Silicon Valley has lost its way. From the founding of the American republic through much of the
twentieth century our most brilliant engineering minds and the democratic state collaborated
to advance world-changing technologies. The partnership ensured the West's dominant place in
the geopolitical order. But that relationship has now eroded with perilous repercussions. The
modern incarnation of Silicon Valley turned its focus to the consumer market including the
construction of elaborate online advertising and social media platforms. The market rewarded
shallow engagement with the potential of technology as startup after startup catered to the
whims of capitalist culture with little interest in constructing the technology that would
address our most significant challenges. A generation of extraordinarily talented engineers
insulated from the geopolitical threats of the moment built photo-sharing apps and marketing
algorithms at the expense of projects with the potential to serve a more pressing collective or
national purpose. In this groundbreaking and provocative treatise Alexander C. Karp
co-founder and chief executive officer of Palantir Technologies and Nicholas W. Zamiska head
of corporate affairs at the company offer a searing critique of our collective abandonment of
creative and cultural ambition. They argue that in order for the West to maintain its
geopolitical advantage-and the freedoms that we take for granted-the software industry must
redirect its attention to our most urgent challenges and rebuild its relationship with
government. It will be the union of the state and the software industry-not their separation
and disentanglement-that will be required for the United States and its allies to remain as
dominant in this century as they were in the last. The public will forgive many failures of
government and the political class. But the electorate will not overlook a systemic inability
to harness technology for the purpose of effectively advancing our welfare and security. Karp
and Zamiska argue that a democratic public's commitment to free speech in particular-to
preserving space for ideological confrontation and a rejection of intellectual fragility-has
everything to do with technological and economic outperformance. An entire generation is at
risk of unwittingly becoming a product a vessel for the ambitions of others deprived of the
opportunity to form authentic and independent beliefs about the world. At once iconoclastic and
rigorous the book will also lift the veil on Palantir and its broader political project from
the inside offering a passionate call for the West to wake up to our new reality.
