Nabeel Qureshi is an entrepreneur, writer, researcher, and visiting scholar of AI policy at the Mercatus Center (alongside Tyler Cowen). Previously, he spent nearly eight years at Palantir, working as a forward-deployed engineer. His work at Palantir ranged from accelerating the Covid-19 response to applying AI to drug discovery to optimizing aircraft manufacturing at Airbus. Nabeel was also a founding employee and VP of business development at GoCardless, a leading European fintech unicorn.
What you’ll learn:
• Why almost a third of all Palantir’s PMs go on to start companies
• How the “forward-deployed engineer” model works and why it creates exceptional product leaders
• How Palantir transformed from a “sparkling Accenture” into a $200 billion data/software platform company with more than 80% margins
• The unconventional hiring approach that screens for independent-minded, intellectually curious, and highly competitive people
• Why the company intentionally avoids traditional titles and career ladders—and what they do instead
• Why they built an ontology-first data platform that LLMs love
• How Palantir’s controversial “bat signal” recruiting strategy filtered for specific talent types
• The moral case for working at a company like Palantir
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Where to find Nabeel S. Qureshi:
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nabeelqu/
• Website: https://nabeelqu.co/
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Where to find Lenny:
• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com
• X: https://twitter.com/lennysan
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/
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In this episode, we cover:
(00:00) Introduction to Nabeel S. Qureshi
(05:10) Palantir’s unique culture and hiring
(13:29) What Palantir looks for in people
(16:14) Why they don't have titles
(19:11) Forward-deployed engineers at Palantir
(25:23) Key principles of Palantir's success
(30:00) Gotham and Foundry
(36:58) The ontology concept
(38:02) Life as a forward-deployed engineer
(41:36) Balancing custom solutions and product vision
(46:36) Advice on how to implement forward-deployed engineers
(50:41) The current state of forward-deployed engineers at Palantir
(53:15) The power of ingesting, cleaning and analyzing data
(59:25) Hiring for mission-driven startups
(01:05:30) What makes Palantir PMs different
(01:10:00) The moral question of Palantir
(01:16:03) Advice for new startups
(01:21:12) AI corner
(01:24:00) Contrarian corner
(01:25:42) Lightning round and final thoughts
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Referenced:
• Reflections on Palantir: https://nabeelqu.co/reflections-on-palantir
• Palantir: https://www.palantir.com/
• Intercom: https://www.intercom.com/
• Which companies produce the best product managers: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/which-companies-produce-the-best
• Gotham: https://www.palantir.com/platforms/gotham/
• Foundry: https://www.palantir.com/platforms/foundry/
• Peter Thiel on X: https://x.com/peterthiel
• Alex Karp: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_Karp
• Stephen Cohen: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Cohen_(entrepreneur)
• Joe Lonsdale on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jtlonsdale/
• Tyler Cowen’s website: https://tylercowen.com/
• This Scandinavian City Just Won the Internet With Its Hilarious New Tourism Ad: https://www.afar.com/magazine/oslos-new-tourism-ad-becomes-viral-hit
• Safe Superintelligence: https://ssi.inc/
• Mira Murati on X: https://x.com/miramurati
• Stripe: https://stripe.com/
• Building product at Stripe: craft, metrics, and customer obsession | Jeff Weinstein (Product lead): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/building-product-at-stripe-jeff-weinstein
• Airbus: https://www.airbus.com/en
• NIH: https://www.nih.gov/
• Jupyter Notebooks: https://jupyter.org/
• Shyam Sankar on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shyamsankar/
• Palantir Gotham for Defense Decision Making: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxKghrZU5w8
• Foundry 2022 Operating System Demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uF-GSj-Exms
• SQL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SQL
• Airbus A350: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbus_A350
• SAP: https://www.sap.com/index.html
• Barry McCardel on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/barrymccardel/
• Understanding ‘Forward Deployed Engineering’ and Why Your Company Probably Shouldn’t Do It: https://www.barry.ooo/posts/fde-culture
• David Hsu on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dvdhsu/
• Retool’s Path to Product-Market Fit—Lessons for Getting to 100 Happy Customers, Faster: https://review.firstround.com/retools-path-to-product-market-fit-lessons-for-getting-to-100-happy-customers-faster/
• How to foster innovation and big thinking | Eeke de Milliano (Retool, Stripe): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-to-foster-innovation-and-big
• Looker: https://cloud.google.com/looker
• Sorry, that isn’t an FDE: https://tedmabrey.substack.com/p/sorry-that-isnt-an-fde
• Glean: https://www.glean.com/
• Limited Engagement: Is Tech Becoming More Diverse?: https://www.bkmag.com/2017/01/31/limited-engagement-creating-diversity-in-the-tech-industry/
• Operation Warp Speed: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Warp_Speed
• Mark Zuckerberg testifies: https://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-ceo-mark-zuckerberg-testifies-congress-libra-cryptocurrency-2019-10
• Anduril: https://www.anduril.com/
• SpaceX: https://www.spacex.com/
• Principles: https://nabeelqu.co/principles
• Wispr Flow: https://wisprflow.ai/
• Claude code: https://docs.anthropic.com/en/docs/agents-and-tools/claude-code/overview
• Gemini Pro 2.5: https://deepmind.google/technologies/gemini/pro/
• DeepMind: https://deepmind.google/
• Latent Space newsletter: https://www.latent.space/
• Swyx on x: https://x.com/swyx
• Neural networks in chess programs: https://www.chessprogramming.org/Neural_Networks
• AlphaZero: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AlphaZero
• The top chess players in the world: https://www.chess.com/players
• Decision to Leave: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt12477480/
• Oldboy: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0364569/
• Christopher Alexander: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Alexander
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Recommended books:
• The Technological Republic: Hard Power, Soft Belief, and the Future of the West: https://www.amazon.com/Technological-Republic-Power-Belief-Future/dp/0593798694
• Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future: https://www.amazon.com/Zero-One-Notes-Startups-Future/dp/0804139296
• Impro: Improvisation and the Theatre: https://www.amazon.com/Impro-Improvisation-Theatre-Keith-Johnstone/dp/0878301178/
• William Shakespeare: Histories: https://www.amazon.com/Histories-Everymans-Library-William-Shakespeare/dp/0679433120/
• High Output Management: https://www.amazon.com/High-Output-Management-Andrew-Grove/dp/0679762884
• Anna Karenina: https://www.amazon.com/Anna-Karenina-Leo-Tolstoy/dp/0143035002
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Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed.
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