Mar 10, 2026 · 1h 29m · invest-like-the-best
How AI Is Changing Warfare | Palantir CTO · Invest Like The Best
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In this episode of Invest Like The Best, Palantir Chief Technology Officer Shyam Sankar discusses the urgent necessity of re-industrializing the United States, restoring military deterrence, and modernizing defense procurement. Drawing on lessons from historical military 'heretics,' Sankar details Palantir's unconventional engineering culture, software ontology architecture, and mission to rebuild institutional effectiveness across government and commercial sectors.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. Patrick holds 22.7% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
Patrick as informed peer 3.1 Guest teaching 5.5 Guest disagreement 1.9 Patrick pushing back 1.0
speaking balance: gold is Patrick, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 52:00 Dismantling globalization's core premise
Sham forcefully rejects the mainstream economic orthodoxy that nations can offshore manufacturing while preserving innovation capacity, calling it the biggest lie of globalization.
Hardest push from Patrick ▶ 1:10:00 Patrick challenges the human cost of rapid pivotsPatrick directly pushes back on Sham's philosophy of constant reprioritization, highlighting the organizational whiplash, exhaustion, and friction it inflicts on teams.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 45:37 The historical collapse of the defense industrial baseSham delivers a rigorous, data-driven history showing how defense procurement shifted from 94% dual-purpose commercial companies during WWII down to 86% pure-play defense contractors today.
Patrick holds their own ▶ 56:00 Patrick's multi-layered geopolitical framing on ChinaPatrick brings together Graham Allison's historical scholarship, Patrick McGee's reporting on Apple, and firsthand travel observations to frame a complex question on Sino-American competition.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Patrick as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Patrick pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Defining Military Heretics: From Hyman Rickover to Andrew Higgins | 5 | 6 | 2 | 1 | Patrick opens with rich historical framing about military heretics like John Boyd and Andrew Higgins. Sham provides a detailed masterclass on Hyman Rickover's life, his struggle with Navy bureaucracy, and his founding legacy. | |
| Sponsor Advertisements: Ramp, Rogo, and WorkOS | 4 | 3 | 2 | 3 | Following the mid-segment sponsor break, Patrick probes John Boyd's disagreeable personality versus Sham's seemingly approachable demeanor. Sham explains that his disagreeableness manifests against bureaucratic procurement structures. | |
| Shyam Sankar's Formative Backstory and Personal Worldview | 2 | 4 | 1 | 0 | Patrick asks about the formative experiences that shaped Sham's worldview. Sham shares his family's escape from Nigeria, his father's persistence, and the techno-optimism of growing up near the Space Coast. | |
| American Exceptionalism and the Definition of Greatness | 2 | 4 | 1 | 0 | Patrick asks what makes America exceptional and how Sham defines greatness. Sham explains that morale and cognitive plasticity allow American culture to rapidly adapt where older civilizations remain stuck. | |
| Unlocking Human Talent: Alex Karp and Palantir's Culture | 2 | 6 | 1 | 0 | Sham describes Alex Karp's talent management style, comparing Palantir to an artist colony or Hollywood talent agency that nurtures asymmetrical superpowers while avoiding kryptonite. | |
| The Gamma Ray Method: Accelerating Growth Through High-Stakes Pain | 4 | 6 | 2 | 2 | Patrick introduces an anecdote about a junior Palantir hire thrown into a global-scale problem and asks how much leash to give. Sham introduces the Incredible Hulk gamma-ray analogy for rapid talent irradiation. | |
| Spotting Agency and Betting on Unproven Talent | 3 | 4 | 1 | 1 | Sham recalls his own baptism-by-fire deployment at the COIC and outlines how Palantir assesses raw agency. He explains his concept of a quantum organizational structure that dynamic problems require. | |
| The Origin and Power of Forward Deployed Engineering | 3 | 7 | 3 | 1 | Patrick credits Sham for pioneering the forward deployed engineering concept across tech. Sham delivers a critique of traditional enterprise software feedback loops and explains the balance between MacGyver hackers and architectural artists. | |
| When and How to Apply the Forward Deployed Model | 4 | 6 | 2 | 2 | Patrick asks about the boundary conditions where forward deployment fails and requests an operational definition of Palantir's ontology. Sham breaks down how the ontology layer acts as a programmable kinetic API for decision-making. | |
| Sponsor Advertisements: Vanta and Ridgeline | 3 | 6 | 1 | 0 | Following the ad segment, Patrick prompts Sham to provide a grounded case study. Sham explains how Palantir embedded with shop-floor technicians on the Airbus A350 assembly line in Toulouse to map defect ontologies from scratch. | |
| Military vs. Commercial Customer Dynamics | 3 | 6 | 2 | 1 | Sham details the structural split in the US military between combatant commands representing demand and armed services controlling supply, assessing deterrence degradation over the past decade. | |
| The Decline of the Defense Industrial Base Since WWII | 2 | 8 | 3 | 0 | Sham delivers an in-depth lecture on the industrial base from WWII through the 1993 Last Supper dinner at the Pentagon. He highlights how consolidation from 51 primes down to 5 eliminated eccentric engineering mavericks in favor of financialization. | |
| Re-Industrializing America and the AI Productivity Slingshot | 4 | 7 | 3 | 1 | Patrick invokes Churchill to ask how America can reverse physical manufacturing offshoring. Sham attacks the fundamental globalization premise that separates innovation from physical production, citing Google Translate and generic pharmaceuticals. | |
| China as a Strategic Adversary and Systemic Deception | 4 | 7 | 3 | 1 | Patrick cites Graham Allison and Apple in China to query Sham's nuanced view of China. Sham contrasts American kinetic cowboy concepts of war with the CCP's doctrine of systemic deception and non-kinetic conflict. | |
| Asymmetric Advantages: Chinese Long-Term Planning vs. US Agility | 4 | 6 | 2 | 1 | Sham compares China's 30-year systematic planning advantage with America's agility and unpredictability. He critiques cost-plus contracts that cap upside and stifle heretical private defense innovation. | |
| Presidential Policy Blueprint: Restoring Domestic Manufacturing Capabilities | 3 | 6 | 2 | 0 | Asked for hypothetical executive actions, Sham outlines a patent-extension incentive mechanism to bring pharmaceutical active ingredient manufacturing back to the US. | |
| Managing Dynamic Pivots and Enduring Productive Pain | 4 | 5 | 2 | 4 | Patrick pushes back on the severe whiplash and disruption caused when a leadership team dynamically alters its roadmap. Sham quotes cyclist Greg LeMond on sustaining pain and advocates driving organizational momentum via mini-insurgencies. | |
| Fostering Internal Revolt and Truth-Seeking Venues | 4 | 5 | 2 | 3 | Patrick asks how Palantir avoids being disrupted by generative AI now that competing software is easier to build. Sham highlights Palantir's bi-annual revolt weeks and empowering young hires to aggressively disrupt existing company norms. | |
| Value Capture in the AI Stack: Chips and Ontology | 3 | 6 | 1 | 1 | Sham argues that economic value in the AI stack will pool at the hardware chip layer and the ontology infrastructure layer, noting that pure-play application and model layers are rapidly commoditizing. | |
| Synthesizing the 18 Theses and Defense Innovation | 2 | 7 | 3 | 0 | Sham synthesizes his 18 Theses, arguing that programs succeed due to specific heretical individuals rather than bureaucratic processes, referencing Winston Churchill's landship and the Sidewinder missile. | |
| Palantir's Core Mission and Restoring Institutional Capacity | 2 | 6 | 3 | 0 | Sham refutes external misconceptions that Palantir is a surveillance panopticon, arguing its purpose is restoring institutional capacity and reconnecting the disconnected Jungle Cruise steering wheel of modern management. | |
| Public Perception, Arena Mindset, and John Boyd's Philosophy | 4 | 4 | 1 | 1 | Patrick references John Boyd's biography to ask how public villainization feels. Sham cites Boyd's choice between being somebody or doing something, connecting it to his father's sacrifices. | |
| The Impact of Kindness and Interview Conclusion | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | Patrick asks his traditional closing question on kindness. Sham shares how school admissions head Ethel Danhoff took an unhedged chance on admitting him despite missed deadlines. |
Statements from this episode (49)
Sankar: US military breakthroughs came exclusively from heretics, not bureaucracy
“Frankly, if you look back at history, the only shit that ever worked, the things that helped us win all the wars, were the things that the heretics actually did. Nothing that went through the machine delivered anything. I think all change comes from these here…”
Sankar: US nuclear submarines are an asymmetric advantage against China
“Our nuclear submarine force is one of our last remaining asymmetric advantages against the Chinese, and we built it in the fifties.”
Sankar: US submarine force has had zero deaths from nuclear incidents
“We've had no deaths due to nuclear incidents in our submarine force”
Sankar: Palantir had to sue the US Army to compete
“You know, we had to sue the army to compete at some point.”
Sankar: Europe Created Zero €100B+ Companies from Scratch in 50 Years
“Europe has created zero, zero companies worth more than a hundred billion euro from scratch in the last 50 years. It's almost, almost an astonishingly bad track record. We've created all of our trillion dollar companies from scratch in the last 50 years.”
Sankar: European cultures are too rooted in history to update priors
“In Europe, people still arguing about shit that happened 300 years ago. And some of these cultures are so rooted in the past that they can't update their priors.”
Sankar: Palantir is modeled like an artist colony and Hollywood agency
“You know, from the very early days, he modeled our entire company as an artist colony. And it's like we have more in common with like a Hollywood talent agency Than we do with kind of a typical software company in terms of our approach to looking at humans.”
Sankar: High achievers misidentify superpowers because true talent is effortless
“When they're young, they misattribute what their superpower is. They think there's this thing they do that requires a fair amount of effort, and therefore they get a dopamine hit when they succeed. It's probably something they're not even bad at. They're just …”
Sankar: All meaningful contributions come from superpowers; everything else is wasted time
“All of your contributions to the world are going to come from your superpower. Like everything else is basically a waste of time.”
Sankar: Extreme weaknesses cannot be fixed and must simply be avoided
“There are some set of weaknesses you have that aren't just like, hey, I'm not like, I'm kind of average, or I'm maybe a standard div below average. It's like, you're like six divs below average here. It's not like something you can work on. The only strategy f…”
Sankar: Structured corporate career ladders and linear progression are 'all fake'
“This sort of structured career ladder with progressions, it's perfectly designed to make you feel comfortable that you are growing. Like, it gives you some belief that there's a linear path to follow and you'll learn these things, but actually it's all fake.”
Sankar: Maximum rate of learning matches maximum tolerance for pain
“The maximal rate of learning will be coincident with your maximum ability to tolerate pain.”
Sankar: Palantir produces founders by repeatedly assigning deep-end challenges
“If you just are willing to do that serially, just keep jumping off the deep end, go after problems you're frankly not qualified to go after, but you know, there is some belief you have the raw potential to do, like, you turn into a superhero. I think that's ac…”
Sankar: Evaluating unproven talent requires testing if they turn inches into miles
“The early indicators would be like first derivative, proof of some sort of sui generis, like did they create anything from zero to one that, you know, and then expression of agency and initiative. Here's the simplest way I'd say it. If I give this person an in…”
Sankar: Flat org structures fail; companies must continuously restructure around problems
“I don't think a flat org structure is optimal. I think that that doesn't actually work. I think what you want is an org structure that can crystallize, is the right structure to solve the problem as it exists today, and is able to reform as the problem manipul…”
Sankar: Palantir retention is bimodal; staying three years yields decade-plus tenures
“There's some sort of, like, bimodal distribution for how long do people stay at Palantir? Like, the probability that you'll stay for, like, a decade plus if you've stayed three years is incredibly high, but, you know, roughly around the three-year mark, everyo…”
Sankar: Multi-billion-dollar manufacturing ERPs fail because factory workers rely on Excel
“The one thing you could not tell anyone before COVID is that their manufacturing software doesn't work. Like, people would point at their ERP system and be like, look how great it is. I spent five billion dollars, ten billion dollars doing it. But as a forward…”
Sankar: Enterprise software value stems from decisions rather than data
“We have built an enterprise operating system where our core thesis is what makes this stuff really valuable is decisions, not data.”
Sankar: Enterprise software should create differentiation rather than standardization
“We want to make software that makes you more different, not more similar. We think about it as alpha, not beta.”
Sankar: The US failed to deter major conflicts over the past decade
“If you look back over the last 10 years, we've not been able to deter a lot of conflict. We had the annexation of Crimea in 2014. The militarization of the Spratly Islands after they told President Obama, we will not militarize it. They militarized Spratly Isl…”
Sankar: Recent operations like Midnight Hammer have begun restoring US deterrence
“I would say, arguably, in the last year, we've started to restore deterrence. Whatever you think about it, Midnight Hammer was a massively deterring operation. Maduro was massively deterring.”
Sankar: Pre-1989, 94% of major weapons spending went to dual-purpose companies
“Until the fall of the Berlin Wall. Only six percent of spending on major weapon systems went to defense specialists, i.e. Companies that only did business with the Defense Department. Most of that spending, 94%, went to what I call as dual purpose companies.”
Sankar: 86% of major weapons spending now goes to defense-only specialists
“One, that, that six percent number today is 86%. So 86% of major weapons systems come from defense specialists only.”
Sankar: U.S. defense prime contractors dropped from 51 to five
“We had 51 primes. Today we have five.”
Sankar: Kelly Johnson built 41 airframes and developed U-2 in 13 months
“In his lifetime, he built 41 airframes. That is insane. Many of which we still fly today. You know, and he built the U-II in 13 months.”
Sankar: Separating Innovation From Production Is a Major Flaw
“The biggest lie that we bought from globalization is this concept of we will do the innovation and they will do the production. And what you have to recognize is that innovation is itself a consequence of productivity.”
Sankar: 50% of All Clinical Trial Drugs Are Created in China
“Wuxi went from being a cheap, you know, Basically a cheap pair of hands for pipetting contract research in the pharma industry to actually now 50% of all clinical trials are drugs that are created in China.”
Sankar: Apple Spent Equivalent of 2.5 Marshall Plans in China
“Apple has spent the equivalent on an inflation-adjusted basis in the last five years of two and a half Marshall plans building talent and capacity in China.”
Sankar: 80% of US Generic Drugs Depend on China
“80% of our generic drugs come from China in one way or another, whether it's the APIs or the finished product themselves.”
Sankar: The CCP Believes China Can Only Win if America Fails
“So, I think the challenge for us with the CCP Is that it's not enough for China to be prosperous. America must fail.”
Sankar: China Wages War Through Deception to Win Without Firing Shots
“Our conception of war is kinetic. It's like the lone heroic cowboy against the odds winning through heroism. Their conception of war is deception. It's the general who tricked the adversary to get into the valley and then flooded it. You want to win without fi…”
Sankar: Chinese AI models are the result of model distillation
“And even the Chinese models, those are a result of distillation.”
Sankar: Traditional defense primes have 9% margins and trade under 2x revenue
“These are crappy businesses. You know, they have like nine percent operating margins or something. It's, they're not, they're the value to like less than two times revenue.”
Sankar: Cost-plus government contracting eliminates risk and suppresses innovation
“The primes are just downstream of the consequence of the incentives the government gives, and I think the worst incentive is cost plus contracting. Your upside is, is capitated. You're not supposed to take any risk. The government basically pays for your R&D, …”
Sankar: Over $100B invested into hundreds of defense tech startups
“And then if you look at the present moment, there are now hundreds of founders who are building in the national interest with a U.S. Capital stack, one of our other advantages, of over a hundred billion dollars invested in the projects that they're doing that …”
Sankar: The Pentagon increasingly treats defense tech startups as Plan A
“Increasingly in conversations that I have in, in, in the Pentagon, I hear some of these new entrants are talked about as plan A. It's not plan B. It's not, hey, we'll see, maybe this will work in the future. It's like, no, no, this is the plan, and we'll, we'l…”
Sankar: Reshoring generic drug manufacturing to the US will never be viable
“If you try to do that for generics, the business case will never work. It's too hard. It's too much of a subsidy.”
Sankar: Extending drug patents would incentivize pharma to manufacture in the US
“So why don't we manipulate patent length and say, look, drug companies, if you make your worldwide supply of your branded drugs here in the U.S., I will extend your patent length such that you recover two extra capex investment to go do that. That's a simple b…”
Sankar: The best corporate cultures are almost cult-like and highly differentiated
“The best cultures are really almost cult-like. You know your culture is highly differentiated. It should actually kind of be hard for someone to inorganically insert into your culture, otherwise it's not a very differentiated culture whatsoever.”
Sankar: Palantir new hires are told to curse at CTO in AMAs
“Every employee's first AMA with me, I end it by telling them to tell me to fuck off to my face.”
Sankar: Palantir holds bi-annual 'weeks of revolt' for rogue projects
“So we've institutionalized, like you gotta be careful how much you institutionalize, but minimally two times a year, we have these weeks of revolt where people are allowed to go build whatever they want.”
Sankar: Palantir drove AI adoption through young hires' overwhelming productivity
“Obviously, the first adopters of AI for us were the youngest hires, and to the point of generate momentum, I didn't really bother with the people who were kind of cynical or, Dismissive of it. I let the young people generate just overwhelming productivity that…”
Sankar: AI value will accrue at chips and ontology layers
“We think that the value is going to accrue at the chips layer. And at the ontology layer.”
Sankar: AI models are commoditized, forcing providers up-stack
“The model companies have to run up the stack away from just providing a pure model, because the model is commoditized. It's really everything they build around the model that is a solution that they're going to try to build value off of.”
Sankar: The US is in an undeclared emergency having lost deterrence
“I can't look my kids in the eye and not say that I'm ringing the bell that we're in an undeclared state of emergency. That really the first major public thing I put out there was the 18 theses, which is to say, like, we're an emergency. We've lost deterrence.”
Sankar: US defense sector changed more last year than the prior 19
“I've seen more change in the Department of War in the last year than the prior 19 years, and I think they're, to the point of Americans do the right thing having exhausted all the other options, like, we are definitely in the place where we are starting to do …”
Sankar: US Cannot Replicate WWII Mobilization Without Its Historic Industrial Base
“The reason this is not going to go the way World War II did is we don't have the industrial base we had in World War II.”
Sankar: Program Success Is Determined by Exceptional Individuals, Not Process
“The person is the program. Like, don't forget that Edward Hall built the Minuteman, and Schriever was the Air Force General that oversaw our ICBMs, and that we call it the Apollo program, but it was actually Gene Krantz's program, and the primacy of those peop…”
Sankar: John Boyd's dichotomy separates seeking status from achieving impact
“So John Boyd's advice to other officers other uniformed service members is always like, look, you can either be somebody, or you can do something, but you can't really have both, and if you're gonna be somebody, you gotta play this game, and it's all kind of t…”