What Does Palantir Actually Do?

https://www.wired.com/story/palantir-what-the-company-does/

38•mudil•1h ago

Comments

wkat4242•1h ago

GuinansEyebrows•1h ago

> Palantir’s employees are also sometimes called “hobbits.” According to one former employee, a common internal motto in Palantir’s early days was “Save the Shire,” a reference to the hobbit homeland, which they say was a rallying cry that reflected the company’s ethos at the time.

this seems so delusional and divorced from the source material that i sometimes wonder if any of these people are familiar with it at all.

edit to clarify:

"They do not and did not understand or like machines more complicated than a forge-bellows, a water-mill, or a hand-loom, though they were skilful with tools."

psunavy03•1h ago

Or you could try to understand why they would think this way, and perhaps get an understanding of how people you utterly disagree with reason and think.

GuinansEyebrows•1h ago

i'm not talking about whether i think palantir or its employees are good or bad.

"They do not and did not understand or like machines more complicated than a forge-bellows, a water-mill, or a hand-loom, though they were skilful with tools." - Concerning Hobbits

The Scouring Of The Shire is the account of anti-industrial direct action, for Iluvatar's sake.

egypturnash•52m ago

Elon Musk is a huge fan of Iain Banks’ Culture books and completely misses the fact that it’s profoundly anti-capitalist and that the villain in Surface Detail is basically him. Rich tech nerds are really good at missing the points being made by the sf/f books they claim to love.

kjellsbells•48m ago

Coming soon: The Left Hand of Darkness, where manly men cross the ice together!

Sigh.

gdbsjjdn•43m ago

We've finally built the Torment Nexus from the sci-fi classic, Don't Build The Torment Nexus.

grafmax•48m ago

Being willing to use any means necessary means to fight your enemies - building software to support mass surveillance, genocide, and concentration camps - means you’re no longer fighting for moral principles - you’re fighting for power. In that regard I do think a closer reading of the source material does have something to teach these people.

qaq•1h ago

Palantir is a consulting shop that positions itself as a tech company

Duhck•41m ago

Yes, but...

They also have one of the most profitable business models the world has ever seen. Their RPE (revenue per employee) is roughly $1mm and growing at a 50% YoY rate...

They heavily use technology as leverage for insane margin growth. 90% rule of 40 as well.

some_furry•49m ago

If you want to know what Palantir actually does, ask its critics.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jun/24/survei...

ianks•35m ago

I’d be curious to hear a follow-up article about what Palantir doesn’t do. For better or worse, I think we are living in a time where companies should take principled stands about anti-features.

It’s good to build in all of these optional data and privacy knobs, but I fear that’s not enough.

Lammy•5m ago

They sell the capability to do this on a global scale: https://kieranhealy.org/blog/archives/2013/06/09/using-metad...

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