Thrive Holdings, launched by OpenAI and Stripe investor Thrive Capital, announced on Monday that it's tapped Palantir veteran Jim Siders to 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 began his career at the company as an IT helpdesk engineer.
Palantir has been one of the best performers on the stock market during the artificial intelligence boom, jumping by almost thirtyfold since the end 2022.
Thrive, founded by Josh Kushner, launched Thrive Holdings in April, creating a division to own and operate companies that it believes could benefit from technological transformations. Shield was launched in June by Thrive Holdings and investment firm ZBS Partners, with over $100 million in initial funding.
Shield buys ownership stakes in IT services companies and tries to help them grow by giving them access to cutting-edge AI technology and engineering capabilities.
"If we're doing this right, we're going to see a lot of value created all the way up the chain, from end customer all the way through to us here at Shield," Siders told CNBC in an interview. "These are great businesses, and they're going to be rising up even more."
As of December, Shield works with seven companies and is expected to generate more than $100 million in revenue this year, Thrive said. Shield primarily works with small and mid-sized businesses, and has ambitions to expand its portfolio going forward.