Palantir Co-Founder Joe Lonsdale: Early Employees Became Too Rich to Work

Joe Lonsdale, co-founder of Palantir Technologies, discussed the company's equity-first compensation model, which gave employees a large part of their compensation as company ownership rather than a higher base salary. Early employees reaped major rewards, with many becoming wealthy enough to stop working full-time. Lonsdale credited AI with driving Palantir's growth over the past five years, leading to a surge in stock value of approximately 140% in 2025.