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IBM is famous for charging people for the privilege of talking to them, even if you're trying to sell them something. This strategy makes sense if you consider
by stathibus 5y ago
IBM is famous for charging people for the privilege of talking to them, even if you're trying to sell them something.
This strategy makes sense if you consider that even in it's heyday Watson was 95% data science consulting firm and 5% actual valuable technology.
I really think Watson is one of the biggest tech marketing bamboozles of the 21st century. Through Jeopardy they really had a segment of the business world and the general public convinced that they had cracked AI, but behind the scenes it was all one-off custom solutions under one trademark.
- teawrecks 5y agoTo be fair, paying them for the privilege to sell them something makes more sense than the inverse.
- qaq 5y agoKindah like Palantir
- dr_dshiv 5y agoCan you expand?
- NicoJuicy 5y agoMany people think palantir cracked AI. While they are just using tensorflow and other things like anyone else. Additionally, large tech can't apply for defense contracts because of internal ethical concerns of employees. So the naritive remains.
- chelical 5y agoWho thinks that? I've never heard this. People thought Watson was a lot more capable than it actually was just because of the Jeopardy PR stunt. People outside tech were buzzing about IBM and Watson. In my experience, people outside tech barely know Palantir exists.
- NicoJuicy 5y agoA lot of retailers buying their stocks and blindly following people like Cathy Woods and random YouTubers. Not me, but i see some guys trying to spread that naritive.
- stathibus 5y ago"Just using tensorflow" is reductive. TF is a design tool, what matters is what you build with it.
- NicoJuicy 5y agoSure. But having 'cracked AI' means you are the innovator. Not just using the tools ( eg. Compare that with Google & AlphaGo ). We're not talking about the same things.
- fourthark 5y agoIt’s promoted as a complete system, but you end up paying them to build out the system to do whatever you wanted to do.
- dr_dshiv 5y agoRight, AI is just custom software, with people in the back to deal with edge cases?
- goatherders 5y agoIBM, Oracle, Panatir....in a lot of cases these are pro services companies that custom build whatever is needed. LOTS of money in enterprise application development.
- NicoJuicy 5y agoOracle is a expensive and "popular" database, IBM does many things ( eg. Quantum computers, ... ) Palantir is a consultancy body shop with a dashboard product and a probably good pipeline for merging data. ( Reference - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11646587 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11646587 ) Pure consultancy is rated much lower ( eg. Thoughtworks if you want a reference)
- ethbr0 5y agoConsultancy + adaptable software is a decent business model. Unfortunately "adaptable software" for {insert industry} is a really hard target to architect right. Especially when the majority of your tech headcount bills by the hour and gets paid to tell the customer "Yes."
- pmorici 5y agoThey are just a contracting company making money off billing the government hourly for their employees time. It’s a horrible business.
- civilized 5y agoSounds like an awesome business if you're getting the money.
- ashtonkem 5y agoA good deal if you can get it, but probably not the ideal outcome if you’re a citizen paying for it or dealing with systems engineered by them.
- pmorici 5y agoNot really assuming they are the prime contractor all the value is in the contracts and those are time limited before being re-competed lose all your contracts and your business value goes to zero because there is no IP like a Google or a Microsoft would have that is at the core of the value of the company.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- jelling 5y agoEhh...I get why tech people are suspect of Palantir but they're just disrupting other government contractors. And from my limited experience working with the government, they absolutely need / want / rely on having companies hold their hand as they insist on doing things the hard, slow, and very custom way.
- tsss 5y agoIt doesn't take much to disrupt a fax machine.
- edgyquant 5y agoDoesn’t this apply to most startups though? The core technical problems aren’t “hard” it’s that the industry involve can’t adapt due to inertia of entrenched companies.
- legerdemain 5y agoDisrupting? Their stock price has dropped by two thirds from its peak. They're probably looking to find a buyer at this point, such as IBM itself, while the leadership uses them as a stock-printing machine to enrich themselves.
- humaniania 5y agoBecause of Thiel's lack of ethics and his support for the political far right?
- dnautics 5y agoThe company is like a perfect storm of bad actors from horseshoe theory; The actual day to day CEO of palantir is Marxist theorist.
- meowface 5y ago>Karp has described himself as a socialist and a progressive, and said he voted for Hillary Clinton. In 2017, he was recorded during a Palantir company meeting claiming he turned down an invitation from President Trump, saying “I respect nothing about the dude.” >He has said that technology companies like Palantir have an obligation to support the U.S. military. He has defended Palantir's contract with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement during the controversy over family separations, saying that while separations are "a really tough, complex, jarring moral issue," he favors "a fair but rigorous immigration policy". He has said the U.S. government should have a strong hand in tech regulation and that western countries should dominate AI research. >Karp founded the London-based money management firm Caedmon Group. >In 2004, along with Peter Thiel (who had been a classmate at Stanford) and others, he co-founded Palantir as CEO. >He is described as a wellness fanatic who swims, skis cross country, practices Qigong meditation and martial arts, and keeps Tai Chi swords in his offices. He'd make for a good Silicon Valley or Black Mirror character.
- dpflan 5y agoDeep Blue preceded this. They had specialty equipment for crunching chess moves. Really excellent hype machine. I liked the documentary about it: https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0379296/ https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0379296/
- alar44 5y agoI don't see the problem here, that was literally the point. To build a chess computer.
- civilized 5y agoThat was the last time IBM was cool. That and it was cool when Watson won at Jeopardy.
- space_fountain 5y agoI think maybe the common problem is that there’s a hidden and false assumption that being good in one domain will transfer elsewhere, it doesn’t and didn’t
- mlindner 5y agoI think the above poster's point was that they think Watson's point was to build a Jeopardy machine (and hype).
- freewilly1040 5y agoThe Jeopardy thing was pretty brilliant in a sense - wrangling an episode of free advertising from one of the most popular game shows. A memorable episode at that!
- indigodaddy 5y agoWas Deep Blue/Watson basically the starting point of AI/ML, or had that already been happening earlier or concurrently?
- 5y ago
- bushbaba 5y agoWatson is one the greatest marketing achievements of the 21st century. It’s literally consulting with open source software. But they packaged it up in an attractive format that got them buzz. Imagine what that marketing team could do for a product that was able to half work!!!
- hef19898 5y ago>> even in it's heyday Watson was 95% data science consulting firm and 5% actual valuable technology So, like a lot of other AI and ML companies out there?
- Ultimatt 5y agoThey bamboozled no one who knew anything. Even the "sold off in parts" bit in the OP article title doesn't surprise anyone who knows what "Watson Health" means. It was never a platform just a bunch of disjoint garbage components. You couldn't sell the platform so now they're selling off the tools. Imagine a toolbox with a spade a fork lift and a soldering iron.
- conjectures 5y ago> I really think Watson is one of the biggest tech marketing bamboozles of the 21st century. The weird thing was that to anyone following ML this was detectable bs.