Why Palantir Cofounder Joe Lonsdale Left California for Texas

Joe Lonsdale is a co-founder of the data analytics firm Palantir; OpenGov, which provides cloud software services for governments; and the University of Austin, which seeks to reform higher education. He's the managing partner of 8VC, a tech and life sciences venture capital fund, and is chairman of the board of the Cicero Institute, a nonprofit working to "restore liberty, accountability, and innovation in American governance."

Reason's Nick Gillespie asked Lonsdale why he relocated to Texas from California, how to curb government overreach while providing essential services, his goals for his podcast American Optimist, and his 2020 article, "Libertarianism is Dysfunctional, but Liberty is Great."

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This interview has been condensed edited for style and clarity.

Nick Gillespie: Your venture capital firm is called 8VC. What is that referring to?

Joe Lonsdale: Originally, we had a firm called Formation 8 with some Korean partners, and they took formation, I took eight. Eight's a lucky number in Asia. It's a lucky number actually in Judaism. It kind of represents beyond the seven days. So you can see infinity is tied to eight. It's a lucky number. You have to have lucky numbers.

Gillespie: And does it tie into the history of Silicon Valley at all?

Lonsdale: It does as well. We talk about waves of innovation in Silicon Valley. And the second big wave of innovation was the semiconductor wave. That's why it's called Silicon Valley, because of the silicon wafer. One of the three Nobel Prize winners who invented the transistor, [William] Shockley, he brought eight of the most impressive people he could find to Silicon Valley. And it turned out he was a great scientist but a terrible boss. And he kept giving them lie detector tests. And finally, they left and said enough of this, we're doing our own [thing]. And they got someone else to back them called [Sherman] Fairchild. So they built Fairchild Semiconductor. And those eight people at Fairchild Semiconductor, it was [Gordon] Moore of Moore's Law, it was Eugene Kleiner of Kleiner Perkins. It was the guys who built a lot of Silicon Valley. So it really pays homage to the history of the tech sector.

Gillespie: And then Shockley, just to cap that story, ended his career by promoting scientific racism.

Lonsdale: It's not ideal, I suppose. So yeah, at least fortunately, we're on the side of the eight people who didn't work for him anyway.

Gillespie: When did you move to Texas?

Lonsdale: 2020.

Gillespie: Good time to move. Good time to buy, I suppose. But you left California. You were raised in California. You went to school in California. You've thrived in California. You co-founded Palantir in California. Why did you move to Texas? And what does that say about governance strategies?

Lonsdale: There are a lot of things California has ...