Cameron Stone

Engineer @PalantirTech

[Palantir @PalantirTech]

Palantir: it’s a family affair. 🎥

Get to know the many pairs of siblings that call Palantir home.

30 total pairs (~ 1.5% of the company).

[Ted Mabrey @MabreyTed]

Vintage Karp.

Before this clip, Karp tried to engage substantively with the protestor before being shouted over. This is a friendly audience for him. It would have been very easy to just dunk and move on. But he resists the temptation to further polarize and instead make an argument for discursive debate. He does this not as a referee without an opinion, he clearly conveys his own, but as a player who is confident and curious enough to really engage. This approach leads to compounding intellectual discourse. It is the foundation of the culture of Palantir.

[Ted Mabrey @MabreyTed]

I am looking forward to the next set of hires that decided to apply to Palantir after reading your post. Please don’t delete it Paul. We work here in direct response to this world view and do not seek its blessing.

Our work with DHS, which has spanned the Obama, Trump, and Biden administrations, began in the immediate response to the murder of Agent Jaime Zapata by the Zetas in an effort dubbed Operation Fallen Hero. I believe Agent Zapata and those who have taken the thankless jobs of protecting our way of life by risking their own deserve the very best tools we can possibly give them. When people are alive because of what you built, and others are dead because what you built was not yet good enough, you develop a very different perspective on the meaning of your work.

Paul’s perspective is very similar to that of Google in 2018 when it walked away from Project Maven; the DoD’s flagship program to bring AI to warfighting. Google embraced the luxury belief that our way of life is given and that, as the best and brightest of us, they were above wrestling with the hard questions in the muck and mire of how to continue to ensure their privilege. It was much easier to sell ads. Like our DHS agents, I also believe our soldiers deserve the very best tools as they risk their lives to protect mine. The sentiment expressed below, that engineers have the luxury of working on other cool stuff so should not sully themselves with the functions that provide the bedrock of society, is something I thought we had largely left behind. Now I have a greater understanding of one of its root causes.

For those of you who are interested in joining, we are not looking for partisans at Palantir. Our mission spans administrations and political climates and our culture is one of constant disagreement. We do collectively believe that competence in our government is a prerequisite for our way of life and assume the burden of falling forward on the goal to provide it every single day. We are in a situation today where no matter the immigration policy the citizenry votes for, it cannot be executed; reality has largely been divorced from the statutes for decades now. This is first a question of competence, not politics. If the electorate cannot steer the execution of our government because the government cannot execute, our institutions lose all credibility, and the risk moves from an X debate to a much more fundamental one. We work to attach the steering wheel to the car and revitalize the institutions our societal fabric depends upon. We are looking for people who read something like this post and think it is crazy to demonize working towards a more effective government.

In order to understand if Palantir is for you, I encourage you to do your research. Read Karp’s book “The Technological Republic.” The book eviscerates the vapidity of silicon valley expressed here but also explores the positive thesis of what are the principles that actually matter when wrestling with the questions of how to empower the functioning of the state. It is perhaps the most important debate we should be having and Karp has been the leader of that conversation, so out in the open about it the book is an NYT Bestseller. I’d also encourage you to read The First Breakfast blog series that Shyam has championed; I think it is one of the foremost examples of impactful, non-partisan, civic engagement that exists in our country right now. We are very open about our views and how deeply they are reasoned if you care to read them.

We hire believers. Not in the sense of homogeneity of belief but in the intrinsic capacity to believe in something bigger than yourself. Belief is required because 1) our work is very, very hard and 2) you should expect to weather attacks like this all the time; from all sides of the political aisle. In order to stand out, build something with our software that you believein and bring it to your interview. The only way to counter these bullies is not to argue but to build.

Our work is authentically complicated. We protected the lives of special operators during failed wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, we were the backbone of Operation Warpspeed to accelerate vaccines during Covid, we were the coordinating backbone of the Afghan withdrawal, we have enabled David to resist Goliath in Ukraine. These, and many, many other efforts too numerous to list here have been necessarily intertwined with heated political debates about the worthiness of engaging in these effort at all. My politics have not agreed with many of the policies our software has enabled. But through all of them I have held the steadfast belief that if our government institutions are not competent, politics does not matter. That is something I believe.

So if you believe that engaging with the problem of 100,000 fentanyl deaths a year, stopping human trafficking, or merely in reconnecting the laws our elected representatives create with the reality of what is implemented we believe you aren’t a bad person. If you think that “building things people want” is all there is to life I wish you all the best. There is a place for you in the society we will protect on your behalf. If you are willing to engage with the messy, messy process of “building things the people need” then you may have a home at Palantir.

[Palantir @PalantirTech]

Our interns are dropping out of college to join Palantir full-time.

Hear why and apply for the Semester at Palantir internship this fall.

[Palantir @PalantirTech]

Welcome to our Palantir revolution.

[Cameron Stone @camstone_]

A fav scripture of mine is: “truth is knowledge of things as they are, and as they were, and as they are to come.”

Truth <-> Reality

[Tesla Owners Silicon Valley @teslaownersSV]

“The reason I believe in truth and honesty is because I'm trying to understand the universe. I'm trying to understand reality.”

Elon Musk

[Cameron Stone @camstone_]

This made my month (and I don’t even have kids yet). I bet most people look at this and don’t think too much of it, but Elon — who has the world in his palm — just said “nothing” will make you happier… 💯🙌🏻

[Elon Musk @elonmusk]

Kids are awesome. Nothing will make you happier.

[Palantir @PalantirTech]

https://t.co/bDS6OInwz3

[Palantir @PalantirTech]

“The Palantir degree is the best degree, bar none.” -CEO Alex Karp

We launched the Semester at Palantir program this year for students looking to accelerate their career and learn by doing — working on meaningful problems in the real world rather than the classroom, especially at universities where teaching has strayed.

Watch Dr. Karp’s interview with our University Fellows, and apply here for spring 2025: https://t.co/DsPkhbCBXd

[Elon Musk @elonmusk]

Prescient

[Cameron Stone @camstone_]

Our fearless leader! 🫡😉😎

[Xander Davies @alxndrdavies]

Excited to see coverage of HAIST by @thecrimson!
https://t.co/b98goXEFHO

[Cameron Stone @camstone_]

“If you automate away the hard things, you risk not learning the craft and building on shaky foundation.”

[LJW @WhatTheLJW]

I've been writing and publishing regularly for 1 year on @substack

50+ Essay later, here is what I learned 👇🧵

See the full reflection and don't forget to subscribe 🙏

https://t.co/IwFfnkkHj4

#writing

[Cameron Stone @camstone_]

Simulation tech is as interesting (and important) as any AI-related breakthrough right now. For AI + robots to be in daily life, reinforcement learning needs a big playground, one that is an analog to the real world. LOVE everything about this.

[Palantir @PalantirTech]

On the anniversary of the invasion of Ukraine, #Palantir CEO Alex Karp reflects on the bravery and technological ingenuity of Ukraine’s heroes, and discusses key lessons learned.

Read Dr. Karp’s letter here on @scsp_ai's 2-2-2 newsletter: https://t.co/KTmLwkt9ul

[Cameron Stone @camstone_]

Fantastic reminder of a winning strategy: work on what you love, care for closest relationships, trust in the long-game, and bet on yourself by investing in your learning.

[Dave Rogenmoser ⛳️🤖🦄 @DaveRogenmoser]

12) Jasper probably looks like an overnight success to outsiders.

The truth is, we’ve been working on this problem for 8 years now.

For six years we really struggled.

But each failure gave us the skills needed to build Jasper today.

I feel like I was born for this moment.

[GREG ISENBERG @gregisenberg]

AI models are starting to look freakishly real to me

This model is named Ailice, and she posts on Instagram everyday. She's 100% AI-generated

I wonder what percentage of Instagram's content will be AI-generated in 3 years?

[Cameron Stone @camstone_]

Best read in a while. Clear cut vision of how AI will integrate with our day-to-day applications. Scroll to “the unbundling of Craigslist”.

[Rex Woodbury @rex_woodbury]

How AI's application layer might evolve:
https://t.co/J37auaEUN4

[Cameron Stone @camstone_]

“People tend to refer richer media formats: TikTok (video) > Instagram (photo) > Twitter (text).

The same will hold for generative AI: eventually immersive 3D experiences > video [Runway] > images (DALL-E) > text (ChatGPT).” - Rex Woodbury

[Runway @runwayml]

Make any idea real. Just write it.

Text to video, coming soon to Runway.

Sign up for early access: https://t.co/ekldoIshdw

[Chris Hladczuk @chrishlad]

I’ve never met a super successful person without these 3 traits:

• Learning machine
• Maintains high energy
• Relentless persistence

Everything else is teachable.

[Cameron Stone @camstone_]

Deploy the model with potential for good and bad. Deploy another model to eliminate the bad. I see you. What else is up your sleeve @OpenAI? 😎

[OpenAI @OpenAI]

We’re developing a new tool to help distinguish between AI-written and human-written text. We’re releasing an initial version to collect feedback and hope to share improved methods in the future. https://t.co/4dQE3dX6vX