The Palantir Mafia Behind Silicon Valley's Hottest Startups

The network connects founders and venture capitalists with 'Palantir Pals' and a Russian River camping trip

- Angel Au-Yeung

Some of the buzziest startups in Silicon Valley share something in common: their founders once worked at Palantir.

The founders lean on other ex-Palantir executives and engineers for support and financing, tapping the network for hiring and funding. Venture-capital firms have sprung up whose mission is to invest in companies founded by people with Palantir experience.

Palantir, the data analysis firm co-founded by Peter Thiel, is best known as the rare Silicon Valley company that works with the U.S. military and intelligence agencies, including with the Trump administration's immigration crackdown. It also has many commercial clients. Its stock has quintupled in the last 12 months.

In conversation, alumni will refer to themselves as the Palantir mafia. The invitation to a panel last October, hosted by venture fund South Park Commons in partnership with Palantir, advertised that "several members of the 'Palantir Mafia'" would be speaking. There are WhatsApp groups and Signal chats for alumni to keep in touch—one is called "Palantir Pals."

Alumni have either started or are leading more than 350 tech companies, and at least a dozen have been valued at over $1 billion, says Luba Lesiva, who was head of investor relations at Palantir from 2014 to 2016. Lesiva runs a venture firm called Palumni VC, a play on the words Palantir alumni, which invests in startups founded or led by ex-Palantir employees.

"These engineers are dropped either in the middle of the desert or an office park in the Midwest with a server rack and a screwdriver," says Lesiva. "Wherever they're sent, no one really wants to be there, but it's the high capacity for work and pain. They can chew glass."

Ross Fubini, founder of venture firm XYZ Capital, made an investor pitch deck in 2017 where he predicted that Palantir would become the next "founder mafia."