Interview with Margaret York
Margaret York is the head of talent at Palantir.
Hobbitses, Hobbesian, & Palantirians
Contents
Max Raskin: There's a thing at Palantir about Lord of the Rings. Are you a fan?
Margaret York: This is a great question, and I can disclose that, no, not really. I'm one of those bad Palantirians who has only watched the Lord of the Rings movies but has never read the books.
MR: Really?
MY: I did not finish the Harry Potters…I made it through book four.
MR: But you use the word "hobbitses"! Now this changes everything.
MY: I know, and it's odd because I'm much more of a book person than I am a movie person.
I watched the trilogy for the first and probably second time when I got my wisdom teeth out and I had a lot of time on the couch to consume that deeply. The exception, however, is I have watched the original Star Wars trilogy many, many, many times.
MR: What are you reading right now?
MY: I am actually reading a publication from the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship called “The Best of Our Inheritance.” Right now, I am very into, not surprisingly, Western political theory, and it is a collection of essays that speak to and unpack different concepts or elements of our inheritance as people in Western society.
MR: What do you think is the book that you've returned to the most in your life…that you've read the most times?
MY: That's interesting because those are two different questions. The book I've returned to the most times is probably The Last Days of Socrates or Hobbes' Leviathan. Probably Leviathan — it's so elegant that I use it as a reference a lot of times.
I think when I first started dating my now-husband, we related over that…as two people who are not necessarily the people you would expect to be the biggest nerds in our friend group...
MR: You’re not the biggest nerd in your friend group?
MY: I mean, we're friends with some very smart people. I think he and I are, depending on how you define nerd, he and I are both very, very social. I think he's a true extrovert. I'm more of a learned extrovert. I was very shy as a youth and then learned to be extroverted through musical theater.
MR: Do you describe yourself as a nerd?
MY: I don't know. I don't know what I would describe myself as.
MR: What book do you think had the most profound impact on you?
MY: I think it would be The Last Days of Socrates, because it introduced me to classical political thought, which then led me to learn about Stoicism. I would by no means define myself or classify myself as a Stoic, but as a 20-year-old girl, woman, whatever, in college, the concept of Stoicism was just deeply resonant. For whatever reason, it was a very nice complement to the experience of being a teenage girl in Palo Alto.
California Question Mark
MR: Is there anything that you must have when you go back to California?
MY: Pluto's is a place that was a haunt. There's also a place, I don't know if it's still there, but in high school we called it “Pasta Question Mark”, but “Pasta?” was the name of the place. Those were the two places I went a lot, a lot, a lot.
MR: You were in high school during the heyday of Silicon Valley, right?
MY: I feel this way actually with Palantir in some ways now, but it's very hard to locate yourself in space when you are in that space. And so I could only maybe identify that retroactively…but I was there.
MR: Did you have a MySpace?
MY: I did, yes. Oh God. I think my introductory line, which one of my friends from high school still makes fun of me mercilessly for, was, "I'm Meg, I'm 17, and I'm Cali through and through."
MR: What's wrong with that?
MY: It's just…I don't know.
MR: Do you still consider yourself Cali through and through?
MY: No, no, no, no.
MR: If I put a gun to your head and said, "Are you East Coast or West Coast?"
MY: Midwest? My parents are both from Michigan, and I'm-
MR: But you grew up in California?
MY: California has this really cool thing where everyone I grew up with, their parents were from California. In a lot of cases, their grandparents were from California. There is a deep generational roots thing where most of my friends who went to school in California, never left California and are now raising their own children in California. But I was the new kid.
MR: But nothing from the East Coast?
MY: None of us are. By us, I mean the Yorks and the Bruders, my father and mother's families. None of us are from the East Coast. On my mom's side we were English Quakers, and also on my mom's side and dad's side, we were German farmers who came over around World War I.
MR: What was your AOL instant messenger name?
MY: Oh, I had several. They were so bad. So I went through a period of time where I was a vegetarian, and then when I was 16 I decided to start eating meat again, and so my AOL screenname was "ieatredmeat."
MR: That's pretty good. I've got to tell you, in terms of embarrassing high school stuff…
MY: No, no, no. The one before that was more embarrassing.
MR: What was it?
MY: So this is why I say Stoicism was a very nice discovery for a person who spent their youth in the Bay Area. It was sharkbaitchick. I'm not a surfer. I'm not spending every day in the ocean. Palo Alto is land.
MR: But that’s kind of a funny name.
MY: That was very much how I was in high school…mostly comfortable with myself, but with 2% of, "I kind of wish I was something I'm not."
MR: You wish you were more Cali?
MY: I was very shy growing up and I was the new girl from Michigan. I wished I was cool.
“For God, For Daughter, and For Palantir”
MR: You have a couple necklaces. What are they?
MY: So I have three — for God, for daughter, and for Palantir. I have a PLTR necklace. I also think it is very in that vein of an element to labeling oneself. I think I've always been a little bit irreverent, and it's why I don't do Instagram anymore — because I'm not sure everyone got the joke. I'm not sure everyone gets the joke, but I love the PLTR necklace, so that's one. I don't know if you can tell, but it's bedazzled.
The second one is my cross necklace, which I've worn since my near-death airplane experience, and the next is my daughter’s name.
Near-Death Experience (Part I)
MR: Whoa. Whoa. You thought we were just going to gloss over your near-death experience?
MY: Oh, we're definitely going to talk about that. There's a whole interesting thread to pull there, too. I think we'll probably keep this part in there.
Let's see…
I think that my late twenties — as they are for many people — were a coming to a head of figuring out who I am and how to become fully comfortable with myself. I think in that process, I made a series of bad youthful interesting decisions, one of which brought me to Miami for New Year's. I had missed my original flight owing to New Year's festivities, and so got into this terrible, back-of-the-plane, middle seat on an airline that was very quickly getting planes into rotation. The seat-back screens were not all installed yet, because they had very quickly tried to get this plane into rotation. So I was already scared of the plane crashing. I am a child of the 9/11 generation, and of course I've read every story of a guy who was going to wait another night and then wanted to not miss his daughter's birthday, so came home and then he died, right? I already have all that crap going through my head, of, "I'm going to be this person who dies, because I was hungover and missed my flight."
MR: Do you take a Xanax before you fly?
MY: That would make me more nervous. Suffering is information.
I mean, to be clear, I had an epidural when I gave birth. I'm not a purist.
MR: Ok so you’re on the plane.
MY: So flying back from Miami is always turbulent, you’re over the ocean. We're probably an hour and a half or something into this flight. I have my headphones in the overhead bin. Music is usually a coping mechanism, but I was too discombobulated to have my shit.
Empowered Girl Pop
MR: What do you listen to when you need to combobulate?
MY: Empowered girl pop, which is not my genre I listen to anywhere else than on the plane. Empowered girl pop is probably my Xanax.
MR: Examples?
MY: My recent empowered takeoff jams are Taylor Swift, “The Man” and Dixie Chicks, “Wide Open Spaces.” Or the Chicks, as they now style themselves.
MR: What were your top-played songs last year?
MY: Tchaikovsky, Symphony No. 5 is the top. Now it's probably baby tunes.
In terms of kid jams, the Okee Dokee Brothers. I would go see them, even without a child. I can't say enough good things.
MR: What's your favorite song? I'm going to put that in there.
MY: They have a profound, beautiful song that is called “Sister Moon and Brother Sun.”
Near-Death Experience (Part II)
MR: Ok so you’re on the plane without headphones.
MY: I have this watch I had just bought myself before this ill-fated Miami. I was in Australia and I thought, "You know what? I'm going to get myself a big girl watch. I'm going to get my late-twenties life in the direction I want it to be going."
MR: Where were you working at the time?
MY: Palantir. To Palantir's credit, they dealt with me through all these chapters of my life. I started here when I was 24 and now I'm 37. I've gone through very significant chapters of life all at the same place, and with many of the same people that have worked with me since I was 24. To their credit.
I just think it's a testament to this place, right? I think the greatest friends you can have and greatest co-workers you can have are people that let you evolve, and that are happy for you when you evolve. Most people in your life — even people who theoretically should want the best for you — are unsettled when you become a different person because most people don't like change, right?
MR: Ok so you’re on the plane. Sorry. I keep interrupting.
MY: So we hit this horrible turbulence. Thunderstorm. The plane is totally dark. It's the kind of turbulence where flight attendants are crying. The version that I've never seen before. I'm like, "I'm going to die, and frankly, I deserve to die because I'm not making anything of my life right now." I'm just like, "I have not fulfilled my end of the bargain." I've always believed in God. I used to go to this really awesome church when I was in middle and high school, and then I moved and never picked it back up other than Easter and Christmas and stuff.
MR: What kind of church was it?
MY: Presbyterian, but now we go to Episcopal church.
So I had always believed in God and I was like, "I have not fulfilled my end of the bargain. I'm just not fulfilling my potential as a human being and living up to what I could be." There was this really nice investment banking guy sitting next to me…he's probably 24 or something, coming back from his own New Year's stuff, and, sweet kid, is holding our hands type of thing, and trying to calm down the flight attendant and me.
I go into an inner, a quiet place, when I'm in a situation that's uncomfortable, so I was very much in this quiet place, and the thing that I was doing was just looking at my watch tick the time by, and so the pilot would come on every 15 minutes, basically. I can't remember exactly what he said, but something along the lines of, "We're not quite sure when this is going to end, and we'll be back to you with an update." Much sparser than one is used to receiving during violent turbulence.
MR: Were people crying or anything?
MY: Oh yeah.
MR: Then what happened?
MY: So I was looking at the watch this whole time, which was my distraction. The plane finally landed, and the thing that I was praying, thinking about while I was on the plane was, "If this plane lands, this is my last chance. I'll do this the right way."
MR: Wow, so you really had that moment.
MY: Yes. And after that moment, I have done it the right way.
MR: Really?
MY: I think so.
Life After
MR: What was the first thing you did after that?
MY: The first thing I did was I went to the closest Presbyterian church. First Pres. is this beautiful church at 12th and 5th.
The night before I went I called my brother. We had this whole conversation about stars — I had this incredible boss at Palantir who told me that in order to see things accurately, sometimes you have to leave the aperture wide, as you would with a camera if you were trying to capture the stars. In the same way that you need to leave the aperture wide to let information in when you are making an important decision.
I was talking about that with my brother — he’s seven years older than me and we’re very close, and unsurprisingly, as many siblings are, whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same. He had been with me through this probably two-year journey figuring myself out, and he was like, "Margaret, I hear you again. You're back."
MR: Wow.
MY: So I go to this service the next day, and the woman who's giving the sermon…which already I like a woman giving a sermon…and the first thing she opens the sermon with is thunderstorms, and when the thunderstorm passes, being able to see the stars.
I burst into tears by myself in the pew. It still moves me to think about now. It's hard to describe to anyone who hasn't had a feeling like that or who doesn't have a deep belief in God. But I do.
MR: How long from then to getting married?
MY: I started dating my husband a couple of months after that. He and I were both going through our own journey.
Grounded
MR: What's your favorite fish?
MY: I was thinking about it this morning — I'm kind of off fish right now. I go through phases where I'm into fish and off fish, so maybe a scallop.
MR: Did you have a favorite pregnancy food?
MY: Definitely not fish. I was very un-into white fish. Mango, dried mango, was my favorite pregnancy food.
MR: Have you binge-watched any TV?
MY: Not a big TV gal. But Succession, I really like. I like really well-written shows, and Succession is just immaculate in its writing.
MR: We were talking about birthdays once and you mentioned horoscopes. Are you into that?
MY: It's so funny, because no…
…and yet, maybe there's something about believing in God that's very mystical. I think I have a lot of room in my brain for that.
You know the Big Five personality traits?
MR: Yeah.
MY: I don't know if you can get a 100, but I'm pretty sure I got a 99 on Openness.
MR: Wow.
MY: Maybe there's ghosts, maybe zodiac things are true.
With ancient wisdom-type stuff, which, I think zodiacs fall into, I tend to think, hey, maybe there's something there, but not for the reasons that the people who believe it think there are.
People probably say the same thing about people who believe in God.
My Father-in-Law, the Periodontist
MR: I want to talk to you about interviewing. I'm sure people who are going to interview with you are going to read this. What's your favorite interview question?
MY: You know what's funny, is I used to have all these cute frames that I would ask people.
MR: What's a cute frame?
MY: Any cute question I would ask would be something that occurred to me at some point that I would ask myself, or that I had an interesting self-conversation about. One of which was, "Who's the most difficult person you've worked with who you would choose to work with again?"
MR: These are the kinds of questions I should ask. My questions are like, "Do you floss?"
MY: Oh, I mean, flossliness is next to godliness. My father-in-law's a periodontist.
There’s another thread that I could go down about dental appointments being part of growing up. My first dental appointment in five years — because it was one of the things I let slide — was my father-in-law. If that's not love, I don't know what is.
MR: That's a really beautiful story.
MY: That was great, and also embarrassing.
Interview Questions
MR: What about other interview questions?
MY: Really good interview questions are ones where you pose some sort of duality. Some tension that the recipient, that the audience has to reconcile in order to answer the question. So take the difficult person question. There's only two wrong answers to that question: One is describing a difficult person who you obviously would not choose to work with again, or two, describing a person who's not difficult who you would choose to work with. Wrong answers. Anything that reconciles the tension is the correct answer, right?
Similarly, the other question that I sometimes ask that's a human-oriented question is, "Tell me about a person who is an artist at their craft, and then tell me about the next best person, a person who's merely excellent." That one I get less good answers, but there is a little bit of tension.
MR: That's such a good question. I could talk about that all day.
MY: Totally. Well, then, what would your answer be?
MR: I would say Ted Williams was an artist. Mickey Mantle was merely excellent.
MY: I'm not a baseball girlie, but now I'll Google that.
MR: Do you wear a uniform?
MY: Oh yeah, I do. Anytime that it is cold enough, I wear a cashmere fisherman sweater.
MR: From where?
MY: This one is from Quince. Quince is important because they're $95 instead of $400, so I have this in almost every color that it's made. I rotate these. In the summer, I wear linen t-shirts or tank tops.
MR: Do you have a place that you buy them from?
MY: Yes. Naked Cashmere.
MR: Do you get a bunch of them?
MY: So there's a big section of my closet that's monochromatic. The other thing is, I only wear seven colors, and then there are a few things that I'll wear for special events that are not those seven colors.
MR: What are the seven colors?
MY: Black, navy blue, olive green, light blue, gray, white, and brown.
MR: Oh, do you snack during the day?
MY: I can go the whole day and forget to eat.
MR: Oh, wow. Do you drink during the day?
MY: No, I really should drink more. I actually brought my water bottle to work today, and I have not had a single sip from it.
MR: Do you drink alcohol?
MY: To the previous story, I used to drink more alcohol. I think having a small child takes a lot of the fun out of drinking alcohol.
This is not a thing I love about myself, but it just is a fact that I'm a person who is probably constitutionally wired towards over-consumption, and so it's something that I'm always aware of, as, I cannot go overboard.
MR: What do you over-consume?
MY: Alcohol.
MR: What about nowadays?
MY: Oh, now? Probably still occasionally alcohol, but much less frequently than in the past.
MR: Do you have a favorite drink?
MY: The thing I really cannot have more than one glass of is red wine. From what I've observed, red wine has something about it that lends itself to over-consumption. I mean, I also think red wine is just a beautiful beverage. It's a beautiful creation.
MR: What do you think is the book you've read most to your child?
MY: Yes. We read this book called Moonlight Prance a lot. It’s an interactive board book with little reveals. I love animals a lot. There are animals all over my house. Not taxidermy, but little trinkets of animals all over my house. My design aesthetic is “bird maximalism.”
MR: What's your favorite animal?
MY: Humans. I'm very pro-human.
This is very basic, but I love dogs, maybe because I love humans.
MR: What's your favorite dog?
MY: Mutts, or as they call it in dog shows, “the all-American breed.”
MR: What's your favorite color?
MY: Light blue.
MR: How often do you think you should polish silver?
MY: As we would say at Palantir, it probably depends on the outcome. If you're the queen's handmaiden, then probably very regularly. If you're me in my home, I would say never.
MR: Do you like The Beatles?
MY: I really love The Beach Boys. They're the best.
MR: What's your go-to?
MY: “Good Vibrations.” There’s this version where the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra plays.
The Worst Interview
MR: Are most of your interviews on Zoom or live in person?
MY: It's a mix, but a lot of them are on Zoom, which I think is way lower fidelity.
MR: Have you ever walked out of an interview?
MY: Even if we're not going to hire someone, I enjoy almost every interview. There's probably five that I've been like, "Get me the eff out of this."
MR: What’s the worst interview you've had?
MY: It’s less the worst interview and more just the one that just viscerally, I just needed to get out of that room.
A huge part of why I love humans as a species is we have these incredible brains and so much potential, and so I find it really hard when I'm sitting across the table from someone who just has done nothing with their brain. Don't you realize what a gift you have?
Anyway, it was a nothing-burger of a conversation, and at the end, I asked if she had any questions for me, and she asked me what my favorite perk was at Palantir. So my “this is over now” answer was, “I really love that we have a lot of free t-shirts, because sometimes I sleep at the office, and so then I have a change of clothes."
MR: Oh, that's so funny.
MY: Which was true. I did. I had a sleeping bag under my desk, at that time in my life.
That interview was bad. I remember what room it was in, and it's just like, it's etched in my mind.