Palantir's Once-'Heretical' Practices — FDEs, Flat Hierarchy, No Salesforce — Now Widely Copied

eliano · x · 2026-10-29

A repost discussing how Palantir pioneered organizational practices decades ago that were originally seen as "heretical, scandalous, stupid, and suicidal" but are now pushed across the industry as obvious ideas: forward-deployed engineers, flat hierarchy, excruciating focus on meritocracy, working at peak IQ density, not hiring misaligned people, and having no sales force until recently. Citing Alex Karp: "The most radical thing we ever did at Palantir was the most obvious."

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