> On CNBC’s Squawk Box, he shook both fists simultaneously as he railed against short sellers betting against Palantir, whose share price has climbed nearly 600% in the past year: “It’s super triggering,” he complained. “Why do they have to go after us?”
This and a few other sections make me wonder how much introspection the guy has and whether he ever concedes that he is wrong.
Quite a lot of tech CEOs get weirdly over-emotional about short-sellers. Musk does this, too, say. I get the impression that it's appealing to a certain audience, and may be performative.
Like, if you're trying to recapture the demented retail magic of the Gamestop moment, and I think a lot of these meme-aligned stocks are, then railing against short-sellers is probably a good way to endear yourself to that crowd.
Doesn't the success of a short come down to crowd psychology? If there's a company with a given stock price, and somebody convinces a significant portion of investors to short it, on the other side the CEO and other shareholders tries foil the short by using their free cash to buy up the new shares.
The success or failure of the short hinges on which side is manages to convince/intimidate/sway the majority stockholders regardless of fundamentals. If the short sellers manage to recruit more stockholders (by value) - they win (in terms of value), if the company's supporters are move more money - the price doesn't go down and the short sellers are left with the bills.
_Generally_, people short (or buy puts, anyway) on companies because they think they will go down. You're thinking of a kind of _attack_, but that's not at all the norm. Most shorts are just people thinking "the market if overpricing this"; if they're right (and if the market corrects itself in reasonable time), they make money.
(There is a third scenario, where the likes of Hindenburg Research take out a short position and then reveal problems with the target company, which naturally pushes their price down, but again that's rare.)
> Doesn't the success of a short come down to crowd psychology?
Not really. I've shorted 100s of instruments on the financial market and this just doesn't ring true.
Often the best shorts are not the worst companies but the once that have had performed the best over the past 6 months to a year because that generally means they've overshot their valuation and should rationally come back down to a more reasonable level. PLTR certainly fits the bill here.
I think a big misconception the public has about short sellers is that they short to zero. The vast majority of directional shorts look alot more like "short company that has 3x n the last year from $200 down to $120 where its fundamentals or financial ratios make more sense".
And this ignores that from a money manager's standpoint more than half the shorts put on aren't negative bets on a company but rather a downside hedge against another bet that a related stock will go up. IN this case you really don't care about how the shorted stock performs as long as its a good hedge for your upside bet.
Never once have I initiated or participated in a public campaign to promote my short and the vast majority of hedge funds fit that profile.
The fact that there have been a few high profile short cases that most of us know actually helps illustrate just how rare it is.
It's not a new thing. CEOs have always hated short sellers. It's just that nobody ever heard about it since before meme stocks 90% of the general public didn't even know what a short seller is.
> Quite a lot of tech CEOs get weirdly over-emotional about short-sellers.
They just can't picture themselves ever being in the wrong. They are genuinely convinced they are the hero. Logically any opposition comes from villains.
With the ego of people like Musk and other idiosyncratic, autocratic, and sociopathic CEOs, I think there needs to be a rational strategy behind it.
So, that's definitely a possibility, but there's also the possibility that they're just trying to attract the attentions of the Gamestop crowd (who, as a class, have peculiar beliefs about short sellers).
> This and a few other sections make me wonder how much introspection the guy has and whether he ever concedes that he is wrong.
Our culture is currently at a moment where it confuses the faux confidence of narcissism with strength, and promotes those people to positions of leadership. However, it's pretty much the opposite of that, it is escaping into an imaginary persona with faux infinite confidence, because you are too afraid to be a real person that has faults like everyone else.
I don't think it's appropriate to conflate having an antisocial personality disorder with just generally being "weird." Especially in the current context, where authoritarians are especially adverse to non-conformity.
However, while it's absolutely not a new thing that people with these personality traits rise to positions of power, e.g. see "The Prince" by Machiavelli, it ignores the uniqueness of the current moment.
We have a widespread far-right movement right now that has a particular ideal of strength and masculinity, which is exactly the symptoms of narcissism, and has formed a cult of personality around a particular malignant narcissist. This is something new that has formed over the past 10-15 years, starting out of certain internet communities including 4chan, 8chan, and "the manosphere" and is a marked cultural departure from how things were ~20 years ago.
What in the video did you interpret to show introspection or humility?
Karp interpreted the question if he regretted working with ICE as a question if he had suffered because of it. This was self centered.
He implied it had caused conflict between him and his family. He complained employees he liked left. He complained about protests. This was what he called suffering.
He said protesters protested him. Not Palantir. Not his work. This was self centered.
Were you impressed he said he asked himself if he would protest if younger and a student? Knowing your political views changed requires not much introspection and no humility.
The interviewer asked what was protesters' most valid criticism. Karp asked if 1 instance of injustice tarnished all instances of justice. But this was not protesters' criticism.
Won't someone please think of the multi-billion-dollar corporations and ultra-high-net-worth individuals actively working to eliminate the tattered remains of our privacy and to install still-greater systems of surveillance and social control?
I had no idea Alex Karp was black.
Anyhow:
> On CNBC’s Squawk Box, he shook both fists simultaneously as he railed against short sellers betting against Palantir, whose share price has climbed nearly 600% in the past year: “It’s super triggering,” he complained. “Why do they have to go after us?”
This and a few other sections make me wonder how much introspection the guy has and whether he ever concedes that he is wrong.