Palantir CEO Alex Karp took a jibe at degrees from Ivy League schools such as Harvard, Princeton, and Yale. He remarked that once you join a company, Palantir in this case, no one will “care about other stuff”. Karp added that he aimed to make a “new credential independent of class and background at Palantir.”
The CEO elaborated that once hired, if an employee did not go attend a top-tier education institute, it wouldn’t matter. Similarly, if they did attend Harvard, Princeton or Yale, one of the top universities of the world, no one would pay heed to the matter.
Flawed university system
This comes after Harvard faced a $500 million payout offer from US President Donald Trump after months of antisemitic sentiments spread on the campus. Commenting on the education, however, Vice President JD Vance addressed the audience at the Winning the AI Race Summit last month. He remarked that students felt they were subjected to a “North Korean totalitarian-style dictatorship”. Vance opined, “I think the entire university system in this country is broken.” Affirming this sentiment, the Palantir CEO agreed that most of the employees who went to university “were engaged in platitudes.”
Karp claimed, while slamming the traditional education system, that Palantir’s products were being used by people without college degrees. Karp noted that users without a college degree are generating significant value with their product, in some cases, even surpassing those with formal higher education.
Shared narrative
This narrative has been affirmed by other Silicon Valley techies who have rejected orthodox degrees. They have thus accepted taking non-traditional paths to careers in tech, which included joining Palantir instead of enrolling in a university.
The defense tech giant has often claimed that a job at Palantir is “by far the best credential in tech.” A self-proclaimed title from CEO Alex Carp, he called ‘Palantirians’ the crème de la crème of tech workers. The firm with nearly 4000 employees reported a $1 billion growth in revenue in the second quarter of 2025 with stock prices up 600%.
