David Sacks said Palantir (NASDAQ:PLTR) CEO Alex Karp was “exactly right” in warning enterprises against handing proprietary data to frontier AI labs.
Speaking on the All-In Podcast episode aired Friday, Sacks said the real meaning of AI safety for enterprises is control over their compute, models, data stack and proprietary knowledge, or “alpha.” He argued that frontier labs risk absorbing clients’ know how and eventually turning it into competing products, leaving companies exposed if they do not own their AI infrastructure outright.
On Thursday, Sacks had made the same argument in a long post on X ahead of the podcast, framing it as a rejection of abstract alignment research in favor of practical enterprise control.
Figma Cited as Warning Sign
To explain his point on the podcast, Sacks pointed to Figma (NYSE:FIG) as an example. He said Anthropic “blindsided” the company by launching the competing tool Claude Design after an Anthropic executive had served on Figma’s board. The former White House crypto czar further added that Figma shares have fallen roughly 50% this year while Anthropic’s valuation has surged.
Sacks Warns of AI Duopoly Risk
The South African-American technology entrepreneur and venture capitalist also argued that Anthropic and OpenAI have effectively formed a “duopoly” in the AI model layer. He warned that Anthropic’s push for stricter safety regulations could strengthen that dominance rather than limit it, leaving enterprises with fewer competitive alternatives.
The discussion on the All-In Podcast episode followed Karp’s CNBC appearance, dismissed by some media as a “crashout” but praised by Sacks as insightful.
Karp had cautioned that enterprises risk losing control of their proprietary data to model providers that could later become rivals. His comments came alongside Palantir’s new partnership with Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA).
Sacks is not alone in backing Karp. Futurum Equities analysts recently echoed his assessment, calling proprietary data protection the “oxygen” behind enterprise AI and warning that feeding corporate data into public models risks giving away a company’s competitive edge.
Benzinga’s Take: The alignment between Sacks, Karp and industry analysts reflects a broader shift in enterprise AI spending, as companies increasingly weigh open source and on-premises models against proprietary frontier labs when deciding how to deploy AI without giving up control of their data and competitive advantage.
Photo Courtesy: IMAGN
Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.
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