Alex Karp is an American businessman and entrepreneur, known as the CEO and co-founder of Palantir Technologies, a software company that specializes in data analytics. Palantir builds software that connects data, technologies, humans and environments.
Early years and education
Alexander Karp was born on October 2, 1967 and was raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He graduated from Central High School in 1985, completed his bachelor’s degree in Haverford College, a J.D. from Stanford University, and a Ph.D. in philosophy in University of Frankfurt.
Career
Alex Karp founded Caedmon Group and became a board director at Axel Springer SE in March 2018. In December 2018, Karp also joined the supervisory board at BASF, a chemical company.
Palantir
Palantir’s SEC filing was submitted by Peter Thiel (co-founder of PayPal) in May 2003, who sees the start-up as a mission-oriented company. In 2004, Thiel invested in a creation of a prototype by Nathan Gettings, a PayPal engineer, and Stanford University students Joe Lonsdale and Stephen Cohen. Thiel hired Alex Karp as the CEO of Palantir. The goal is to build a product that has advanced data analysis and heuristics software for government agencies, hedge funds and financial institutions.
Funding and Partnership
At first, finding investors did not come easy to Palantir. The only early investments were the $30 million from Peter Thiel himself and $2 million from In-Q-Tel, U.S. Central Intelligence Agency’s venture capital arm. The creators of Palantir really had to learn what clients want and how this product would sell into the government contractor approval process and navigate security clearances. Palantir offered free training to its clients before having them sign any contracts. As a result, the developers were able to respond to bugs quickly and build relationship with its clients.
The system is designed to turn potential crisis into learning opportunities.
In 2009 and 2010, Information Warfare Monitor used Palantir software to uncover the GhostNet and the Shadow Network. In April 2010, Palantir announced a partnership with Thomson Reuters to sell the Palantir Metropolis product as QA Studio. In 2011, an estimated revenue of $250 million was recorded for the company.
In September 2013, Palantir announced over $196 million in funding according to a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing. Also in the same year, CEO Alex Karp announced that they will not pursue IPO for the company. He mentioned that it would be very difficult to run such company if they go public. In December 2013, Palantir raised $450 million at about a $9 billion valuation from private funders. As of December 2014, Thiel was Palantir’s largest shareholder. The company was valued at $15 billion in November 2014. In June 2015, it was reported that the company was raising up to $500 million in new capital at a valuation of $20 billion. In December 2015, Palantir raised a further $880 million, still at $20 billion valuation. In February 2016, Kimono Labs was acquired by Palantir, and in August 2016, the startup Silk was also acquired.
Net Worth
Alex Karp’s net worth as of January 2019 is $1.3 billion. Karp is single and lives in Palo Alto, California.