Well, I'm happy to be here and I think this is a super important event. You've been able to kind of one of the real strengths of America that maybe it's harder to appreciate if you grew up here is Americans kind of adapt and change and change for real. So you had like Silicon Valley 1.0, Silicon Valley 2.0. I was tended to be aligned with Silicon Valley 1.0, which was to build useful things often with the government and then better the world by selling them to the rest of the world primarily in America, and you had a full alignment of American values, American innovation, deep thought primarily done in California, influenced by Stanford. And then you had Silicon Valley 2.0, which I think will go down as where you have so division, very few people got wealthy, so we obviously against that. And now you have what I think is an emerging, especially in the Venture class, I could historically have been one that would rage against Silicon Valley venture people, and I had all sorts of fantasies of using drone-enabled technology to exact revenge, especially targeted in violation of all norms. But I would say that you see an emerging especially in the Venture and defense tech area where people are really coming together around some obvious truths that the West is a better way for us to live, that we have certain structural advantages, the embodiment of our way of doing things in products and companies is a fairer, better way of organizing and living, and that's primarily done by freak show often entrepreneurs with the help and guidance of capital deployed by the Venture community. It's always yes, we were ahead of a lot of things and like to believe we're still ahead on a certain number of things, but I do feel like a lot of companies now would rally around providing the government with the best technology that would not have when we did it. I think there's a whole term I hate: ecosystem of tech patriots. Quite frankly, I think we've embarrassed the hell out of people who took the other side and they look like idiots. So Silicon Valley does have an Achilles heel: it hates looking stupid, so we kind of helped there. It was those bets were obviously stupid. Even if you disagree with our morals, you really don't look smart advocating for values you obviously don't believe in while not standing up with the US government, which you either do not believe in because you don't realize that you need the government to power and protect you abroad, or you're just manipulating people because the thin ideology that you can use to convince people you're good while getting them to work or protest for you for free is obviously no one it's not convincing anymore on the on the.
On the Ukraine, we've been involved in a lot of these battles. I don't think Ukraine has been more. It's like you have this divide between the elite and non-elite. I think the elite is very pro-Ukraine, so the courageous part was going in maybe getting killed, but I don't think the courageous part there was a lot of courage in being pro- because most people seem to agree with us even though they didn't want to go absorb the risk. Also, Palantir builds products that are actually products and actually work. So that's an environment where your stuff has to work. Now we had a huge advantage and I did believe, obviously you know, I do think the kind of populist right that is very skeptical of Ukraine maybe should spend a little more time looking at the rules in prison where it's like even if they're right on the margin, which I don't think they will be, the consequence of being violated will be big for the West. And so they should think of it more like they're in a car and they got to ride together, and the car isn't always right but it is your car. That's prison jargon, but in any case, I think that that is actually how the world works. I think living abroad also, I spent a lot of my life in Europe. Europeans really do need to do more and want to on spending, but they also need to do a better job explaining how they see the world to America, which does organize defense. Israel, I would say, I'm pro-West, so these things fall from that. Leaving the obvious fact that democracies should not be held to differentiating standards depending on their apparent tribal affiliation. So I'm very against double standard, triple standard, quadruple standard. Like, we're going to have a standard for us, somehow our adversaries get a better standard than Israel? Makes no sense to me. Then you see the disaster, unforgivable, incomprehensible logical expansion of the double standard world manifesting itself on college campuses, where they've dedicated themselves perhaps correctly to an architecture of anti-discrimination while dressing in masks and excluding the population that's been most discriminated for the last 3,000 years. And it's fascinating that they think that's a plausible way of organizing themselves. And you know, I just don't think that we or I should tolerate that.
At Palantir, we are very comfortable being unpopular. And you know, I think one of the things I want to get done is encourage people that there are times when you have to be unpopular. When as an example, somebody who believes they're progressive is excluding a population from going to class with something covering their head and a mask. If I went to a university professor and said, 'I'm going to give you the Rawlsian famous, you know, Rawlsian. If you were born in without anything, how would you organize the world?' If you did a Rawlsian test in a lot of these matters, I'm not going to tell you which group is being prevented from going to class, I'm not going to tell you which group has experienced a terrorist attack, I'm not going to tell you which group has had their country invaded, and I'll even give you it is a group you do not feel comfortable with and do not want to hang out with. What would be your standard of justice? And at Palantir, we stand for that equal as equal as possible application of the law in our products, in our culture internally, in our hiring practices, and externally. And you know, I'm pretty happy that because we're publicly traded, because we're profitable, because we power a lot of the most important institutions in the world, because the countries that are known for quality or are known for engineering talent, i.e., Ukraine, Israel, buy our products, because the US government I'm proud uses our product, because of our success in US commercial, it's a little harder to ignore my voice and our voice. It's not that everyone at Palantir agrees with me, but you are, if you're building the initial product that got us off the ground, the product that is powering our commercial success, the products that power our spec ops work, these are embodiments of a cultural and particular way of seeing the world that I do believe is superior.
Superior. And you know, we have to defend the ability to defend the idea that some things work better, some things don't. We have an idea, and then again I would say that's why this conference is so important. We do have an idea of things that have superior output and things that do not work. That's why we have the best tech scene in the world. 80, 70% of the top 50 tech companies in the world are American, 86% of the market cap is American. Why is that? It is the outgrowth of a way of organizing ourselves, building things that are an outgrowth of those values, building things that organize people from all different populations, from people with different views, different countries. The whole Venture community, all many of us in tech either were born abroad or came here, came back after long periods of time. That system of building things is the embodiment of it in companies that are disruptive because they can create value that is at least in order of magnitude greater than the current way of creating value. When it is aligned with our government, it leads to prosperity, leads to dialogues that lead to new companies, leads to immigration of the people that will build these kind of companies. It excludes dysfunction, it excludes ways of thinking that leave you being commoditized in your thinking.
And I, you know, Israel, Ukraine, Maven are outgrowth of that philosophy. That's not particularly a one issue being different than another. In almost all cases, Maven supporting the Army, we were protested every day in Silicon Valley. What you mostly heard was, 'I kind of agree with you, but lots of people are going to yell at you and maybe you shouldn't do this.' And I would also say, you know, a lot of the people who think that way believe the other side can't win. If you don't believe the other side can't win, look at Columbia. There is literally no way to explain the investment in our elite schools and then the output is a pagan religion, a pagan religion of mediocrity and discrimination and intolerance and violence. So the other side can win. And it's one of the things we have to keep in mind is Silicon Valley, just because you're not, you know, we were all saying we won't hire those people, but you're not hiring them anyway, so it's not a sanction that works. They still can win. They're not hirable in Silicon Valley, they still can win. And it's something that you know, like the way we win is by producing products that are indisputably valuable, so valuable that you cannot ignore that they will change the game field, the playing field, and reorient the playing field in ways that we do even better. And that's true on the battlefield with our adversaries, it's true on the battlefield of our ideas, it's true on the battlefield of recruiting. We all recruit against each other. How do we win? Well, we're like, my idea is better than yours, my execution is better than yours, my company is a better place to be an individual, your company, you know, that's how you win.
We'll continue our interview in a moment after a word from our sponsors. How deep do you go to seek out an answer to a question? Maybe you've spent hours clicking the source links on an obscure Wikipedia page, or maybe you're even the type of person who checked out the entire shelf on the topic at your library. If you're nodding along, then check out GiveWell, an organization that researches questions about global health and philanthropy, even if a satisfying answer might require years of reviewing studies, talking to experts, and over 300 footnotes. GiveWell has now spent over 17 years researching charitable organizations and only directs funding to a few of the highest impact opportunities they've found. Over 125,000 donors have used GiveWell to donate more than $2 billion. Rigorous evidence suggests that these donations will save over 200,000 lives and improve the lives of millions more. GiveWell wants as many donors as possible to make informed decisions about high-impact giving. You can find all of their research and recommendations on their site for free. You can make tax-deductible donations to their recommended funds or charities, and GiveWell doesn't take a cut. If you've never used GiveWell to donate, you can have your donation matched up to $100 before the end of the year, or as long as matching funds last. To claim your match, go to givewell.org and pick podcast and enter 'Econ 102 with Noah Smith and Eric Torenberg' at checkout. Make sure they know that you heard about GiveWell from 'Econ 102 with Noah Smith and Eric Torenberg' to get your donation matched. Again, that's givewell.org to donate or find out more. Hey everyone, Eric here. In this environment, founders need to become profitable faster and do more with smaller teams, especially when it comes to engineering. That's why Sean Lenahan started Squad, a specialized global talent firm for top engineers that will seamlessly integrate with your org. Squad offers rigorously vetted top 1% talent that will actually work hard for you every day. Their engineers work in your time zone, follow your processes, and use your tools. Squad has front-end engineers excelling in TypeScript, React, and Next.js ready to onboard to your team today. For backend, Squad engineers are experts at Node.js, Python, Java, and a range of other languages and frameworks. While it may cost more than the freelancer on Upwork billing you for 40 hours but working only two, Squad offers premium quality at a fraction of the typical cost, without the headache of assessing for skills and culture fit. Squad takes care of sourcing, legal, compliance, and local HR for global talent. Increase your velocity without amping up burnout. Visit chw.squad.com and mention Turpentine to skip the wait list.
Well, I mean, before first of all, you know, again there's like a business tourism where you win where you're superior. And you know, our adversaries are as good or better at hardware than we are. They are not like we have no Chinese, Iranian, or Russian competitors. None. I've never even met one. So I think Congress and in general the American people, because there's a whole there's a said often a feeling of malaise because somehow our political choices look very crazy. And so, if you just look at what's going to happen, first of all in the enterprise context commercially, you're going to see a change in GDP vis-a-vis now. I think the rough math of GDP was, France you know had roughly this between 61 and 91, very similar GDP growth to America was like 164% there, I think it was like 180 something in America. And then what is the GDP growth going to be in Europe the next 30 years? What is it going to be in America? You can solve a lot of problems with growth where you know if you're kind of going, you have zero growth or going, you can't solve the problems. And then when we talk about AI, of course there's large language models, some of that's very hard to use in the US government. There's algorithms which are already having an enormous impact in ways that people in this room know but apparently we're not allowed to discuss publicly. And you see on the battlefield, and that's why there's just a very strong demand internationally to buy these products, but also in America. You also have this thing where AI has convinced administrators, CEOs, important people that software-enhanced weapon systems, software in general, actually has to work and can work, and that it's kind of the precursor to using AI is pentesting your enterprise software. In many cases you get a failing grade, but where you don't get a failing grade you can accelerate. And there's a general sense, well we have to do this. The single biggest problem for America is accelerating the implementation of these systems in the US government. And the US government's gone a lot further than other countries in doing this, but you know, it's a very large system. This is an incredible cultural change. You just, it's not like you did your hardware culture moving to software culture that's automatically going to work. And if you part of the problem you're having in Europe is you have hardware cultures trying to be software cultures, and that is very, very hard to do so.
What should the US do? We should implement something where a certain percentage of our DOD dollars have to be spent on software that's either been proven on the battlefield or proven commercially. And if it's been proven in both spheres, you get a bonus. If it's been proven in neither, it's a high hurdle. And simple changes like this, meaning the software actually, like when Ukraine and Israel buy software, what do they do? They test it. They see if it's working. They want to know, can I write on top of this? What are all the various things you would need in enterprise software? They test it. We need a lot more of that, and we need a lot more control of the spend. I think there's a pretty significant movement to do that, which is why the demand to be here has been so great besides your incredible leadership. And then there's also giving the US kind of the sense of reality, which is, you know, if you took the people you had in this room and you divided it into 10 quadrants, each one of those quadrants would still be better than the tech scene in any other country in the world. Any other country in the world. You have Israel's number two, it would still be like, yeah, there'd be one of your 10 quadrants. So this is a country that dominates in tech. It's just again, 86% of the market cap of the top 50 are US companies. It'll probably be 96 at some point. So how do you get enterprises? And you know, we do see a difference in commercial. We didn't give last quarter's results obviously, but the quarter before we grew 70% and we have a nascent and terrible Salesforce, we still grow at 70%. Now imagine what a real Salesforce could do with those results.
