‘Everybody knows you’re out of touch’: Palantir CEO Alex Karp says his own exec told him to stop hyping Foundry

Alex Karp says one of his top executives once told him to stop talking about how big Foundry would get.

“Please stop talking to Palantirians about how big Foundry is going to be,” Karp recalled Ted Mabrey saying. “It’s depressing, and everybody knows you’re out of touch.”

Karp spoke Thursday with Zeta Global CEO David Steinberg at Zeta Live ’26, Zeta’s annual AI marketing conference. The Palantir CEO said Mabrey, who now runs the company’s commercial business, told him the constant hype was coming off a tad aggressive for employees who had to hear him boast about Foundry constantly.

The idea stuck—albeit for a little bit: “I had stopped talking to people for like six months,” Karp said. Instead, the CEO said he has a particular way of making decisions, and that often comes at odds with what people think is possible.

“I have an esthetic idea of what could work and what won’t work,” Karp said. “About once a month, I have some idea that I think is important, and then I know it’s important. Everyone tells me we can never do that.”

‘Tell me something I want to hear’

He said he relies on colleagues he has worked with for years to tell him the truth, and that those relationships are “very harsh.”

“In fact, I often tell them, ‘Can you tell me something I want to hear,........

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