Alex, tell me, you have you probably realize in these discussions in the morning show that
the Russian invasion of Ukraine has, of course, reaffirmed the importance of conventional warfare.
But at the same time, what has it told us about the importance of technology?
What has it told us about the importance of software?
And what kind of lessons do you bring take away from the last seven months of the war that Russia waged on Ukraine?
Well, it's important, obviously, to go back and look at what were expectations and what then happened.
The expectations obviously were depending on which country you were sitting on, that A, the war wouldn't happen.
B, it would happen, but Ukraine would lose.
And I think, you know, I'm honestly, we may be the only people I know of who predicted that
the war would happen and Ukraine would outperform.
I think it's be being viewed around the world.
Of course, there's always a diagnostic of what happens in a worm of most of that can't be discussed in public.
And so the diagnostic, the private diagnostic is that David beats Goliath,
where David is a hero and armed with certain conventional instruments,
but heavily empowered with technology.
In war, your ability to use what does it mean to use software?
How do you how do you control your special operators?
Where do they go?
Where do they leave?
Do they get the signal that seeking information while they're on the battlefield
or while they're not on the battlefield, do you do you get information from space?
Does that information with space provided to the people doing the actual operation?
Can you disrupt the information flow of the adversary?
Can you map their decimating information flow?
Can you do, it's funny-
One of the really interesting things is people assume people like in this room and civil libertarians are misaligned.
Actually very much aligned because if you're working in complicated environments,
only very few people can actually know the battle plan.
That's called data protection.
The ability to segment data, to control who sees what,
to purge data to make sure only the people on your side in the specialized community see the data, i.e.
exactly what you need and GDPR,
is exactly what wins the battle while actually being able to control your positions, understand the adversary, and disrupt their information flow.
And it's the ability to win on that battlefield that actually makes sure you don't have wars,
that the values we believe in actually turn out to be the winning values,
that the best people are involved in these values.
And that's why these conferences in Poland and why Poland and Ukraine are so important,
not just to the people of Poland, Ukraine in in the in Eastern Europe, but to all of us.
And why civil liberties are actually crucial to what we've done.
You have criticized in the past very much Silicon Valley.
Can you tell us more?
I mean, you are based in Denver.
We've seen some of this is in America where.
You say, you know, the US is a technical and technological giant.
And yet at the same time, you're very critical of of many companies.
The original Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley 1.0, built dual purpose technologies that were built for the military
and then benefited the rest of society, primarily the West,
but certainly America and the countries represented in this room.
No.
Silicon Valley 2.0 is largely built to transfer the highest value revenue to a tiny sliver of
a tiny sliver of a tiny sliver of a tiny of the tiny sliver of people in the world.
While convincing you it's a great thing by disseminating the thinnest,
most hard to understand politics ever understood called wokeism.
Now I'm a I'm a progressive.
But this is like this is I don't believe actually progressive.
And and I believe that's a carcinogen on on on the West in particular,
a carcinogen which for which we pay a huge price and is certainly not what Palantir is about.
Silicon Valley, we see our role as being highly tethered to Silicon Valley 1.0,
which is defending the West, creating dual purpose.
I mean, the most significant part of our business now that's growing the fastest is commercial.
And why?
Because we we we spent over a decade understanding the underlying technical issues of working in a military intel context.
And many of those insights are crucially valuable for industry, especially industry that is under pressure.
What is what is the influence of A.I. in the military?
Look, everyone is watching.
Like if you are, especially if you're an adversarial country, you are you are watching exactly what's happening in Ukraine.
And what they are learning is that it's the combination of heroism, something which is inborn can't be replaced.
Conventional arms.
And what you're calling A.I., though, A.I. here is a synonym for platform data management and A.I.
and what they're also learning is, holy shit, with very little money, you can actually go up against you.
With resources that would have been irrelevant 10, 15 years ago.
In fighting us, you can change the game the same way we learned in the Valley.
That's why so many of these companies come to the Valley. With very little investment you can massively outperform.
Again, the most important thing you can do if you're in the military or in military operations now, though, is
make sure that these very legitimate questions are actually being answered technically.
If they're not being answered technically, like does the software work?
Work also includes data protection.
It also includes data management.
It includes does the A.I. actually get add real value?
You are going to be you'll spend a lot of resources and essentially get nothing.
So essentially long long story short,
the winners in industry and in government are people who can actually interact with technology,
de-a new kind of technology effectively.
And it is new.
It takes a lot of effort.
And one of the most important things you can do, whether you're industry or in government, is de-politicize that.
It must be de-politicized.
You must actually implement what works or you will lose.
Alex, thank you.
Thank you so much.