In an industry known for quirky interview questions, some of Palantir’s early hiring practices stand out.
In an episode of Lenny’s Podcast released on Sunday, a former Palantir engineer and startup founder talked about hiring practices and work culture in the company’s early days.
In order to get hired, a candidate had to be interviewed by one of the founders, said Nabeel Qureshi, who worked at the data analysis company for nearly eight years until 2023.
“The interviews were pretty strange,” Qureshi said on the podcast.
“You’d be chatting about philosophy for an hour and a half and it would very much just be like he would pick a topic out of thin air,” Qureshi said, referring to interviews with the Palantir cofounder Stephen Cohen.
“It was impossible to prepare for,” Qureshi added. “He would just go very, very deep and try and test the limits of your understanding. But it would really just be a fun conversation and then if you pass the vibe check, you’d be in.”
Qureshi did not mention if the company still engages in these hiring practices.
Palantir was founded in 2003 by Cohen, Peter Thiel, Joe Lonsdale, and Alex Karp. It provides businesses and militaries, including those of the US, Israel, and Ukraine, with AI models. It went public in 2020 and faced backlash last year because of its partnership with the Israeli Ministry of Defense.
Qureshi said that Palantir screened for three particular types of people: people who were independent-minded and weren’t afraid to push back, people with broader intellectual interests, and those who were “intensely competitive.”
He added that Palantir also attracted people outside of tech, such as military vets, because it was looking for people who were not just technically qualified but also aligned with the company’s mission.
Palantir and Cohen did not respond to requests for comment from Business Insider about details about the company’s interview process, and whether it still asks candidates about topics like philosophy.
Qureshi also talked about how the company’s culture and business practices were a fertile ground to raise future founders.
He said Palantir instilled founder-friendly mindsets, such as telling employees to solve one customer’s problem first because that solution could later be expanded to bring in more business. The company also asked employees to jump on a plane and meet customers in person because “the vibe is completely different,” he said.
Palantir has at least 39 alumni who run their own startups, including Lonsdale and the founders of the defense-tech startup Anduril. “Palantir mafia” companies have been backed by top Venture Capital firms, including a16z, Sequoia, Accel, and Y Combinator.
Karp, the company’s CEO, has on several occasions boasted that the company’s employees are among the best in the business. Earlier this year, BI spoke to half a dozen tech recruiters about the power of having Palantir on your résumé — and while some said results matter more than the name of a company, they generally agreed that Palantir employees are “top-notch” hires.
Palantir is worth close to $280 billion. Its stock is up 57% because of its exposure to AI.
