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I think the difference is that Palantir is significantly more focused on federal contracts, particularly those related to defense/surveillance.

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Large tech companies are defense contractors now.

WDYM "now"? Companies that get large enough get contracts. Even apple sold power macs iphones and ipads to us mil.

I'm throwing out my iPhone and moving to Tibet.

China occupied Tibet?

Logical choice if you hate America and oppose the idea of defending it.

Companies that submit bids for contracts get contracts. You would be surprised at the diversity of size and scale of companies which service defense contracts in particular - very small companies can end up in big supply chains because they're the ones who turn up to make the part.

Is there a time they weren’t?

Google got their first DoD contract in 2003 from DARPA.

Facebook was Life Log, Oracle was Project Oracle. None of the household names in tech are playing straight.

What does “Playing straight” mean?

There doesn’t exist a serious technology company ever in the history of technology that didn’t support the state they incorporated in.

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