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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, t

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."?
  - odyssey7 2y ago
    The unmarked crate can blow up and destroy individual people. A secretive governing process can overstep, undermining democracy or subverting constitutional rights. If the crate blows up, generally the public will know about it. If important calls are made without public oversight, then the public won’t know about them. This might deprive the electorate of a chance to shape those processes democratically or to go through the courts, where their rights could be defended or where they could be compensated for harms. Fortunately, I can’t think of any examples of when secretive organizational processes have harbored abusive dynamics. Not even in more mundane organizations with far less authority, like the Boy Scouts of America. Public officials and their reports can always be trusted to do the right thing, so public oversight is never necessary.
    - ben_w 2y ago
      I think we're on the same page on what's bad with secretive stuff. Given that the opponents of your government can use the same information as the general public to determine the blind spots of your intelligence agencies, I'm not sure what to do about that, though I am hopeful that we're rapidly approaching the point where any motivated teenager can sucessfully spy on a government and at that point there's much less benefit for agencies to be secretive. I hope. But all that aside, my point was that conspiracy theories are often wrong even when there's an actual conspiracy in the same general area.
- FooBarBizBazz 2y ago
  Likewise, In-Q-tel the reason Google Earth and hence Maps exist.
  - ToucanLoucan 2y ago
    Almost every notable technology has it's roots in intelligence or defense, because government grants for projects as such has been the dominant way tech has been built. Corporations have their use, but predominantly, they're corner cutters[1]. Their function is to chase higher profits by reducing costs. This is not a skillset with no value; it's why you can now get an 85" television for less than the cost of a mid-range laptop; but it does mean that their capacity for innovation is inherently limited. The way this always worked was the government would sponsor research into new tech, get it and use it, and then the patents and licenses would be disseminated into the private sector and be re-packaged as products. Think of the first iPhone; the LCD screen was a result of DARPA projects looking to reduce the beefy CRT displays to something more usable in vehicles and aircraft; the multi-touch screen was developed by CERN; the GPS system was originally conceived to track deployed materiel in warzones, etc. That doesn't mean Apple did no work of course, combining all of these things is no trivial matter. I'm just saying that most tech has it's roots in defense/intel grants that fund the research, because building new technology is fucking expensive and most corporations won't do it because it's terrible ROI. Edit: I remembered the note I wanted to add for corner cutters: [1]: The primary exception being a corporation that does not yet need to make profits, which is where you find investor-funded startups and incubator arrangements like Google had during their early time.
    - handfuloflight 2y ago
      Are there books or resources that examine these connections for contemporary technology in depth?

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."?
- odyssey7 2y ago
  The unmarked crate can blow up and destroy individual people. A secretive governing process can overstep, undermining democracy or subverting constitutional rights. If the crate blows up, generally the public will know about it. If important calls are made without public oversight, then the public won’t know about them. This might deprive the electorate of a chance to shape those processes democratically or to go through the courts, where their rights could be defended or where they could be compensated for harms. Fortunately, I can’t think of any examples of when secretive organizational processes have harbored abusive dynamics. Not even in more mundane organizations with far less authority, like the Boy Scouts of America. Public officials and their reports can always be trusted to do the right thing, so public oversight is never necessary.
  - ben_w 2y ago
    I think we're on the same page on what's bad with secretive stuff. Given that the opponents of your government can use the same information as the general public to determine the blind spots of your intelligence agencies, I'm not sure what to do about that, though I am hopeful that we're rapidly approaching the point where any motivated teenager can sucessfully spy on a government and at that point there's much less benefit for agencies to be secretive. I hope. But all that aside, my point was that conspiracy theories are often wrong even when there's an actual conspiracy in the same general area.
FooBarBizBazz 2y ago
Likewise, In-Q-tel the reason Google Earth and hence Maps exist.
- ToucanLoucan 2y ago
  Almost every notable technology has it's roots in intelligence or defense, because government grants for projects as such has been the dominant way tech has been built. Corporations have their use, but predominantly, they're corner cutters[1]. Their function is to chase higher profits by reducing costs. This is not a skillset with no value; it's why you can now get an 85" television for less than the cost of a mid-range laptop; but it does mean that their capacity for innovation is inherently limited. The way this always worked was the government would sponsor research into new tech, get it and use it, and then the patents and licenses would be disseminated into the private sector and be re-packaged as products. Think of the first iPhone; the LCD screen was a result of DARPA projects looking to reduce the beefy CRT displays to something more usable in vehicles and aircraft; the multi-touch screen was developed by CERN; the GPS system was originally conceived to track deployed materiel in warzones, etc. That doesn't mean Apple did no work of course, combining all of these things is no trivial matter. I'm just saying that most tech has it's roots in defense/intel grants that fund the research, because building new technology is fucking expensive and most corporations won't do it because it's terrible ROI. Edit: I remembered the note I wanted to add for corner cutters: [1]: The primary exception being a corporation that does not yet need to make profits, which is where you find investor-funded startups and incubator arrangements like Google had during their early time.
  - handfuloflight 2y ago
    Are there books or resources that examine these connections for contemporary technology in depth?