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Comment by fudged71 | Hacker News Reader

To tech leaders and hiring managers at other companies: If you're reading this, please consider publicly stating that your company will interview Palantir engineers who want to exit on moral grounds. Create an explicit off-ramp. Lower the barrier to leaving. Make it a tech industry norm that we offer refuge to engineers trying to do the right thing.

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Why shouldn't I do quite the opposite? I don't want people with a questionable morale who knowingly built those systems work in my company

The options are a) they have to decide between starving their family or continuing compromise their morals and increasing the capabilities of immoral company X, or b) a more ethically aligned company removes them from the resource pool of immoral company X. Which world do you prefer?

If they're good enough to be hired to palantir as an engineer, I very much doubt at any point they were desperate.

You're missing my point. If all 'ethical' companies treat all ex-employees of 'unethical companies' as unemployable, they are effectively only going to work at 'unethical companies' regardless of whatever mindset has shifted over time.

I agree they shouldn't become outcasts, but it feels disingenuous to say that the reason for wanting to work for palantir is anything but "they wanted A LOT of money".

It's kind of beside the point. You could argue the change of mind/heart is unlikely, but if indeed they had changed, it would be better to encourage that. Perhaps they were lured by the money, or perhaps some jingoistic impulse, but then the reality of what the company was doing became clearer? Or their world view evolved?

That said, if some ex-Palantir worker was somehow working for UNICEF – to take an extreme example – it would be a little awkward unless they had denounced their old company in a fairly public manner.

You could focus on having positive projects for the society, and a good reputation. That works.

I don’t think I ever seen a CV from an ex Pal*ntir employee though. Perhaps they are automatically filtered or working for good morals doesn’t attract them.

I think they might be a little desperate for new employees since I haven’t worked in about ten years and both Palantir and Anduril contacted me with cold calls in past year.

I can't speak to Palantir, but Anduril is growing rapidly. Headcount has been ~doubling every year.

In a country with many huge companies selling oil, cigarettes, weapons, etc. there is no shortage of people willing to deal in morally questionable trades for money. I might even boldly suggest that Palantir is arguably far from the worst.

Palantir had a shit reputation 12 years ago when I graduated from college. I'm not sure folks who couldn't figure that out until now are very principled.

So did HFT's, weapons makers, and Hedge Funds

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