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Isn't their entire business based on collecting, mining, and selling data to government intelligence agencies?

by ptmcc 6y ago

amathyst 6y ago
It’s not. They don’t have any data of their own. They offer a data integration platform and then a slate of apps on top of that platform for institutions to perform analysis on their own data. They do make a few plugins that mine social media and other “open” sources but have to do a funny ownership dance so it’s the institution that is breaching the TOS rather than them.
- NeutronStar 6y ago
  Ok, but the problem is aggregating all of the data under 1 platform. Whether you own the data or not isn't relevant when you still have access and show that data to your users.
- ptmcc 6y ago
  > a funny ownership dance Oh well ok then, they don't do any data collection or mining, they just sell the tools to empower three-letter agencies to do it more effectively. Conscience is clear then!
  - bhupy 6y ago
    Genuinely curious: at what point is it "okay" to create data analysis tools that might be used by 3-letter agencies? I imagine that before Palantir came around, the analysts at these agencies did what most other analysts anywhere do and used Excel to create sophisticated pivot tables when working on {insert defense operation}. Where does it stop being okay? To the extent that it even matters, Palantir appears to at least own up to the fact that they are used by governments.
    - sudosysgen 6y ago
      It stops being okay when the analysis tools are built specially for the 3 letter agencies instead of for another socially useful purpose.
      - bhupy 6y ago
        Per this S-1 filing, Palantir appears to be used by the private sector as well. > socially useful purpose Who decides what's "socially useful"?
        mrgordon 6y ago
        Their early investors were the CIA. I know the point you’re trying to make but Palantir isn’t really in the gray when they have been basically a branch of the spy agencies since the beginning
        bhupy 6y ago
        Sure, but their current operations appear to be more diversified than that -> https://www.palantir.com/solutions/ https://www.palantir.com/solutions/. Even per their S-1, their market sizing shows "Commercial" to be a substantial proportion of their aspirations: > Commercial. Our estimate of the TAM in the commercial sector is $56 billion. > Government. We estimate the TAM in the government sector, including government agencies in the United States, its allies, and in other countries abroad whose values align with liberal democracies, is $63 billion.
        mrgordon 6y ago
        Well sure they point to a theoretical market that’s big but it isn’t where their revenue comes from now > The company’s top three customers — which aren’t disclosed — together represented 28% of the company’s revenue for 2019. Its top twenty customers represented 67% of total revenues, with each one of those customers averaging $24.8 million in revenue. They admit they count every single government sub-agency as a different customer (their example is NIH and the CDC would count separately despite the same parent organization) so the top 25 is basically just governments. There is incredible revenue concentration there.
ideals 6y ago
Ya but those are "the good guys" so it's ok to spy on citizens. Quite the gulp of koolaid to swallow straight faced
jdc0589 6y ago
I would have assumed so...they acquired a couple companies that were building webscraping + data-extraction tech a few years back.
abeppu 6y ago
I think "mining" here is used rather carelessly. In the quote, I think he intends it to be read by a general audience as extracting data from some external source, akin to scraping, i.e. mining a source for data. Maybe they don't do that. But "data mining" is also a term for analysis which finds patterns or insights in a large dataset, i.e. data is the input from which more valuable results are filtered/composed/summarized. I thought Palantir was all about that.
- ptmcc 6y ago
  > But "data mining" is also a term for analysis which finds patterns or insights in a large dataset, i.e. data is the input from which more valuable results are filtered/composed/summarized. I thought Palantir was all about that. Indeed, that definition is definitely how I, and most tech-oriented folks I interact with, would define data mining. First and foremost. But as stated in a different comment thread above, they don't "do" data mining, they just sell data mining tools and how-to manuals! Totally not the same thing!

Isn't their entire business based on collecting, mining, and selling data to government intelligence agencies?

by ptmcc 6y ago

Isn't their entire business based on collecting, mining, and selling data to government intelligence agencies?

It’s not. They don’t have any data of their own. They offer a data integration platform and then a slate of apps on top of that platform for institutions to perform analysis on their own data. They do make a few plugins that mine social media and other “open” sources but have to do a funny ownership dance so it’s the institution that is breaching the TOS rather than them.

NeutronStar 6y ago
Ok, but the problem is aggregating all of the data under 1 platform. Whether you own the data or not isn't relevant when you still have access and show that data to your users.
ptmcc 6y ago
> a funny ownership dance Oh well ok then, they don't do any data collection or mining, they just sell the tools to empower three-letter agencies to do it more effectively. Conscience is clear then!
- bhupy 6y ago
  Genuinely curious: at what point is it "okay" to create data analysis tools that might be used by 3-letter agencies? I imagine that before Palantir came around, the analysts at these agencies did what most other analysts anywhere do and used Excel to create sophisticated pivot tables when working on {insert defense operation}. Where does it stop being okay? To the extent that it even matters, Palantir appears to at least own up to the fact that they are used by governments.
  - sudosysgen 6y ago
    It stops being okay when the analysis tools are built specially for the 3 letter agencies instead of for another socially useful purpose.
    - bhupy 6y ago
      Per this S-1 filing, Palantir appears to be used by the private sector as well. > socially useful purpose Who decides what's "socially useful"?
      - mrgordon 6y ago
        Their early investors were the CIA. I know the point you’re trying to make but Palantir isn’t really in the gray when they have been basically a branch of the spy agencies since the beginning
        bhupy 6y ago
        Sure, but their current operations appear to be more diversified than that -> https://www.palantir.com/solutions/ https://www.palantir.com/solutions/. Even per their S-1, their market sizing shows "Commercial" to be a substantial proportion of their aspirations: > Commercial. Our estimate of the TAM in the commercial sector is $56 billion. > Government. We estimate the TAM in the government sector, including government agencies in the United States, its allies, and in other countries abroad whose values align with liberal democracies, is $63 billion.
        mrgordon 6y ago
        Well sure they point to a theoretical market that’s big but it isn’t where their revenue comes from now > The company’s top three customers — which aren’t disclosed — together represented 28% of the company’s revenue for 2019. Its top twenty customers represented 67% of total revenues, with each one of those customers averaging $24.8 million in revenue. They admit they count every single government sub-agency as a different customer (their example is NIH and the CDC would count separately despite the same parent organization) so the top 25 is basically just governments. There is incredible revenue concentration there.

ideals 6y ago

Ya but those are "the good guys" so it's ok to spy on citizens. Quite the gulp of koolaid to swallow straight faced

jdc0589 6y ago

I would have assumed so...they acquired a couple companies that were building webscraping + data-extraction tech a few years back.

abeppu 6y ago

I think "mining" here is used rather carelessly. In the quote, I think he intends it to be read by a general audience as extracting data from some external source, akin to scraping, i.e. mining a source for data. Maybe they don't do that. But "data mining" is also a term for analysis which finds patterns or insights in a large dataset, i.e. data is the input from which more valuable results are filtered/composed/summarized. I thought Palantir was all about that.

ptmcc 6y ago
> But "data mining" is also a term for analysis which finds patterns or insights in a large dataset, i.e. data is the input from which more valuable results are filtered/composed/summarized. I thought Palantir was all about that. Indeed, that definition is definitely how I, and most tech-oriented folks I interact with, would define data mining. First and foremost. But as stated in a different comment thread above, they don't "do" data mining, they just sell data mining tools and how-to manuals! Totally not the same thing!