Welcome to the Cloud Wars Minute — your daily cloud news and commentary show. Each episode provides insights and perspectives around the “reimagination machine” that is the cloud.
In today’s Cloud Wars Minute, I look at why Palantir’s AI strategy is resonating with customers and disrupting the software industry’s established order.
Highlights
00:03 — Well, we had a fascinating earnings report and earnings call with Palantir recently. A couple of things happened. Its growth rate soared. It almost doubled its growth in Q2, up 93% to over $1.8 billion.
00:19 — But intriguingly, the story behind this growth now is one that CEO Alex Karp is doubling down on, and that is to cut directly against the grain of how traditionally the software industry has worked. He feels that there’s too much power being consolidated among the tech vendors, particularly now the AI labs and the AI model companies.
00:55 — Now, is there a direct correlation between the 93% growth rate and this refreshing, new, different customer-oriented approach from Palantir? I think there is. Whether you think Karp’s antagonism toward the entrenched order is overblown or not, you’ve got to look at the financial results. Palantir is outperforming every major tech vendor on Earth.
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02:36 — What Karp is promising, he said, what Palantir is offering, is a new, better way that allows customers to keep control of that data, keep the benefits of that data, keep what he calls the alpha, and let them control their own outcomes instead of turning over their data to model companies.
04:36 — I just find myself throughout the call listening and watching Karp, who always wears a white T-shirt. He is just completely unabashed in not holding back and stating his opinions. I think we need more of that in this business, especially at these very critical times when businesses are betting their futures on what’s going to happen here.
