8 ms·

After all these years, I'm still not really sure what Palantir does exactly.

by eachro 11y ago

archmikhail 11y ago
My roommate interned there, and still had little idea what they do.
- ryanSrich 11y ago
  Same. I had a buddy that worked there a little while. Crazy good pay, but no transparency, tons of clearance required, etc. etc.
- joering2 11y ago
  That's due to a beautiful and evil thing called compartmentalization. Take 1,000 people have them all work on very tiny things this might serve as a flush lever, or an atomic bomb trigger.
capkutay 11y ago
They're basically a consulting company with in-house platforms for data management. You pay $100k+ per core pricing for their analytics platform, then you pay thousands more for implementation 'ninjas', consultants, training etc. It's a mix between a services and a technology company targeted at government accounts.
- serge2k 11y ago
  Reminds me of Oracle or IBM.
  - akhilcacharya 11y ago
    Except they're pretty much completely staffed by Stanford, MIT, Harvard, (etc) grads.
    - dogma1138 11y ago
      When Oracle, SAP, and IBM used to rely heavily on professional service so were they.
- anonu 11y ago
  I'd add that they have really good visualization - which helps more as a marketing thing than anything else. The consultants drive the business...
colordrops 11y ago
CIA contractor. On a side note, they were involved with HB Gary in an attempt to infiltrate and destroy Wikileaks.
- Apocryphon 11y ago
  One wonders if they've got any NSA connections.
  - cinquemb 11y ago
    Only if we got a chance to look at their emails à la Hacking team style… Maybe they'll be the first to join the 1TB+ data dump club to go along with all their rounds of funding ;)
- FreakLegion 11y ago
  See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7294743 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7294743 and Thomas' reply. That's the extent to which Palantir was "involved" with HBGary Federal. (And while it should go without saying, I'll say it anyway: There was no attempt to infiltrate and destroy Wikileaks. Just a lot of hairbrained talk.)
  - joering2 11y ago
    I hate to be this guy, but "just a lot of hairbrained talk" is what puts people behind bars in America and all around the world, all around the clock. You don't need to carry out a crime to be convicted of a conspiracy to commit it, and as a result put in jail for a long time.
  - colordrops 11y ago
    Why should it "go without saying"? Have the facts been laid out and proven in an exceptionally clear and public way? I don't think so. And "hairbrained" is an strange adjective to use for a company that is almost 100% engineers from top schools, pulling in a billion in funding, and working for the CIA. All I know is the contents of the leaked presentation that laid out the plans against Wikileaks. I will ignore any PR and damage control about "hairbrained talk".
rdtsc 11y ago
Sells crap to CIA. You have all these targets? OK, input that data in our system then we'll show you have they are connected by a graph, now pay us $10M.
throwaway122315 11y ago
It's funny, because every time someone posts a news article about Palantir, this is the top comment. And every time, the replies to that comment do a pretty good job describing what it is they do: * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10715856 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10715856 * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9942606 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9942606
- ap22213 11y ago
  It was helpful to read their own description: https://www.palantir.com/2007/12/what-do-we-do/ https://www.palantir.com/2007/12/what-do-we-do/ But, for me, it was even more helpful to look at their patents: http://patents.justia.com/assignee/palantir-technologies http://patents.justia.com/assignee/palantir-technologies
  - o_nate 11y ago
    A patent for a long left-click to show a context menu when the right mouse button for some reason isn't available? Sheesh. Some of these are enough to turn anyone into an anti-software-patent crusader.
    - mpeg 11y ago
      Maybe I'm not remembering it right, but when macs had one button only and no fancy trackpads, you could hold it to do a right click (you could also just ctrl+click)
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
bobbles 11y ago
A police/security style organisation uses their tech to bring together / search across multiple data points. It could be stuff like combining criminal records, speed cameras, CCTV records, etc into a single profile of a person. (as just an example) Very powerful when set up correctly.
poof131 11y ago
The main use case I’ve come across is network analysis. After awhile in Iraq, the military realized killing people planting roadside bombs was stupid and ineffective since these were low level individuals sometimes doing it just for money to feed their families. The main focus shifted to building up a picture of larger enemy networks so they could be taken down in a more holistic fashion. McCrystal built the fusion cell concept [1, 2], bringing in intelligence from multiple agencies to build target packs of people and networks for operators to take down. I’ve never used the software, but I believe a key use was to help various agencies surface connections in the troves of data to build these target packs. Later, someone from the McCrystal consulting group [3] said they had a former CIA analyst who used the software to find hidden connections between people in a company, to uncover and reward the critical individuals who get things done outside the normal organization hierarchy. So again, network analysis, but directed toward finding super star employees instead of terrorists. I’m sure the software is more general then this and has other multiple other use cases, but this is the best of my second hand knowledge and seems to go along with what others have linked to here describing a node and vertices analysis tool [1] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/05/AR2008090503933.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09... [2] http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a514114.pdf http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a514114.pdf [3] http://mcchrystalgroup.com/ http://mcchrystalgroup.com/

After all these years, I'm still not really sure what Palantir does exactly.

by eachro 11y ago

After all these years, I'm still not really sure what Palantir does exactly.

archmikhail 11y ago

My roommate interned there, and still had little idea what they do.

ryanSrich 11y ago
Same. I had a buddy that worked there a little while. Crazy good pay, but no transparency, tons of clearance required, etc. etc.
joering2 11y ago
That's due to a beautiful and evil thing called compartmentalization. Take 1,000 people have them all work on very tiny things this might serve as a flush lever, or an atomic bomb trigger.

capkutay 11y ago

They're basically a consulting company with in-house platforms for data management. You pay $100k+ per core pricing for their analytics platform, then you pay thousands more for implementation 'ninjas', consultants, training etc. It's a mix between a services and a technology company targeted at government accounts.

serge2k 11y ago
Reminds me of Oracle or IBM.
- akhilcacharya 11y ago
  Except they're pretty much completely staffed by Stanford, MIT, Harvard, (etc) grads.
  - dogma1138 11y ago
    When Oracle, SAP, and IBM used to rely heavily on professional service so were they.
anonu 11y ago
I'd add that they have really good visualization - which helps more as a marketing thing than anything else. The consultants drive the business...

colordrops 11y ago

CIA contractor. On a side note, they were involved with HB Gary in an attempt to infiltrate and destroy Wikileaks.

Apocryphon 11y ago
One wonders if they've got any NSA connections.
- cinquemb 11y ago
  Only if we got a chance to look at their emails à la Hacking team style… Maybe they'll be the first to join the 1TB+ data dump club to go along with all their rounds of funding ;)
FreakLegion 11y ago
See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7294743 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7294743 and Thomas' reply. That's the extent to which Palantir was "involved" with HBGary Federal. (And while it should go without saying, I'll say it anyway: There was no attempt to infiltrate and destroy Wikileaks. Just a lot of hairbrained talk.)
- joering2 11y ago
  I hate to be this guy, but "just a lot of hairbrained talk" is what puts people behind bars in America and all around the world, all around the clock. You don't need to carry out a crime to be convicted of a conspiracy to commit it, and as a result put in jail for a long time.
- colordrops 11y ago
  Why should it "go without saying"? Have the facts been laid out and proven in an exceptionally clear and public way? I don't think so. And "hairbrained" is an strange adjective to use for a company that is almost 100% engineers from top schools, pulling in a billion in funding, and working for the CIA. All I know is the contents of the leaked presentation that laid out the plans against Wikileaks. I will ignore any PR and damage control about "hairbrained talk".

rdtsc 11y ago

Sells crap to CIA. You have all these targets? OK, input that data in our system then we'll show you have they are connected by a graph, now pay us $10M.

throwaway122315 11y ago

It's funny, because every time someone posts a news article about Palantir, this is the top comment. And every time, the replies to that comment do a pretty good job describing what it is they do: * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10715856 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10715856 * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9942606 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9942606

ap22213 11y ago
It was helpful to read their own description: https://www.palantir.com/2007/12/what-do-we-do/ https://www.palantir.com/2007/12/what-do-we-do/ But, for me, it was even more helpful to look at their patents: http://patents.justia.com/assignee/palantir-technologies http://patents.justia.com/assignee/palantir-technologies
- o_nate 11y ago
  A patent for a long left-click to show a context menu when the right mouse button for some reason isn't available? Sheesh. Some of these are enough to turn anyone into an anti-software-patent crusader.
  - mpeg 11y ago
    Maybe I'm not remembering it right, but when macs had one button only and no fancy trackpads, you could hold it to do a right click (you could also just ctrl+click)

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

bobbles 11y ago

A police/security style organisation uses their tech to bring together / search across multiple data points. It could be stuff like combining criminal records, speed cameras, CCTV records, etc into a single profile of a person. (as just an example) Very powerful when set up correctly.

poof131 11y ago

The main use case I’ve come across is network analysis. After awhile in Iraq, the military realized killing people planting roadside bombs was stupid and ineffective since these were low level individuals sometimes doing it just for money to feed their families. The main focus shifted to building up a picture of larger enemy networks so they could be taken down in a more holistic fashion. McCrystal built the fusion cell concept [1, 2], bringing in intelligence from multiple agencies to build target packs of people and networks for operators to take down. I’ve never used the software, but I believe a key use was to help various agencies surface connections in the troves of data to build these target packs. Later, someone from the McCrystal consulting group [3] said they had a former CIA analyst who used the software to find hidden connections between people in a company, to uncover and reward the critical individuals who get things done outside the normal organization hierarchy. So again, network analysis, but directed toward finding super star employees instead of terrorists. I’m sure the software is more general then this and has other multiple other use cases, but this is the best of my second hand knowledge and seems to go along with what others have linked to here describing a node and vertices analysis tool [1] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/05/AR2008090503933.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09... [2] http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a514114.pdf http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a514114.pdf [3] http://mcchrystalgroup.com/ http://mcchrystalgroup.com/