Palantir CIO Jim Siders leaves for Thrive Capital’s Shield Technology

Technology investment firm Thrive Capital, known for taking large stakes in companies such as OpenAI, Stripe and Databricks, announced on Monday that this fund was tapped. palantir Senior Jim Siders will serve as CEO of Shield Technology Partners, a newly created business focused on IT services.

Siders spent more than 12 years at Palantir, where he most recently served as chief information officer, overseeing global IT operations, business applications and infrastructure. He started his career as an IT help desk engineer at the company.

Palantir has been one of the best performers in the stock market during the AI ​​boom, rising nearly thirtyfold since the end of 2022.

Thrive, founded by Josh Kushner, formed Thrive Holdings and formed a division in April. It owns and operates companies that it believes can benefit from technological transformations. Shield was launched in June with over $100 million in seed funding from Thrive Holdings and investment firm ZBS Partners.

Shield buys ownership stakes in IT services companies and seeks to help them grow by giving them access to the latest AI technology and engineering talent.

“If we’re doing this right, we’re going to see a lot of value being created at every level of the chain, from the end customer to Shield,” Siders told CNBC in an interview. “These are great businesses and they will only get bigger.”

As of December, Shield was working with seven companies and was expected to generate more than $100 million in revenue this year, Thrive said. Shield works primarily with small and medium-sized businesses and has a goal of expanding its portfolio going forward.

In addition to its work with Shield in IT services, Thrive Holdings also operates in the accounting industry.

Earlier this month, OpenAI announced it was taking an ownership stake in Thrive Holdings and would embed engineering, research and product teams at the company.

“We said, ‘The way we can get the best results for our customers is for OpenAI to own Thrive Holdings with us,'” Anuj Mehndiratta, a member of Thrive Holdings’ founding team, said in an interview. he said. “Once they have it, they will be able to focus on the bottom line like we do.”

The Shield’s ownership structure is based on a similar mindset. To help align incentives and encourage companies to participate, Shield-supported IT services organizations also gain equity in Shield.

Siders will begin his role as Shield CEO on Monday and said his initial focus will be understanding its current partners and scouting potential targets. He said Shield will be ambitious over the next few quarters.

“There’s a whole industry out there that spend their careers trying to deliver this value for the benefit of everyone,” Siders said. “This is a unique and special thing to attack this with.”

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