Tokens are not yield
Alex Karp’s critique matters because it comes from inside the AI wave: tokens are not yield, usage is not value, and enterprise AI must be judged by the consequences it produces.
By Vishnu Rajkumar · Marginalia
Originally published on linkedin
note · LinkedIn
Alex Karp saying this on CNBC matters because he is not an AI skeptic looking in from the outside. Palantir is commercially and philosophically inside the AI wave, and still the critique cuts in the same direction. Tokens are not yield. Usage is not value. In too many enterprises, AI spend has become a vanity metric, easy to display and harder to defend. A token meter can rise while the business remains exactly where it was.
The next phase will be less forgiving. The questions will become harder because the invoices are becoming larger. What workflow changed? What risk fell? What cost moved? What decision improved? What proprietary advantage was protected? What accountability was created? AI will not be judged by how much intelligence was consumed. It will and should be judged by how much consequence was produced. That was the argument of my essay from a few weeks ago. I’ll leave the link in the comments. AI is real. The sermon around it is not.