4 ms·
They're a consulting company, what's so interesting about what they do, other than their cool name?
by dimino 11y ago
They're a consulting company, what's so interesting about what they do, other than their cool name?
- VonGuard 11y agoTheir consultations with the NSA, for a start? If you dislike Palantir, though, you should also dislike Sqrrl.
- chinathrow 11y agoYes, for a start. What can you tell us about Sqrrl?
- VonGuard 11y agoSqrrl built the tech the NSA uses to sift through phone calls and such. They're now selling this tech for big data applications.
- dimino 11y agoLots of companies do work for/with the NSA, and I doubt that's a significant percentage of their business anyway. Just seems like there's a weird (and generally incorrect) fascination with Palantir that I don't understand. In my field specifically, Palantir has this reputation for being a good cybersecurity company that simply doesn't come from anywhere concrete. It's just confusing.
- chinathrow 11y agoAre you serious? A "good" cybersecurity company? Why on earth can you make that bold statement? Unless proven otherwise, any big data companies in bed with the agencies are not considered good these days. Have you forgotten, that your metadata is still being scooped up at large and propably sifted through thanks to companies such as this very exact Palantir?
- dimino 11y agoChill out, I mean "good" as in competent.
- twunde 11y agoI believe they also have a big data BI software platform. Think about how much work has gone into big data solutions like hadoop, spark and storm which requires technical data scientists/BAs/Devs to gather insights. If you could create specialized BI solutions for big data there's a lot of money in that
- chinathrow 11y agoSome people care on what other folks work on - for ethical reasons. Remember the hacking team hack recently? A lot of folks noticed on how they sold their tech to opressive systems. In the same line, some of us are watching when tech which can be used to single out targets (yes, that what big data is used for in intelligence) is featured in the news or here on HN. We shall not work for them or the target's blood will be at our very own hands.
- baby 11y agoAre you really saying that what a technical consulting company does is not interesting? Or is this sarcasm?
- dimino 11y agoI asked what was more or uniquely interesting about Palantir, and even if I did think what they did wasn't interesting (I don't think that), what's so absurdly surprising about that?
- dang 11y agoYour initial question sounded more dismissive than that.
- dimino 11y agoAs you're well aware, I'm constantly baffled by how little positive intent is assumed on my behalf around here, but no, I didn't mean to suggest the company isn't generally interesting to me. It's a source of frustration for me that this line of comments is even getting any attention at all, considering its personal nature (the topic seems to be what I find interesting). Of what relevance is it to the submission whether or not I personally find what Palantir does to be interesting? Wouldn't a much more valuable conversation be about the apparent-but-perhaps-not-actual uniqueness of what Palantir does?