Palantir on Monday reported stunning quarterly earnings that topped analysts’ expectations and sent Chief Executive Alex Karp’s signature enthusiasm into overdrive, although the company’s stock didn’t follow suit.
In a video interview hours before Palantir reported earnings, Karp excitedly waved his arms as he discussed the defense technology and artificial intelligence software company’s results. “These numbers prove us right. Please learn from us. This is what these numbers mean,” Karp told us wealth in the interview.
“These are not normal results. These are not even strong results,” Karp continued during the company’s earnings call late Monday. “These are not extraordinary results. These are arguably the best results any software company has ever delivered.”
However, after soaring about 400% over the past year, Palantir shares fell briefly on Monday despite strong results. According to Bloomberg, the stock initially rose after Monday’s earnings report, but then fell about 3.5% in after-hours trading.
According to Bloomberg, Palantir’s third-quarter revenue was approximately US$1.2 billion, a year-on-year increase of 63%, higher than analysts’ average forecast of US$1.09 billion. The company’s net profit was US$476 million, a year-on-year increase of 40%. While Palantir’s government contracts business remains strong, business from U.S. commercial customers drove the company’s growth in the third quarter, rising 121% year over year to $397 million.
Karp described the numbers on Monday’s earnings call as more like a venture-backed company than a public company, and highlighted the “Rule of Forty” metric in Palantir’s quarterly earnings statement, a financial metric calculated by combining year-over-year revenue growth and adjusted operating margin. Generally speaking, 40% is considered a strong performance. This quarter, Palantir’s “Rule of Forty” was 114%, even higher than the previous quarter’s 94%.
Palantir’s revenue figures remain quite small Compared with peers of similar market capitalization. The company’s high valuation has fueled skepticism among some investors worried about an artificial intelligence bubble. supervision Filing Respected short seller Michael Burry, known for aggressively shorting the subprime mortgage market in 2008, has taken short positions in Palantir and NVIDIA, it was revealed on Monday. Palantir and NVIDIA announced a partnership last week that will see Palantir combine NVIDIA chips and software with technology platforms from some of its customers. Palantir said last week that home improvement retailer Lowe’s has incorporated it into its technology stack, but the software company declined on Monday to name other companies that have rolled out the product.
True to form, Karp delved into several sensitive topics during Monday’s earnings call, including the government’s recent focus on drug traffickers in South America.
“Let me say something politically charged,” Karp said. “I’m not saying that other people agree with this, but when people attack our soldiers for preventing fentanyl from entering this country, I want people to remember that if fentanyl killed 60,000 Yale graduates instead of 60,000 working-class people, then we would be dropping a nuclear bomb on the people who are sending fentanyl from South America.”
Karp’s shareholder letter for the quarter – his Fifteenth Meditation For shareholders and Palantir enthusiasts – it’s also jarring. Karp said in the letter that “in this country and elsewhere there is a rejection of any shared and clear sense of a common culture” and that this “has come at a huge cost.”
But most of all, Karp seemed to revel in the numbers themselves—and throwing them in the faces of those he thought might be too skeptical.
“Some of our critics have fallen into a state of unhinged and self-destructive confusion,” he wrote. He then mentioned William Butler Yeats, a British film director and later poet.