Über die Macht des Silicon Valley und die Zukunft des Westens. Der Palantir-Gründer über die Tech-Industrie, Innovationen, Wirtschaft & Geopolitik
304 Seiten
11 Lesestunden
Das Silicon Valley hat seinen Weg verloren. Von der Gründung der USA bis weit ins 20. Jahrhundert hinein arbeiteten die brillantesten Ingenieure und der demokratische Staat zusammen, um Technologien zu entwickeln, die die Welt verändern sollten. Diese Partnerschaft sicherte dem Westen eine beherrschende Stellung in der geopolitischen Ordnung. Doch diese Beziehung ist inzwischen erodiert. Statt die größten Herausforderungen unserer Zeit zu bewältigen, konzentriert sich das Silicon Valley auf den kapitalistischen Verbrauchermarkt. In diesem provokativen Buch üben der Mitbegründer von Palantir, Alexander C. Karp, und Nicholas W. Zamiska scharfe Kritik an unserem kollektiven Verzicht auf kreative und kulturelle Ambitionen, die dem Staat zugutekämen. Sie argumentieren, dass die Softwareindustrie ihre Aufmerksamkeit auf unsere dringendsten Herausforderungen richten und die Beziehung zur Regierung neu aufbauen muss, damit der Westen seinen geopolitischen Vorteil – und die Freiheiten, die wir für selbstverständlich halten – aufrechterhalten kann.
INSTANT #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “A cri de coeur that takes aim at the tech industry for abandoning its history of helping America and its allies.”—The Wall Street JournalFrom the Palantir co-founder, one of tech’s boldest thinkers and The Economist’s “best CEO of 2024,” and his deputy, a sweeping indictment of the West’s culture of complacency, arguing that timid leadership, intellectual fragility, and an unambitious view of technology’s potential in Silicon Valley have made the U.S. vulnerable in an era of mounting global threats.“Not since Allan Bloom’s astonishingly successful 1987 book The Closing of the American Mind—more than one million copies sold—has there been a cultural critique as sweeping as Karp’s.”—George F. Will, The Washington PostSilicon Valley has lost its way.Our most brilliant engineering minds once collaborated with government to advance world-changing technologies. Their efforts secured the West’s dominant place in the geopolitical order. But that relationship has now eroded, with perilous repercussions.Today, the market rewards shallow engagement with the potential of technology. Engineers and founders build photo-sharing apps and marketing algorithms, unwittingly becoming vessels for the ambitions of others. This complacency has spread into academia, politics, and the boardroom. The result? An entire generation for whom the narrow-minded pursuit of the demands of a late capitalist economy has become their calling.In this groundbreaking treatise, Palantir co-founder and CEO Alexander C. Karp and Nicholas W. Zamiska offer a searing critique of our collective abandonment of ambition, arguing that in order for the U.S. and its allies to retain their global edge—and preserve the freedoms we take for granted—the software industry must renew its commitment to addressing our most urgent challenges, including the new arms race of artificial intelligence. The government, in turn, must embrace the most effective features of the engineering mindset that has propelled Silicon Valley’s success.Above all, our leaders must reject intellectual fragility and preserve space for ideological confrontation. A willingness to risk the disapproval of the crowd, Karp and Zamiska contend, has everything to do with technological and economic outperformance.At once iconoclastic and rigorous, this 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.
