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Leaked Palantir Doc Reveals Uses, Specific Functions and Key Clients

301 points by bhaumik 12y ago

ChuckMcM 12y ago
Reads like the intro to "Person of Interest". This capability has been on the 'want list' for ARPA forever, and I first heard about it as the "total information awareness" program. Mining deep sources of periodic data can be very very enlightening with respect to people's activity. Too bad these guys aren't subject to federal oversight with respect to personal privacy rights.
onewaystreet 12y ago
Never trust investors with private info.
icpmacdo 12y ago
Nothing too interesting revealed in the document. Here is a video of the LAPD talking about more specific uses of Palantir, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJ-u7yDwC6g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJ-u7yDwC6g Here is an interesting video from them talking about data analysis of Iranian arms deals used to show off some of their tools used by the intelligence community https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FX0gwNU3WBI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FX0gwNU3WBI
- newaccountfool 12y ago
  It may be intrusive and it may end up being used for the wrong reasons, but as a technology community we've got to give it to them. It's very impresive.
  - jsprogrammer 12y ago
    It's impressive, but without meaningful and effective restraints on its use it's potentially dangerous. There is a large focus on secrecy seemingly within the organization itself (Palantir) and the organizations it works with (NSA, CIA, FBI, etc.). One important question is, why is Palantir arming secretive organizations with very powerful technology? If the analysis capabilities are so great (and they appear to at least be good), then there is likely tremendously more good that can be achieved by opening up the code to the software so that anyone can use it to tackle local and global problems around the planet. Instead, the company is using it to arm secret police organizations and financial organizations.
    - jpttsn 12y ago
      > why is Palantir arming secretive organizations with very powerful technology? They get paid handsomely. > more good that can be achieved by opening up the code to the software so that anyone can use it to tackle local and global problems around the planet This attitude bothers me. Palantir is not a charity. Why are you holding them to these standards?
      - jsprogrammer 12y ago
        >> more good that can be achieved by opening up the code to the software so that anyone can use it to tackle local and global problems around the planet >This attitude bothers me. Palantir is not a charity. Why are you holding them to these standards? I fail to see how that statement is an 'attitude'. I'm also not holding them to any standard in that statement. As far as I can tell, it's only a statement of fact. Or at least, perceived fact. Do you think the statement is not accurate?
        zo1 12y ago
        You're implying that they should give up their competitive edge over the market so that they can help the world "tackle local and global problems around the planet". That sounds like you're saying they should give to charity and/or forfeit profit for some noble good. And yes, it's an attitude/opinion though it sounds like you're just nitpicking words. I'm not the OP you responded to, but it's clear your attitude/opinion towards this topic is that this software should be given away for free, with the sole reason for that being that it would "[do] more good". They invented it, they didn't steal it (presumably), and they're choosing to use that product of their intellect in a way that makes them profit. Heck, you could argue that they're already doing good by making it available to law-enforcers while still profiting. In which case your entire point is that they're not doing enough good according to your opinion.
        totalrobe 12y ago
        It's extremely naive to think that governments and coroprations worldwide would intrinsically "do good" if this type of product was open source.
deleted 12y ago
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AdeptusAquinas 12y ago
First screenshot shows a system running Windows XP. Not a good sign that a product serving such confidential information is running on an operating system no longer supported with security patches.
- jzwinck 12y ago
  If you click the attribution link for that photo (at the bottom of the article, unfortunately), you will see it was taken in 2007: https://www.flickr.com/photos/aki51/1675246969/ https://www.flickr.com/photos/aki51/1675246969/ That's just nine months after the initial release of Vista. So hardly surprising to see XP on a desktop.
  - AdeptusAquinas 12y ago
    Ah fair enough then - sorry I missed that. Current day job is performing service IT for a security-paranoid bank that nevertheless runs XP exclusively internally, so I guess I'm just hypersensitive :D
brooklyndude 12y ago
It is a bit ironic that Peter Thiel is backing Palantir, and is the biggest investor in the marijuana trade. They seem like opposite ends of the spectrum.
- BinaryIdiot 12y ago
  Backing? He was a founder.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- driverdan 12y ago
  What makes you think Thiel is "the biggest investor in the marijuana trade"? I think you read into the latest press a bit much.
- CamperBob2 12y ago
  To the extent Thiel's competition comes from the illegal drug trade, the connection is maybe not so surprising.
- pizza 12y ago
  Investment knows no spectrum
- pmorici 12y ago
  Sounds like the same end of the spectrum to me. That being the businesses that make lots of money end.
- dcre 12y ago
  When things seem contradictory, it usually means you're missing something.
- orbifold 12y ago
  I find that not entirely contradictory, both are tools of societal control. From a perspective of power, whether you legalize marijuana or not is not a question of personal liberty but what is of greater utility to your immediate political goals. I think it is an open secret that the 1960-70s criminalisation of drugs was not really because of concern for the health of the users, but because it was an effective way to suppress and ultimately eliminate the threat of the emerging counter culture. Maybe in light of growing inequality and youth unemployment marijuana is seen as one of the diversion tools to prevent the poor from taking political action. Especially because it has roughly the intended effects, when used regularly. Note that it is not entirely out of the question that people in power think that way, for example the 60-70's were perceived as a "Crisis of Democracy" in parts of the establishment.
harry8 12y ago
These guys? http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2011/02/11/palantir-apologizes-for-wikileaks-attack-proposal-cuts-ties-with-hbgary/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2011/02/11/palanti... Well they apologised, I guess. No resignations, no charges, no referring evidence to police. But yeah, they did apologise for it, so they got that going for them.
- JMCQ87 12y ago
  Didn't know they had connections to HBGary at some point. Quite telling, if you dealt with these "bottom of the barrel-guys". I pitched in front of some people from ManTech once and knowing that they acquired HBGary made me somewhat uncomfortable - and made some negative things I heard about ManTech all the more believable.
BinaryIdiot 12y ago
They're looking for a round of funding so of course it was "leaked".
- FallFastForFun 12y ago
  Peter Thiel is a genius businessman. He's got quite a natural instinct for using social media to rally his motives. I personally don't agree with much of what he says, but still gotta give him props for his business savviness. In some ways he's better than Musk. But the projects Musk has choose are far more interesting and engaging.
spikels 12y ago
So Palantir is Big Brother Inc.
- Chronic30 12y ago
  No way
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
Joe_Doe 12y ago
Palantir is trying to raise another ~400mm to finance their operations. And I honestly think this just another PR stunt to attract investors. The 'secretive' attitude is just a game of deception. They are deceiving investors into believing that the company has a real product. However if you talk to any FDE or Embedded Analyst, you'll immediately realize that this is a consulting company. Which should be valued at far lower multiple than a real product company. Every new contract requires dozen extra people...That's why they are on a hire spree right now, (because of a large 'consulting' contract with a an oil company, that should stay unamed). However, with oil trading at 50s, they are scared and they trying to get some cash to cushion a possible contract cancellation. To be continued...
jpatokal 12y ago
This sounds more like a leaked Palantir press release; but then again, that's pretty much what a prospectus is. > "It’s the combination of every analytical tool you could ever dream of." > The Pentagon used the software to track patterns in roadside bomb deployment and was able to conclude that garage-door openers were being used as remote detonators. > With Palantir, the Marines are now able to upload DNA samples from remote locations and tap into information gathered from years of collecting fingerprints and DNA evidence > The leaked document cites a 2012 study where 96% of the surveyed war fighters in Afghanistan recommended Palantir.
- bobbles 12y ago
  Definitely.. this software just allows agencies to share information with each other and search each others databases. Useful, but nothing nefarious in itself
- capkutay 12y ago
  Yeah they probably just can't disclose this 'confidential' stuff as a company in a normal press release. So they had to act like it was a Snowden-style leak which just happened to make them look awesome.
- Perdition 12y ago
  So they sell a database with an analytics front end?
- gaius 12y ago
  There were similarly glowing reviews of http://www.technologyreview.com/view/510156/physicists-prove-dowsing-bomb-detectors-useless-in-double-blind-trial/ http://www.technologyreview.com/view/510156/physicists-prove...
mkx 12y ago
TechCrunch needs better editors.
- JMCQ87 12y ago
  Better journalists, or just critical thinkers, too. This person drank a bit too much of the valley kool-aid already, it seems.
higherpurpose 12y ago
TechCrunch: "Look, guys, we just totally randomly found this document that says how awesome Palantir is. The document about the negatives was lost due to water damage".
lawl 12y ago
Copy paste of Joe_Doe's comment. Which seems dead but sais "[noobtor]" instead of [dead]. Never seen that before?! However should he have registered via tor to leak a bit of insider info I don't want to let this die because of tor flagging. ---------- Palantir is trying to raise another ~400mm to finance their operations. And I honestly think this just another PR stunt to attract investors. The 'secretive' attitude is just a game of deception. They are deceiving investors into believing that the company has a real product. However if you talk to any FDE or Embedded Analyst, you'll immediately realize that this is a consulting company. Which should be valued at far lower multiple than a real product company. Every new contract requires dozen extra people...That's why they are on a hire spree right now, (because of a large 'consulting' contract with a an oil company, that should stay unamed). However, with oil trading at 50s, they are scared and they trying to get some cash to cushion a possible contract cancellation. To be continued...
- capkutay 12y ago
  "Every new contract requires dozen extra people." I've heard this as well. They essentially hire customer-facing engineers to go out and scope specific contracts and literally implement custom solutions with small generic software frameworks they developed in house.
  - fishcakes 12y ago
    On one hand, it is true they deploy people to implement the software. On the other hand, the customer has results after 6-8 weeks. How much software can really be built in that sort of time frame? Not much... In my opinion Palantir is a product company, but the product is deeply integrated in to an enterprise. And doing that takes time and people.
    - capkutay 12y ago
      I would debate that...if your 'product' takes a team of stanford engineers to actually deploy at an enterprise, then it's probably closer to a dev framework.
insidious 12y ago
Check out their SEC filings: http://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse-edgar?action=getcompany&CIK=0001321655 http://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse-edgar?action=getcompany&CI... Insiders are selling shares to private wealth management firms / asset management firms. It's amazing how much hype can do in the private finance world when you have the perception of momentum and herd mentality. Look at Clinkle raising $30mm ... this is the same thing happening at a bigger scale. Look at Groupon... same thing. Here's one to S F Sentry Securities, Inc. http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1321655/000132165514000004/xslFormDX01/primary_doc.xml http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1321655/0001321655140... Morgan Stanley took over $25mm in fees to arrange these sales... the reason for that is because they know that there is no way Palantir is going to have an IPO in the near future -- or else they would be salivating to do this kind of transaction for free to gain favor with management. The fundamental problem with Palantir is that they are a government contractor masquerading as a product company. $200mm in government contracts comes with enough overhead that there is not a ton of margin. You can see tons of defense contractors in the midwest doing hundreds of millions in revenue. Take a look at their revenue numbers for federal government (which is likely a major portion of their ~$420mm in revenue): http://goo.gl/v7JzT5 http://goo.gl/v7JzT5 http://goo.gl/AzZeuR http://goo.gl/AzZeuR
- boomzilla 12y ago
  According to this form, Morgan Stanley charges 25M to arrange a sale of 50M. Is there something behind this, or is this normal? http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1321655/000132165514000005/xslFormDX01/primary_doc.xml http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1321655/0001321655140...
  - insidious 12y ago
    There are a few other sales where there are 0 fees. So likely they "don't charge" for those and put all of the fees in a single filing.
    - jsprogrammer 12y ago
      Go, go transparency!
snowwrestler 12y ago
The article reads to me as very credulous; I can't imagine a piece like this running in TechCrunch in the good ol' days with Arrington at the helm.
pXMzR2A 12y ago
Uhm, so... thanks for the advertisement?..
technologia 12y ago
Working across silos? Palantir does that by creating yet another silo.
- mralvar 12y ago
  Why make just a bridge when you can put a toll on it too!
Bahamut 12y ago
I'm kind of surprised that TechCrunch acts like Palantir's role was never out in the open - if anyone ever browsed a job opening there for engineering, they have you check out a tool that steps through using the product to uncover the 9/11 attackers in a mock but plausible scenario. It is very obvious what their role is for intelligence analysis.
- cabinpark 12y ago
  I've attended Palantir tech talks before and they try to "hide it". Everyone in the room knew and the person giving the talk kept talking about the other uses of Palantir beyond government things. However all the examples they use were based on war scenarios in Iraq.
devonkim 12y ago
I consider them closer to SAP than the usual DC area style contracting company. What does distinguish them from most of the companies in the area though is that their product tends to work and scale somewhat which I can't say for the vast majority of government contractor produced software for the government at their (very, very schizophrenic and oftentimes misleading) direction. Actually hiring engineers that can codifies instead of asking for a clearance first makes a monumental difference in how you structure your company and lines of business. It lets you at least create a working project first because you can actually reject most of your candidates instead of being pressured to due to being jerked around by the terms of the contract requiring certain levels of clearance first. The government isn't run by completely retarded people and they're seeing now how it's probably easier to have actual software companies produce software and then go through the integration and compliance paperwork later - it's how GovCloud fundamentally became an option in Intelligence Community projects. You thought the Terremark cloud was one nobody used that's terribly overpriced? Wait until you see the "clouds" the big defense contractors came up with at orders of magnitude more dollars (most of it probably going to compensate those poor people filing documents and paperwork meant to protect the government but now entrapping it to work primarily with parasitic companies). Look online for people with DCGS on their profiles, you'll be able to trace it all back to trying to reproduce Palantir down to the web GUI. Some decent journalist should be able to piece a lot together if they just trolled LinkedIn. A lot of it is unclassified but technically FOUO so not quite cleared for public consumption. The reason I figure it hasn't been researched thoroughly is because it's extremely boring DC area "tech" news that is more about topics that are of little interest to the tech community and is boring even by DC tech standards. Almost every company here is some Big Data bullshit company that's writing something about 8 - 14 years behind private industry timelines from an engineering standpoint and held back by politics, funding, and sheer disorganization endemic to enterprises but especially bad in the bloated Pentagon budget.
- spacecowboy_lon 12y ago
  being lax with vetting has cost TLA's a lot but then police forces are second tier players. And the actual codfiying isnt hard it undersatning the domain problem and how to apply the verious tools. Having engineers that will want to work in this area and can pass the citizenship requirements is harder back in the day in the UK noprmaly all 4 gradparents had to be citizens from birth for DV (TS)
curiously 12y ago
I just lost all my respect for Peter Thiel.
mythrowaway888 12y ago
Ah, the Paypal mafia at it again. Well atleast they're bringing the money to the valley. Funny how a lot of Libertarian Thiel's companies are funded by govt. contracts. Same goes for Elon.
- JMCQ87 12y ago
  Yeah, and this person supposedly believing in "merit" wants you to buy into his vision based on fluff and hype.
  - wyager 12y ago
    Libertarians aren't allowed to use marketing?
- morgante 12y ago
  Musk at least is transparent about it. He readily gives credit to NASA for instigated and funding much of Space X.
- atom-morgan 12y ago
  But is Elon openly libertarian? Relatively speaking, he always seems to avoid political talk.
stevenspins 12y ago
Peter Thiel is backing Palantir, and is the biggest investor in the marijuana trade. It's bit more ironic thing he's doing it
- stefantalpalaru 12y ago
  pecunia non olet
- mralvar 12y ago
  It's silly to think capitalists care where money comes from.
stefantalpalaru 12y ago
All watched over by machines of loving grace. Just like here on HN where algorithms take care of people using Tor or links that get too many votes too fast.
zobzu 12y ago
Leak or ad? ;)
tomaskafka 12y ago
It lets people without analytics know-how type a query in human language and target killer drones on result set? Do they at least have Palantir False Positives Victim fund?
RandomAttack 12y ago
Hm.
RandomAttack 12y ago
All of these comments couldn't be more correct. The only question I have is how could investors be this dumb? I have heard that some investors in the prior round (all of what, 12-18 months ago?) are trying to get some/all their money out after seeing the curtain pulled back. It has to be somewhat of a stampede for the door gaining momentum. Still, while it is a cushy place to work (smart people, nice perks, okay money and stock that is supposedly valuable on paper until everyone rushes for the door), I also don't understand why smart people work there - unless they don't. Maybe the smart employees are the ones who left 2-3 years ago.
kendallpark 12y ago
I have a friend that works here. Apparently the job interview process is tough. Very technical. Tons of questions involving algorithms. I'm tempted to apply just for the challenge. The perks are nice. They have an onsite chef so you can have a catered meal for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Apparently a masseuse comes in every month(?) or so for free massages. Seems like a nice gig for the programmers.
- username223 12y ago
  > They have an onsite chef so you can have a catered meal for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Apparently a masseuse comes in every month(?) or so for free massages. That's a bad deal. Ask for enough money to hire your own chef and masseuse instead.
  - kendallpark 12y ago
    I think the convenience is worth it. For me, my most valuable commodity is my time, not money. Not to mention they probably get a better deal on the catering and masseuse than you would individually. If I could go into work and not have to worry about preparing a good, healthy meal for myself (or drive somewhere to get one), that would be great.
    - mahyarm 12y ago
      Catering and masseuse is pretty standard with many bay area companies, it doesn't make palantir special. The chef part is more a function of how large the company than anything else. You'll actually start to curse the catered food part if you want to actually conform to some sort of diet, weight loss or otherwise. The food can create a culture of longer working hours, so leaving earlier so you can go make your own dinner will create career challenges later on. SV is a large suburban place, not catering lunch just wastes a shit ton of time for the company itself and creates a lot of traffic. And the masseuse service isn't that expensive for the company to hire once a week.
      - kendallpark 12y ago
Bartweiss 12y ago
Honestly, I don't understand the excitement over this. For all the conspiracy theories, Palantir is pretty open about their basic work. Their website is pretty vacuous, but that's not shocking for what is essentially enterprise software. They had (have?) a fairly comprehensive "try it out" tool on their site, and give example-based demos at a host of college campuses. All of this indicates that there's no big mystery here - they built a relationship-analysis tool that doesn't suck horribly. When you're selling to banks and the government, "actually works as promised" is rare enough to make you a billion dollar company. Palantir is more hush-hush about some of their work, though this seems to be more 'competitive advantage' and less 'military secrets'. New initiatives and project restructuring are kept fairly quiet, and their customer lists are obviously secret, but none of this is shocking. TechCrunch seems to have discovered what looks like a 'secret' press release about how great Palantir is, and it's being spun as dark secrets instead of info that any Palantir employee or tech talk is happy to divulge.
mikhailfranco 12y ago
A more interesting journalistic question would be: why does an 10-year-old software company with existing products, paying customers and an international presence need yet another $400m?

301 points by bhaumik 12y ago

Reads like the intro to "Person of Interest". This capability has been on the 'want list' for ARPA forever, and I first heard about it as the "total information awareness" program. Mining deep sources of periodic data can be very very enlightening with respect to people's activity. Too bad these guys aren't subject to federal oversight with respect to personal privacy rights.

onewaystreet 12y ago

Never trust investors with private info.

icpmacdo 12y ago

Nothing too interesting revealed in the document. Here is a video of the LAPD talking about more specific uses of Palantir, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJ-u7yDwC6g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJ-u7yDwC6g Here is an interesting video from them talking about data analysis of Iranian arms deals used to show off some of their tools used by the intelligence community https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FX0gwNU3WBI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FX0gwNU3WBI

newaccountfool 12y ago
It may be intrusive and it may end up being used for the wrong reasons, but as a technology community we've got to give it to them. It's very impresive.
- jsprogrammer 12y ago
  It's impressive, but without meaningful and effective restraints on its use it's potentially dangerous. There is a large focus on secrecy seemingly within the organization itself (Palantir) and the organizations it works with (NSA, CIA, FBI, etc.). One important question is, why is Palantir arming secretive organizations with very powerful technology? If the analysis capabilities are so great (and they appear to at least be good), then there is likely tremendously more good that can be achieved by opening up the code to the software so that anyone can use it to tackle local and global problems around the planet. Instead, the company is using it to arm secret police organizations and financial organizations.
  - jpttsn 12y ago
    > why is Palantir arming secretive organizations with very powerful technology? They get paid handsomely. > more good that can be achieved by opening up the code to the software so that anyone can use it to tackle local and global problems around the planet This attitude bothers me. Palantir is not a charity. Why are you holding them to these standards?
    - jsprogrammer 12y ago
      >> more good that can be achieved by opening up the code to the software so that anyone can use it to tackle local and global problems around the planet >This attitude bothers me. Palantir is not a charity. Why are you holding them to these standards? I fail to see how that statement is an 'attitude'. I'm also not holding them to any standard in that statement. As far as I can tell, it's only a statement of fact. Or at least, perceived fact. Do you think the statement is not accurate?
      - zo1 12y ago
        You're implying that they should give up their competitive edge over the market so that they can help the world "tackle local and global problems around the planet". That sounds like you're saying they should give to charity and/or forfeit profit for some noble good. And yes, it's an attitude/opinion though it sounds like you're just nitpicking words. I'm not the OP you responded to, but it's clear your attitude/opinion towards this topic is that this software should be given away for free, with the sole reason for that being that it would "[do] more good". They invented it, they didn't steal it (presumably), and they're choosing to use that product of their intellect in a way that makes them profit. Heck, you could argue that they're already doing good by making it available to law-enforcers while still profiting. In which case your entire point is that they're not doing enough good according to your opinion.
        totalrobe 12y ago
        It's extremely naive to think that governments and coroprations worldwide would intrinsically "do good" if this type of product was open source.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

AdeptusAquinas 12y ago

First screenshot shows a system running Windows XP. Not a good sign that a product serving such confidential information is running on an operating system no longer supported with security patches.

jzwinck 12y ago
If you click the attribution link for that photo (at the bottom of the article, unfortunately), you will see it was taken in 2007: https://www.flickr.com/photos/aki51/1675246969/ https://www.flickr.com/photos/aki51/1675246969/ That's just nine months after the initial release of Vista. So hardly surprising to see XP on a desktop.
- AdeptusAquinas 12y ago
  Ah fair enough then - sorry I missed that. Current day job is performing service IT for a security-paranoid bank that nevertheless runs XP exclusively internally, so I guess I'm just hypersensitive :D

brooklyndude 12y ago

It is a bit ironic that Peter Thiel is backing Palantir, and is the biggest investor in the marijuana trade. They seem like opposite ends of the spectrum.

BinaryIdiot 12y ago
Backing? He was a founder.
deleted 12y ago
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driverdan 12y ago
What makes you think Thiel is "the biggest investor in the marijuana trade"? I think you read into the latest press a bit much.
CamperBob2 12y ago
To the extent Thiel's competition comes from the illegal drug trade, the connection is maybe not so surprising.
pizza 12y ago
Investment knows no spectrum
pmorici 12y ago
Sounds like the same end of the spectrum to me. That being the businesses that make lots of money end.
dcre 12y ago
When things seem contradictory, it usually means you're missing something.
orbifold 12y ago
I find that not entirely contradictory, both are tools of societal control. From a perspective of power, whether you legalize marijuana or not is not a question of personal liberty but what is of greater utility to your immediate political goals. I think it is an open secret that the 1960-70s criminalisation of drugs was not really because of concern for the health of the users, but because it was an effective way to suppress and ultimately eliminate the threat of the emerging counter culture. Maybe in light of growing inequality and youth unemployment marijuana is seen as one of the diversion tools to prevent the poor from taking political action. Especially because it has roughly the intended effects, when used regularly. Note that it is not entirely out of the question that people in power think that way, for example the 60-70's were perceived as a "Crisis of Democracy" in parts of the establishment.

harry8 12y ago

These guys? http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2011/02/11/palantir-apologizes-for-wikileaks-attack-proposal-cuts-ties-with-hbgary/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2011/02/11/palanti... Well they apologised, I guess. No resignations, no charges, no referring evidence to police. But yeah, they did apologise for it, so they got that going for them.

JMCQ87 12y ago
Didn't know they had connections to HBGary at some point. Quite telling, if you dealt with these "bottom of the barrel-guys". I pitched in front of some people from ManTech once and knowing that they acquired HBGary made me somewhat uncomfortable - and made some negative things I heard about ManTech all the more believable.

BinaryIdiot 12y ago

They're looking for a round of funding so of course it was "leaked".

FallFastForFun 12y ago
Peter Thiel is a genius businessman. He's got quite a natural instinct for using social media to rally his motives. I personally don't agree with much of what he says, but still gotta give him props for his business savviness. In some ways he's better than Musk. But the projects Musk has choose are far more interesting and engaging.

spikels 12y ago

So Palantir is Big Brother Inc.

Chronic30 12y ago
No way

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

Joe_Doe 12y ago

Palantir is trying to raise another ~400mm to finance their operations. And I honestly think this just another PR stunt to attract investors. The 'secretive' attitude is just a game of deception. They are deceiving investors into believing that the company has a real product. However if you talk to any FDE or Embedded Analyst, you'll immediately realize that this is a consulting company. Which should be valued at far lower multiple than a real product company. Every new contract requires dozen extra people...That's why they are on a hire spree right now, (because of a large 'consulting' contract with a an oil company, that should stay unamed). However, with oil trading at 50s, they are scared and they trying to get some cash to cushion a possible contract cancellation. To be continued...

jpatokal 12y ago

This sounds more like a leaked Palantir press release; but then again, that's pretty much what a prospectus is. > "It’s the combination of every analytical tool you could ever dream of." > The Pentagon used the software to track patterns in roadside bomb deployment and was able to conclude that garage-door openers were being used as remote detonators. > With Palantir, the Marines are now able to upload DNA samples from remote locations and tap into information gathered from years of collecting fingerprints and DNA evidence > The leaked document cites a 2012 study where 96% of the surveyed war fighters in Afghanistan recommended Palantir.

bobbles 12y ago
Definitely.. this software just allows agencies to share information with each other and search each others databases. Useful, but nothing nefarious in itself
capkutay 12y ago
Yeah they probably just can't disclose this 'confidential' stuff as a company in a normal press release. So they had to act like it was a Snowden-style leak which just happened to make them look awesome.
Perdition 12y ago
So they sell a database with an analytics front end?
gaius 12y ago
There were similarly glowing reviews of http://www.technologyreview.com/view/510156/physicists-prove-dowsing-bomb-detectors-useless-in-double-blind-trial/ http://www.technologyreview.com/view/510156/physicists-prove...

mkx 12y ago

TechCrunch needs better editors.

JMCQ87 12y ago
Better journalists, or just critical thinkers, too. This person drank a bit too much of the valley kool-aid already, it seems.

higherpurpose 12y ago

TechCrunch: "Look, guys, we just totally randomly found this document that says how awesome Palantir is. The document about the negatives was lost due to water damage".

lawl 12y ago

Copy paste of Joe_Doe's comment. Which seems dead but sais "[noobtor]" instead of [dead]. Never seen that before?! However should he have registered via tor to leak a bit of insider info I don't want to let this die because of tor flagging. ---------- Palantir is trying to raise another ~400mm to finance their operations. And I honestly think this just another PR stunt to attract investors. The 'secretive' attitude is just a game of deception. They are deceiving investors into believing that the company has a real product. However if you talk to any FDE or Embedded Analyst, you'll immediately realize that this is a consulting company. Which should be valued at far lower multiple than a real product company. Every new contract requires dozen extra people...That's why they are on a hire spree right now, (because of a large 'consulting' contract with a an oil company, that should stay unamed). However, with oil trading at 50s, they are scared and they trying to get some cash to cushion a possible contract cancellation. To be continued...

capkutay 12y ago
"Every new contract requires dozen extra people." I've heard this as well. They essentially hire customer-facing engineers to go out and scope specific contracts and literally implement custom solutions with small generic software frameworks they developed in house.
- fishcakes 12y ago
  On one hand, it is true they deploy people to implement the software. On the other hand, the customer has results after 6-8 weeks. How much software can really be built in that sort of time frame? Not much... In my opinion Palantir is a product company, but the product is deeply integrated in to an enterprise. And doing that takes time and people.
  - capkutay 12y ago
    I would debate that...if your 'product' takes a team of stanford engineers to actually deploy at an enterprise, then it's probably closer to a dev framework.

insidious 12y ago

Check out their SEC filings: http://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse-edgar?action=getcompany&CIK=0001321655 http://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse-edgar?action=getcompany&CI... Insiders are selling shares to private wealth management firms / asset management firms. It's amazing how much hype can do in the private finance world when you have the perception of momentum and herd mentality. Look at Clinkle raising $30mm ... this is the same thing happening at a bigger scale. Look at Groupon... same thing. Here's one to S F Sentry Securities, Inc. http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1321655/000132165514000004/xslFormDX01/primary_doc.xml http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1321655/0001321655140... Morgan Stanley took over $25mm in fees to arrange these sales... the reason for that is because they know that there is no way Palantir is going to have an IPO in the near future -- or else they would be salivating to do this kind of transaction for free to gain favor with management. The fundamental problem with Palantir is that they are a government contractor masquerading as a product company. $200mm in government contracts comes with enough overhead that there is not a ton of margin. You can see tons of defense contractors in the midwest doing hundreds of millions in revenue. Take a look at their revenue numbers for federal government (which is likely a major portion of their ~$420mm in revenue): http://goo.gl/v7JzT5 http://goo.gl/v7JzT5 http://goo.gl/AzZeuR http://goo.gl/AzZeuR

boomzilla 12y ago
According to this form, Morgan Stanley charges 25M to arrange a sale of 50M. Is there something behind this, or is this normal? http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1321655/000132165514000005/xslFormDX01/primary_doc.xml http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1321655/0001321655140...
- insidious 12y ago
  There are a few other sales where there are 0 fees. So likely they "don't charge" for those and put all of the fees in a single filing.
  - jsprogrammer 12y ago
    Go, go transparency!

snowwrestler 12y ago

The article reads to me as very credulous; I can't imagine a piece like this running in TechCrunch in the good ol' days with Arrington at the helm.

pXMzR2A 12y ago

Uhm, so... thanks for the advertisement?..

technologia 12y ago

Working across silos? Palantir does that by creating yet another silo.

mralvar 12y ago
Why make just a bridge when you can put a toll on it too!

Bahamut 12y ago

I'm kind of surprised that TechCrunch acts like Palantir's role was never out in the open - if anyone ever browsed a job opening there for engineering, they have you check out a tool that steps through using the product to uncover the 9/11 attackers in a mock but plausible scenario. It is very obvious what their role is for intelligence analysis.

cabinpark 12y ago
I've attended Palantir tech talks before and they try to "hide it". Everyone in the room knew and the person giving the talk kept talking about the other uses of Palantir beyond government things. However all the examples they use were based on war scenarios in Iraq.

devonkim 12y ago

I consider them closer to SAP than the usual DC area style contracting company. What does distinguish them from most of the companies in the area though is that their product tends to work and scale somewhat which I can't say for the vast majority of government contractor produced software for the government at their (very, very schizophrenic and oftentimes misleading) direction. Actually hiring engineers that can codifies instead of asking for a clearance first makes a monumental difference in how you structure your company and lines of business. It lets you at least create a working project first because you can actually reject most of your candidates instead of being pressured to due to being jerked around by the terms of the contract requiring certain levels of clearance first. The government isn't run by completely retarded people and they're seeing now how it's probably easier to have actual software companies produce software and then go through the integration and compliance paperwork later - it's how GovCloud fundamentally became an option in Intelligence Community projects. You thought the Terremark cloud was one nobody used that's terribly overpriced? Wait until you see the "clouds" the big defense contractors came up with at orders of magnitude more dollars (most of it probably going to compensate those poor people filing documents and paperwork meant to protect the government but now entrapping it to work primarily with parasitic companies). Look online for people with DCGS on their profiles, you'll be able to trace it all back to trying to reproduce Palantir down to the web GUI. Some decent journalist should be able to piece a lot together if they just trolled LinkedIn. A lot of it is unclassified but technically FOUO so not quite cleared for public consumption. The reason I figure it hasn't been researched thoroughly is because it's extremely boring DC area "tech" news that is more about topics that are of little interest to the tech community and is boring even by DC tech standards. Almost every company here is some Big Data bullshit company that's writing something about 8 - 14 years behind private industry timelines from an engineering standpoint and held back by politics, funding, and sheer disorganization endemic to enterprises but especially bad in the bloated Pentagon budget.

spacecowboy_lon 12y ago
being lax with vetting has cost TLA's a lot but then police forces are second tier players. And the actual codfiying isnt hard it undersatning the domain problem and how to apply the verious tools. Having engineers that will want to work in this area and can pass the citizenship requirements is harder back in the day in the UK noprmaly all 4 gradparents had to be citizens from birth for DV (TS)

curiously 12y ago

I just lost all my respect for Peter Thiel.

mythrowaway888 12y ago

Ah, the Paypal mafia at it again. Well atleast they're bringing the money to the valley. Funny how a lot of Libertarian Thiel's companies are funded by govt. contracts. Same goes for Elon.

JMCQ87 12y ago
Yeah, and this person supposedly believing in "merit" wants you to buy into his vision based on fluff and hype.
- wyager 12y ago
  Libertarians aren't allowed to use marketing?
morgante 12y ago
Musk at least is transparent about it. He readily gives credit to NASA for instigated and funding much of Space X.
atom-morgan 12y ago
But is Elon openly libertarian? Relatively speaking, he always seems to avoid political talk.

stevenspins 12y ago

Peter Thiel is backing Palantir, and is the biggest investor in the marijuana trade. It's bit more ironic thing he's doing it

stefantalpalaru 12y ago
pecunia non olet
mralvar 12y ago
It's silly to think capitalists care where money comes from.

stefantalpalaru 12y ago

All watched over by machines of loving grace. Just like here on HN where algorithms take care of people using Tor or links that get too many votes too fast.

zobzu 12y ago

Leak or ad? ;)

tomaskafka 12y ago

It lets people without analytics know-how type a query in human language and target killer drones on result set? Do they at least have Palantir False Positives Victim fund?

RandomAttack 12y ago

Hm.

RandomAttack 12y ago

All of these comments couldn't be more correct. The only question I have is how could investors be this dumb? I have heard that some investors in the prior round (all of what, 12-18 months ago?) are trying to get some/all their money out after seeing the curtain pulled back. It has to be somewhat of a stampede for the door gaining momentum. Still, while it is a cushy place to work (smart people, nice perks, okay money and stock that is supposedly valuable on paper until everyone rushes for the door), I also don't understand why smart people work there - unless they don't. Maybe the smart employees are the ones who left 2-3 years ago.

kendallpark 12y ago

I have a friend that works here. Apparently the job interview process is tough. Very technical. Tons of questions involving algorithms. I'm tempted to apply just for the challenge. The perks are nice. They have an onsite chef so you can have a catered meal for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Apparently a masseuse comes in every month(?) or so for free massages. Seems like a nice gig for the programmers.

username223 12y ago
> They have an onsite chef so you can have a catered meal for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Apparently a masseuse comes in every month(?) or so for free massages. That's a bad deal. Ask for enough money to hire your own chef and masseuse instead.
- kendallpark 12y ago
  I think the convenience is worth it. For me, my most valuable commodity is my time, not money. Not to mention they probably get a better deal on the catering and masseuse than you would individually. If I could go into work and not have to worry about preparing a good, healthy meal for myself (or drive somewhere to get one), that would be great.
  - mahyarm 12y ago
    Catering and masseuse is pretty standard with many bay area companies, it doesn't make palantir special. The chef part is more a function of how large the company than anything else. You'll actually start to curse the catered food part if you want to actually conform to some sort of diet, weight loss or otherwise. The food can create a culture of longer working hours, so leaving earlier so you can go make your own dinner will create career challenges later on. SV is a large suburban place, not catering lunch just wastes a shit ton of time for the company itself and creates a lot of traffic. And the masseuse service isn't that expensive for the company to hire once a week.
    - kendallpark 12y ago

Bartweiss 12y ago

Honestly, I don't understand the excitement over this. For all the conspiracy theories, Palantir is pretty open about their basic work. Their website is pretty vacuous, but that's not shocking for what is essentially enterprise software. They had (have?) a fairly comprehensive "try it out" tool on their site, and give example-based demos at a host of college campuses. All of this indicates that there's no big mystery here - they built a relationship-analysis tool that doesn't suck horribly. When you're selling to banks and the government, "actually works as promised" is rare enough to make you a billion dollar company. Palantir is more hush-hush about some of their work, though this seems to be more 'competitive advantage' and less 'military secrets'. New initiatives and project restructuring are kept fairly quiet, and their customer lists are obviously secret, but none of this is shocking. TechCrunch seems to have discovered what looks like a 'secret' press release about how great Palantir is, and it's being spun as dark secrets instead of info that any Palantir employee or tech talk is happy to divulge.

mikhailfranco 12y ago

A more interesting journalistic question would be: why does an 10-year-old software company with existing products, paying customers and an international presence need yet another $400m?