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In the November 7 episode of “The Axios Show,” Palantir CEO Alex Karp said people who will succeed in the age of AI are those with domain expertise. “If you’re the kind of person that would’ve gone to Yale, classically high IQ, and you have generalized knowledge but it’s not specific,” he says, “you’re effed.” Instead, the most successful people will have domain knowledge. People who ask questions like, “How do I input the problem in this complicated device that’s going wrong, that otherwise would be fixed by a Japanese engineer, while being a high school grad?” he says. Featured Video An Inc.com Featured Presentation “Those people are going to make a lot more money, specifically because you can turn it any way you want, but at the end of the day, within a relative rapid amount of time, you will get paid downstream of the value you create.” To capitalize on this idea, Palantir hosts a vocational training program for high school graduates. Over 500 students applied to the first Meritocracy Fellowship, and only 22 were selected. The first group wraps up at the end of the month, and some of them will receive full-time job offers. The program began with a four-week seminar, teaching themes about U.S. history and culture. Fellows visited historical landmarks and studied leaders including Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln. After that first month, they joined teams of engineers, working on live projects. One fellow, Matteo Zanini, received acceptances from Palantir and Brown University around the same time. He decided to join the fellowship despite unanimous advice against it from friends, family, and academic mentors. Now, he’s considering staying past the dates of the program if given the opportunity. He said part of the appeal comes from the level of responsibility he’s already received. “I mean, what company puts people on real projects on their third day?” he told the Wall Street Journal. “That’s insane.” It isn’t just high school students who are starting to find vocational training appealing. Karp says “titans of industries” have shown interest, too. “We’ve had a number of nations call us, like at the national level, and say, ‘Hey we want to learn from this,'” he says. “How do you select? How do you train? We’re exposing them to a wide-swath of core ideas.” Karp received his bachelor’s from Haverford College, then went on to get a law degree from Stanford and a Ph.D. in neoclassical social theory from Goethe University in Germany. His advice to high school graduates is a far different path: “There’s a couple schools you should go to if you get into. Yale’s one. Stanford’s one,” he said. “Otherwise go to the cheapest school and come to Palantir, or just come here. That’s my honest advice.” Latest News
