For the past two decades Alex Karp, chief executive of Palantir, the data analytics “unicorn” start-up, has seen Silicon Valley bask in a seemingly unstoppable boom. These days, however, he feels uneasy.
That is not because of the issue which alarms some investors: that technology valuations are so elevated they will eventually crash. Instead, Mr Karp frets about politics. “The Valley is marching off a political cliff,” he told me this week. “The [tech companies] have all these monopolies and economic capital, and assume that it translates into political capital — but that isn’t true.”
Is he correct? Not if you listen to the public statements of other tech titans. The story Silicon Valley likes to tell is that it is a bastion of the American dream, producing innovative products that improve consumers’ lives. This should create plenty of political support, or so the argument goes. After all, surveys suggest that public trust in technology is sky high.