3 Marketing Lessons for CEOs from Palantir’s Alex Karp
Palantir CEO Alex Karp has been everywhere lately. His Dealbook session offers three clear marketing lessons for CEOs:
1. A charismatic chief evangelist is a company’s most powerful marketing weapon.
In 2025, when clips circulate endlessly and founders can speak directly to their audience, nothing beats a CEO who communicates passionately and intelligently about the company and its mission. A charismatic leader outperforms any faceless campaign in building a brand and driving attention.
Lesson: Your CEO should be publicly evangelizing the company. If not, you’re leaving the most powerful tool to drive marketing upside on the table.
2. Karp shows how a provocative narrative attracts the right people and repels the wrong ones.
You may not like him or Palantir. That’s intentional. You’ve heard of them and their high-stakes framing around defending Western civilization. Great storytellers don’t say, “We use data to improve performance.” They raise the stakes and make the mission feel existential.
Lesson: Define your heroes and villains. Make your mission matter beyond product features.
3. A compelling evangelist lifts the entire company.
Palantir doesn’t chase press; the press chases Karp. He earns it because he engages deeply with ideas. He even wrote a book on politics, tech, and Palantir’s philosophy. Meanwhile, many CEOs can’t be convinced to post on LinkedIn.
Lesson: To earn attention, share interesting ideas consistently. You don’t need a book; start with LinkedIn.
How CEOs Can Get Started with Evangelism
Not every CEO is naturally gifted at evangelism, but most can succeed with the right structure. Here’s the simple playbook:
1. Develop a provocative narrative.
You must go beyond “what we do” and “for whom.” Run a brand narrative exercise:
Whom do we champion?
What’s wrong with the status quo?
Who’s causing the harm?
How are we changing the industry?
Why does this matter now?
The synthesis is a narrative that attracts talent, investors, media, not just active buyers.
2. Identify 3-4 content pillars.
Choose the topics that ladder up to your narrative. If your core topic is performance TV, focus on CTV, performance advertising, and measurement. Each week, scan the news for openings to contribute. Use a weekly brainstorm to generate takes across four buckets: your content pillars, building in public, case studies, and data-driven insights.
3. Post and comment weekly.
You don’t need to become a full-time influencer. One thoughtful post per week, plus comments on 5-10 influential voices, is enough to generate momentum. One client CEO’s results in H1 2025:
23 LinkedIn posts (1/week)
4,000 engagements
~175 interactions per post
Coverage in Ad Age, AdWeek, Axios, VideoWeek, AdExchanger
This is the 2025 CEO-led marketing playbook. Marketing — attention, pipeline, investor enthusiasm — is too important for CEOs to stay silent.
