Honestly with Bari Weiss

Alex Karp’s Fight for the West

395 snips
Mar 15, 2025
Alex Karp, the CEO of Palantir and author of "The Technological Republic," engages in a lively discussion about the tech industry's shift from meaningful innovation to superficiality. He shares insights from his personal struggle with dyslexia, emphasizing its unexpected advantages in professional settings. Karp critiques contemporary academia's ideological challenges and the rise of a new belief system he likens to a 'pagan religion.' He also addresses pressing issues like uplifting the working class and the complexities of free speech in today's polarized media landscape.
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ANECDOTE

Karp's Dyslexia

  • Alex Karp didn't publicly acknowledge his dyslexia until about seven or eight years ago.
  • He views dyslexia as having an "attenuated relationship to broader taxonomies."
INSIGHT

Forced Hermeneutics of Dyslexia

  • Dyslexia forces a "hermeneutic" layer of interpretation onto text, making it more deeply internalized.
  • This can be advantageous in business, preventing one from being controlled by staff or conventional thinking.
ANECDOTE

From Frankfurt School to Building

  • Despite dyslexia, Karp pursued law and a PhD at Goethe University, home of the Frankfurt School.
  • He realized he excelled at building, not just academic analysis, finding the former more important.
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