Palantir Technologies CEO Alex Karp attends the Pennsylvania Energy and Innovation Summit on the campus of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, July 15, 2025. Andrew Caballero‑Reynolds | AFP | Getty Images
Palantir has broadened a lawsuit it filed in October to add the chief executive of its former employees’ new artificial‑intelligence start‑up, Percepta AI. The complaint alleges that Percepta’s co‑founders, Hirsh Jain and Radha Jain, along with ex‑Palantir engineer Joanna Cohen, violated non‑solicitation provisions, “poached” senior staff, and improperly accessed Palantir’s “crown‑jewel” assets—including source code, customer workflows and proprietary engagement strategies.
Percepta denies any wrongdoing, describing the suit as “baseless” and accusing Palantir of “cherry‑picking out‑of‑context soundbites.” In a statement, the start‑up said, “Palantir does not own the AI transformation space, which is massive and constantly evolving. This is the latest in Palantir’s effort to use fear tactics to bully ex‑employees out of innovating with applied AI.”
Palantir did not respond to a request for comment.
The original filing named Radha Jain and Joanna Cohen, both senior engineers at Palantir. Hirsh Jain, who led Palantir’s health‑care portfolio and left the company in August 2024, was added to the complaint after the plaintiffs alleged an “aggressive campaign” to recruit additional staff. According to the filing, Percepta has already hired at least ten former Palantir employees.
Internal communications quoted in the lawsuit depict an aggressive approach to talent acquisition. One alleged message from Hirsh Jain, dated November 2024, reads, “I’m down to pillage the best devs at Palantir when they’re at their maximum richness.” A separate message attributed to Radha Jain says, “God, thinking about poaching is so fun.”
Palantir, co‑founded by Peter Thiel and current CEO Alex Karp, provides data‑analytics platforms to commercial firms and government agencies, including the U.S. military. The company’s market value has surged more than tenfold since the end of 2023, pushing its market capitalization toward $450 billion.
Beyond the alleged poaching, Palantir accuses Cohen of taking highly confidential documents after her resignation in March. The complaint claims she photographed sensitive data and transferred files to her personal phone, a breach that could expose proprietary algorithms and client‑specific models.
From a business‑strategy perspective, the case underscores the growing tension in the AI sector over talent mobility and intellectual‑property protection. As large‑scale analytics firms like Palantir expand into generative AI, the value of specialized engineering teams and domain‑specific data pipelines has become a strategic asset, often described as “crown jewels.” Enforcement of non‑solicitation and non‑compete agreements remains uneven across jurisdictions, but high‑profile litigation signals to investors that firms are willing to protect their competitive moat aggressively.
For venture capital backers, the dispute raises questions about diligence on founder backgrounds and the risk of latent IP claims. General Catalyst, a noted investor in Percepta, could face scrutiny if the court imposes restrictions on former Palantir staff working at the start‑up for a period of 12 months. Such injunctions, while rare, have precedents in the tech industry where former employees are barred from participating in directly competitive ventures.
Legal experts note that the outcome may hinge on whether the court finds that Palantir’s confidential information was truly “misappropriated” or merely that former staff moved to a new company within a rapidly evolving market. The distinction matters for future talent‑poaching litigation across the AI ecosystem, where the line between shared industry knowledge and protected trade secrets can be blurry.
Palantir’s filing seeks not only the return of any confidential data but also a court order preventing the defendants from working at Percepta—or any venture‑backed entity such as General Catalyst—for 12 months from the issuance of an injunction. The case is pending in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.
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