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NYPD is canceling its Palantir contract
- jacquesm 9y agoAt least the software ran on premises of the NYPD. There are many deals with governments where data gets pumped back-and-forth with external parties doing the analysis on their infrastructure.
- tyingq 9y agoNYPD gets their source data, but not the algorithm. Hard to say if that's unfair without knowing the nature of the contract. It's certainly not unusual to sell analysis without selling the "exactly how".
- kirillzubovsky 9y agoDefinitely makes sense, especially if NYPD contracted with some firm to replace Palantir, and now wants the algorithm because that's the hard part to copy. Obviously the methods by which they are able to process information is the reason governments pay them big bucks.
- joering2 9y agoNo its not the algorithm, its an untamed firehouse access to Facebook data, all of it - not only what you see upfront, photos lead, or what marketers can target. It goes much much deeper than that. Its a well-known secret that only Palantir has this type of contract signed with Facebook. A funny insiders anecdote is that some people joke about how this agreement is being signed: left side: By Board Member of Facebook: Peter Thiel. right side: By Board Member of Palantir: Peter Thiel. This ability to query Facebook data anyway they want to is what gives Palantir competitive age. Tech stack is irrelevant; you might as well run it from a MS Access 2005, and you would still find clients, because they don't buy technology, but the result of crunching of data (well maybe something that hold more rows though) Those who knows beginning of Palantir from a cocktail napkin times know it was a perfect asnwer to a question how to use FB data and make extra extra money. They's how Palantir was born. Anyways, what most likely happened is that NYPD got enough of solid information on this and probably is questioning legality of pulling data from FB by Palantir without violating whole set of rules, laws, and US Constitution as well; hence they decided to stop before they may become part of a bigger lawsuit.
- aaaaaabbbbbbb 9y agoThis is entirely fiction.
- joering2 9y agoOf course. A guy with karma score 1 would know. And NSA spying if entirely fiction too!
- matt_kantor 9y agoGot any evidence?
- joering2 9y agoare you stupid or something??
- d4rti 9y agoI'm reading it as they want the transformed output, not the algorithms themselves.
- nl 9y agoWith no technical details it's hard to know what is going on. "Analysis" can mean many things, and sometimes one person's open analysis data is another's proprietary visualisation.
- bra-ket 9y agomost likely this has nothing to do with tech, simply IBM sales guys are better at NYPD politics
- tyingq 9y agoThe article says NYPD did the development. "group of IBM products tied together with NYPD-created software"
- gogopuppygogo 9y agoThe same NYPD that uses typewriters? http://gizmodo.com/its-completely-absurd-that-the-police-still-use-typewri-1688222225 http://gizmodo.com/its-completely-absurd-that-the-police-sti... I wonder if Palantir ran screaming from this deal. It seems more like an IBM deal when you start talking typewriters.
- Spooky23 9y agoSmells like Watson came to town.
- nl 9y agoThis is Analyst's Notebook, plus other things (some of them maybe branded as Watson)
- kodablah 9y agoIn PR speak, that can just be some big data reports/structures they visually built in Cognos
- linkregister 9y ago
- jimjimjim 9y agoi have no love for palantir and java makes me slightly sick but a lot of comments here are of the type "they use java, that's ancient, blah blah". although they are in sv they are NOT a "start-up". They are an old-school government/3-letter-acronym IT supply/service company, think IBM and SAP. In this environment, there is a good chance their customers may be using ie6. java is what their market expects not what-has-the-cat-dragged-in-now-js framework.
- krona 9y agoEveryone is focusing on Palantir. As someone who knows how much IBM has thrown at this over the past 2 years, it's really IBM and their historically strong relationship with the NYPD that is the real (but far more mundane) story. Ultimately, if you piss off the IBM execs enough (which is what Palantir is exceptionally good at), then IBM will mobilize a significant chunk of the company to obliterate anything in its wake. Even if that means making a huge loss. They then try to use that win as a template for future success. Unfortunately IBM is incapable at that since the harsh reality is its software division is just a bunch of incoherent acquisitions who can't generally collaborate.
- x3c 9y agoWhat's the beef between IBM & Palantir?
- ryan-c 9y agoIBM is competing with Palantir via a product called Analyst's Notebook, which they bought from a company called i2 a while back. Prior to the buyout, i2 sued Palantir over how Palantir's "import from Analyst's Notebook" functionality had been implemented. It's entirely possible that there are other things going on between Palantir and IBM, but I'm not aware of any other specific squabbles. Disclosure: I worked at Palantir from mid 2009 to early 2014 and still own some stock.
- bane 9y agoTo be clear, the suit that i2 filed alleged that Palantir stole trade secrets and requested that the suit move forward under RICO law (an anti-Racketeering law meant to fight organized crime). The judge agreed and Palantir settled almost immediately after. i2 then sold to IBM almost immediately after that. The employees on Palantir's side who were involved also kept their jobs. That sends a really powerful message about who they are. https://www.scribd.com/doc/36371667/i2-v-palantir-080910 https://www.scribd.com/doc/36371667/i2-v-palantir-080910
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- fensipens 9y ago> Big data helped New York's cops bust Bobby Shmurda So glad Palantir helped getting Bobby Shmurda (best known for Shmoney Dance) off the streets.
- tp3z4u 9y agoWouldn't it be hilarious if their secret sauce analysis turns out to be a secret backchannel to the CIA/NSA and not some fancy algorithm.
- jacquesm 9y agoYou'd hope the NYPD knows how to set up a firewall and how to detect data exfiltration at that scale.
- tp3z4u 9y agoBy backchannel I meant via people. As in the Palantir analyst calls up their friends at the CIA/NSA for help. CIA/NSA data collection remains secret, Palantir justify their expense, and NYPD find the guy. The problem is that you can't reproduce your results. The other problem is the erosion of civil liberties - but I'm only speculating with a thought experiment.
- quickthrower 9y agoThat would be a camera obscura. (As opposed to a PRISM)
- JBReefer 9y agoI'm not sure why you'd assume that, the NYPD certainly has a history of bravery but not one of technical competence.
- jasonkolb 9y agoDon't know why you're being downvoted for this, it's actually pretty smart. Like leaking an unsubstantiated rumor to a reporter but probably with more legal ramifications.
- pessimizer 9y agoHacker News buys into Palantir. edit: generally... but this thread is actually getting pretty vicious.
- kelukelugames 9y agoHow does buzzfeed get the scoop on this? I didn't know they did tech reporting.
- Mutinix 9y agoBuzzFeed News is very good. The money they make from monetizing their meme-y content helps with their journalism.
- curiousDog 9y agoThey were the first ones to break news on how Palantir was in trouble and failing a while back as well.
- kornish 9y agoBuzzfeed is actually growing a pretty legitimate and respectable journalism brand, subsidized by the clickbait ad-heavy content for which they're best known.
- kelukelugames 9y agohttps://www.buzzfeed.com/tech https://www.buzzfeed.com/tech I went there to check it out but all of the titles are click bait.
- jitl 9y agoThe author of this article (William Alden) writes consistently negative headlines about two companies: Palantir and Uber. That’s his beat at Buzzfeed. https://www.buzzfeed.com/williamalden https://www.buzzfeed.com/williamalden
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- avs733 9y agoAre you saying he is unfairly negative or that there are so many such stories that it is a full time job?
- svendisnigh 9y agoPalantir has an outdated software stack (Java/Swing). Their genius lied in creating "mythical image" and cleverly overselling it to the less proficient government agencies (apparently NSA was smart enough to see through the ruse). And then in turn sell the "spooky/mysterious" image to bunch of naive Stanford/Berkeley undergrads and convince them to work for peanuts. Sadly in 2017, their tech stack is falling apart, they have no meaningful ML/AI strategy, the agencies/corporation cannot be fooled any longer, and employees have suddenly realized that the stock (without an IPO in sight) might be worthless and have begun leaving. Finally the political environment along association with Thiel isn't helping them make any new friends. Having known several people who work or were hired at Palantir, I can assure you it probably has the worst overconfident brogrammer culture. So much so that I truly hope no US government agency is using them for critical functions because its nothing more than hot air.
- jee_accnt 9y agoYou make it sound like they are not providing any real value, but Palantir has lead to multiple arrests, and some claim, even helped in finding Osama. The complain seems to be that they are overpriced, not useless. Also, there is nothing wrong with a Java/Swing backend. Its not cool, but any company handling that amount of sensitive data will not use a 'cool' stack.
- nulldev 9y ago> I can assure you it probably has the worst overconfident brogrammer culture Everyone I know at Palantir has at one point or another mentioned to me (boasted about?) how difficult it is to get a job at Palantir. Sample size < 5, but I'm starting to think this isn't a coincidence.
- joelthelion 9y ago> Palantir has an outdated software stack (Java/Swing). How is that supposed to be even vaguely relevant? Palantir sells intelligence, not hip-compliant software.
- phreeza 9y ago> Their genius lied in creating "mythical image" and cleverly overselling it to the less proficient government agencies (apparently NSA was smart enough to see through the ruse). A trick now being repeated by Cambridge Analytica. The press eat up the story of "Big Data stole the election", and they do their part acting a bit dodgy, and presto they have that reputation and are probably getting buried in cash. Nobody wants to admit working with them so if they fail to fulfill their promise, nobody finds out. If they do end up on the winning side, the collaboration gets "leaked"... https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/06/us/politics/cambridge-analytica.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/06/us/politics/cambridge-ana...
- kendallpark 9y ago> The department has created a new system to replace Palantir. > The new system, named Cobalt, is a group of IBM products tied together with NYPD-created software. You really have to wonder about the quality of this internal product. From what I've gleaned about Palantir over the years, they supposedly have one of the hardest dev interview processes. People that work there are on top of their game. My gut feel is that NYPD does not have as robust of an internal dev situation. Or perhaps they shopped it out to contractors? Either way... skeptical that the system is better. But who knows! It's possible the subset of features a police department actually needs from Palantir might be much smaller than the feature set they're paying for (and not too hard to construct themselves). Whatever is going on, it's clearly a cost-benefit issue. Although, if they're fighting for Palantir's analysis, it seems they need something that Palantir does that they can't do themselves from the data. There really isn't much one can conclude from this article. Only speculation. EDIT: From responses on this thread it seems that the "hardcore super secret analysis" image Palantir promotes might be more bark than bite. What if NYPD actually did create something better? Intriguing.
- svendisnigh 9y agoAnyone can have hardest dev interview process, but that's a poor measure of ability to develop software. Palantir is just another Theranos in disguise, it essentially sells an under-performing graph database with outdated visualization tools while making money providing consulting services using "Forward Deployed (OMG!! You mean like soldiers! /s) Software Engineers".
- freehunter 9y agoOften a hard dev interview process is designed to week out undesirable employees, like ones who will demand vacation, time off, normal working hours, etc. I interviewed at a software place in a big engineering college town and their interview was built like a college exam and asked questions that senior-level students would know, but you'd have forgotten within a few years because you'd never use that information in the real world. It was obvious they wanted to hire people who are used to sleeping in dorms/libraries/desks, used to staying up all night, motivated by an authority figure telling them something is important, people who didn't have families or high expectation on salaries. You know: college students. It's a hard interview for us because it's built like a college exam, and how many years has it been since we've taken a college exam? But their target audience, well they just finished midterms.
- bane 9y agoConjecture? Palantir is known to be rabidly expensive. The available information on the internet and from people I know who've encountered the technology directly describe their "product" as a mix of a very outdated tech stack and expensive integration services with expensive on-site support [1] My guess is that the NYPD did an analysis of the life-cycle cost of the system over another contract period, and probably determined they could do something cheaper some other way. Since they've built another system based on a competitor's technology (with some special home rolled glue sauce) they're obviously getting some benefit from the basic approach, but given a choice of close enough tech and more badges or the status-quo they've decided to move forward. 1 - I've basically heard their software described as a big graph backend with a document store and an ancient Java client for mucking around with the graph. Most of their tech has been subsumed by very free and highly scalable technologies. The most recent video shows a just normal run-of-the-mill web app any decent team of 3 or 4 good web devs could crank out in a few weeks. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFF4gN56Bhg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFF4gN56Bhg They actually don't have any video up of anything recent that actually really shows their core product. The video here shows a java client https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5OYy_UtINo4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5OYy_UtINo4 but it's from 2015. Kind of a shame considering how much money and talent they've vacuumed out of the market. If I'm right, it's amazing for IBM to actually come in at a lower price than some competitor.
- mc32 9y agoI have one question, will the new NYPD in-house developers be union or not? It'd be interesting if they were union just to see how that works, for better or for worse.
- paulddraper 9y agoI wasn't aware of any unions with software engineers. Are you?
- mc32 9y agoI also am not aware, but given this is the NYPD, isn't there an opportunity for the developers to become unionized? And I wonder, the software developers for the larger trade unions, do they get under the union umbrella or do they get the short shrift form the unions they would work for?
- CRUDmeariver 9y agoI was talking to someone recently that had worked there and they said the first step for integrating with any client is to convert their data into a proprietary format called PXML, which I assume is XML with the added feature of vendor lock-in.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- kirillzubovsky 9y agoInteresting the aim at Palantir's supposedly bad Java stack. It might be uncool, and even bad from the programmer's POV, but many government agencies have regulations that actually prevent them from using "cool" technology. I know of orgs settling gov-nt and medical software, for example, and they use Java and .Net because those things are easy to sell. Doing anything in Ruby requires jumping through a thousand additional hoops. EOD, the language for them is just best business decision.
- seekinglegal 9y agoI am seeking legal help as a result of being targeted by Palantir. I am a US citizen. Please follow me on twitter if you can provide this help: @000fault
- osrec 9y agoI remember a friend of mine interviewing there. He was flown from London to SF for the interview. He got through the technical questions fairly easily. At the end, he had an interview with one of the co-founders, who asked him "As an FDE, what do you think your role is?". My friend totally BS'd his way through the response, thinking he's messed up the interview. The founder however ate up everything he said, and added his own flavor of fluff to the conversation. That's when he realised that Palantir was not really selling software, as they originally made out, but consulting, much like Accenture or McKinsey. Needless to say, he was truly disappointed by the experience - Palantir was quite simply not what it was made out to be.
- ng12 9y agoTo be fair that's how the game is played. You can't get in the door at a government agency or Fortune 500 company without offering support staff.
- mathperson 9y ago"That's when he realised that Palantir was not really selling software, as they originally made out, but consulting, much like Accenture or McKinsey." I think they do both?
- praulv 9y agoI can't quite place them. On the one hand I don't see what their product offers that existing BI dashboard tools such as Tableau can't deal with. On the other hand, 2 of my former, incredibly smart, non-douchey, genuine, down to earth colleagues (both non-white male if it matters) work for them so I'd question the brogrammer stereotype as I doubt they'd stick around if they were feeling out of place.
- eeZah7Ux 9y agoA hundred comments criticizing the software stack and nobody discussing the ethical concerns around the product. Perhaps the discussion around rugged individualism in the current thread about poverty are accurate.
- jarym 9y agoWhen was the last time you heard a set of patched together IBM software being 'intuitive', let alone 'more intuitive' than Palantir's built-for-purpose product? I'm experienced with both IBM software and Palantir and I am truly surprised by that bit in the article - imo IBM haven't put out anything intuitive since OS/2!
- mola 9y agoHad a really bad experience at a palantir recruiting event. First, i got an unsolicited email all black and mysterious. Annoying. When I got there I felt nauseous. They actually employed a bunch of good looking women to talk with us techies. So demeaning for all parties involved. I drank their cocktails and ran away.
- jKoTc 9y agoHave you ever considered that good-looking women can also be techies?
- throwaway201707 9y agoHave any of the big Palantir critics on here actually used their software for anything? Because compared to the usual fare of craptastic trashware that passes for "software" at NYPD, I can assure you that Palantir is excellent. Even the old Java/Swing installation still being used there is a godsend (though Palantir has moved on to a more modern UI in their current versions). It is (or was, I suppose) the most flexible investigative platform in that place. The real issue at hand is internal politics. Tech at NYPD is run by a lawyer with little law experience and no technology chops who attained the position due to nepotism (daddy is rich and a huge contributor to the NYC police foundation). Coupled with brass who have zero understanding of technology and an aggressive IBM sales team, you get the result outlined in this news article.
- will4274 9y agoThe NYPD, which can't even successful migrate off of WinXP is going to build an in house product tying together a bunch of IBM products??