardcore libertarian or too far-right follows the Musk line, therefore Steinberger's narrative reads very much like Walter Isaacson's Elon Musk biography. The overlap is not just common cofounders and friends like Peter Thiel but also Musk/Karp's huge egos with almost God-complex to save the humanity (Musk's Mars mission) or in case of Karp saving the Western World (with controlled violence). Karp blames the wokeism which he sees as a threat to meritocracy for his political shift from his socialist progressive upbringing to being staunch supporter of Trump on immigration and "deterrent capacity of the US". Maybe his 2002 dissertation "Aggression in der Lebenswelt" explains his philosophical stance but as a CEO his realpolitik is wielding the political wind like other tech bros.

[Reid Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

As some great Amazon reviews put it, this book is redeemed by its subject, and was fantastic until the author stepped in. A book mostly about Trump and the "far right", but partially about Alex Karp and Palantir. The portion about Palantir is generally good.

[Nick Grainger · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed the book, especially the account of how Palantir was founded, Alex Karp’s worldview, and Peter Thiel’s involvement.

The author highlights how influential Palantir has been, both on the battlefield, most notably in Ukraine, and also in tackling highly complex supply-chain problems. Those sections were interesting too.

Some reviewers have criticised the book for displaying a political bias. While that bias does surface in parts, it ultimately serves as a useful juxtaposition as it highlights Palantir’s founding ethos of defending democratic values, while also examining the tension created by doing business with governments and public agencies that may undermine those very principles.

[Julia Clavien · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not great. A bit painful to read with all the authors political views woven in the whole way through. Not as much substance on the company as I’d hoped.

[Julia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating biography of a man who got a company because of a friendship and then spent the rest of his life decrying how other people asking for a level playing field as whiney. Narcissism is a hell of a drug.

[Kristin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Karp and Palantir no doubt will go down in history, but representing what will be harder to know. This biography on Karp allowed probably more access to him than any other material (so far) but it felt pretty lacking to me. I didn't finish the book feeling like I understood what Karp or Palantir stand for (cynically, maybe that is just it: they stand for making $).

Karp is just an odd dude (which, it seems like he'd be happy to admit) and full of contradictions, clearly an intelligent person but seems to have lost the thread. But his story is probably not as unique as he tries to make it: as he's become more wealthy, he's become surrounded by more yes-men and has lost the need to make sense. I feel like he feels important and wanted a biography to be written about him (and, fairly, probably merits it) but this is a person who seems either so guarded (or the author is not great at getting material from him) and/or seems to be in desperate need of therapy.

Karp has increasingly moved "right" and has recently railed against identity politics, but is happy to use his Jewish heritage to justify Palantir's support of Israel, even when the nation is doing things that go against Palantir's "code" (though, much like Google's "don't be evil," it seems that as the company evolved the code went by the wayside). He rails against remote work, while making his employees travel to work from his home. Like most founders of startups, he's totally screwed his employees on their shares and seemed almost proud of it when Palantir went public.

Overall, I wish the author did a better job of either pulling more from Karp or from analyzing what was said to him, because it seemed to be a mish-mosh of a bio.

[Dan Watts · Rating 4 out of 5]

I chose this book because I wanted to see if it would change my opinion that Alex Karp is a con artist and Palantir is a meme stock.

It didn't, but, there again, the book didn't really try to. Despite the author's friendship with Karp, the book is an even-handed portrayal of Palantir's rise and Alex Karp's leadership style. It's neither overly critical nor flattering, though at many points it is appropriately sardonic about Karp's erratic behavior and bizarre speech patterns.

The best aspect of this book is that the author had considerable one-on-one time with his subject, making it similar to Walter Isaacson's biographies of tech industry figures. I also found the writing style to be quite approachable.

The book's weaknesses are that it makes little effort to explain how Palantir's products work, or to address the 'rise of the surveillance state' issue featured in its subtitle.

[alexander · Rating 2 out of 5]

Rather a strange angle to take, and a disappointment for most readers looking to better understand Karp.

The narrative is much too personal to the author for no benefit, and barely examines a single thing that is claimed by the book’s subject, naively taking him entirely at his word on everything. It actually becomes funny when it’s apparent how little Karp cares about this guy, and how irked he must be at the constant intrusive mentions of their damn undergrad.

But the information feels very selective and context is given quite superficially among standard awed pronouncements about the tech without much further detail backing it, with mostly ambivalent results for the customers, though the Airbus example is interesting (I imagine not a hard one to document), there’s a missed opportunity to evaluate the geopolitical side more objectively.

[Brandon M. Smith · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'd give this 4 stars for content - especially if a reader can contrast this with The Technological Republic and it's interesting if you've ever been a persistent Palantir user (as I have been).

That said, the preface starts on a non objective note where the author's politics are clearly transmitting through the content. The book feels like the author wants to pontificate with his own opinions throughout, but is constrained, until Chapter 10. Then the obnoxious projecting, editorializing, and personal inferences appear in earnest.

Good book, botches the landing.

[Liz Mc2 · Rating 3 out of 5]

I saw this as more an extended journalistic profile than an in-depth biography of Karp or history of Palantir. No one is spilling juicy secrets here, but I found it pretty even-handed. The author had a lot of access to Karp. What was most interesting to me was the idea that Karp’s focus on national security comes from his anxieties about his own security (as a Jewish man more than a biracial man; the former seems clearly a more important part of his identity to him now). Also that what changed his political views was not so much acquiring a lot of money as the fact that once you are a billionaire, you spend most of your time with other billionaires in a weird little world. That made sense to me. The book is very readable if not especially surprising. I will note, because it bothered me, that it deadnames and misgenders Chelsea Manning. I suppose it is using the name/gender Manning was known by at the time she leaked information to Wikileaks but I think there are better ways to handle that.

[Grant Weeks · Rating 3 out of 5]

Paperback. I am still waiting for a “Power Broker” level novel on Peter Thiel. Since that is nowhere near realistic, I settled for this somewhat shallow reporting of Palantir’s genesis.

That said, I did appreciate the level of detail around Palantir’s origin story and early value prop. The analysis and interpretation of Karps life was weak though. And I never quite got the behind the curtain feel that often defines a great biopic. So the title page came off clickbait-y once finished. Still an entertaining read overall

[Kaitlyn Patrick · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed this and learned a lot about Alex Karp, the origins and growth of Palantir, and its dealings with the U.S. government. It appears several reviewers didn’t read the title and are upset this book wasn’t solely a biography of Karp.

[Emmet Sullivan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty good. Very rosy treatment for Karp, Palantir, and Thiel (the three main subjects of the book). But I learned a bit about what Palantir actually does, why people are suspicious of it, and how different clients use it. Undoubtedly worthwhile.

[Jay Zwelling · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautifully written, interesting and unnerving, a real page turner.

[Andrew Bianco · Rating 3 out of 5]

Glad I know more about Palantir and Karp’s backstory. The book probably could have been 20% the length.

[Danny Milligan · Rating 1 out of 5]

Author was so politically biased he ruined what could have been a good book. Disappointing, don't bother.

[Cole Strickland · Rating 1 out of 5]

As someone that gives an average review of ~4.5 stars, I'd like to genuinely give this book a one star review. I can attest that I read the whole thing (minus the epilogue and 5-6 additional paragraphs where the author's liberal bias was just too absurd to get through).

Like everyone else posting reviews, I found the author's absurd interjection of his left-wing worldview into every fiber of the book highly inappropriate for an audience that just wanted to learn about Karp and Palantir. However, I was able to simply roll my eyes and look through the author's absurdities to learn what I wanted about Palantir/Karp/Silicon Valley/etc, and that part I did enjoy.

[Jan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Eine uninspirierte Biografie über einen am Ende uninteressanten und völlig gewöhnlichen, auch wenn das Buch krampfhaft versucht einem etwas anderes zu erzählen, Tech-CEO, dessen ideologischer Sinneswandel allein in seiner eigenen intellektuellen Beschränktheit und seinem kapitalistischen Profitstreben begründet liegt. Einen weiteren Stern Abzug gab es für die stellenweise holprige und fehlerhafte deutsche Übersetzung.

[Cameron Clearfield · Rating 1 out of 5]

The Philosopher In The Valley is ostensibly a book about the advent of #PLTR and Karp’s journey to becoming CEO. In reality, it’s the author’s (@WineDiarist) conduit to get his irritatingly left-wing message out to the masses. Unfortunate Karp signed off on this book

[Mike Cheng]

3/5 stars. Published in November 2025, this is an exposition of Palantir and more so its CEO Alex Karp based on interviews of numerous current and former Palantirians, including Peter Thiel and Karp himself. In spite of the book’s title, there is very little about any “rise of the surveillance state”. To the contrary, the book acknowledges the common misconception that the company collects or stores data. Rather, Palantir’s products integrate, merge, and analyze the raw data (which is often in various messy and inconsistent formats) belonging to its customers; Palantir doesn’t own or use the data. An apt analogy would be how Big Data is the new Big Oil in terms of both profitability and the need for refinement. In other words, Palantir makes order out of the chaos that is large volumes of spreadsheets, phone logs, text messages, social media posts, etc.
Palantir was founded by Peter Thiel and Karp, with the two first meeting as 1Ls at Stanford Law School. They enjoyed debating philosophy and politics (Thiel was a libertarian whereas Karp once considered himself a neo-socialist). The idea for Palantir, however, came years later after the 9/11 attacks. Thiel, during his PayPal Mafia days, understood the need for computer security when PayPal was facing millions in fraud and scams, eventually developing an antifraud tool named Project IGOR (named after one of the infamous hackers). Thereafter Thiel and his engineers began a program named Palantir, whose namesake is the seeing stones in Lord of the Rings. Karp was asked to join the startup of the same name in 2004, and it eventually became clear to Thiel and others that Karp, with no technology background or startup experience, would be an ideal fit as CEO.
Karp himself came from humble beginnings, growing up in a suburb in Philadelphia and raised frugally with much of his clothing being purchased on consignment. His biggest challenge growing up was being dyslexic, though ultimately Karp says it forced him to be organized and develop focus. Karp is half Jewish, half Black, and both halves have played a role in his liberal worldview, which has evolved over the years. Karp, who considers himself liberal, has become disenfranchised with progressives and most Democrats, especially with respect to identity politics, crime, DEI across college campuses, and the treatment of Jews.
During its formative years, and perhaps even today, Palantir has not been the prototypical Silicon Valley startup. Since day one, the company has been unabashed in its mission of being both sword and shield for the United States and the West. It refuses to service any country who does not share those values, including China and Russia. In such manner, Palantir can be considered an extension of Karp’s idiosyncratic nature, and his disdain extends not only to the aforementioned countries but other Bay Area tech companies such as Meta and Google (who actually does collect and sell data). Even recently Karp has been outspoken about Palantir’s role in combating terrorism as well as aiding both law enforcement (local police as well as ICE) and both the US and Israeli militaries. While government contracts were Palantir’s bread and butter, servicing the private sector is probably what is responsible for the meteoric rise of its stock price. In this regard, the book details the company’s development and that of its products - Gotham, Metropolis, Foundry, and Apollo - and eventually going public in 2020 (despite approaching $1B in annual revenue it had still not turned a profit in its first 17 years). Today the market is finally enamored with Palantir’s ability to make money, and the book’s penultimate chapter suggests that the company is on the forefront of the AI revolution, and poised to be in a position of market dominance vis-a-vis Palantir’s Artificial Intelligence Platform (AIP), which is built on top of Foundry, Gotham, and Apollo. AIP is not intended to compete with today’s prominent AI models, but rather it provides the infrastructure for customers to better use those AI models.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ontology: In the philosophical universe, ontology is a branch of metaphysics that deals with the nature of being and that creates categories of things (people, places, objects) to describe reality.

In data science, ontology loosely means how information is organized and structured. This mapping function is critical to drawing meaningful connections between disparate pieces of information.

The critical part of Palantir's software is its 'dynamic ontology,' which allows users to construct 'digital twins' of their own operations that can be continuously updated and augmented to mirror the evolution of the organization.

Alex Karp had no use for the Beckettian 'fail better next time' ethos because there was no guarantee that there would be a next time.

Palantir didn't collect, store, or sell data.

Of course, Palantir is a software company significantly contributing to the ongoing rise of the surveillance state, whose well-heeled customers include national governments and their intelligence agencies, local governments, police departments, and privately / publically held companies / corporations.

Its data integration software technology ingests vast quantities of differently formatted information and quickly identifies patterns, trends, and connections.

People associated with the funding and leadership of Palantir are primarily Alex Karp and to a lesser extent, Peter Thiel. A lot of this book is about the biography of Alex Karp, a biracial Jew who is also severely dyslexic.

Karp was educated and trained in the subject of philosophy. His formal education has no ties to computer science or more specifically, software creation or the programming of computer code. Although, his lifestyle is unusually atypical, he has people skills and is a decent salesman.

It is interesting to follow Alex Karp's transformation from a progressive liberal to a Trump supporter. To say this transformation is unrelated to transactional opportunity for Palantir is incorrect. Although, this book reminds us that his initial interest and the company's founding purpose was to help the U.S. government in the war on terrorism.

Furthermore, realizing which side of the fence Karp inhabits on the mercenaries vs missionaries question is not very challenging.

Read this book to become better informed about one of Silicon Valley's most secretive and powerful companies, whose technology is at the leading edge of the surveillance state. Highly recommended.

[D C · Rating 4 out of 5]

Palantir sit not so quietly behind some the most influential decisions made in the world. This book is a starting point to understanding them and those decisions.

The book does two things well. It is a serious account of Palantir. While more prominently, it is a study into the protagonist and the founder of the whole thing, Alex Karp.

One of the big successes of the book is making Palantir legible without turning it into the villain - when it would have been all too easy to. The reporting always feels truthful, observational, and intriguingly close in a reportage way without sanitising anything. From inside rooms of war, borders, policing, health care, and global logistics, Palantir emerge as the macro economic actor they are with their software made more sense of in how it shapes decision making, not some unsettling myth.

But this isn’t a Palantir book. The gravitational centre is the psychologically astute portrait of Karp.

He appears as many things: ideological, intellectual, eccentric, quixotic, odd and yet totally coherent, without any one individual quality becoming his caricature.

The title of the book is the tell. Before Palantir (until his mid 30s) Karp trained for a life in philosophy academia. And it is this lens which still defines him. Part philosopher, part founder, part megalomaniac, he is singularly convinced he’s on the right side of history. He genuinely seems to care about liberal values and believes Palantir builds the right things to preserve them. And another of the book’s achievements is showing the nuance of how this belief system has come to be so central to how Palantir operates.

Where the book falters a little is in its detours.

At times, the book gives way to political commentary which can feel quite personal. They add little, particularly when more interesting questions sit nearby untouched; such as Palantir’s long-term accountability (if any) and who (if anyone) ultimately governs companies operating this close to power. The book circles these without ever pinning them down, leaving the critique political and all too familiar rather than more useful.

That said, it may be unfair to ask the book to resolve these questions. What it does succeed in doing is making their situationally opaque world a little clearer.

There is a line in the book that lingers: “This is a world where you have to pick sides.” And this is a book that gives insight to pick one.

That makes it worth reading.

[Amir · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this biography — not so much because of the writing (which is solid), but because the protagonist is so compelling.

Alex Karp has an unusual backdrop: Jewish father, African American mother, raised in Philadelphia, educated at the liberal enclave of Haverford College, then improbably befriending Peter Thiel at Stanford Law.

Then he steps off the conventional path entirely. He spends years in Germany, immerses himself in continental philosophy — particularly Jürgen Habermas (alongside the Frankfurt School tradition, including Adorno) — and earns a PhD in neoclassical social theory from Goethe University in Frankfurt. Not the typical preparation for running a Silicon Valley data-intelligence company.

Somewhere along the way, he develops a deep attachment to Judaism and the Jewish people. The book makes clear that this identity is central to him, though it’s less clear exactly when and how it crystallized.

At 34, he’s appointed CEO of Palantir — essentially as the “adult in the room.” True, it was pre-revenue and had roughly $1 million in early funding (based on early seed-stage disclosures), so perhaps the financial risk to Thiel was limited. Still, selecting a 34-year-old with no prior operating experience to run a startup was an unconventional bet.

He proves equal to it. He stamps the company with his personality — cerebral, combative, mission-driven — and persuades the CIA, the Department of Defense, and other agencies to entrust Palantir with sensitive, high-stakes work. Through it all, he projects a strong moral self-conception: unapologetically pro-American, openly pro-Israel, and willing to take positions that cut against prevailing Silicon Valley sentiment.

Unexpected, idiosyncratic, and intellectually serious, Karp makes this a compelling read.

[Hadi Ariyan · Rating 4 out of 5]

An incredibly well-researched and timely biography of Alex Karp, the CEO of Palantir. Steinberger does a great job of explaining the "Rise of the Surveillance State," but the subject himself is so polarizing that it makes for a complicated reading experience.

● What Worked:
Insightful Reporting: Steinberger provides a deep psychological portrait of Karp. He explains how a PhD in Philosophy ended up running one of the most powerful data-mining companies in the world.

● The "Big Picture": The book is excellent at showing how Palantir’s technology is being used by governments and militaries. It really opens your eyes to how much power these "surveillance" tools have in the 21st century.

● Balanced Writing: Even though I didn't like Karp, I liked the book. The writing is clear, direct, and doesn't shy away from the controversies surrounding the company.

● What Didn't Work (The "Karp" Factor):
The Political Divide: I struggled with Alex Karp as a person. His "raging Zionist" views and his very aggressive, sensitive political leanings made it hard to stay objective. He is a very intense, often combative figure, and that "in-your-face" personality can be exhausting to read about for 300+ pages.
Moral Conflict: It’s hard to give a "perfect" 5-star rating to a book when the person at the center of it holds views you find so difficult to agree with.

● Final Thoughts:
If you want to understand the intersection of Silicon Valley, the military, and global politics, this is a must-read. Michael Steinberger is a great guide, but be prepared to spend a lot of time in the head of a CEO who is as controversial as he is powerful.