*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:*
1. Why almost a third of all Palantir’s PMs go on to start companies
2. How the “forward-deployed engineer” model works and why it creates exceptional product leaders
3. How Palantir transformed from a “sparkling Accenture” into a $200 billion data/software platform company with more than 80% margins
4. The unconventional hiring approach that screens for independent-minded, intellectually curious, and highly competitive people
5. Why the company intentionally avoids traditional titles and career ladders—and what they do instead
6. Why they built an ontology-first data platform that LLMs love
7. How Palantir’s controversial “bat signal” recruiting strategy filtered for specific talent types
8. The moral case for working at a company like Palantir
*Transcript:* https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/inside-palantir-nabeel-qureshi
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*Where to find Nabeel S. Qureshi:*
• X: https://x.com/nabeelqu
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nabeelqu/
• Website: https://nabeelqu.co/
*Where to find Lenny:*
• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com
• X: https://twitter.com/lennysan
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/
*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: https://nabeelqu.co/reflections-on-palantir
• Palantir: https://www.palantir.com/
• Intercom: https://www.intercom.com/
• Which companies produce the best product managers: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/which-companies-produce-the-best
• Gotham: https://www.palantir.com/platforms/gotham/
• Foundry: https://www.palantir.com/platforms/foundry/
• Peter Thiel on X: https://x.com/peterthiel
• Alex Karp: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_Karp
• Stephen Cohen: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Cohen_(entrepreneur)
• Joe Lonsdale on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jtlonsdale/
• Tyler Cowen’s website: https://tylercowen.com/
• This Scandinavian City Just Won the Internet With Its Hilarious New Tourism Ad: https://www.afar.com/magazine/oslos-new-tourism-ad-becomes-viral-hit
• Safe Superintelligence: https://ssi.inc/
• Mira Murati on X: https://x.com/miramurati
• Stripe: https://stripe.com/
• Building product at Stripe: craft, metrics, and customer obsession | Jeff Weinstein (Product lead): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/building-product-at-stripe-jeff-weinstein
• Airbus: https://www.airbus.com/en
• NIH: https://www.nih.gov/
• Jupyter Notebooks: https://jupyter.org/
• Shyam Sankar on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shyamsankar/
• Palantir Gotham for Defense Decision Making: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxKghrZU5w8
• Foundry 2022 Operating System Demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uF-GSj-Exms
• SQL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SQL
• Airbus A350: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbus_A350
• SAP: https://www.sap.com/index.html
• Barry McCardel on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/barrymccardel/
…References continued at: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/inside-palantir-nabeel-qureshi
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Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed.
