The Technological Republic
Hard Power, Soft Belief, and the Future of the West
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From the Palantir co-founder, one of tech’s boldest thinkers and The Economist’s “best CEO of 2024,” and his deputy, a sweeping indictment of the West’s culture of complacency, arguing that timid leadership, intellectual fragility, and an unambitious view of technology’s potential in Silicon Valley have made the U.S. vulnerable in an era of mounting global threats.
“Not since Allan Bloom’s astonishingly successful 1987 book The Closing of the American Mind—more than one million copies sold—has there been a cultural critique as sweeping as Karp’s.”—George F. Will, The Washington Post
Silicon Valley has lost its way.
Our most brilliant engineering minds once collaborated with government to advance world-changing technologies. Their efforts secured the West’s dominant place in the geopolitical order. But that relationship has now eroded, with perilous repercussions.
Today, the market rewards shallow engagement with the potential of technology. Engineers and founders build photo-sharing apps and marketing algorithms, unwittingly becoming vessels for the ambitions of others. This complacency has spread into academia, politics, and the boardroom. The result? An entire generation for whom the narrow-minded pursuit of the demands of a late capitalist economy has become their calling.
In this groundbreaking treatise, Palantir co-founder and CEO Alexander C. Karp and Nicholas W. Zamiska offer a searing critique of our collective abandonment of ambition, arguing that in order for the U.S. and its allies to retain their global edge—and preserve the freedoms we take for granted—the software industry must renew its commitment to addressing our most urgent challenges, including the new arms race of artificial intelligence. The government, in turn, must embrace the most effective features of the engineering mindset that has propelled Silicon Valley’s success.
Above all, our leaders must reject intellectual fragility and preserve space for ideological confrontation. A willingness to risk the disapproval of the crowd, Karp and Zamiska contend, has everything to do with technological and economic outperformance.
At once iconoclastic and rigorous, this 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.
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Creators
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Publisher
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Release date
February 18, 2025 -
Formats
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Kindle Book
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OverDrive Read
- ISBN: 9780593798706
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EPUB ebook
- ISBN: 9780593798706
- File size: 3054 KB
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Languages
- English
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Reviews
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January 15, 2025
A passionate call for a new cultural approach from Silicon Valley. Karp is co-founder and CEO of Palantir Technologies, which specializes in developing software platforms connected to big data analytics, and Zamiska is a senior executive in the firm. In this book, they argue for a thorough rethinking within the tech sector, which, while full of intelligent and innovative people, has lost a sense of national purpose or common good. Instead, the authors say, America's best and brightest are focused on creating shiny new toys, from phone apps and games to marketing algorithms. Karp and Zamiska posit that the culture of Silicon Valley is based on self-centered libertarianism, with most of the players coming from privileged backgrounds and a college system that disdains any collaboration with government. The result is that the U.S., while still leading in most areas of technology, is seeing its advantages diminish in next-gen fields like artificial intelligence and swarm warfare. There needs to be an increased awareness of the challenges facing the country and a readiness to put forward ambitious, multidimensional solutions, they argue. For its part, the government's security institutions should be more welcoming of software specialists and should streamline the labyrinthine, wasteful procurement processes. Interesting stuff, although the book pays insufficient attention to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which has successfully used talented people from the tech sector and which could be a good model for future efforts. Nevertheless, the book has many thought-provoking ideas; now it remains to be seen if people in Silicon Valley and Washington, D.C., will listen. A provocative examination of how the U.S. can maintain its leading position in tech innovation.COPYRIGHT(2025) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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