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How Palantir built the ultimate founder factory | Nabeel S. Qureshi (founder, writer, ex-Palantir)
Nabeel Qureshi is an entrepreneur, writer, researcher, and visiting scholar of AI policy at the Mercatus Center (alongside Tyler Cowen). Previously, he spent nearly eight years at Palantir, working as a forward-deployed engineer. His work at Palantir ranged from accelerating the Covid-19 response to applying AI to drug discovery to optimizing aircraft manufacturing at Airbus. Nabeel was also a founding employee and VP of business development at GoCardless, a leading European fintech unicorn.
What you’ll learn:
• Why almost a third of all Palantir’s PMs go on to start companies
• How the “forward-deployed engineer” model works and why it creates exceptional product leaders
• How Palantir transformed from a “sparkling Accenture” into a $200 billion data/software platform company with more than 80% margins
• The unconventional hiring approach that screens for independent-minded, intellectually curious, and highly competitive people
• Why the company intentionally avoids traditional titles and career ladders—and what they do instead
• Why they built an ontology-first data platform that LLMs love
• How Palantir’s controversial “bat signal” recruiting strategy filtered for specific talent types
• The moral case for working at a company like Palantir
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Where to find Nabeel S. Qureshi:
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nabeelqu/
• Website: https://nabeelqu.co/
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Where to find Lenny:
• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com
• X: https://twitter.com/lennysan
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/
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In this episode, we cover:
(00:00) Introduction to Nabeel S. Qureshi
(05:10) Palantir’s unique culture and hiring
(13:29) What Palantir looks for in people
(16:14) Why they don't have titles
(19:11) Forward-deployed engineers at Palantir
(25:23) Key principles of Palantir's success
(30:00) Gotham and Foundry
(36:58) The ontology concept
(38:02) Life as a forward-deployed engineer
(41:36) Balancing custom solutions and product vision
(46:36) Advice on how to implement forward-deployed engineers
(50:41) The current state of forward-deployed engineers at Palantir
(53:15) The power of ingesting, cleaning and analyzing data
(59:25) Hiring for mission-driven startups
(01:05:30) What makes Palantir PMs different
(01:10:00) The moral question of Palantir
(01:16:03) Advice for new startups
(01:21:12) AI corner
(01:24:00) Contrarian corner
(01:25:42) Lightning round and final thoughts
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Referenced:
• Reflections on Palantir: https://nabeelqu.co/reflections-on-palantir
• Palantir: https://www.palantir.com/
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Published on 7 months, 3 weeks ago