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Reflections on Palantir
- maeil 2y agoDupe https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41855006 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41855006
- kgujdtjof 2y agoTypical comm FDE, right down to the stint at Airbus. He’s fully internalized Shyam’s why do we even need devs attitude, not realizing it’s only one side of a dialectic. Hint: there’s a reason he isn’t CEO.
- Lrhagz15 2y agoIt is relevant again, because one would like to know whether DOGE will install this in the US government. As for the article, I find it hard to understand what Palantir is actually doing. The article uses Airbus as an example, which ordered some kind of a software system for coordinating manufacturing. The article claims: "This ended up helping to drive the A350 manufacturing surge and successfully 4x’ing the pace of manufacturing while keeping Airbus’s high standards of quality." I find this extremely hard to believe. The A350 isn't the first aircraft that Airbus has built. I'm also skeptical on European reliance on deep state related companies. It is enough that Airbus already uses Google for mail handling (industrial espionage?). Given that the US is now officially a potential EU enemy with territorial aspirations in Greenland, these things have to stop for our national security.
- oncallthrow 2y ago> Given that the US is now officially a potential EU enemy This is absolutely delusional
- timeon 2y agoHow is it delusional when US wants to have trade war with EU, and now there is also this territorial dispute?
- arccy 2y agotariffs, sale restrictions, trade wars
- SmirkingRevenge 2y agoAdd threatening territorial annexation of a NATO ally to the list
- alistairSH 2y agoYou would think so, but it’s a clearly stated goal of the new POTUS. So here we are.
- Apocryphon 2y agoThe Danes sure are taking the Greenland demands seriously
- watwut 2y agoHe literally threatens to take away territory from an EU country.
- yffh86g 2y agoAirbus ex CEO and COO who was supposed to become CEO left (or got kicked out depending on who tells that story). One ended up joining Palintir EU and the other ended up joining the EU attempt at Palantir - Helsing.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- mikhailfranco 2y agoBy far the best summary of Palantir from the inside. Yes, Karp is clearly... hmmm eccentric. Yes, Shyam is the golden anchor of the engineering culture. He's a tremendously inspiring influence, often overlooked by outside commentators.
- rokkamokka 2y agoI watched a video recently that briefly mentions Palantir, though only in passing. I only recall this because the video had some incredibly alarming tidbits about billionaires stating their goals of "corporation states" unironically https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RpPTRcz1no https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RpPTRcz1no
- supplemental 2y agoInteresting article. I find it interesting that they recommended a book about acting to their employees. The book is called "Impro".
- twobitshifter 2y agoIs it wrong to say that they are developing sociopaths in this fashion? Anyone ever read the book to say how it is applicable? If you were a client how would you feel about knowing that your interactions with your consultant were all an act? “Being a successful FDE required an unusual sensitivity to social context – what you really had to do was partner with your corporate (or government) counterparts at the highest level and gain their trust, which often required playing political games.”
- borski 2y agoYes, it’s wrong, because it isn’t an act. Improv isn’t about being fake or acting/lying.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- mingus88 2y agoIt’s very wrong. Improv requires empathy and awareness of the person you are in a scene with. The dark triad personality traits are defined by an explicit lack of empathy and ability to connect with other people
- mikhailfranco 2y agoIt's not about well-rehearsed acting to bluff clients (like conventional management consultants). Impro is about improvisation: having a deep reservoir of experiences and reference points, but no pre-planned templates; empathizing with the client's situation; thinking fast; being open-minded and creative; challenging received wisdom; pulling disparate ideas together; assembling a synthesis; embodying a story; imagining a solution; presenting difficult concepts smoothly; having conviction in your ideas; high risk tolerance; be convincing; be committed to doing what you say and implement what you imagine; create a technical solution, an operational scenario, a bottom-up deployment plan, and a path to win strategic acceptance based on results.
- firesteelrain 2y agoI got Severance vibes from this blog about Palantir. But it sounds like they are a consulting company and a sort of ConnectAll (for those who use Jira, Rhapsody, DOORS, etc).
- mikhailfranco 2y agoYou are describing GOFSI - Good Old Fashioned System Integration. I promise you Palantir does not use UML or Rhapsody, and would not recognize DOORS if they slammed in its face. GOFSI: "There are decades when nothing happens" Palantir: "There are weeks when decades happen"
- firesteelrain 2y agoSorry I didn’t mean to imply that they use standard systems engineering practices or tools. I was equating their data integration efforts like that ConnectAll tool you can buy.
- noch 2y ago> I got Severance vibes from this blog about Palantir. If our most immediate means of understanding the world are by relating it to fiction rather than history then it's likely we have a poor understanding of the world and reality.
- madeofpalk 2y agoNo? What do you think the point of fiction often is? Finding similarities between Severance and the real world (and vice versa) is the whole point of that work of fiction.
- noch 2y ago> What do you think the point of fiction often is? Fiction is not obligated to reveal anything about reality. Mainly it's escapist. But I'm not trying to have some big debate. Clearly you're passionate in your belief. Ultimately, how to understand the world is something one figures out with life experience and time at which point history becomes your best source of instruction. When you're young it may seem to make sense to get your morality from Harry Potter and Star Wars. But that's usually just availability bias and the fact that fiction is easy to consume. But then you discover that the map is not the territory, sometimes that discovery is painful or brutal or destructive and the consequences of having misunderstood the world are permanent for you and those around you. Anyway, not an argument. I'm not trying to convince anyone of anything, merely pointing a fact about competence in understanding the world.
- harimau777 2y agoIt feels like the moral section ignores the elephant in the room which is Peter Thiel's hostility to democracy and the more general far right swing in America. There's a difference between working on morally gray tech during normal times versus during times when there is every reason to believe that it WILL be significantly misused.
- ashoeafoot 2y agoThat elephant in the room, is what they have found in our data, that shifted them into that direction . Maybe if you have humanity under the sql microscope and ask it ugly questions ,without the usual self-serenading , maybe what you find is really ugly, unable to sustain democracy or free market capitalism . And maybe tech can not save us. Maybe tech only raises the stakes, for that final nuclear exchange between decayed warrior cults.
- madeofpalk 2y agoI wish the morality section were more direct - either admitting that the author has no issue with "grey areas" (a euphemism if I've ever seen one) or that money outweighs their moral concerns. That would feel more intellectually honest. When it comes to the morality of work, I think it's okay to be selfish with your ideals - whether that means prioritizing money over ethics or refusing to engage with something that conflicts with your values, regardless of your actual personal impact. I have no problem accepting that it's not my responsibility to make ICE more ethical.
- ryandrake 2y agoA lot of technical people seem to have no trouble with casually glossing over the ethics and morality of what they work on. Even here on HN, I regularly get downvotes for suggesting maybe developers should have some kind of ethical baseline below which they will refuse projects. Nope. Technical complexity, challenge, opportunity to learn a new technology, opportunity to do cutting edge research, and of course a fat stack of stock... all of these things routinely help us to justify working on the Torment Nexus. "Oh, I'm just moving protobufs around, I'm not the one doing evil with them" they will say. Or, instead, you'll see the justification: "Hey, I have five kids to feed. I can't just quit my job! Gotta do what boss tells me to do." This is how we slowly ended up where we are today with surveillance everywhere and coercion and behavior modification built into every tech product.
- akudha 2y agoMaybe I feel this way because I am not a smart human, but why is being intelligent so important, at the cost of being kind, ethical etc? What is so special about Peter Theil’s philosophy if that man is part of the billionaire club who are using their money to make most people’s life miserable? And how can people who read philosophy in their evenings (mentioned in the article) justify the work they do during the day? I honestly do not understand why companies like Palantir and people like Theil are admired, respected etc
- borski 2y agoThe thrill of working with and being surrounded by brilliant people who are breaking new ground and building things that people really find useful is a hell of a drug. It doesn’t require a megalomaniac at the helm. It just often happens that way.
- kjkjadksj 2y agoThere are so many avenues to do that today that don’t involve working to advance the coming dystopia.
- borski 2y agoI don’t disagree. I was explaining why one might want to. The “electricity” in the air when you are working and surrounded by brilliant people who really are passionate about what they’re doing is addictive and extremely fulfilling. That is often how you get brilliant people to work on things that are otherwise potentially bad for humanity. You appeal not to their humanity, but to their excitement and passion for building.
- nimbius 2y agowhat i get is Palantir is mostly the USA's home-grown answer to SAP with an aerospace/defense slant, and since a lot of aerospace is ITAR export controlled, they get cloistered in the robe of government secrecy. https://www.palantir.com/careers/ https://www.palantir.com/careers/ whole bunch of "strategists" and management types getting hired, and of course the usual truckloads of "backend" and "full-stack" engineers to make the wheels on the bus go round.
- mikhailfranco 2y agoPalantir is the most distant point in the known tech universe from SAP.
- varjag 2y agoDistant how exactly?
- HlessClaudesman 2y agoThe use case for Palantir is generally understood, whereas nobody knows why SAP exists.
- KineticLensman 2y agoNo, it exists to Suck All Profits
- jgalt212 2y agoIt's interesting how Palantir kept ownership over FDE work. When I hire a consultant I own his work. He cannot bring it elsewhere to modify and generalize.
- mpeg 2y agoI've worked as an FDE in a company that followed a similar approach – any work we did for a customer was still our IP and licensed as part of the software package, so we could then generalise it through our product org It's not quite like hiring a consultant anyway, for example I've used Foundry before and while custom development is a part of it, the platform has a ton of stuff built in (partly thanks to the culture of adding features to the mainline product from customer engagements) so everyone benefits from it
- dantondwa 2y agoAs a stylistic note, it’s funny that philosophy graduates often can’t help but mention that they are one at every opportunity they have, as if that carried a particular a certain intellectual prestige. They do that while perhaps missing the point: a critical mind does not need to announce its status and does not rely on declarations of prestige to be one. It’s also funny how a marvelously rational philosophy graduate can then support the most banal moral positions. The life of the mind is quite something.
- kristofferg 2y agoThis applies to most graduates imo. and even more so phds. :)
- jhanschoo 2y agoI don't think the author harps on it just to say "I am very smart", they want to point out that the degree to which Palantir employees then were acquainted with the Western philosophical canon and thought was unusual.
- LeoDTO 2y agoI have a small position in PLTR, and is doing well enough for me.
- mint2 2y agoIs all that matters in the world short term stock prices?
- chevman 2y agoThey are a consulting company that tries to do some element of product development in house. This is not a new strategy - all the big consultancies, agencies, etc have been on various forms of the path for the last 15-20 years. The reality is there is sometimes a space for custom product dev, and sometimes better to rely on actual software/product providers that already have scale, market understanding, etc.
- prng2021 2y agoI think a more accurate description is they’re a standard company with a consulting/professional services arm.