Inside the Palantir Mafia: Secrets to Succeeding in the Tech Industry

By Ramkumar Sundarakalatharan | June 7, 2024 | Comments 0 Comment

In the world of technology, engineers are not just cogs in a machine; they are the builders, the dreamers, and the ones who solve the problems they see in the world. And sometimes, those solutions turn into billion-dollar businesses. This is the story of the “Palantir Mafia,” a group of former Palantir employees who have left the data analytics giant to found their own startups, just like the famed “PayPal Mafia” that produced companies like SpaceX, YouTube, LinkedIn, Palantir Technologies, Affirm, Slide, Kiva, and Yelp.

1. Introducing the Amazing People from Palantir

The “Palantir Mafia,” akin to the renowned “PayPal Mafia,” comprises former Palantir engineers and executives who left to tackle meaningful problems with technological innovation, creating substantial impact and wealth. Unlike ex-consultants from firms like McKinsey, BCG, or Bain, these tech leaders leverage their deep technical expertise to solve complex issues directly, resulting in profound advancements and successful ventures.

Key Figures and Their Ventures

Alex Karp – Palantir Technologies
- Former Role: Co-Founder and CEO
- Company: Palantir Technologies
- Focus: Data analytics
- Market Penetration: Widely used across government and commercial sectors
- Revenue: $1.5 billion annually
- Capital Raised: $3 billion (Wikipedia) (Business Insider)
Max Levchin – Affirm
- Former Role: Co-Founder (PayPal, associated with Palantir founders)
- Company: Affirm
- Focus: Buy now, pay later financial services
- Market Penetration: Significant presence in the consumer finance market
- Revenue: $870 million in fiscal 2021
- Capital Raised: $1.5 billion
Joe Lonsdale – 8VC
- Former Role: Co-Founder
- Company: 8VC
- Focus: Venture capital firm
- Market Penetration: Diverse portfolio, influential in tech sectors
- Assets Under Management: $3.6 billion
Palmer Luckey – Anduril Industries ( could be the blue blooded Musk of 2020-2030s)
- Former Role: Founder of Oculus VR, associated with Palantir through ventures
- Company: Anduril Industries
- Focus: Defense technology
- Innovation: Developed the Lattice AI platform for autonomous border surveillance and defense applications
- Market Penetration: Contracts with U.S. Department of Defense and border security agencies
- Revenue: $200 million annually
- Capital Raised: $700 million
Garrett Smallwood – Wag!
- Former Role: Executive roles at other startups before Wag!
- Company: Wag!
- Focus: On-demand pet care services
- Market Penetration: Operates in over 100 cities
- Revenue: $100 million annually
- Capital Raised: $361.5 million
Nima Ghamsari – Blend
- Former Role: Product Manager at Palantir
- Company: Blend
- Focus: Mortgage and lending software
- Market Penetration: Partners with major financial institutions
- Revenue: Estimated $100 million+ annually
- Capital Raised: $665 million
Stephen Cohen – Quantifind
- Former Role: Co-Founder of Palantir
- Company: Quantifind
- Focus: Risk and fraud detection using data science
- Market Penetration: Used by financial services and government sectors
- Capital Raised: $8.7 million
Vibhu Norby – B8ta
- Former Role: Engineer at Palantir
- Company: B8ta
- Focus: Retail-as-a-service platform
- Market Penetration: Transforming in-store retail experiences
- Capital Raised: $113 million
Joe Lonsdale – Addepar
- Former Role: Co-Founder of Palantir
- Company: Addepar
- Focus: Wealth management technology
- Market Penetration: Manages over $2 trillion in assets
- Capital Raised: $325 million
Raman Narayanan – SigOpt
- Former Role: Data Scientist at Palantir
- Company: SigOpt (acquired by Intel)
- Focus: Machine learning optimization
- Market Penetration: Utilized by top tech companies
- Capital Raised: $8.7 million (before acquisition)

2. Engineers Make Better Founders in the Tech Industry

Unlike ex-consultants from big 3 who may excel in strategy and communication but often lack the technical depth to truly understand the intricacies of building a tech product, these ex-Palantir engineers come armed with both the vision and the technical chops to bring their ideas to life. They’ve spent years wrestling with complex data problems at Palantir, and they’re now taking those hard-won lessons to solve new challenges across a wide range of industries.

Engineers bring a problem-solving mindset that focuses on creating practical, scalable solutions. This technical acumen has allowed former Palantir employees to launch transformative companies that push the boundaries of what’s possible in various industries.

3. Market Penetration and Success of Palantir Alumni

The success of these Palantir alumni is evident through their market penetration and revenue. For instance, Palantir Technologies itself is a major player in the data analytics field, with a revenue of $1.5 billion annually. Affirm, led by Max Levchin, has made significant inroads in the consumer finance market, generating $870 million in revenue in fiscal 2021. Anduril Industries, founded by Palmer Luckey, has secured substantial contracts with the U.S. Department of Defense, contributing to its $200 million annual revenue.

Other successful ventures include Blend, with its deep partnerships with major financial institutions, and Addepar, managing over $2 trillion in assets. These companies not only showcase the technical expertise of their founders but also highlight their ability to penetrate markets and achieve substantial financial success.

4. Engineers vs. Consultants: A Compelling Argument

The technical depth and problem-solving mindset of engineers make them particularly suited for founding and leading tech startups. Their ability to directly tackle complex problems contrasts with the approach of ex-consultants from firms like McKinsey, BCG, or Bain, who often focus more on financial and operational efficiencies.

While consultants excel in operations-heavy startups, where strategic planning, financial management, and operational efficiency are paramount, engineers thrive in tech startups that require innovative solutions and deep technical expertise. The success stories of the Palantir alumni underscore this distinction, demonstrating how their engineering backgrounds have enabled them to drive significant technological advancements and build successful companies.

Conclusion

The Palantir Mafia’s engineers have leveraged their technical expertise to create innovative solutions and successful ventures, driving significant impact across various industries. Their ability to tackle complex problems directly contrasts with the approach of ex-consultants from firms like McKinsey, BCG, or Bain, who often focus more on financial and operational efficiencies. This technical depth has enabled these former Palantir employees to become influential leaders, pushing the boundaries of technology and innovation.

References & Further Reading:

Is the myth of a “10X Developer” Real?

By Ramkumar Sundarakalatharan | June 29, 2023 | Comments 0 Comment

If you’re a software engineer, manager or leader, I am sure you have heard the term ‘10x developer’ used in discussions. It refers to developers who are purportedly 10 times more productive, or capable, than their peers, while it is a hotly contested category. Some refer to it very liberally, others deny that it even exists. In the last 40+ years, the ‘10X developer` has become a ‘Loch Ness` of the tech world, fueled by the hype associated with Silicon Valley.

I’m not about to delude myself into thinking that writing a blog on it to pass my verdict will put these theories to rest, but the question has gained enough traction that it deserves a little articulation.

Do 10x developers really exist, and if so, how would we distinguish them?

Framing the Issue

All of us can acknowledge that the range of skills in most human activities can be extensive. A marathon runner can cover roughly 10 times the distance that an untrained person could, while a professional chef can cook a 5-course meal in 1/5th the time it takes an average person to do a 2-course meal.

Coding, which is a hugely complex field unencumbered by physical limitations, should naturally show differences in the skill that vary by orders of magnitude. Thus, if by 10x developer we simply mean a person whose skill level is in a different league compared to someone else, then clearly they exist.

How could anyone argue otherwise?

Here’s the rub though, in the data-driven and lexically precise world of modern tech, that’s not what 10x developer means. Instead, a 10x developer is supposed to be someone who genuinely outperforms others by 10 times or more on some quantifiable scale. That ‘quantifiable scale’ is where the problems start.

Where did the term actually come from? Enter Coding War Games.

Coding War Games

Tom DeMarco and Tim Lister have conducted the “Coding War Games” since 1977. This is a public productivity survey in which teams of software implementors from different organizations compete to complete a series of benchmarks in minimal time with minimal defects. They’ve had over 600 developers participate. Its results are publicly available and is very informative, to say the least. Jeff Lester published a wonderful piece on the origins of the 10X developer here.

The top findings from these are,

1, Get your working environment Right

The overriding observation from this study is that quiet, private, dedicated working space with fewer interruptions led to groups that performed significantly better.

2, Remove the Net Negative Producing Programmer

Some developers are “net negative producing programmers” (NNPP), that is they produce so many defects that removing them from the team increases productivity. This is the opposite of a 10X developer, these people are the ones that make the team productivity go from bad to worse.

The Problem with Measuring ‘Skill’

Even where skill can vary wildly, differences will not necessarily be quantifiable. A talented artist may know how to create a painting that teleports you to a whole other world compared to an average artiste who can transport you to the scene.

But the question is, can you attach numbers to that painting’s beauty?

The work of a developer isn’t nearly as abstract, but not all of it can be reduced to metrics either, and definitely not the programming skill itself.

A less glamorous approach may be to judge a 10x dev not in terms of skill but in terms of productivity. Someone who can write 500 lines of code when it takes others to write 50 would then fall in that category.

If you know anything about programming, however, you’ve probably already spotted the problem with this line of thinking. Longer code isn’t necessarily more efficient, and for most people there tends to be a positive correlation between how quickly one works and how many bugs one creates.

This is not to say that programmers can’t produce bug-free code much faster than their peers. Where this statement proves fallacious though, is in trying to peg that difference to a single metric. There are myriad factors at play that will affect a developer’s productivity outside of their skill, including their team and the environment they find themselves. In fact, depending on the situation, the 10x tag may be inaccurate because a developer could be programming well over 10 times as much as another and still produce 1/10th of the ‘Outcomes’!

What should be our conclusion? There can be no doubt that the field of programming has its own Mozarts and Vincent Van Goghs, and few would object if these people were described as being ‘orders of magnitude’ better than the rest. But it is important to recognize that this is only a figure of speech, and not something meant to be used according to its precise quantitative meaning.

I can’t presume to speak for the tech industry as a whole, but I for one have noticed a worrying tendency to read the expression ‘10x developer’ literally.

Ultimately this does more harm than good, as it spreads the myth that there is some universal metric whereby every programmer’s value can always be quantified.

Important qualities like creativity, client focus and teamwork are entirely omitted in this way of thinking, which is why my final suggestion is to stop worrying about lofty 10x developers and whether you are, aren’t, or may or not become one.

Simply focus on being the best developer you can be. That will always be enough.

References & Further Reading

Origin of a 10X developer

https://medium.com/ingeniouslysimple/the-origins-of-the-10x-developer-2e0177ecef60

https://gwern.net/doc/cs/algorithm/2001-demarco-peopleware-whymeasureperformance.pdf

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22349531

The 10x Programmer Myth