I know how it seems at first but you should probably hear out his explanation. First I take it you accept the necessity of gathering intelligence and analyzing

I know how it seems at first but you should probably hear out his explanation. First I take it you accept the necessity of gathering intelligence and analyzing it i.e. You don't believe the world is a John Lennon song. He says that Palantir is a very targeted approach to surveillance. It was founded at a time when dragnet surveillance proposals were being thrown up. The 'greater good' in this sense is preventing a more Orwellian world by the method of being effective and flexible in a way that sprawling govcomplexes tend not to be. When Snowden came out Thiel was alongside Binney in criticizing the NSA for being overwhelmed in irrelevant data. The basic point they both make is that an effective government isn't a cruel one or has the potential to be less likely to cudgel large numbers of innocent people. No need to send the village to the gulag if one of them is the culprit.