Overview

INSTANT #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “A cri de coeur that takes aim at the tech industry for abandoning its history of helping America and its allies.”—The Wall Street Journal From the Palantir co-founder, one of Time’s 100 Most Influential People of 2025, and his deputy, a critically-acclaimed and sweeping indictment of the West’s culture of complacency, arguing that timid leadership, intellectual fragility, and an unambitious view of technology’s potential in Silicon Valley have made the U.S. vulnerable in an era of mounting global threats “Not since Allan Bloom’s astonishingly successful 1987 book The Closing of the American Mind . . . has there been a cultural critique as sweeping.”—George F. Will, The Washington Post “Provocative [and] worth your time.”—Edith Chapin, Editor-in-Chief, NPR (Top Staff Pick) Silicon Valley has lost its way. Our most brilliant engineering minds once collaborated with government to advance world-changing technologies. Their efforts secured the West’s dominant place in the geopolitical order. But that relationship has now eroded, with perilous repercussions. Today, the market rewards shallow engagement with the potential of technology. Engineers and founders build photo-sharing apps and marketing algorithms, unwittingly becoming vessels for the ambitions of others. This complacency has spread into academia, politics, and the boardroom. The result? An entire generation for whom the narrow-minded pursuit of the demands of a late capitalist economy has become their calling. In this groundbreaking treatise, Palantir co-founder and CEO Alexander C. Karp and Nicholas W. Zamiska offer a searing critique of our collective abandonment of ambition, arguing that in order for the U.S. and its allies to retain their global edge—and preserve the freedoms we take for granted—the software industry must renew its commitment to addressing our most urgent challenges, including the new arms race of artificial intelligence. The government, in turn, must embrace the most effective features of the engineering mindset that has propelled Silicon Valley’s success. Above all, our leaders must reject intellectual fragility and preserve space for ideological confrontation. A willingness to risk the disapproval of the crowd, Karp and Zamiska contend, has everything to do with technological and economic outperformance. At once iconoclastic and rigorous, this book will also lift the veil on Palantir and its broader political project from the inside, offering a passionate call for the West to wake up to our new reality.

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“The wizards of America’s digital revolution have produced many shiny consumer products and apps. But they have often remained aloof from engaging in a sense of national purpose or common good. This book is a rallying cry, as we enter the age of artificial intelligence, for a return to the World War II era of cooperation between the technology industry and government in order to pursue innovation that will advance our national welfare and democratic goals. A fascinating and important work.”—Walter Isaacson

“The wizards of America’s digital revolution have produced many shiny consumer products and apps. But they have often remained aloof from engaging in a sense of national purpose or common good. This book is a rallying cry, as we enter the age of artificial intelligence, for a return to the World War II era of cooperation between the technology industry and government in order to pursue innovation that will advance our national welfare and democratic goals. A fascinating and important work.”—Walter Isaacson “In today’s complicated geopolitical, technological, and economic environment, the authors’ ability to be both well-spoken and outspoken in The Technological Republic can help us understand important issues about the future prosperity of the United States and its allies. The book is by turns provocative and insightful, and Alex Karp’s resilience, patriotism, and depth of experience in our rapidly changing world provide instructive lessons and intellectual arguments for all of us to consider.”—Jamie Dimon, chairman and CEO of JP Morgan Chase “The Technological Republic should be read by everyone who cares about how technology should contribute to the protection of American values and our security. Readers may not agree with every observation in Karp and Zamiska’s compelling, essential book, but it demands to be read. Karp is a true patriot—a loving critic of his industry and his country who wants them both to be better.”—General James N. Mattis (USMC Retired) “Alex Karp’s book might be titled A Free-Thinker’s Manifesto. He decries the arrogance and small-mindedness of Silicon Valley and explains his passionate commitment to defending the West and its cultural values. Karp is a polymath: He and his co-author, Nicholas Zamiska, take the reader on an intellectual tour from anthropology to art and music to history and philosophy to explain what matters for our survival and success.”—David Ignatius, Washington Post columnist and bestselling author of Phantom Orbit “Karp’s rallying cry for a ‘Technological Republic’ sets out clearly what must happen for the democratic world to maintain its preeminence in the age of artificial intelligence. Engineers and technologists must use their talents to ensure the digital future enhances our democratic freedoms, not undermines them. This book is a wake-up call for tech entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley and beyond.”—Anders Fogh Rasmussen, founder of Alliance of Democracies Foundation and former NATO Secretary General (2009–2014) “The Technological Republic combines fascinating insights into Palantir’s mode of operation (it’s influenced by the way bees swarm, comedians improvise, and Isaiah Berlin thought) with Alex Karp’s uncompromisingly national-liberal political philosophy. This is a stirring manifesto for a new Manhattan Project for the AI Age.”—Niall Ferguson, New York Times bestselling author of The Ascent of Money and Doom

Author Information

Alexander C. Karp is the co-founder and CEO of Palantir Technologies. He earned his doctorate in social theory from Goethe University in Germany and is a graduate of Haverford College and Stanford Law School. Nicholas W. Zamiska is head of corporate affairs and legal counsel to the office of the chief executive officer at Palantir Technologies. He is a graduate of Yale College and Yale Law School.

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