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Nabeel Qureshi is an entrepreneur, writer, researcher, and visiting scholar of AI policy at the Mercatus Center (alongside Tyler Cowen). Previously, he spent nearly eight years at Palantir, working as a forward-deployed engineer. His work at Palantir ranged from accelerating the Covid-19 response to applying AI to drug discovery to optimizing aircraft manufacturing at Airbus. Nabeel was also a founding employee and VP of business development at GoCardless, a leading European fintech unicorn.What you’ll learn:• Why almost a third of all Palantir’s PMs go on to start companies• How the “forward-deployed engineer” model works and why it creates exceptional product leaders• How Palantir transformed from a “sparkling Accenture” into a $200 billion data/software platform company with more than 80% margins• The unconventional hiring approach that screens for independent-minded, intellectually curious, and highly competitive people• Why the company intentionally avoids traditional titles and career ladders—and what they do instead• Why they built an ontology-first data platform that LLMs love• How Palantir’s controversial “bat signal” recruiting strategy filtered for specific talent types• The moral case for working at a company like Palantir—Brought to you by:• <a target="_blank" href="https://workos.com/lenny">WorkOS</a>—Modern identity platform for B2B SaaS, free up to 1 million MAUs• <a target="_blank" href="https://attio.com/lenny?utm_source=lennyrachitsky&amp;utm_medium=sponsorship&amp;utm_campaign=lenny-20230625">Attio</a>—The powerful, flexible CRM for fast-growing startups• <a target="_blank" href="https://oneschema.co/lenny">OneSchema</a>—Import CSV data 10x faster—Where to find Nabeel S. Qureshi:• X: <a target="_blank" href="https://x.com/nabeelqu">https://x.com/nabeelqu</a>• LinkedIn: <a target="_blank" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/nabeelqu/">https://www.linkedin.com/in/nabeelqu/</a>• Website: <a target="_blank" href="https://nabeelqu.co/">https://nabeelqu.co/</a>—Where to find Lenny:• Newsletter: <a target="_blank" href="https://www.lennysnewsletter.com">https://www.lennysnewsletter.com</a>• X: <a target="_blank" href="https://twitter.com/lennysan">https://twitter.com/lennysan</a>• LinkedIn: <a target="_blank" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/">https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/</a>—In this episode, we cover:(00:00) Introduction to Nabeel S. Qureshi(05:10) Palantir’s unique culture and hiring(13:29) What Palantir looks for in people(16:14) Why they don't have titles(19:11) Forward-deployed engineers at Palantir(25:23) Key principles of Palantir's success(30:00) Gotham and Foundry(36:58) The ontology concept(38:02) Life as a forward-deployed engineer(41:36) Balancing custom solutions and product vision(46:36) Advice on how to implement forward-deployed engineers(50:41) The current state of forward-deployed engineers at Palantir(53:15) The power of ingesting, cleaning and analyzing data(59:25) Hiring for mission-driven startups(01:05:30) What makes Palantir PMs different(01:10:00) The moral question of Palantir(01:16:03) Advice for new startups(01:21:12) AI corner(01:24:00) Contrarian corner(01:25:42) Lightning round and final thoughts—Referenced:• Reflections on Palantir: <a target="_blank" href="https://nabeelqu.co/reflections-on-palantir">https://nabeelqu.co/reflections-on-palantir</a>• Palantir: <a target="_blank" href="https://www.palantir.com/">https://www.palantir.com/</a>• Intercom: <a target="_blank" href="https://www.intercom.com/">https://www.intercom.com/</a>• Which companies produce the best product managers: <a target="_blank" href="https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/which-companies-produce-the-best">https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/which-companies-produce-the-best</a>• Gotham: <a target="_blank" href="https://www.palantir.com/platforms/gotham/">https://www.palantir.com/platforms/gotham/</a>• Foundry: <a target="_blank" href="https://www.palantir.com/platforms/foundry/">https://www.palantir.com/platforms/foundry/</a>• Peter Thiel on X: <a target="_blank" href="https://x.com/peterthiel">https://x.com/peterthiel</a>• Alex Karp: <a target="_blank" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_Karp">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_Karp</a>• Stephen Cohen: <a target="_blank" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Cohen_(entrepreneur)">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Cohen_(entrepreneur)</a>• Joe Lonsdale on LinkedIn: <a target="_blank" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/jtlonsdale/">https://www.linkedin.com/in/jtlonsdale/</a>• Tyler Cowen’s website: <a target="_blank" href="https://tylercowen.com/">https://tylercowen.com/</a>• This Scandinavian City Just Won the Internet With Its Hilarious New Tourism Ad: <a target="_blank" href="https://www.afar.com/magazine/oslos-new-tourism-ad-becomes-viral-hit">https://www.afar.com/magazine/oslos-new-tourism-ad-becomes-viral-hit</a>• Safe Superintelligence: <a target="_blank" href="https://ssi.inc/">https://ssi.inc/</a>• Mira Murati on X: <a target="_blank" href="https://x.com/miramurati">https://x.com/miramurati</a>• Stripe: <a target="_blank" href="https://stripe.com/">https://stripe.com/</a>• Building product at Stripe: craft, metrics, and customer obsession | Jeff Weinstein (Product lead): <a target="_blank" href="https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/building-product-at-stripe-jeff-weinstein">https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/building-product-at-stripe-jeff-weinstein</a>• Airbus: <a target="_blank" href="https://www.airbus.com/en">https://www.airbus.com/en</a>• NIH: <a target="_blank" href="https://www.nih.gov/">https://www.nih.gov/</a>• Jupyter Notebooks: <a target="_blank" href="https://jupyter.org/">https://jupyter.org/</a>• Shyam Sankar on LinkedIn: <a target="_blank" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/shyamsankar/">https://www.linkedin.com/in/shyamsankar/</a>• Palantir Gotham for Defense Decision Making: <a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxKghrZU5w8">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxKghrZU5w8</a>• Foundry 2022 Operating System Demo: <a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uF-GSj-Exms">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uF-GSj-Exms</a>• SQL: <a target="_blank" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SQL">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SQL</a>• Airbus A350: <a target="_blank" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbus_A350">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbus_A350</a>• SAP: <a target="_blank" href="https://www.sap.com/index.html">https://www.sap.com/index.html</a>• Barry McCardel on LinkedIn: <a target="_blank" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/barrymccardel/">https://www.linkedin.com/in/barrymccardel/</a>• Understanding ‘Forward Deployed Engineering’ and Why Your Company Probably Shouldn’t Do It: <a target="_blank" href="https://www.barry.ooo/posts/fde-culture">https://www.barry.ooo/posts/fde-culture</a>• David Hsu on LinkedIn: <a target="_blank" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/dvdhsu/">https://www.linkedin.com/in/dvdhsu/</a>• Retool’s Path to Product-Market Fit—Lessons for Getting to 100 Happy Customers, Faster: <a target="_blank" href="https://review.firstround.com/retools-path-to-product-market-fit-lessons-for-getting-to-100-happy-customers-faster/">https://review.firstround.com/retools-path-to-product-market-fit-lessons-for-getting-to-100-happy-customers-faster/</a>• How to foster innovation and big thinking | Eeke de Milliano (Retool, Stripe): <a target="_blank" href="https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-to-foster-innovation-and-big">https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-to-foster-innovation-and-big</a>• Looker: <a target="_blank" href="https://cloud.google.com/looker">https://cloud.google.com/looker</a>• Sorry, that isn’t an FDE: <a target="_blank" href="https://tedmabrey.substack.com/p/sorry-that-isnt-an-fde">https://tedmabrey.substack.com/p/sorry-that-isnt-an-fde</a>• Glean: <a target="_blank" href="https://www.glean.com/">https://www.glean.com/</a>• Limited Engagement: Is Tech Becoming More Diverse?: <a target="_blank" href="https://www.bkmag.com/2017/01/31/limited-engagement-creating-diversity-in-the-tech-industry/">https://www.bkmag.com/2017/01/31/limited-engagement-creating-diversity-in-the-tech-industry/</a>• Operation Warp Speed: <a target="_blank" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Warp_Speed">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Warp_Speed</a>• Mark Zuckerberg testifies: <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-ceo-mark-zuckerberg-testifies-congress-libra-cryptocurrency-2019-10">https://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-ceo-mark-zuckerberg-testifies-congress-libra-cryptocurrency-2019-10</a>• Anduril: <a target="_blank" href="https://www.anduril.com/">https://www.anduril.com/</a>• SpaceX: <a target="_blank" href="https://www.spacex.com/">https://www.spacex.com/</a>• Principles: <a target="_blank" href="https://nabeelqu.co/principles">https://nabeelqu.co/principles</a>• Wispr Flow: <a target="_blank" href="https://wisprflow.ai/">https://wisprflow.ai/</a>• Claude code: <a target="_blank" href="https://docs.anthropic.com/en/docs/agents-and-tools/claude-code/overview">https://docs.anthropic.com/en/docs/agents-and-tools/claude-code/overview</a>• Gemini Pro 2.5: <a target="_blank" href="https://deepmind.google/technologies/gemini/pro/">https://deepmind.google/technologies/gemini/pro/</a>• DeepMind: <a target="_blank" href="https://deepmind.google/">https://deepmind.google/</a>• Latent Space newsletter: <a target="_blank" href="https://www.latent.space/">https://www.latent.space/</a>• Swyx on x: <a target="_blank" href="https://x.com/swyx">https://x.com/swyx</a>• Neural networks in chess programs: <a target="_blank" href="https://www.chessprogramming.org/Neural_Networks">https://www.chessprogramming.org/Neural_Networks</a>• AlphaZero: <a target="_blank" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AlphaZero">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AlphaZero</a>• The top chess players in the world: <a target="_blank" href="https://www.chess.com/players">https://www.chess.com/players</a>• Decision to Leave: <a target="_blank" href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt12477480/">https://www.imdb.com/title/tt12477480/</a>• Oldboy: <a target="_blank" href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0364569/">https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0364569/</a>• Christopher Alexander: <a target="_blank" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Alexander">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Alexander</a>—Recommended books:• The Technological Republic: Hard Power, Soft Belief, and the Future of the West: <a target="_blank" href="https://www.amazon.com/Technological-Republic-Power-Belief-Future/dp/0593798694">https://www.amazon.com/Technological-Republic-Power-Belief-Future/dp/0593798694</a>• Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future: <a target="_blank" href="https://www.amazon.com/Zero-One-Notes-Startups-Future/dp/0804139296">https://www.amazon.com/Zero-One-Notes-Startups-Future/dp/0804139296</a>• Impro: Improvisation and the Theatre: <a target="_blank" href="https://www.amazon.com/Impro-Improvisation-Theatre-Keith-Johnstone/dp/0878301178/">https://www.amazon.com/Impro-Improvisation-Theatre-Keith-Johnstone/dp/0878301178/</a>• William Shakespeare: Histories: <a target="_blank" href="https://www.amazon.com/Histories-Everymans-Library-William-Shakespeare/dp/0679433120/">https://www.amazon.com/Histories-Everymans-Library-William-Shakespeare/dp/0679433120/</a>• High Output Management: <a target="_blank" href="https://www.amazon.com/High-Output-Management-Andrew-Grove/dp/0679762884">https://www.amazon.com/High-Output-Management-Andrew-Grove/dp/0679762884</a>• Anna Karenina: <a target="_blank" href="https://www.amazon.com/Anna-Karenina-Leo-Tolstoy/dp/0143035002">https://www.amazon.com/Anna-Karenina-Leo-Tolstoy/dp/0143035002</a>—Production and marketing by <a target="_blank" href="https://penname.co/">https://penname.co/</a>. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email <a target="_blank" href="mailto:podcast@lennyrachitsky.com">podcast@lennyrachitsky.com</a>.—Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit <a href="https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&amp;utm_campaign=CTA_2">www.lennysnewsletter.com/subscribe</a>

How Palantir built the ultimate founder factory | Nabeel S. Qureshi (founder, writer, ex-Palantir)