I recently read "The Philosopher in the Valley" - a book about Alex Karp, the CEO and founder of Palantir, written by Michael Steinberger. Karp himself is a very unusual guy, and the book is written by a classmate who appears to have had good access to him. He has come from literally nowhere and I found it fascinating how a guy with no technical background and no military service to speak of could found a company like this (with Peter Thiel as one of your partners)...

The company has huge contracts spanning the the CIA, US military and Mossad, to name a few. It's played a central role in many international situations from recent history, including the US' engagement in IRAQ, supporting Ukraine (although I've read since that it's role may have been overstated) and the US withdrawal from Afghanistan. It's also in the process of taking it's software to the private sector with some success.

And whilst it is a great business book, the really scary bit is how technology and data needs to be carefully managed, if we are to avoid a range of undesirable and perverse outcomes, particularly around privacy, profiling and politics. Karp has some pretty interesting (and somewhat flexible) views on this. Good quick summer read...