Palantir CEO Alex Karp once said neurodivergent people will succeed in the AI era. One psychologist who is also autistic thinks the billionaire has a point, but says that neurodivergent workers’ advantage might not be what people think.
Karp, who is dyslexic, made his case about neurodivergent people earlier this year in an interview on the business podcast TBPN.
“There are basically two ways to know you have a future,” Karp said of workers in the AI era. “One, you have some vocational training. Or two, you’re neurodivergent.”
Karp has previously said his struggle with dyslexia was a “formative moment” that helped him learn to “think freely.” He has also credited dealing with dyslexia for his success cofounding Palantir and growing it into a massive software company worth roughly $470 billion. Karp has been at the helm for more than two decades, after cofounding it alongside Peter Thiel, Joe Lonsdale, Stephen Cohen, and Nathan Gettings in 2003.
During the interview with TBPN, Karp argued that AI is changing which skills and perspectives are valuable in the workplace.
“The thing they need to learn to do is be more of an artist, look at things from a different direction, be able to build something unique,” he said.
Thinking differently
Daniel Wendler, a psychologist who specializes in neurodiversity and is himself autistic, agrees that people who think differently could have an advantage as AI reshapes the workplace. He says neurodivergent people’s different perspectives are especially important at a time when technology is forcing companies to adapt to a changing business environment.
“If you don’t have neurodivergent minds in the room tackling AI, looking at it, then you miss out on that unique perspective,” Wendler told Fortune.
As businesses reconsider how AI changes jobs and the workplace, those perspectives could help change the long-standing assumptions about which qualities make an employee valuable and how tasks are completed, he said.
But he also sees another reason neurodivergent workers, a group that can include people with autism, ADHD and dyslexia, could find themselves uniquely positioned to benefit from the technology.
Rethinking the workplace
Wendler said the modern workplace has been designed for neurotypical employees, which makes it hard for neurodivergent people to fit in and excel. As AI starts to reshape the workplace, there’s an opportunity to change that, he said.
“Many workplaces are set up to kind of accommodate neurotypical weaknesses and to support neurotypical strengths,” he said. “But then, for neurodivergent people, that stuff gets missed.”
As AI forces companies to operate differently, he said they could start to look at how to better accommodate different kinds of thinkers who might add to the company’s competitive advantage, rather than expecting all employees to adapt to a single way of working.
“We are now entering a new frontier, where everybody is on more equal footing because nobody really knows how we navigate this new chapter, or what AI is going to do, or the future of work,” he said.
Neurodivergent employees may also be among the most eager to adapt and use AI given that the existing structures of the workplace are often failing them already. This could be especially helpful as some employees have pushed back on using AI in the workplace.
Neurodivergent employees, he added, can use large language models to help break complicated assignments into smaller steps, organize tasks, and help with communication, among other things.
Wendler said most companies have been slow to change their practices to help neurodivergent people thrive. One of the standouts, though, has been software company SAP, which for more than a decade has tried to be inclusive of neurodivergent people in the hiring process and to offer resources after hiring through its Autism at Work program.
Progress on this issue has been slow, but steady, said Wendler. Several other companies, including Microsoft and Dell in the tech sector and JPMorgan Chase in banking, have launched initiatives to change conventional interviews as well as recruit and support neurodivergent people.
Palantir, for its part, runs a Neurodivergent Fellowship, a recruitment program with an estimated salary of $110,000 and $200,000 a year for employees who think differently. The job posting says these employees will be held to the same performance standards as any Palantir engineer, and it says neurodivergent people could have an advantage in an AI-dominated future.
“The current LLM tech landscape positions them to dominate. Pattern recognition. Non-linear thinking. Hyperfocus. The cognitive traits that make the neurodivergent different are precisely what make them exceptional in an AI-driven world,” the posting read.
Beyond superpowers
To be sure, Wendler pushed back against the popular narrative that every neurodivergent worker has an extraordinary talent that automatically makes them better suited to the AI revolution.
This framing “minimizes the value and contribution of neurodivergent people who are not genius savants,” he said.
He also warned that these stereotypes ignore the struggles that come with having ADHD, autism, dyslexia, or another condition, in both a person’s personal and work life.
While Wendler said neurodivergent people shouldn’t be put on a pedestal, he sees the changes being ushered in by AI as a clear opportunity for them to make further strides in the workplace and contribute in a meaningful way.
“A person does not need to be a genius superhuman, you know, Spider-Man, to be able to have something to offer and to deserve a seat at the table,” he said.
This story was originally featured on Fortune.com
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