Wu-Tang Clan Member Raekwon Is a Palantir ‘OG,’ Visiting Headquarters 16 Years After Receiving His Custom PLTR Jacket

When hip-hop icon and Wu-Tang founder Raekwon the Chef marched into the headquarters of Palantir (PLTR) in 2010, he stumbled upon a company that most of us had never heard of. 

At that stage, Palantir was just another private Silicon Valley startup. It had a couple hundred employees, a relatively humble valuation of $735 million, and got most of its business through boring government contracts.

Leave it to an enterprising rapper to see something that Wall Street couldn’t. Raekwon immediately started singing the company’s praises and repping a custom Palantir jacket in his music videos. Everybody knows what’s happened to the company since.

Well, CEO Alex Karp welcomed the Wu-Tang member back to Palantir’s headquarters this month like a prodigal son. The company blasted the visit all over its socials, calling Raekwon one of its “OGs.” The rapper has never actually disclosed whether he put his money where his mouth is and became an early investor, but nobody can deny Raekwon was definitely one of the company’s earliest A-list cheerleaders. 

What’s more, this bizarre turn of events serves as an important reminder that hip hop seems to have an incredible track record on Wall Street. So, why are rappers able to spot glimmers of gold years before institutional investors hop on the bandwagon?

Raekwon Saw Palantir Before Wall Street Did

This particular relationship between the New York rapper and one of AI’s biggest companies began in August 2010. After getting shown around the company’s headquarters (nobody's sure why he was invited), Raekwon took to X and told his followers, “if u don't know bout them, google them!”

You’ve got to admit, this is a pretty weird celebrity endorsement for what was then a small defense software company. 

Before the rapper’s post, Palantir had just completed a funding round that valued the company at about $735 million. The company only had 250 engineers, and it was bending over backwards to try and convince investors it was capable of becoming a major enterprise business.

Maybe that’s why the company was so keen to welcome a celebrity and shower them with free merch. Raekwon has since been seen wearing his Palantir jacket everywhere. It’s even appeared in music videos.

Fast-forward 16 years, and Raekwon’s been welcomed back to Palantir’s offices like a king. Needless to say, a whole lot has changed since then. 

Raekwon is on his farewell tour with the Wu-Tang Clan, but that’s not the big change we’re talking about. Palantir isn’t some sad little startup anymore.

Today, it's one of the globe’s leading AI companies. Huge corporations, government agencies, and defense organizations all rely on Palantir's software to integrate data and support decision-making. That’s why its market capitalization is now over 600 times greater now than it was when Raekwon the Chef first told us all to “google them.”

Panatir is worth just under $447 billion, which makes it one of the most closely watched stocks in the AI trade. Not many investors could have predicted that extraordinary rise to power 16 years ago when Palantir was bragging about having a rapper come to work.

So, what did Raekwon see that nobody else could? The truth is, nobody knows. He’s been relatively cryptic about it, and maybe he was just invited over to collect a free sweatshirt. Then again, the rapper’s weird show of support for Palantir is only the latest example of the bizarre success that hip-hop moguls seem to have betting on markets.

Rappers Have An Amazing Track Record in Tech

Rappers might not get a lot of publicity on trading websites, but Raekwon the Chef definitely isn’t the first hip-hop celebrity to spot an outstanding tech startup years before anybody on Wall Street sees its potential.

First, there’s Nas.

In 2014, the rapper co-founded QueensBridge Venture Partners and invested big in Ring, Coinbase (COIN), Dropbox (DBX), and Lyft (LYFT). Nas and his firm chalked up a huge exit when Amazon (AMZN) spent $1.1 billion to acquire Ring.

Jay-Z’s investments you might be more familiar with. 

His portfolio has included a little bit of everything over the years, but the big one is Uber (UBER). Legend has it the hip-hop legend invested $2 million in the ride-sharing app back in 2013. Today, that position should be worth about $90 million.

Then, there’s Chamillionaire.

The Houston-based rapper joined Los Angeles venture capital firm Upfront Ventures as its entrepreneur-in-residence in 2015. He’s planted seeds everywhere since then, bagging a huge win as an early investor in Maker Studios. The video network was later picked up by Disney (DIS) for $500 million.

There’s obviously a pattern here. At first glance, it looks like all these A-list musicians have some sort of crystal ball. But their success is really about access. Founders and big-name investors are always trying to rub shoulders with celebrities, and that puts rappers in a unique position that most of us are never going to be in.

Rappers are getting a desperate elevator pitch long before any of these companies become household names, and the reason is obvious: These guys aren’t afraid to write a check. They've got the money and the swagger to take a chance. And if you can turn a celebrity into a believer, they can supply the network, marketing expertise, and cultural credibility your startup needs to make the wider investment community pay attention.

And that brings us back to Palantir.

In 2010, Alex Karp’s company was an obscure, private business working in a corner of the tech industry that most retail investors weren’t interested in. Today, everybody and their dog knows what Palantir does. The company’s valuation has ballooned, and there’s a legion of bulls and bears constantly arguing about how the company will continue to grow.

Everybody wants to find the next Palantir. That’s easier said than done without the sort of A-list access Jay-Z gets. But even so, every investor could learn a thing or two from Raekwon the Chef. 

At this point, nobody’s sure the guy ever even invested in Palantir. But he did act on his curiosity and look into the business at a time when nobody outside of Silicon Valley cared. That curiosity serves as an important reminder: Sometimes the best investments can look bizarre at first glance.