Alex Karp, the CEO of controversial tech company Palantir, raised eyebrows during a recent live interview with the New York Times. In a viral video of the discussion, Karp defended his company to the Times’ Andrew Ross Sorkin, gesturing dramatically with his arms, bouncing up and down on his chair, and struggling to make his point.
Palantir’s X account shared the video on Sunday morning and announced Karp is launching The Neurodivergent Fellowship: “If you find yourself relating to [Karp] in this video — unable to sit still, or thinking faster than you can speak — we encourage you to apply.”
Palantir announced Karp himself would conduct final interviews for the fellowship. In a reply to the first message on X, the company included an application link to the fellowship, which is available in Palantir’s New York City and Washington, D.C. offices.
“The current LLM tech landscape positions [neurodivergent people] to dominate,” according to the application. “Pattern recognition. Non-linear thinking. Hyperfocus. The cognitive traits that make the neurodivergent different are precisely what make them exceptional in an AI-driven world.”
Palantir, a data and analytics company co-founded by conservative “kingmaker” Peter Thiel, was quick to argue that the fellowship is not a DEI initiative.
“Palantir is launching the Neurodivergent Fellowship as a recruitment pathway for exceptional neurodivergent talent,” according to the application, “This is not a diversity initiative. We believe neurodivergent individuals will have a competitive advantage as elite builders of the next technological era, and we’re hiring accordingly for all roles.”
“I’m not a POS, I’m neurodivergent…”
Riiiiiiiiight… 🤔
Not mutually exclusive.
Edit: I say this as someone who’s neurospicy.
yeah. i’m fully willing to believe a bunch of these tech ceos are neurodivergent as they claim. HOWEVER. we all know neurodivergent people who don’t weaponize their neurodivergence to justify eugenics, mass surveillance, or just plain being shitty to people. we don’t have to respect your autism excuse when you do something shitty and then ask you why you did that.
Alex Karp’s behavior is much better explained by cocaine. He may be neurodivergent, but he was still high as giraffe pussy.
Despite being neurodivergent, I also happen not to be profoundly evil ! So I don’t see myself joining anytime soon…
So the dude was tweaking on whatever legalized version of cocaine is available this week and then passes it off as neurodivergent. This makes those of us that actually have issues look like hyperactive children. Also fuck Palantir. I’d rather drag my nuts through broken glass than ever be associated with their human rights violation machine. Fucking sickening.
Why the fuck are all the rich assholes tweaked out of their gourds? It speakes volumes that even those at the top of this bullshit society hate it and resort to drugs to cope.
I‘m sick and tired of rich schmucks selling their lack of empathy as being neurodivergent. Nah man, you don‘t struggle with social cues. You simply don‘t care about others. That‘s a huge difference.
Technically antisocial personality disorder and narcissistic personality disorder are neurodivergent…
Those are personality disorders, not forms of neurodivergence.
Wtf is neurodivergence if not a divergence from normal personality and thinking?
They are different things.
Neurodivergent people process information differently but have all the correct parts to process. They may interact with the world in slightly different ways but do not have a personality DEFECT.
People who are narcissists are missing a primary component: empathy for other humans. Their minds are fundamentally different than neurotypical and neurodivergent people.
Are you making this up?
I’m going by the parts of the words: neuro meaning of the mind/brain and divergent meaning deviating from normal. I don’t see why “neurodivergent” wouldn’t include all of ADHD, autism, personality disorders, and mental illness as these are all brain differences.
Yes, they are making this up.
From the point of view of a person without ADHD, an ADHD person is almost retarded. Can’t concentrate, achieve goals.
Or BAD - jumping from a depression to a psychosis, sometimes they are like a wounded deer hiding in their room, sometimes they are running around planning to blitzkrieg the planet, what is this if not a defect. (There’s one woman, I wonder if I should reach her or if I’m having my own BAD psychosis even thinking about that. She’s also not the only woman who can be affected strongly by that decision. In other words, I’m inadequate and unable to control myself and clearly see the reality behind impulses.)
Or, well, an autistic person struggling with hints and cues and aesopean language and unable to deduct reality from superficial signs, - from the point of view of those who can they are pretty much defective. (Also me.)
They are just bunching together a few of Ds as “just different” and the rest as defects. “Disorder” is not a word meaning “just different”. It does mean a defect.
Please don’t use slurs :(
All the old Aspies are watching alone from the corner of the room saying to themselves, “wtf is wrong with this guy?”
They say it’s not a DEI initiative; they just want to get this talent onboard for their business.
Ironically, that’s exactly what DEI initiatives were all about: recognizing that if we let white bros excluded all others from the workplace, like they have in prior decades, we will shut out the majority of the world’s talent, and we should do whatever it takes to make sure everyone can join, work, and truly focus without watching their back all the time.
Or more cynically: privileged talent knows its worth, marginalized talent is undervalued and will thank you for only lightly screwing it
The way I read this is that they’re trying to weaponize autism. They see people who are neurodivergent as a resource they can tap into.
