In this groundbreaking and provocative treatise, Alexander C. Karp, co-founder & chief executive officer of Palantir Technologies & Nicholas W. Zamiska, head of corporate affairs at the company, offer a searing critique of our collective abandonment of creative and cultural ambition. They argue that in order for the West to maintain its geopolitical advantage & the freedoms that we take for granted, the software industry must redirect its attention to our most urgent challenges and rebuild its relationship with government. It will be the union of the state and the software industry-not their separation and disentanglement-that will be required for the United States and its allies to remain as dominant in this century as they were in the last. The public will forgive many failures of government and the political class. But the electorate will not overlook a systemic inability to harness technology for the purpose of effectively advancing our welfare and security. Karp and Zamiska argue that a democratic public’s commitment to free speech, in particular-to preserving space for ideological confrontation and a rejection of intellectual fragility-has everything to do with technological and economic out-performance. An entire generation is at risk of unwittingly becoming a product, a vessel for the ambitions of others, deprived of the opportunity to form authentic and independent beliefs about the world. At once iconoclastic and rigorous, the book will also lift the veil on Palantir and its broader political project from the inside, offering a passionate call for the West to wake up to our new reality.
