Why Did Palantir Technologies Move Its Headquarters from SiliValley to Denver? | Hacker News Reader

Why Did Palantir Technologies Move Its Headquarters from SiliValley to Denver?

5280.com

14 pointsgraderjs14 comments

Regardless of what you think about Palantir I find it amusing how entitled the politicians are, even in a free-market liberal democracy:

> […] Denver City Councilwoman Candi CdeBaca. […] She Googled “Palantir,” and what she found made her furious. “A company like this, and the governor and the mayor don’t say a thing about it?” the councilwoman says. “I had no heads-up from anyone that this was coming”

As far I understand (I’m not an American, please feel free to correct me), you’re free to do business in the US. There’s no requirement to get an approval from a local politician.

I hope this is just gamesmanship, and she doesn’t secretly hope Colorado to become a mafia state, where an approval of local don is needed before you register your company.

You’re exactly right. There was no reason to notify her. They’re not some company that sends out spies in black cars around their buildings.

But guess what, right after they move in, if they leave, she’ll be crying how they can’t leave because of the jobs.

How does Alex Karp lead an organization of 1000s of people 1000s of mile away from substantially all of them?

https://marketrealist.com/p/alex-karp-new-hampshire-barn/

That's just too much mystery in the C-Suite for my tastes.

Peter Thiel, the company's founder, has loudly and repeatedly critisized the current political culture within Silicon Valley. That might be the reason.

I read the article to discover the reason Palantir moved to Denver and came up empty handed.

A better headline might be, "Why would Palantir want to move to an unwelcoming Denver?"

To be closer to the secret base under Denver Airport.

And ride on Blucifer!1!!

2020, and tl;dr they didn’t. The Denver office has 1% of the company staff.

Probably to be closer to the airport.

Taxes?

> Even as Palantir earned $345.5 million in federal contracts in 2019, the company did not turn a profit; in fact, it hasn’t been profitable in its 17 years of existence.

How much does Palantir pay in taxes, realistically? Which taxes?

The big-business world seems to revolve more around subsidies than taxation, bizarrely.

Which makes me wonder, why would Colorado be so eager to have them?

Well, I can’t speak for Colorado but I think in Ohio we’d be eager to add a company like this instead of more warehouses and data centers. If nothing else the employees are paid and then they pay income taxes. Moves like this also great jobs, buzz, makes your city seem like a better place, etc.

Perhaps, but I'd be curious to see the actual numbers.

How many employees in Colorado, out of Palantir's worldwide total of ~2000? A few hundred? Relative to Colorado's population of 5,800,000. How big of a deal is this really, tax-wise?

Versus the inevitable subsidies and tax breaks.

The article gives similar starry-eyed rationale: “This doesn’t change the game for Denver,” [some venture capitalist] says, “but it is a signal to other tech businesses, in the time of COVID, that this is a great place.”

Hey, we pay you in exposure!

I wouldn’t call it starry-eyed from where I sit. I’m in Columbus, I’m watching other cities bring in corporate jobs from tech companies (Austin, Raleigh, Nashville, Pittsburgh, etc.) and frankly those places aren’t that much different except maybe Austin b/c of the semiconductor history.

Network effects matter and while it might be silly the signal of a company moving to your city really does attract other businesses. Right now we are relying on family and friends, like someone grew up here and wants to be back near family.

Meanwhile we got a new Google data center with $50+ million in tax breaks for checks notes 20 new jobs.

I’d take Palantir.

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