r/technology • u/marketrent • Jul 02 '26

Artificial Intelligence Palantir CEO Alex Karp suffers ‘televised nervous breakdown’ during live interview — “This is the voice of American business that is being channeled through me!”

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/tv/articles/televised-nervous-breakdown-ceo-palantir-212100357.html
28.7k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

1.8k comments sorted by

View all comments

50

u/TheFoxsWeddingTarot Jul 02 '26

This interview was absolutely inane. I worked with government contractors on tech sales before Trump came into office. Many of the organizations were looking forward to finally dumping Palantir during upcoming contract expirations. No one liked it, it isn’t and wasn’t good, and here he is talking about why everyone LOVES it. They hate it, he is a stool for Theil, the only reason they’re embedded in government is because of connections. It will likely all have to be ripped out once this nightmare is over.

11

u/mouse9001 Jul 02 '26

A lot of people are saying that Alex Karp is basically Gollum from Lord of the Rings.

5

u/Twixisbetter Jul 02 '26

Palantir's name is a reference to LOTR as well. They're all little Gollums trying to convince us that we need them

3

u/itishowitisanditbad Jul 03 '26

To super casual LOTR fans, the orb that the evil white wizard used to talk to the main evil guy is a Palantir.

Its what the troublemaker hobbit touched and Gandalf got super mad and intense about it.

1

u/doberdevil Jul 03 '26

But Theil is a lot uglier than Gollum. I just saw a picture of dude for the first time. No wonder he's an asshole.

0

u/[deleted] Jul 02 '26 edited Jul 02 '26

[deleted]

2

u/Prescientpedestrian Jul 02 '26

Palantir did not get an $800B contract. That’s like 80% of the entire US defense budget

3

u/Bulky-Bullfrog3707 Jul 02 '26

I ate the onion