Palantir has courted N.H.S. England with pandemic help and assertive lobbying
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
My understanding is that they don't really have a product but have some tools and a lot of people who they put to work to provide solutions.
If so - they are essentially just doing bespoke project implementation work.
Is my understanding correct?
Just another data platform, not much different from the others except better at convincing execs they are.
Wouldn't it be easier to simply hire consultants directly?
eg if you are selling a "hedge fund stratergy", you tell the client it is too hard for them or they are not large enough to invest. And they will fight to be included.
At the end of the day customers have a working solution, but it’s all developed and operated in a completely bespoke way each time.
Not just _any_ private company, but one chaired by _Peter Thiel_ ffs. Short of actually naming the company "Unethical & Impulsive People LLC" there isn't a bigger red flag I can imagine of to indicate to the NHS that they should not be in business with them.
> Since 1920, the vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women — two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertarians — have rendered the notion of “capitalist democracy” into an oxymoron.
> It would be absurd to suggest that women’s votes will be taken away or that this would solve the political problems that vex us. While I don’t think any class of people should be disenfranchised, I have little hope that voting will make things better.
He's not saying that women shouldn't vote, but that they tend vote against his libertarian politics and thus he sees little hope for democratic solutions. Are we not allowed to think that certain politics are wrong or against our own wishes, and that groups tend to vote for certain types of politics? It seems to me to be very normal to feel a lack of hope or even apathy when looking at voting patterns.
[1] https://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-thiel/educatio...
Perhaps there are anarchist libertarians who say there is no need for property rights enforced by government. However, I suspect those same people would also support a right to bear arms (without a government who except themselves could enforce such a right?) and, without a government to enforce the even deeper property right of assault laws, I can see calamity there, probably for you.
(Please, I beg you, argue with the opinions that people actually have instead of something you just made up.)
He appears to follow the same pattern as lots of other rich captain-of-industry authoritarians we’ve seen… well, since the advent of modern democracy, really, to a T. The background on it’s kinda a boring read, because it’s so familiar. Wikipedia’s got the gist and links to the details, but I’m sure someone out there’s got a site that catalogs the whole thing.
What he might describe as his political "strategy" is actually a bonfire for money often found to be burning in support of the most atavistic and reactionary candidates. I'm sure others would characterise it as a master plan but to me it seems impulsive and haphazard. (I accept that one clearing the hurdle of "set up a political action committee to funnel millions of dollars into hard line candidates" is not impulsivity in the same way that children exhibit it, but I hope that's clear.)
If you're genuinely in the dark about why Palantir – a company which exists to help inexpert government agencies and QUANGOs to spy on their citizens and which I believe counted the CIA among its first institutional investors – is the sort of company an unethical man might start, then I'm happy to share my reasoning, but these are not contentious points. I was really just astonished that the current UK government keeps finding ways to make itself more unelectable with every passing minute.