Is Neurodivergence the Future of AI Work?

Michalis

According to Alex Karp's recent comments — the CEO of Palantir, for those who don't know — if you are not neurodivergent or you have some kind of vocational training, you don't have a future in the AI world. Alejo, hearing just this statement, what do you think?

Alejo

No, it's like he's just going into extreme situations. I don't know what he's thinking. But we're going to discuss this in a deep way now.

Michalis

I have you here. Let's discuss it.

So, welcome to The World in Arguments, where we take one argument shaping our future and analyze it so that you can better understand the world around you. One argument, one episode at a time.

Today, it's going to be our first ever interview, with our first ever guest — with a dear EMI classmate, and most importantly, a friend. Alejandro Auza — Alejo, welcome to the show.

Alejo

Hello, Michalis. Thank you for inviting me to your podcast. It's an amazing experience just talking about these kinds of topics that are relevant nowadays, and it's kind of related to my field too. So I found it an interesting topic to discuss, and I'm ready to just talk about it.

Michalis

So, how is it related to your field? And maybe let us know about your projects?

Alejo

Well, as I just mentioned, I'm Alejandro. I'm his classmate in the EMMIE program, which is more related to entrepreneurship and impact. I've been working in education since 2020, when I co-founded my first startup, which is called Accept Go.

In this one, we aimed to connect professional students with global opportunities — jobs or scholarships — and we did it with a simple methodology of coaching plus AI. So the student, at the end of the program, could get access to a whole professional profile: their CV, LinkedIn, templates for interviews with their information, all done through AI.

But the most important part was the coaching too. Because around the world we tend to not value what we did in our past experiences — jobs, internships. At the start it's like, "No, I haven't done anything real or of impact. I don't know if I can get to this job or scholarship." But in the end, we talked with the students, and with that, they discovered that in fact they have created everything from just a simple activity — like, for example, taking care of monkeys.

Michalis

Okay, okay. What is the name of the tool?

Alejo

The Capivara Career Coach. So we got the animal branding. They have the bird — now we have the capybara. And that's the main platform.

Michalis

Who doesn't love capybaras?

Alejo

Yes, totally.

Michalis

So, if I were an AI, I would just say that you sit at the intersection of bridging people and skills. And this is really why I think you were the right first person, the right first guest for the show — particularly in this specific argument. So thank you once more for being here and sharing your insights with us.

We can of course begin with the context. Palantir is a software company building data operating systems that turn massive amounts of data into real-world objects. What are these real-world objects, and where are they actually being applied? In commercial purposes for sure, but one of the main clients is the US military. One of their main focuses is military applications. And the core of the mission — something that's very interesting to point out — is that they really, literally want to support the US. They want to give the US and the US military, by extension, that competitive edge in warfare technology.

Because I know you're into films as well — what do you think of the name?

Alejo

Well, first, when I checked the name of the company, it's like I didn't associate it with anything. But before recording this episode, we were discussing it, and Michalis told me, "Did you watch The Lord of the Rings movies before?" And I said, "Yes, of course. I also read the books." But it was when I was 14 or 15 years old, so I didn't remember the names. And then everything clicked.

Michalis

So we have a modern-day Saruman here. It is indeed from The Lord of the Rings franchise — this is where the name comes from. And you know, if you literally had one object of the evil guys from the movies, you would try to hide it, downplay it a little bit. No — Alex Karp is not doing this. He's a very particular figure, very controversial as well. He plays a lot into that grand comparison. He constantly argues that in a dangerous world, you just have to give the West the right tools to make sure that they have these kinds of powerful Palantírs. He's positioned himself as a techno-pragmatist in that regard — and he's also neurodivergent.

Let's go a little bit to the argument. I chose this specific one because I believe it's a very clear example of a clickbait headline — meaning that you will get this in the news as a title, and you will just not get into the nuance of trying to understand it. It sounds good, but it polarizes. You're going to have people who are going to be like, "This is bullshit." And then you're going to have people who are like, "Yeah, go for it, this is amazing."

So, when you first saw this particular argument — you already mentioned something — what did you think? What were your original thoughts when you just saw the argument: "Neurodivergence is the future for AI employees"?

Alejo

Well, of course it's kind of extreme to just say that, because you can't just go into the opposites. You also have to go in and look into the middle. Because not only neurodivergent people are going to be the actual leaders of tomorrow, or the ones that are going to conquer everything.

Of course, they have certain advantages in certain areas — it's like they can see things that regular people can't. But I also think that a leader is not just genetically made. Genetics has important things in how you are going to develop in the job market afterwards. But I also think that these kinds of leaders can be created.

Because I expect that I am kind of becoming a great leader, but it's not like I had any of the skills that a leader should have — being confident all the time, talking to many people, being more extroverted, and so on. I used to train myself to do those things at the beginning of my career. I had a specific course related to how to influence people through body language or speaking.

And AI is so important to know. But it's not like maybe only neurodivergent people are going to be the most successful in the future. It's like: people who are aiming to think — to think, and not just execute — they're going to be great professionals. But also the ones who are acquiring more AI knowledge. Because with what you know and the whole processes that you think, with AI you get superpowers to really increase the outputs that you are developing.

I will weaken it a little bit — it's hard, when you don't have those certain skills because of your genetics. Because I saw from psychology that people really are born with genetics from their parents. If they are more introverted, the tendency is that the kid is going to be more introverted.

But I've also read other books. I'm really reading an interesting one from a mentor from Latin America — The Power of No, the Biology of Power. And it's interesting to understand that if you start believing in other things, and start working with your own cells in your body, you can raise those negative beliefs about yourself, so you can start changing into what you want to become.

Michalis

It's a very important message. Think critical. So what I'm going to do is put a clip now for us to listen to, and then we can go on and discuss the argument. I will give a standard form of the argument, and we can discuss on that.

Michalis

Well, it's an interesting argument, because people tend to just execute, but they forget to think, or create things. So I think it doesn't necessarily go into the neurodivergency. It's more like you have to be, let's say, different and create things.

The thing is, I really had to go back to the argument and listen to it a lot of times to understand what he's saying. And when you bring it to a standard form — he speaks with a lot of filler, he speaks in a conversational way, so his argument is getting lost between the lines. So, if we were to bring his argument into standard argument form:

Alejo

Of course, now with AI, so many things that were from the past are going to disappear. Like, for example, junior positions where you just needed to fill out some documents, or maybe the assistant roles — sending emails, and so on. Maybe they are going to disappear, because now people need to be more skilled, even for junior positions, because AI can automate these things.

So that's what I was saying — that people now have to acquire more AI knowledge so they can enter any position, so they can implement new things, new processes.

But one thing that is forgotten about all of this is that, despite the fact that you maybe know AI — if you just know ChatGPT, you are lost. It's not just ChatGPT or Claude, that is popularized right now. It's more like: how you think — that's more important — and how you apply them.

Because of course, you can get a career in any field. But an interesting skill that I find is not used a lot is actually thinking about what I'm going to implement with these tools. Because okay, you get the whole process done with AI — but now you need someone to execute it. And that person just executes what is implied in the process. People nowadays — it's not like they can see outside of that. It's not like they know what to do to improve it.

So what professionals really need to do now, even if they are not neurodivergent, is just to start seeking blockers in processes and in companies, and that they can improve also through AI. So essentially, except from getting the AI knowledge: also build the critical thinking skills.

Michalis

You also mentioned people skills before. Maybe I would ask you back again — what do you think are the evergreen people skills? Things that you're going to still need regardless of the AI moment, like leadership, as you mentioned.

Alejo

Well, for any person, one important thing that nowadays more founders and CEOs are looking for is people who are willing to do great things — who are crazy. I really heard from certain CEOs that in their interviews, they ask the person, "How crazy do you think you are?"

Because with that question, you really see if the person is really trying to do a great thing, or to excel at what they are going to work on — or if they are just going to execute some things, but that's all.

So one of those things: have that willingness to really excel at whatever it is in the job, and more. And also, when you enter a position — if you know everything that you're going to do, you're going to get bored. So it's more like also having the willingness to learn more and apply it in your job.

Michalis

So I hear the blend of professional ambition, some willingness, some independence, some problem-solving, and of course some critical —

Alejo

Critical thinking. Of course.

Michalis

Maybe going back to the argument — now that we've heard it in standard form, it makes a little bit more sense. Given that what we started with was essentially just the headline of Alex Karp saying something controversial — the comments on YouTube and Instagram were very polarized. And it's normal. You bring some kind of argument without proper justification, you say something extreme, people will understand it in an extreme way. But why? Why do CEOs especially tend to argue like this? Is there any reason to speak in a more nuanced, more thorough way?

Alejo

Well, some CEOs tend to be controversial because they are speaking from their experience, which is not, let's say, normal to regular people. But also — when they are having these kinds of discussions, the message gets lost, because they don't know how to articulate the message in a way that is well understood by people.

And that happens with many CEOs like him. Because I've heard many of them — it's like they start talking, but you can get the main message, but they don't know how to articulate it properly. What is obvious for them is not obvious for the listeners sometimes.

Michalis

Yeah, yeah. But you need the domain expertise — you need to know it from their perspective to intentionally understand. So it's a problem of miscommunication.

Alejo

Exactly. And it's also because sometimes people start speaking from their own basis of knowledge. That happened, for example, with me when I was giving some sessions related to how to apply to scholarships. I never entered into detail of the requirements — like, when you have to present the CV — because for me, that's the boring part. The most important part of any scholarship application is to really have a great profile: your experience, English knowledge, and so on.

I say, "Okay, you can create your own letter with AI. You can do it in seconds, but the output is going to be like whatever, if you don't have a great profile before." Like, if you don't know how to immediately identify which is more AI-ish, so you can correct it and write it better, you're getting way behind the other applicants.

That's why I try to communicate that you have to really start doing things, start creating a better career. But people don't understand that. They want easier things, and they don't tend to ask questions related to what I'm saying. It's more like they are just asking, "Okay, what are the requirements?" And I say, "Okay, that's not the important part, because you can look them up — they are online."

So that's also related to the level of skills or knowledge that people have. From what I'm seeing from Alex, he has another level of knowledge. So that's why maybe he's implying many things that are not so easy to understand for others.

Michalis

And maybe one last question, given that we had this process of trying to analyze the argument. You, as a professional, how would you apply this in your day-to-day life? Do you see any value in trying to get into a more nuanced understanding of arguments in entrepreneurship, in your professional and personal projects?

Alejo

Yes. Because, well, if you want to become a CEO, you have to listen to the messages from people who are already there. Maybe you're going to like some of them, maybe not — but the most important thing is to listen, to really understand what they are trying to say, what are their fundamentals, their basis, their knowledge, or whatever they are building. So you can understand what is going on, so you can start doing something with yourself. If you want to become one one day, you have to start doing maybe some things that they are already doing now.

Michalis

And still — AI is a very good tool for listening. Alejo, thank you so much for your time today. Gracias para tu tiempo. For anyone who is interested — I will put your details below for your projects. And of course, a massive thank you to you, our listeners, for staying up until the end of this episode. As always, follow us, rate us — hopefully positively — and if you have any reason not to rate us positively, please let us know first with a direct message with your feedback. It's really valuable.

And if you have an argument that you want to analyze, please let us know, because we're really looking for arguments — but we may miss some, and it's going to be a shame.

Take care, and see you in the next one.