MicromOne: Palantir and the Software Revolution: A Rising Giant

Palantir Technologies is in what its CEO and co-founder, Alexander C. Karp, describes as "the beginning of the first act" of a technological revolution that will unfold over decades. The company’s financial results and strategic positioning reflect an unprecedented acceleration across both the commercial and government sectors.

Unprecedented Growth

In the fourth quarter of 2024, Palantir recorded a record revenue of $828 million, marking a 14% increase from the previous quarter and a 36% rise from the same period the previous year. The company does not see this growth as a mere incremental advance but as the beginning of a new phase of expansion.

By combining the strength of an established company with the agility of an emerging startup, Palantir has established itself as an "unstoppable machine" in the software industry. In particular, the U.S. market has demonstrated extraordinary growth, with total revenue reaching $1.9 billion in 2024, accounting for 66% of the company’s total sales.

Success in the Commercial and Government Sectors

A key driver of Palantir’s growth has been its U.S. commercial sector, which saw a 64% year-over-year increase in Q4, reaching $214 million. At the same time, sales to U.S. government partners—including intelligence agencies and healthcare organizations—grew 45% year-over-year, reaching $343 million in Q4 and $1.2 billion annually.

These results highlight the growing recognition of Palantir’s software solutions in both private and public sectors. The company’s ability to provide advanced tools for data integration and operations management has solidified its position as a leading force in technology and security.

Two Decades of Preparation

According to Karp, Palantir’s current success is the result of over twenty years of preparation and strategic vision. At a time when venture capital was focused on e-commerce platforms and social media, Palantir chose a radically different path, investing in software development for defense and intelligence.

Despite initial challenges and investor skepticism, the company stayed on course, building a position of strength that can no longer be ignored. Karp emphasizes that Palantir’s growth has been made possible by a long-term strategy, independent of fleeting market trends.

The Danger of Complacency

However, Palantir’s CEO warns of the risks of complacency. History shows that technological and strategic progress can be undermined by stagnation and a lack of humility. Karp references political scientist Samuel Huntington to illustrate how technological and organizational superiority has been a key factor in the rise of global powers.

The message is clear: innovation and technological leadership cannot be taken for granted. To maintain its momentum, Palantir must continue investing in research and development, adapting to geopolitical challenges, and securing its dominance in the software market.

Power, Progress, and the Role of Strength in Technology

Palantir’s CEO, Alexander Karp, invokes the political scientist Samuel Huntington to underscore a hard truth about global power dynamics: dominance is not achieved through ideals alone, but through superior execution—often in forms that are difficult to acknowledge.

Huntington’s assertion that the West’s rise was not due to its ideas, values, or religion but rather to its “superiority in applying organized violence” is a stark reminder of how power has historically been consolidated. The second part of his statement—“Westerners often forget this fact; non-Westerners never do”—further emphasizes the selective amnesia of dominant societies, which sometimes attribute their success to moral superiority rather than strategic strength.

Karp leverages this perspective to frame Palantir’s own trajectory. The company, once an outlier in Silicon Valley for prioritizing national security and intelligence software over consumer tech trends, has built its strength in a landscape that initially dismissed its vision. Just as Huntington describes historical dominance as a product of applied force, Palantir’s rise reflects a technological equivalent—one where superior data integration, analytics, and operational execution shape modern power structures.

The underlying message is clear: ideals and innovation matter, but resilience, strategic foresight, and an unrelenting focus on execution are what define lasting success. In a world where geopolitical tensions and technological rivalries are intensifying, Palantir’s software is positioned not merely as a tool for efficiency, but as a mechanism of strength in an era of digital competition.

Letter from Alexander C. Karp, CEO of Palantir

February 3, 2025

I. We are still in the earliest stages, the beginning of the first act, of a revolution that will play out over years and decades.

Our total revenue in the fourth quarter last year reached a record $828 million, representing a growth rate of 14% from the prior quarter’s total of $726 million, and 36% from the same period the year before.

This is not an incremental advance or marginal acceleration of our business. This is a new phase.

And the momentum we are seeing across sectors, both commercial and government, is unlike anything that has come before.

The business we have built has now developed its own internal momentum and strength, its own interior life and forms of untamed organic growth, with the output that we are seeing far surpassing what we are investing.

A software juggernaut has indeed emerged. 

II. We have the products and reach of an established incumbent and the speed, growth, and agility of an insurgent startup.

It is that most lethal of combinations that we have been seeking to build, and the future is now coming into sharp focus.

The strength of our commercial business in the United States, in particular, continues to astound even our most ardent believers.

Our U.S. revenue grew 52% year-over-year to $558 million in the last three months of 2024. And our U.S. business, at $1.9 billion for the year, now accounts for 66% of our total sales.

In the United States, commercial revenue alone in the fourth quarter grew 64% year-over-year—and 20% quarter-over-quarter—to $214 million.

Sales to our U.S. government partners, from intelligence services to healthcare work, grew 45% year-over-year to $343 million in the fourth quarter, pushing annual sales to $1.2 billion.

III. We have been preparing for this moment diligently for more than twenty years.

A certain indifference to the doubts and opinions of others, to the shiny and fashionable thing, was absolutely required.

But our patience, and what some would fairly describe as our disregard for the received wisdom, has been rewarded.

Our results, the admittedly vulgar metric by which a market often unsure of what it wants to reward attempts to assess value in this world, have now surpassed even our most ambitious expectations.

We still remember the quizzical looks of potential early investors when we attempted to explain that we were building enterprise software—at a time when the floodgates of Silicon Valley had opened to fund consumer trinkets, online shopping websites, and other quite forgettable experiments in sating the needs of the late capitalist mind.

The looks were only more puzzled, the brows more furrowed, when we made clear that we were intent on building software systems for U.S. defense and intelligence agencies.

There were some challenging years. We were an odd bird flying in the wrong direction at the height of the consumer internet bubble.

The embrace came only slowly at first, and then more recently, quite quickly.

 The unfortunate thing, either in business or politics, is that many of one’s adversaries and antagonists will never respond to anything but strength—that crude form of power that does not ask for but which requires compliance and deference.

And so strength we have built. 

IV. And still, the enemy of progress, when attempting to advance the interests of either an institution or a nation, is a descent into complacency and an abandonment of all humility.

That sense of arrival, a certainty that history has ended, or condescension to an adversary or competitor bested, often only temporarily, can be fatal.

And it is the technical complacency of a society that often mirrors its political choices and instincts.

Our commitment to tolerance and openness—our values as a culture—is without question infectious and compelling, but we cannot yet hope that they alone will protect us and win the day.

A fuller statement of this argument and its implications for the current moment and the crossroads at which we have arrived is presented in The Technological Republic, which will be released shortly.

As Samuel Huntington has written, the rise of the West was not made possible “by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion . . . but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence.”

He continued: “Westerners often forget this fact; non-Westerners never do.”  

Sincerely,

Pagine

Palantir and the Software Revolution: A Rising Giant

Unprecedented Growth

Success in the Commercial and Government Sectors

Two Decades of Preparation

The Danger of Complacency

Power, Progress, and the Role of Strength in Technology

February 3, 2025

I.

We are still in the earliest stages, the beginning of the first act, of a revolution that will play out over years and decades.

Our total revenue in the fourth quarter last year reached a record $828 million, representing a growth rate of 14% from the prior quarter’s total of $726 million, and 36% from the same period the year before.

This is not an incremental advance or marginal acceleration of our business. This is a new phase.

And the momentum we are seeing across sectors, both commercial and government, is unlike anything that has come before.

The business we have built has now developed its own internal momentum and strength, its own interior life and forms of untamed organic growth, with the output that we are seeing far surpassing what we are investing.

A software juggernaut has indeed emerged.

II.

We have the products and reach of an established incumbent and the speed, growth, and agility of an insurgent startup.

It is that most lethal of combinations that we have been seeking to build, and the future is now coming into sharp focus.

The strength of our commercial business in the United States, in particular, continues to astound even our most ardent believers.

Our U.S. revenue grew 52% year-over-year to $558 million in the last three months of 2024. And our U.S. business, at $1.9 billion for the year, now accounts for 66% of our total sales.

In the United States, commercial revenue alone in the fourth quarter grew 64% year-over-year—and 20% quarter-over-quarter—to $214 million.

Sales to our U.S. government partners, from intelligence services to healthcare work, grew 45% year-over-year to $343 million in the fourth quarter, pushing annual sales to $1.2 billion.

III.

We have been preparing for this moment diligently for more than twenty years.

A certain indifference to the doubts and opinions of others, to the shiny and fashionable thing, was absolutely required.

But our patience, and what some would fairly describe as our disregard for the received wisdom, has been rewarded.

Our results, the admittedly vulgar metric by which a market often unsure of what it wants to reward attempts to assess value in this world, have now surpassed even our most ambitious expectations.

The looks were only more puzzled, the brows more furrowed, when we made clear that we were intent on building software systems for U.S. defense and intelligence agencies.

There were some challenging years. We were an odd bird flying in the wrong direction at the height of the consumer internet bubble.

The embrace came only slowly at first, and then more recently, quite quickly.

The unfortunate thing, either in business or politics, is that many of one’s adversaries and antagonists will never respond to anything but strength—that crude form of power that does not ask for but which requires compliance and deference.

And so strength we have built.

IV.

And still, the enemy of progress, when attempting to advance the interests of either an institution or a nation, is a descent into complacency and an abandonment of all humility.

That sense of arrival, a certainty that history has ended, or condescension to an adversary or competitor bested, often only temporarily, can be fatal.

And it is the technical complacency of a society that often mirrors its political choices and instincts.

Our commitment to tolerance and openness—our values as a culture—is without question infectious and compelling, but we cannot yet hope that they alone will protect us and win the day.

A fuller statement of this argument and its implications for the current moment and the crossroads at which we have arrived is presented in The Technological Republic, which will be released shortly.

As Samuel Huntington has written, the rise of the West was not made possible “by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion . . . but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence.”

He continued: “Westerners often forget this fact; non-Westerners never do.”

Sincerely,

Alexander C. Karp

Chief Executive Officer & Co-Founder

Palantir Technologies Inc.

A software juggernaut has indeed emerged. 

 The unfortunate thing, either in business or politics, is that many of one’s adversaries and antagonists will never respond to anything but strength—that crude form of power that does not ask for but which requires compliance and deference.

And so strength we have built. 

He continued: “Westerners often forget this fact; non-Westerners never do.”  