Every functioning society depends on ordinary people who choose to act when no one is watching — not for credit, not for recognition, but because character demands it.
Alex Karp — co-founder and CEO of the software firm Palantir Technologies — learned that truth young. Before he built Palantir, before he became a public figure, he and his mother were in serious trouble: broke, overwhelmed, and without a clear path forward.
A jewelry store owner saw their need and gave his family a place to live. Speaking about this person on a now viral clip from The Axios Show warning: language), Karp became visibly emotional, saying “in general, people don’t help you … but the ones that do are special.”
Decades later, when Karp’s life looked very different, he found this person and repaid her in a way that meaningfully improved her circumstances.
It wasn’t charity. It was gratitude — an act of moral memory, a recognition that every accomplishment in life rests on the generosity of people who stepped in when they had no obligation to do so.
That story matters because gratitude is more than a personal virtue. It is a civic one.
Gratitude ties us to the people who made our lives possible and creates obligations not only backward, to those who helped us, but forward, to those who will someday need our care.
In a culture dominated by the myth of the self-made life, this truth feels almost countercultural: we rise because someone cared.
Karp has become an unexpected voice on the struggles young Americans face today. Much of what he observes mirrors what parents, teachers and civic leaders across the country see in their own communities.
Many young people are drowning in status anxiety, ceaseless comparisons and the pressure to curate their lives into a performance. They carry achievements but lack grounding. They have credentials but struggle with purpose.
Karp sees this up close. In a talk at the Economic Club of Chicago, he warned that the first failure he sees among young people is “not accepting what they’re actually good at.” The second, he says, is “not organizing their life around that ability.”
His message is blunt, almost pastoral: “Find the thing you’re uniquely good at, and then make sure your whole life is organized around allowing you to do it.”
He is equally candid about the costs of status chasing. “I’ve never met someone successful who had a great social life at 20,” he told his audience — not to glorify isolation, but to emphasize that depth, mastery and purpose require sacrifice. A life calibrated to constant social validation leaves no space for the discipline needed to excel.
The result is a generation pulled in every direction and anchored in none: all signal, no center.
This is where gratitude enters; not as sentiment, but as formation. Gratitude disrupts the corrosive cycle of status and comparison. It teaches children to look outward instead of inward, to see the people who sustain their lives and to understand that success is relational, not performative. Gratitude grounds them in a world of responsibilities rather than impressions.
And here the moral contrast becomes clear: Status produces anxiety and fragility. Gratitude produces grounding and resilience.
Children cannot learn this on their own. Gratitude must be taught early. Parents bear the primary responsibility for this formation, but schools and community institutions can reinforce what families begin.
One simple practice that families and schools can adopt is this: each week, ask every child to name one person — just one — whose unseen effort made their life easier. A teacher who stayed late. A bus driver who remembered their name. A sibling who shared something without being asked. This discipline, repeated over time, rewires attention. It teaches the young to notice care, to honor its sources, and eventually to return it.
Schools can reinforce this too. Communities that highlight the unsung — custodians, cafeteria workers, coaches, aides — form students who do not take labor for granted.
When children learn to recognize the contributions of people who are rarely acknowledged, entitlement fades and empathy grows. School boards and civic leaders who care about character formation should consider making weekly gratitude reflection a formal part of school culture — not as another mandate, but as a practice that costs nothing and changes everything.
Gratitude also corrects another cultural distortion: the belief that success must appear flawless. Karp’s own story shatters that illusion. His life began with vulnerability, with a mother struggling to keep her family afloat, with the kindness of a person who offered what she had.
That experience did not weaken him; it oriented him. It taught him that character is forged through dependence, generosity and reciprocity. It shaped his understanding of what we owe one another.
This is the civic message our society desperately needs. In an age of performance and polarization, gratitude is a stabilizing force. It lowers the temperature. It restores proportion. It trains the next generation to appreciate the good they receive and to extend that good to others.
The jewelry store owner who helped Karp and his mother had no way of knowing the long-term effects of her generosity. But her act of mercy and kindness became a lifelong teacher for him. And that is the point.
The smallest gesture of care, offered quietly and without expectation, can shape a child’s moral imagination for decades.
If we want to raise young people who are focused, grounded and capable of building strong communities, we must teach them gratitude — not as a slogan, but as a practice that carries moral weight. Because someday each child will face the same choice that person faced: whether to act when no one is watching.
And whether they are prepared for that moment depends on the lessons we give them now — in our homes, our schools and our communities.