Watching You: The World of Palantir and Alex Karp
Directed by Klaus Stern2024 1h 38mDocumentary
5.4
For the first time, a documentary examines US entrepreneur Alex Karp and his mysterious and insular company, Palantir. Along with Elon Musk, his co-founder Peter Thiel, and Sam Altman, the CEO of Palantir is considered one of the most important digital leaders. Like them, Karp is benefiting from the election of Donald Trump as US president. But he is still relatively unknown in this country - even though German police authorities also work with Palantir's software, Gotham. The successful yet controversial data analysis program specializes in bundling and visualizing large amounts of data for the purpose of intelligence gathering and surveillance. Gotham can create profiles of individuals worldwide through digital data analysis. The software supports intelligence agencies, the military, and police authorities, the latter also in Hesse and Bavaria, with information that can be used, for example, in the fight against terrorism - or for targeted killings. Palantir is currently an important partner of Ukraine in its defensive war against Russia. The company rose to prominence through its work for the CIA and NSA. With their help, Osama Bin Laden is said to have been brought down. In 2024, Palantir was temporarily valued at over $220 billion on the stock market. One founder, Peter Thiel, is a right-wing libertarian and Trump supporter. The other, Alex Karp, describes himself as a "neo-Marxist and leftist," holds a doctorate in philosophy from Frankfurt, and likes to mention that his parents were "hippies." He even offers Thai Chi classes for his employees - and teaches them himself. Today, he leads the world's largest commercial surveillance company as CEO. Forbes estimates his net worth at $9.7 billion. The film takes a look at one of the most mysterious and powerful men of our time.
