5 ms·

What’s so special about Palantir? They seem to trade on this mystique of doing “secret government work” (spoiler alert most secret government work isn’t all tha

by JCM9 2y ago

What’s so special about Palantir? They seem to trade on this mystique of doing “secret government work” (spoiler alert most secret government work isn’t all that exiting). From what I’ve seen it’s fairly routing analytics and ML with a lot of humans deployed to deal with the usual messiness of any dataset. What am I missing?

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
melling 2y ago
Thanks for explaining that. I’m gonna leave it to you to figure out what you missed out on
jpgvm 2y ago
Nothing. It's a specialised body shop.
- Jerrrrrrry 2y ago
  We just uh, do business, yanno?
Cheer2171 2y ago
Palantir was created by the US intelligence community to be their vendor. Palantir's first VC investment (outside of Thiel's self fund) was literally the CIA, through its In-Q-Tel VC firm. Their moat is that they are trusted to do whatever you pay them to do and to not bite the hand that feeds them. And that if you're the kind of engineer to organize against a Project Maven, you really don't want to work for Peter Thiel.
- nova22033 2y ago
  https://thehustle.co/newsletters/%F0%9F%92%B3-how-paypal-fraud-made-palantir https://thehustle.co/newsletters/%F0%9F%92%B3-how-paypal-fra...
- smolder 2y ago
  In-Q-tel also had a hand in Facebook's rise. I remember being laughed at in about 2010 and called a conspiracy theorist for suggesting big tech was on intelligence agencies' leash, but it's pretty clearly true. Society is being shaped from the shadows. Edit: I overstated the first sentence. It wasn't In-Q-tel, just someone who might have been sympathetic.
  - zaptrem 2y ago
    This would have been interesting if true, but this other HN comment suggests it isn’t https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9374977 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9374977
    - smolder 2y ago
      They suggest the connection is tenuous, not that there is none. Though I'll admit that I [mis?]remembered it as being a little more direct than that.
      - sangnoir 2y ago
        You may have misremembered an old Onion News bit[1] about the CIA requesting congress to renew funding for its "'Facebook' program" 1. https://youtu.be/ZJ380SHZvYU https://youtu.be/ZJ380SHZvYU
        smolder 2y ago
        That was a good bit, but no, it was based on reporting about the connection mentioned in the link above, an investor having served on a board with CEO of In-Q-tel.
  - ben_w 2y ago
    > Society is being shaped from the shadows. Always; yet at the same time, because of those shadows, almost all specific claims of some specific face being spotted in those shadows isn't correct. Thiel personally, and the name "Palantir", gives off Bond Villain vibes (yes I know it's LOTR). How much of that is the actual threat, vs. an unmarked shipping crate owned on paper by "Dave's Shrimp Inc."?
uoaei 2y ago
Palantir's entire MO is to create a digital twin of the socioeconomic sphere of existence. This is what exists between the lines when they claim such success in finding ISIS operatives / sleeper cells.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
skybrian 2y ago
Here are some in-depth blog posts from ex-employees: https://sarahconstantin.substack.com/p/the-great-data-integration-schlep https://sarahconstantin.substack.com/p/the-great-data-integr... https://nabeelqu.substack.com/p/reflections-on-palantir https://nabeelqu.substack.com/p/reflections-on-palantir
anon-3988 2y ago
Isn't undercutting the current players already good enough reason to use their service?
EasyMark 2y ago
I think while lots of corps do business with the government and love the money, Palantir is next level and seems to be aimed completely at serving the government and especially intelligence communities as the go to, which means that if there is a swamp, there are in the most gassy part of the swamp, we are talking fartville, microbial smorgasbord indigestion version. That’s not a great way to have a healthy democracy; let the government do government stuff but mixing in too deep with corporations is another step to towards fascism and corruption.
ashoeafoot 2y ago
They have a complete actual model of human behavior and society, datamined from facebook, collected via "seeing stones" aka cell phones?
bigfatkitten 2y ago
That's pretty much what it is. Most of the humans are just doing ETL type work, and that's what you're paying for. The software itself isn't all that remarkable.

by JCM9 2y ago

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

melling 2y ago

Thanks for explaining that. I’m gonna leave it to you to figure out what you missed out on

jpgvm 2y ago

Nothing. It's a specialised body shop.

Jerrrrrrry 2y ago
We just uh, do business, yanno?

Cheer2171 2y ago

Palantir was created by the US intelligence community to be their vendor. Palantir's first VC investment (outside of Thiel's self fund) was literally the CIA, through its In-Q-Tel VC firm. Their moat is that they are trusted to do whatever you pay them to do and to not bite the hand that feeds them. And that if you're the kind of engineer to organize against a Project Maven, you really don't want to work for Peter Thiel.

nova22033 2y ago
https://thehustle.co/newsletters/%F0%9F%92%B3-how-paypal-fraud-made-palantir https://thehustle.co/newsletters/%F0%9F%92%B3-how-paypal-fra...
smolder 2y ago
In-Q-tel also had a hand in Facebook's rise. I remember being laughed at in about 2010 and called a conspiracy theorist for suggesting big tech was on intelligence agencies' leash, but it's pretty clearly true. Society is being shaped from the shadows. Edit: I overstated the first sentence. It wasn't In-Q-tel, just someone who might have been sympathetic.
- zaptrem 2y ago
  This would have been interesting if true, but this other HN comment suggests it isn’t https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9374977 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9374977
  - smolder 2y ago
    They suggest the connection is tenuous, not that there is none. Though I'll admit that I [mis?]remembered it as being a little more direct than that.
    - sangnoir 2y ago
      You may have misremembered an old Onion News bit[1] about the CIA requesting congress to renew funding for its "'Facebook' program" 1. https://youtu.be/ZJ380SHZvYU https://youtu.be/ZJ380SHZvYU
      - smolder 2y ago
        That was a good bit, but no, it was based on reporting about the connection mentioned in the link above, an investor having served on a board with CEO of In-Q-tel.
- ben_w 2y ago
  > Society is being shaped from the shadows. Always; yet at the same time, because of those shadows, almost all specific claims of some specific face being spotted in those shadows isn't correct. Thiel personally, and the name "Palantir", gives off Bond Villain vibes (yes I know it's LOTR). How much of that is the actual threat, vs. an unmarked shipping crate owned on paper by "Dave's Shrimp Inc."?

uoaei 2y ago

Palantir's entire MO is to create a digital twin of the socioeconomic sphere of existence. This is what exists between the lines when they claim such success in finding ISIS operatives / sleeper cells.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

skybrian 2y ago

Here are some in-depth blog posts from ex-employees: https://sarahconstantin.substack.com/p/the-great-data-integration-schlep https://sarahconstantin.substack.com/p/the-great-data-integr... https://nabeelqu.substack.com/p/reflections-on-palantir https://nabeelqu.substack.com/p/reflections-on-palantir

anon-3988 2y ago

Isn't undercutting the current players already good enough reason to use their service?

EasyMark 2y ago

I think while lots of corps do business with the government and love the money, Palantir is next level and seems to be aimed completely at serving the government and especially intelligence communities as the go to, which means that if there is a swamp, there are in the most gassy part of the swamp, we are talking fartville, microbial smorgasbord indigestion version. That’s not a great way to have a healthy democracy; let the government do government stuff but mixing in too deep with corporations is another step to towards fascism and corruption.

ashoeafoot 2y ago

They have a complete actual model of human behavior and society, datamined from facebook, collected via "seeing stones" aka cell phones?

bigfatkitten 2y ago

That's pretty much what it is. Most of the humans are just doing ETL type work, and that's what you're paying for. The software itself isn't all that remarkable.