Who Founded Palantir?

Peter Thiel came up with the idea for Palantir after 9/11, betting that the link-analysis methods PayPal used against fraud rings could help intelligence analysts find terrorist networks. He recruited his Stanford Law classmate Alex Karp as CEO, provided much of the early funding, and named the company after the seeing stones in Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. Thiel remains Palantir's chairman and, through Class F shares held with Karp and Stephen Cohen, part of the founder group that controls a large share of the vote.

Peter Thiel was born in 1967 in Frankfurt. Education: Stanford Law School; San Mateo High School.

Alexander C. Karp has been Palantir's CEO and a director since 2004. He led the company through its September 2020 direct listing, its first GAAP-profitable year in 2023, S&P 500 inclusion in 2024, and the 2026 headquarters move to the Miami area. Karp often argues in public that Western technology companies should support democratic militaries, and he co-wrote the 2025 book 'The Technological Republic'. He is one of Palantir's largest individual shareholders and holds Class F voting shares. (Exact birth year remains publicly undisclosed).

Joe Lonsdale joined Palantir's founding team in 2003, shortly after finishing Stanford, and worked on early operations and business development. After leaving the company he co-founded Addepar and OpenGov, started the venture firm 8VC, and co-founded the Cicero Institute policy group. (Exact birth year remains publicly undisclosed).

Stephen Cohen co-founded Palantir in 2003 as a Stanford computer science student and helped build its early engineering culture and software architecture. He serves as Palantir's President and a director, and he is one of the three holders of Class F founder shares, along with Karp and Thiel.

Stephen Cohen was born in 1982 in California.

Stephen Andrew Cohen was born on September 30, 1982. He is credited with building the first Palantir prototype in eight weeks and has interviewed more than 4,500 job candidates for the company. Before Palantir he worked with Peter Thiel at Clarium Capital.

Nathan Gettings was part of Palantir's 2003 founding team and contributed engineering experience from PayPal's anti-fraud work to the company's early data-integration technology. He later left Palantir and co-founded the fintech company Addepar with Joe Lonsdale.

Nathan Dale Gettings served as Palantir's chief technology officer. He later co-founded RoboteX, where he was chief executive, and Affirm, where he was chief risk officer. (Exact birth year remains publicly undisclosed).