The Gift of Being Different: What Alex Karp’s Viral Moment Reveals About Innovation and Mediocrity
Last week I was discussing with my friend, Sergey Bulaev, how society treats people who look and behave differently. The conversation started because of what happened with Alex Karp at the New York Times DealBook Summit, but quickly went deeper into something we’ve both witnessed in tech and business for years: our collective inability to distinguish between genius and madness, between unconventional brilliance and disruptive eccentricity.
Twenty Seconds That Broke the Internet
Some of us, especially in IT, constantly live in a mode of perpetual context-switching, high stimulation, and obsession with ideas. Many look and act unusually. We fidget. We pace. We talk faster than most people can follow. We jump between topics because our brains see connections others miss.
The other day, the internet exploded over Alex Karp from Palantir.
It took just 20 seconds of footage - this brilliant person who built a company that has outpaced most tech giants in growth, fidgeting in his chair, unable to sit still during an interview with Andrew Ross Sorkin. That’s all it took for the internet to decide: drug addict, unhinged, crazy. How can he even be trusted?
The speculation went wild. Cocaine. Amphetamines. Mental illness. The comments section became a diagnostic clinic where everyone suddenly had a medical degree.
Nobody cared that this is the CEO who took Palantir from a controversial startup to a company now valued at over $180 billion. Nobody discussed his ideas about AI, Western competitiveness, or autonomous systems. Nobody mentioned that The Economist just named him CEO of the Year for 2024.
We judge a human being by a short video clip, but almost no one bothers to look at what’s really behind it.
What Actually Happened
Here’s what the internet missed while it was busy psychoanalyzing twenty seconds of footage:
During that same interview, Karp talked about his dyslexia as the “formative moment of my life” - something he had kept hidden for years. He explained how being massively dyslexic means you cannot follow a playbook. You have to see patterns differently. You have to build solutions others wouldn’t even consider.
Three days after the video went viral, while cross-country skiing (because of course he was), Karp made a decision: launch the Neurodivergent Fellowship at Palantir.
“If you find yourself relating to him in this video - unable to sit still, or thinking faster than you can speak - we encourage you to apply.”
Within days, over 1,000 people applied.
The job description was explicit: “This is not a diversity initiative. This is a recognition that neurodivergent individuals have a competitive advantage.”
Karp’s statement was even more direct: “For too long, too much of society has seen their abilities as unconventional behaviors to be mitigated or medicated. We see them as superpowers to be sharpened - free from the suffocating constraints of hyper-bureaucratic environments that smother creativity and limit potential.”
The Belgian Malinois Problem
In our conversation, I kept coming back to the Belgian Malinois. It’s one of my favorite dog breeds - complex temperament, constant need for high stimulation, finely-tuned nervous system. These dogs are intense. They’re not for everyone. They require constant engagement, specific training approaches, and handlers who understand that what looks like hyperactivity is actually exceptional alertness.
But look at what they can do: military operations, elite police work, search and rescue in conditions where other breeds fail. Their “difficult” traits - the same ones that make them challenging as family pets - are exactly what makes them exceptional at tasks requiring split-second decisions, sustained focus under pressure, and the ability to operate in chaos.
With dogs, everyone gets it. Nobody looks at a working Malinois and says, “This dog needs medication to calm down.” Everyone understands: this breed needs more attention, different approaches, higher workload. The intensity is the feature, not the bug.
But with people? Zero tolerance. Zero understanding. Zero patience.
The person who can’t sit still in meetings but sees system architecture that takes others months to understand? Problematic. The engineer who works at 2 AM because that’s when their brain fires on all cylinders? Poor work-life balance. The founder who talks too fast and jumps between ideas? Lacks focus.
We’ve built corporate environments optimized for average, and then we wonder why we get average results.
What We’re Actually Afraid Of
Let me be direct about something: the reaction to Karp wasn’t really about concern for his wellbeing. It was about discomfort with difference.
People didn’t attack Karp because he was moving in his chair. They attacked him because his success challenges their worldview. Here’s someone who doesn’t fit the mold, who can’t sit still, who admits to being dyslexic - and he’s running circles around “normal” executives.
That’s threatening.
It’s easier to dismiss him as unstable than to confront what his success means: that maybe our obsession with conformity, with professional polish, with sitting still and following the playbook, is actually holding us back.
The truth is, the kind of thinking that builds transformative companies - the pattern recognition, the ability to hold multiple complex systems in your head simultaneously, the willingness to pursue ideas that seem crazy until they’re obvious - doesn’t usually come packaged in calm, measured, corporate-appropriate behavior.
The Cost of Normal
I’ve watched this play out hundreds of times across different companies and industries.
The brilliant engineer who gets passed over for promotion because they’re “not leadership material” - meaning they don’t perform confidence the way HR expects. The product manager whose unconventional ideas get shut down in meetings because they haven’t learned to package innovation in PowerPoint-friendly formats. The founder who gets pushed out of their own company because investors are uncomfortable with their intensity.
We’re so committed to comfortable, predictable, “professional” behavior that we actively filter out the people most likely to create breakthrough innovation.
And then we complain about lack of innovation.
This is what I call the mediocrity trap, and I consider it one of the biggest mistakes in business. We’ve created systems that reward compliance over capability, presentation over performance, fitting in over standing out.
The result? Companies full of people who know how to look the part but can’t actually do the work. Endless meetings that produce nothing. “Best practices” that are actually just average practices everyone copied from each other. Innovation theater instead of actual innovation.
What We Do Differently
I genuinely believe that at Customertimes we’ve learned to value and accept people with different personalities and characteristics. We’ve created an environment where people’s abilities can fully unfold, and where the combination produces extraordinary results.
This isn’t about being nice or inclusive (though we are). It’s about recognizing reality: the people who build exceptional things are often exceptional themselves - in ways that don’t always fit neat corporate categories.
We have engineers who work at odd hours because that’s when they code best. We have leaders who communicate in intense bursts rather than steady streams. We have problem-solvers who need to pace while thinking, who sketch on whiteboards during meetings, who sometimes interrupt because they’ve seen the solution and can’t wait to share it.
Some of these people look different, act differently, communicate differently. Some would be considered “difficult” in traditional corporate environments.
But together, they move the company forward. They create the kind of internal entrepreneurship that turns good companies into great ones. They solve problems others don’t even see.
This is what actually matters: results, innovation, the ability to build things that work. Everything else is just performance.
The Question We’re Not Asking
Here’s what bothers me most about the Karp incident: the conversation never got to the interesting questions.
How does neurodiversity actually contribute to innovation? What specific cognitive differences create competitive advantages in problem-solving? How do we build organizations that harness different types of intelligence rather than forcing everyone into the same mold?
Instead, we got: “Is he on drugs?”
This is the level of discourse we’re operating at. In an industry that supposedly values intelligence and innovation, our first response to difference is suspicion and mockery.
And then we wonder why so many talented people mask their true selves at work. Why they hide their diagnoses, medicate away their edge, force themselves into patterns that feel unnatural. Why do they burn out trying to appear normal instead of channeling their energy into actually building things.
The damage isn’t just personal - though that’s significant. The damage is to the entire innovation ecosystem. Every person forced to perform normalcy is a person not operating at their full capability.
What This Actually Requires
Creating environments where exceptional people thrive isn’t easy. It requires:
Active rejection of “culture fit” as coded language for conformity. Culture fit usually means “acts like people we already have,” which is how you build homogeneous, average teams. What you actually want is culture add - people who bring something you don’t have.
Willingness to manage differently. The one-size-fits-all approach to management is efficient for HR but terrible for results. Some people need structure; others need autonomy. Some thrive on frequent feedback; others need space to work. Good leaders adapt to their people, not the other way around.
Tolerance for discomfort. Exceptional people are often uncomfortable to be around. They challenge assumptions. They push back. They don’t smooth things over in meetings. This feels risky, but it’s actually the whole point.
Focus on outcomes over optics. It doesn’t matter if someone presents well in meetings if they can’t execute. It doesn’t matter if they’re comfortable to work with if they’re not actually good at their job. Results are the only measure that matters.
This is harder than just hiring people who interview well and look good on org charts. It requires judgment, flexibility, and constant attention to what’s actually working versus what just feels comfortable.
But this is exactly what separates exceptional companies from mediocre ones.
The Larger Problem
Looking at the Karp situation, I realize the problem extends far beyond one viral video or even one company’s hiring practices.
We’ve built a society that says it values innovation but actually punishes the traits that lead to innovation. We celebrate the end results - the successful companies, the breakthrough products, the revolutionary ideas - while stigmatizing the kinds of people who actually create those things.
Then we act surprised when innovation comes from unexpected places, from people who don’t fit our mental model of what success should look like, from companies that operate differently than the conventional wisdom suggests.
The pattern is consistent across industries: the most transformative work often comes from people who are, by conventional standards, difficult, odd, intense, obsessive. People who can’t let go of problems. Who thinks about work at strange hours. Who get so absorbed in what they’re building that they forget to perform the social niceties everyone else considers basic professionalism.
We have a choice: we can continue filtering out these people in service of comfort and conformity, or we can build environments where difference is actually valued for what it produces.
What Karp Got Right
Karp’s response to going viral wasn’t to apologize for being different or to explain away his behavior. It was to double down.
He created a fellowship specifically for people who think like he does. People who can’t sit still. People who think faster than they can speak. People who don’t fit the standard mold but who might be exactly what’s needed to solve impossible problems.
The fellowship announcement explicitly stated: “This is not a diversity initiative.” Because it’s not about checking boxes or meeting quotas. It’s about recognizing reality - that neurodivergent traits often correlate with exactly the kind of cognitive abilities needed for complex problem-solving, pattern recognition, and sustained focus on difficult challenges.
Is this self-serving? Sure. Karp is building a team of people like himself. But it’s also honest about what actually drives exceptional performance in technical fields.
The Challenge Ahead
Seeing the reaction to Karp, I’m forced to acknowledge something uncomfortable: we’re not ready for this conversation.
As a society, we’re not prepared to see strangeness as potentially valuable rather than something to be fixed. We’re not willing to make the tradeoffs required to work with exceptional people who might also be exceptionally difficult. We’re not ready to admit that the corporate playbook might be optimized for mediocrity.
The problem isn’t just that we fail to recognize different types of intelligence. The problem is that we actively select against them. Our hiring processes, our performance reviews, our promotion criteria - all designed to identify and reward people who fit existing patterns.
Then we’re shocked when we get incremental thinking and derivative products.
The question isn’t whether we should tolerate different kinds of people. The question is whether we can afford not to.
In an era where AI is commoditizing conventional thinking, where global competition demands genuine innovation, where the hardest problems require cognitive approaches most people don’t naturally have - the competitive advantage increasingly goes to organizations that can harness different types of intelligence.
This means accepting that the person who can’t sit still in meetings might be the same person who sees the system architecture no one else can visualize. That the founder who talks too fast might be making connections between ideas that will seem obvious only in retrospect. That the engineer who works strange hours and forgets social niceties might be the one actually building the things everyone else just talks about.
What Actually Matters
Strip away all the speculation and controversy, and you’re left with simple questions:
Can this person solve problems others can’t? Can they build things that work? Can they see patterns that lead to breakthrough insights? Can they execute when it matters?
Everything else - how they present in meetings, whether they can sit still, how they dress, how conventional their working style is - none of that actually matters.
But we’ve built entire corporate structures around the stuff that doesn’t matter, and then we act surprised when we get mediocre results.
The gift of being different isn’t just personal - it’s collective. Those strange people, the ones who make us uncomfortable, who don’t fit our templates, who insist on doing things their own way? They’re often the ones who move the world forward.
Not always. Being different doesn’t automatically make someone valuable. But blocking out difference almost certainly blocks out the kinds of thinking that lead to genuine innovation.
Karp’s twenty seconds of fidgeting told us more about ourselves than about him. It showed how quickly we dismiss what we don’t understand, how comfortable we are with judgment, how resistant we are to difference.
The real question isn’t whether Karp can sit still. The question is whether we can sit with the discomfort of accepting that different might be exactly what we need.