Alexander Caedmon Karp (born 2 October 1967) is an American billionaire businessman, and the co-founder and CEO of the software firm

Palantir Technologies Palantir Technologies is a public American software company that specializes in big data analytics. Headquartered in Denver, Colorado, it was founded by Peter Thiel, Nathan Gettings, Joe Lonsdale, Stephen Cohen, and Alex Karp in 2003. The compa ...

. As of April 2022, his estimated net worth is US$1.1 billion.

Early life

Alexander Caedmon Karp was born on 2 October 1967 in New York City,Curriculum vitae of Mr Alexander C. Karp
- website of the German digital publishing house Axel Springer SE] the son of a Jewish father and an African American mother, Karp was raised in

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

and graduated from Central High School in 1985. He has said he struggled with

dyslexia Dyslexia, also known until the 1960s as word blindness, is a disorder characterized by reading below the expected level for one's age. Different people are affected to different degrees. Problems may include difficulties in spelling words, r ...

from an early age. Karp earned a bachelor's degree from

Haverford College Haverford College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Haverford, Pennsylvania. It was founded as a men's college in 1833 by members of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), began accepting non-Quakers in 1849, and became coeducational ...

(

Haverford, Pennsylvania Haverford is an unincorporated community located in both Haverford Township in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, United States, and Lower Merion Township in Montgomery County, approximately west of Philadelphia. The Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) open ...

) in 1989, a

juris doctor The Juris Doctor (J.D. or JD), also known as Doctor of Jurisprudence (J.D., JD, D.Jur., or DJur), is a graduate-entry professional degree in law and one of several Doctor of Law degrees. The J.D. is the standard degree obtained to practice law ...

(JD) degree from

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

in 1992, and a

Dr. phil. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is ...

degree in neoclassical social theory from

Goethe University Goethe University (german: link=no, Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main) is a university located in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. It was founded in 1914 as a citizens' university, which means it was founded and funded by the wealt ...

(Frankfurt, Germany) in 2002. Karp's doctoral thesis, supervised by Karola Brede, was titled "''Aggression in der Lebenswelt: Die Erweiterung des Parsonsschen Konzepts der Aggression durch die Beschreibung des Zusammenhangs von Jargon, Aggression und Kultur''", which means "Aggression in the life-world: The extension of

Parsons Parsons may refer to: Places In the United States: * Parsons, Kansas, a city * Parsons, Missouri, an unincorporated community * Parsons, Tennessee, a city * Parsons, West Virginia, a town * Camp Parsons, a Boy Scout camp in the state of Washingt ...

' concept of aggression by describing the connection between jargon, aggression, and culture."

Career

Karp has said he successfully invested in startups and stocks after receiving an inheritance from his grandfather. Karp founded the London-based money management firm Caedmon Group. In 2004, along with

Peter Thiel Peter Andreas Thiel (; born 11 October 1967) is a German-American billionaire entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and political activist. A co-founder of PayPal, Palantir Technologies, and Founders Fund, he was the first outside investor in Fac ...

(who had been a classmate at Stanford) and others, he co-founded Palantir as CEO.

Other activities

Axel Springer SE Axel Springer SE () is a German digital and popular periodical publishing house which is the largest in Europe, with numerous multimedia news brands, such as '' Bild'', ''Die Welt'', and ''Fakt'' and more than 15,000 employees. It generated to ...

, Member of the Board of Directors (2018-2020) *

BASF BASF Societas Europaea, SE () is a German multinational corporation, multinational chemical company and the List of largest chemical producers, largest chemical producer in the world. Its headquarters is located in Ludwigshafen, Germany. The ...

, Member of the Board of Directors (until 2020)

Views

Karp has described himself as a socialist and a progressive, and said he voted for

Hillary Clinton Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton ( Rodham; born October 26, 1947) is an American politician, diplomat, and former lawyer who served as the 67th United States Secretary of State for President Barack Obama from 2009 to 2013, as a United States sen ...

. He espoused socialist views whilst at Stanford. In 2017, he was recorded during a Palantir company meeting claiming he turned down an invitation from President Trump, saying “I respect nothing about the dude.” He has said that technology companies like Palantir have an obligation to support the U.S. military. He has defended Palantir's contract with

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is a federal law enforcement agency under the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. ICE's stated mission is to protect the United States from the cross-border crime and illegal immigration tha ...

(ICE) during the controversy over family separations, saying that while separations are "a really tough, complex, jarring moral issue," he favors "a fair but rigorous immigration policy". He has said the U.S. government should have a strong hand in tech regulation and that western countries should dominate AI research.

Personal life

Karp lives in

Grafton County, New Hampshire Grafton County is a county in the U.S. state of New Hampshire. As of the 2020 census, the population was 91,118. Its county seat is North Haverhill, a village within the town of Haverhill. Until 1972, the county courthouse and other offices ...

. Karp also owns a property in

Palo Alto, California Palo Alto (; Spanish language, Spanish for "tall stick") is a charter city in the northwestern corner of Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a Sequoia sempervirens, coastal redwood tree kno ...

. He is described as a wellness fanatic who swims, skis cross country, practices

Qigong ''Qigong'' (), ''qi gong'', ''chi kung'', ''chi 'ung'', or ''chi gung'' () is a system of coordinated body-posture and movement, breathing, and meditation used for the purposes of health, spirituality, and martial-arts training. With roots in ...

meditation and martial arts, and keeps

Tai Chi Tai chi (), short for Tai chi ch'üan ( zh, s=太极拳, t=太極拳, first=t, p=Tàijíquán, labels=no), sometimes called "shadowboxing", is an neijia, internal Chinese martial art practiced for defense training, health benefits and medita ...

swords in his offices.

References

External links

New York Times Magazine profile
{{DEFAULTSORT:Karp, Alex 1967 births Living people Haverford College alumni Stanford University alumni People from Palo Alto, California Central High School (Philadelphia) alumni Goethe University Frankfurt alumni American billionaires American company founders 20th-century American Jews 21st-century American Jews