We are going to be the most important software company in the world,” says Planatir co-founder and CEO Alex Karp. “We are going to deliver the world’s best software with the most efficient way of delivering it. Well over 90% of our growth in the first half of the year came from our existing clients. Our existing clients, the most important clients in the world, are really happy. Of course, we are going to expand those really happy clients who happen to be the coolest people on the planet.”

Alex Karp, co-founder, and CEO of Palantir Technologies Inc. says his company which initiated a direct listing today on the New York Stock Exchange will become the most important software company in the world:

We are very focused on building software a long time before others build it. We are going to be the most important software company in the world. We are going to deliver the world’s best software with the most efficient way of delivering it.

What’s interesting about our client list that people ask is how can you have this super valuable company when there are only 125 customers? To which I respond, yeah, but they are the 125 most interesting institutions in the world. These aren’t just any institutions. We don’t go out and advertise who uses our product but I would say the list of our clients is the single most impressive list of institutions in the world I’ve ever seen. We want to keep these clients.

Well over 90% of our growth in the first half of the year came from our existing clients. What does that mean? Our existing clients, the most important clients in the world, are really happy. Of course, we are going to expand those really happy clients who happen to be the coolest people on the planet.

We’ve built this product which has gotten very little attention called Apollo. Apollo allows us to maintain and deliver software to any number of clients while essentially not growing our Palantiring force at all. We are planning, now that we have Apollo, to grow the number of super cool customers all over the world. We can do it without raising our headcount. What you are going to see is that we are going to continue building with our clients.

Why, because they are the most interesting clients in the world and they clearly based on our numbers like us and some love us. Now with Apollo, we can deliver the whole stack in six hours. I don’t think any other company I’ve seen in the world can do that and we can do it with efficiencies that I don’t know any other company is going to do. We can do this with a small number of people sitting in one office that we have maintaining, updating, and providing them with new products we build.

They don’t have the Frankenstein monster that takes two years to build and has to be maintained with either human hours, like in the government contracting case, or by purchasing new product or compensating salespeople.