Documentary about Palantir CEO: Alex Karp doesn't like it
Klaus Stern's documentary "Watching You" approaches its main character even without them - and offers insights into the work of the German police with Palantir.
All eyes are focused on the lead gymnast Alex Karp, under whose command Palantir not only practices the martial art of Tai Chi, but also develops software for use in warfare.
(Image: Real Fiction / Brad Wenner)
Things are going great for Palantir at the moment. CEO Alex Karp announced in a letter to shareholders at the beginning of May that the company had made the largest quarterly profit in its twenty-year history. Palantir's platforms are to become the "market-leading infrastructure" that enables "the effective use of artificial intelligence and large language models in all institutions". This includes not only the US military, which has just awarded a new multi-million dollar contract to Palantir, but also "companies in the United States and abroad, state and local government agencies, research institutes and educational institutions".
Palantir's software can change the world for better or worse. So a documentary film that focuses on the world of Palantir and its CEO Alex Karp from different perspectives is just right. Alex Karp sees things differently when faced with the film crew on the sidelines of an event: "They're making a movie about me, even though I don't want it. It's madness!"
The contradictory phenomenon of Alex Karp
An outsider, different, crazy, unscrupulous, arrogant, shy, intellectual, entertaining, seductive – there are many other words with which the protagonist of the film, Alexander C. Karp, is described by (former) companions, colleagues, clients, experts, and critics. A man full of contradictions, a "leftist", but also a "bellicist", i.e., someone who does not avoid war and military conflicts. He "takes the bull by the horns" and says about his company Palantir that they are working on "eliminating contradictions". A company that advertises with the slogan: "The world is breaking – come fix it" and prints it on T-shirts for employees.
A company that would be unthinkable without Karp. Because basically, everyone who wants to do something with Palantir also wishes to talk to Karp. Without him as CEO, there is a risk of losses on the stock exchange. The employees "think he's God", says one who was part of the company for years and hired new employees. Palantir's "god" describes his own professional task with the words "I manage difficult people with high IQs"; "many people think I'm completely crazy", but when crazy people fulfill their tasks, the people love them. Under these conditions, a movie about Palantir without Karp seems unthinkable.
What makes a good documentary film about a company and its CEO?
Klaus Stern's film aims to convey a comprehensive picture of the history of the company and the personal career of its CEO, providing insights behind the scenes and from different perspectives. At the end, viewers should not only feel that they have been well entertained, but also that they know the CEO as a person and his company a little better. "Watching You" shows Karp's development – from a student of social sciences and philosophy in Germany with slight teething problems with his dissertation to the CEO of Palantir, as a guest at important political meetings and into the supervisory boards of German companies. Karp not only walks among the powerful, but has become one himself. It is clear that he and Palantir have a special relationship with Germany.
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Palantir's history and mission, from its beginnings in the USA to its expansion into Europe and the war in Ukraine – the film shows key moments in the company's history in the context of political developments to the present day. Director Stern ("Weltmarktführer – Die Geschichte des Tan Siekmann") skillfully interweaves the events with statements from the interviews, which provide background and classification. Public appearances by the CEO and excerpts from Palantir's advertising and product videos complete the scene.
A question of perspective
As the main actor did not want to take part in the film, the other characters are all the more important – and these and their perspectives are quite something. "You've checked out all the people I know" – says Karp slightly reproachfully to the director when he makes another attempt to speak to him in Davos.
Protesters in front of Karp's house in the USA have their say, as do some of his companions. Interviewees include his doctoral mother in Germany, former colleagues, politicians, experts, journalists, representatives of the authorities and police officers.
The film does not take the viewer to Palantir's headquarters in the USA, but to the workplaces of Palantir employees in the police force in Germany. Using the example of the police in Hesse, the film shows how the way was paved politically for the use of Palantir and what advantages and disadvantages this brings in practice for Palantir and the security authorities. The police consider the Palantir software to be very helpful. The Hessian authorities claim to have already prevented a terrorist attack with the help of Palantir.
Police cooperation with Palantirl has not only led to a committee of inquiry in Hesse, but has also been brought before the Federal Constitutional Court. Gerhart Baum, FDP politician and Federal Minister of the Interior from 1978 to 1982, remembers the introduction of dragnet searches and the expansion of police computerization. Baum considers Palantir to be "a seduction that our constitutional state must resist".
In the eye of the beholder
The film not only comes closer than expected to Karp, who is inaccessible to his critics, but is also apparently inconvenient. Another high-profile political event, different time, different place, similar setting and Karp half-laughing as he tells another interviewer standing next to the film crew: "They're making a messed-up movie about me." Palantir and his CEO would rather be the directors of their story and use it to influence political decisions.
You can't choose your critics – be they observers, readers, or viewers. Whether the observations provided by the current film are "messed up" or whether Karp and Palantir could provide society with acceptable solutions to today's problems is for everyone to decide for themselves. "Watching You – the world of Palantir and Alex Karp" opens in German cinemas on June 6.
In February 2025, a book by Karp and one of his Palantir collaborators is to be published with the title "The Technological Republic: Hard Power, Soft Belief, and the Future of the West". It is intended to "lift the veil on Palantir and its broader political project from within and issue a passionate call to the West to become aware of our new reality". A unification of the state and the software industry is needed so that "the United States and its allies remain as dominant in this century as they were in the last". The geopolitical order is breaking down. And with Palantir, Karp wants to provide the fix for this repair – theoretical justification included.
(vbr)