Palantir changed my life

People ask me what Palantir has given me, or whether they should apply to the Meritocracy Fellowship, and I usually give them a bad answer. Something like: “it was great, you should do it. I learned so much about history and philosophy that I probably wouldn’t have encountered until way later in life.” That is true, but it misses the part that matters. This is my attempt to say that part, mostly to the people who made my time here what it was.

Before Palantir, I had a plan for my life that I would have described as disciplined and ambitious and probably would have defended for hours if you challenged it. Go to the University of Minnesota. Study math and computer science. Recruit for quant firms. Make a lot of money.

The plan had a lot going for it. It made me look like the kind of person who had his life together. It also had one enormous advantage: I could justify almost any step inside it by calling it valuable.

That was my favorite word.

A harder class? Probably valuable.

A better internship? Probably valuable.

A more selective firm? Probably valuable.

A different kind of work, even if I was not drawn to it? Probably valuable.

That phrase let me bless almost anything in advance. It made me sound open-minded, ambitious, even intelligent. It also saved me from having to say what I actually wanted, or from having to compare one path against another in any demanding way. If every new experience is "probably valuable," then you never have to ask valuable for what, or compared to what, or for whom.

You just keep moving.

A week ago, I got an offer from Tesla to intern as a software engineer in Palo Alto. I started reaching for the usual reasons. It would be good to be somewhere new. I would meet new people. I would learn from another high-performing organization. It was safer than waiting to hear about a return offer from Palantir at the end of May. And yes, Tesla next to Palantir on a resume is a very defensible story.

One day in the office, Jai started pulling apart that logic, and most of the following reflection began there. He said that if you want to do something great, you have to get serious about your individual artistry: the particular way you are good, the shape of your judgment, what it means for everyone else when you uniquely own something. He also pointed out how easy it is to hide inside the language of “probably valuable,” especially when the utilitarian, value-maxxing part of you can certify the option as rational. New city, new people, new environment, new logo. All of it can be defended. But none of it stems from rigorous reflection over what matters to you. His point was that this is a way of living in inputs. You can keep collecting experiences and calling them valuable without ever facing outputs, or making a real comparison. This is a mindless optimization. Each choice must be weighed against another, with a radical bias towards the outcome they instantiate.

If I say a summer at Tesla is valuable because it exposes me to a new environment, how do you argue with that? Maybe it is. Maybe it is not. The claim is almost impossible to falsify. It asks for no relative comparison. It does not force me to say whether I would become better there than by staying at Palantir, or better at the thing I most want to become good at, or better in any way that cashes out beyond vibes. It let me feel rigorous while staying vague.

That bothered me because it was true.

A few days later, I finally said the embarrassing version out loud. I did not want Tesla because I was pulled toward the work. I wanted it because it was easy to justify. Part of that was prestige, obviously. But the deeper problem was that “probably valuable” had become a crutch. It let me keep my life in a state of strategic vagueness. If every attractive option is probably good for me, then I never have to ask good for what, or better than what, or better for me specifically.

That way of thinking is certainly hollow. What I had not fully understood until recently is that it may also fail on its own terms. It may not even be the best way to win.

If you spend enough time choosing broad, defensible, probably-valuable options, you can become impressive in a generic way. But that is different from becoming unusually good at something. The people who become unusually good at something are usually not the ones who sampled the most respectable experiences. They do it by finding the kind of work where their own way of thinking compounds, then staying with it.

That is what Palantir gave me.

It gave me work where my own judgment mattered enough that I could start to see what my version of that might be. I got to own things that were real enough to expose me. My instincts, taste, and decisions showed up in every part of the process, from which POCs I decided to talk to to how I structured the code. And once you start seeing the particular way you create value, a lot of fake options lose their glamour. You stop being so impressed by the vague promise that some new experience will probably be good for you. You start asking whether it is actually better than what you are already doing, and whether it is making the thing that is distinct about you better.

Those are harder questions because they force you into comparison, and comparison forces judgment, and judgment means you can no longer hide behind the romance of possibility. That is where I had been living for a long time.

Needless to say, I turned Tesla down that night.

What I felt afterward was relief. Not because I had transcended prestige or become righteous overnight. I still like being admired. I still want to win. The relief came from making one of the first decisions in my life that was not propped up by vague future value.

Palantir mattered because it offered me something I did not realize I had been looking for: a way to stop treating the right choice as though it had to be a sacrifice. The common story is that you either do the thing that is true to you or you do the thing that wins. One gives meaning, the other gives status.

I think that story ruins a lot of people.

What Palantir showed me is that, if you are lucky and honest enough to recognize it, there is a third option. Sometimes the place that is most right for you is also the place where you are most likely to become exceptional. And, sometimes the path that looks less broadly defensible is actually the one with more real upside because it lets your own strengths compound instead of flattening you into another ambitious person with an excellent resume.

Thank you to

Jai Singh — for constantly pushing me to keep what actually matters in perspective. I don’t think I’ve met someone like you before, and I’m not sure I will again.

Jonathan Yang — you probably don’t know this, but I wrote my Common App essay about that conversation we had in the hotel room during the Gettysburg trip. It meant more to me than you know.

Harry Weinstein — apparently I was four minutes away from not making it to the next round, so I’m very glad you changed that. But seriously, you were the first person I connected with here, so thank you.

Pargol Gheissari — for being the most based lead ever. You’ve played a huge role in helping me start to understand my own strengths.

Cameron Cabo — for spending an unreasonable amount of time downloading your technical brain into mine. You’ve singlehandedly amplified my technical skills at least tenfold.

Margaret York — for assembling the fellowship group: there is no one in it who isn’t unique in their own way, and in a world full of copy-paste people, that is remarkable.

Jordan Hirsch — for being kind enough to teach us without judgement. I still use the note taking strategy you showed me on week one of the fellowship on impl to this day.

Sam Feldman — for leading the fellowship. From every trip to every speaker to every debate, you were there. In some sense, you were the father of the fellowship.

Talia Dror — for the candid advice you gave me near the end of the fellowship not to compare myself to how others were providing value on impl, and for sharing the ups and downs of your own experience so openly. I still hold that advice close.

Sophie Singletary — for making me feel welcome from the very first brunch at Marsanne and in every interaction that followed. I still remember sitting next to you and how effortlessly you lightened the mood and helped me open up.