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What does Palintir even do? It seems that they have consultants (that they called forward deployed engineers for some reason) who go into military, police & en

by AJRF 6y ago

What does Palintir even do? It seems that they have consultants (that they called forward deployed engineers for some reason) who go into military, police & enterprise and set up some sort of bespoke data lake for all the docs and data flowing through the company. Then they give users a tool to do investigation of the data using a tool that lets them build causal links between documents or maybe entities is a better name? That seems useful - but the secrecy is weird. I saw some product videos from ages ago and it looked like software only an Enterprise could love. Looked incredibly slow, janky and overly complicated (I assume it's a convoluted interface so they can charge training fees!) Can anyone yay or nay me here - is this what they do?

paulgb 6y ago
I only know about as much as you do, but I interviewed with them ~7 years ago and played with the software a bit and from what I can tell you're spot on. My understanding is that they're basically a counterpart to the big data companies serving enterprise, except targeting the government/military space. They are obviously bound to secrecy as part of those projects, but it seems they lean in to the secrecy as a recruiting strategy because it's better to be mysterious than admit to candidates that they're a boring government contractor.
noch 6y ago
> Can anyone yay or nay me here - is this what they do? A summary/history: https://aletteraday.substack.com/p/letters-2930-palantir https://aletteraday.substack.com/p/letters-2930-palantir http://web.archive.org/web/20190724214959/http://www.socialcalculations.com/2015/08/a-pretty-complete-history-of-palantir.html http://web.archive.org/web/20190724214959/http://www.socialc... Joe Lonsdale, cofounder of Palantir, on what they built: https://www.quora.com/Did-Palantirs-founders-consider-the-ethical-implications-of-their-work-Do-they-have-thoughts-about-the-consequences-of-what-they-built https://www.quora.com/Did-Palantirs-founders-consider-the-et... Why did Peter Thiel and Joe Lonsdale found Palantir? https://www.quora.com/Why-did-Peter-Thiel-and-Joe-Lonsdale-found-Palantir https://www.quora.com/Why-did-Peter-Thiel-and-Joe-Lonsdale-f...
moandcompany 6y ago
My recollection may not be entirely up to date, but Palantir fielded two distinct product areas: what were previously called (1) "Metropolis" and (2) "Gotham"; the distinctive difference between the two were applications and context to (1) Financial Markets / Quantitative data and (2) "Intelligence" and other unstructured data. These have likely evolved. The "Intelligence" and other unstructured data area is the main place where Palantir is most known. It's useful to think of the Palantir company as a Systems Integrator in the classical sense known to the US Federal Government's DoD and Intelligence Communities, and other governmental entities at other levels (e.g. municipal/state). You can also think of them as technology consultants that integrate with customer missions to understand and provide mission-effective technology solutions. As a systems integrator, they aim to solve customer problems and provide technical solutions; the product can be considered to be parts of their software platform(s), new tools/additions/augmentations, professional services, and relationship/engagement management. Forward deployed engineers often act as consultants/systems/sales engineers to characterize customer needs and integrate Palantir platforms with customer systems, which often includes the need to write new code/adapters/interfaces; today, you might call them data engineers. Palantir also has"Software Engineers" that primarily work on the platform(s), rather than directly with customers. Regarding "evil/not-evil" and secrecy, etc. We're living in a very divided age where many people feel their cause is righteous and more just than others across the political spectrum. We're also seeing that people are too commonly painted as "evil" if they don't share viewpoints. The thematic mission of much of Palantir's work relates to matters including National security, etc, which their employees are proud to take part in and contribute. This is tied to the meaning of "Save the Shire," where Palantir employees believe in and do their part in the mission to preserve and do good, from their perspective. Lord of the Rings references are plentiful in this world, and Palantir employees have self-referred to themselves as the "Hobbits" working to "Save the Shire." One of Palantir's early investors was In-Q-Tel, and Peter Thiel. You'll see this theme present in other places involving In-Q-Tel (it's their purpose for existing), and Peter Thiel's other investments (e.g. Anduril Industries, which has many former-Palantir employees). Other interesting facts: Palantir was/is based out of Palo Alto, CA and occupies a large chunk of Palo Alto's commercial office real estate. It's main office once, or still does, occupy Facebook's former headquarters building, 100 Hamilton Ave, from its early days.
bengale 6y ago
Only thing I’ve ever seen from them is a super handy react component library.
- flanbiscuit 6y ago
  this one right? https://blueprintjs.com/ https://blueprintjs.com/ I had never heard of it before until very recently I saw it mentioned on reddit. It looks interesting
  - bengale 6y ago
    Yeah that’s the one. We make pretty extensive usage of it, it’s been great.
- aledalgrande 6y ago
  And TSLint https://github.com/palantir/tslint https://github.com/palantir/tslint

by AJRF 6y ago

paulgb 6y ago

I only know about as much as you do, but I interviewed with them ~7 years ago and played with the software a bit and from what I can tell you're spot on. My understanding is that they're basically a counterpart to the big data companies serving enterprise, except targeting the government/military space. They are obviously bound to secrecy as part of those projects, but it seems they lean in to the secrecy as a recruiting strategy because it's better to be mysterious than admit to candidates that they're a boring government contractor.

noch 6y ago

> Can anyone yay or nay me here - is this what they do? A summary/history: https://aletteraday.substack.com/p/letters-2930-palantir https://aletteraday.substack.com/p/letters-2930-palantir http://web.archive.org/web/20190724214959/http://www.socialcalculations.com/2015/08/a-pretty-complete-history-of-palantir.html http://web.archive.org/web/20190724214959/http://www.socialc... Joe Lonsdale, cofounder of Palantir, on what they built: https://www.quora.com/Did-Palantirs-founders-consider-the-ethical-implications-of-their-work-Do-they-have-thoughts-about-the-consequences-of-what-they-built https://www.quora.com/Did-Palantirs-founders-consider-the-et... Why did Peter Thiel and Joe Lonsdale found Palantir? https://www.quora.com/Why-did-Peter-Thiel-and-Joe-Lonsdale-found-Palantir https://www.quora.com/Why-did-Peter-Thiel-and-Joe-Lonsdale-f...

moandcompany 6y ago

My recollection may not be entirely up to date, but Palantir fielded two distinct product areas: what were previously called (1) "Metropolis" and (2) "Gotham"; the distinctive difference between the two were applications and context to (1) Financial Markets / Quantitative data and (2) "Intelligence" and other unstructured data. These have likely evolved. The "Intelligence" and other unstructured data area is the main place where Palantir is most known. It's useful to think of the Palantir company as a Systems Integrator in the classical sense known to the US Federal Government's DoD and Intelligence Communities, and other governmental entities at other levels (e.g. municipal/state). You can also think of them as technology consultants that integrate with customer missions to understand and provide mission-effective technology solutions. As a systems integrator, they aim to solve customer problems and provide technical solutions; the product can be considered to be parts of their software platform(s), new tools/additions/augmentations, professional services, and relationship/engagement management. Forward deployed engineers often act as consultants/systems/sales engineers to characterize customer needs and integrate Palantir platforms with customer systems, which often includes the need to write new code/adapters/interfaces; today, you might call them data engineers. Palantir also has"Software Engineers" that primarily work on the platform(s), rather than directly with customers. Regarding "evil/not-evil" and secrecy, etc. We're living in a very divided age where many people feel their cause is righteous and more just than others across the political spectrum. We're also seeing that people are too commonly painted as "evil" if they don't share viewpoints. The thematic mission of much of Palantir's work relates to matters including National security, etc, which their employees are proud to take part in and contribute. This is tied to the meaning of "Save the Shire," where Palantir employees believe in and do their part in the mission to preserve and do good, from their perspective. Lord of the Rings references are plentiful in this world, and Palantir employees have self-referred to themselves as the "Hobbits" working to "Save the Shire." One of Palantir's early investors was In-Q-Tel, and Peter Thiel. You'll see this theme present in other places involving In-Q-Tel (it's their purpose for existing), and Peter Thiel's other investments (e.g. Anduril Industries, which has many former-Palantir employees). Other interesting facts: Palantir was/is based out of Palo Alto, CA and occupies a large chunk of Palo Alto's commercial office real estate. It's main office once, or still does, occupy Facebook's former headquarters building, 100 Hamilton Ave, from its early days.

bengale 6y ago

Only thing I’ve ever seen from them is a super handy react component library.

flanbiscuit 6y ago
this one right? https://blueprintjs.com/ https://blueprintjs.com/ I had never heard of it before until very recently I saw it mentioned on reddit. It looks interesting
- bengale 6y ago
  Yeah that’s the one. We make pretty extensive usage of it, it’s been great.
aledalgrande 6y ago
And TSLint https://github.com/palantir/tslint https://github.com/palantir/tslint