FDEs were why I invested in Palantir in 2022 (and sold it all in 2024) | Hacker News Reader

FDEs were why I invested in Palantir in 2022 (and sold it all in 2024)

ossa-ma.github.io

7 pointsossa-ma6 comments

> However, I sold it all in June 2024 at $25 a share as they started to pull in military contracts (and lots of them). These FDEs were too damn effective. Not a fan of military contracts but I guess thats where the money is. Nevertheless, morals first.

Yeah, I don't know about this. Imo, from as soon as you decide to invest in the stock market, you're signing away your ability to call morals as a rationale for any further decision. Where does the line start and end? Would you sell MSFT because of their involvement in Gaza? Sell a broad market index because a company there is doing something 'immoral'? No matter how you invest, you should automatically assume the company is doing something awful.

My opinion though, to each their own. An interesting article!

> Would you sell MSFT because of their involvement in Gaza?

Yes.

> Sell a broad market index because a company there is doing something 'immoral'?

Honestly, this is a lot harder to do. It depends on your definition of immoral but there are some smaller indexes and ESG funds that vet individual stocks before inclusion.

Interesting response, good point about the smaller funds also!

Sounds great - but what is fundamentally different from the hit-and-run on-site engineering that companies like Accenture have been doing for decades?

The core difference I've seen is that FDEs sell a product whereas consultants sell billable hours.

The Big 4 incentive is to stay as long as possible, build custom code that only they can maintain, upcharge on maintenance while outsourcing it to developing countries.

FDEs sell a product (Foundry, Gotham, GPT, Claude, Databricks). They deploy their platform to solve your problem, then move on. The incentive is to get it working fast, not to embed themselves.

Also, the talent bar is drastically different. Palantir/OpenAI hire top 1% engineers. Accenture... doesn't.

I am fairly certain that Palantir, like many companies before it, will evolve from a sort-of product company into more of a consulting company. It's just what happens when you sell to governments. They won't be able to keep those top 1% engineers.

On talent: Accenture and its predecessors used to have really, really smart people.

I guess I'm just being contrarian and saying that all of this has happened before.

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