Are there any demos of Palantir out there, what sort of things does it do and has anyone tried making an OSS alternative - I don’t really understand why any government would trust them.
The problem is that they also keep close ties to law-enforcement and (para-)military clients, and while they promise to keep your data safe, they would never inform you if they received a warrant from the government to share the data.
That's literally it.
It's not even particularly good technology.
I asked what they were seeing and excited about.
They kept explaining that Foundry (Palantir's SaaS BI platform) is better than EVERY other alternative (and mind you, they've used every other major vendor as an F20). I kept asking what was special about it (Did it re-invent data models? Is it faster/cheaper than MSFT, GOOG, AWS, SNOW?)
I kept getting circular answers (advantages without addressing design consequences) until I realized (to myself) that what they were describing as "great" had nothing to do with the Palantir tech.
It was great because Palantir's sales people had taken a top down approach (getting CEO's blessing) and had the "green light" to greenfield data solutions and cut through internal bureaucracy/silos about connecting datasources to find revenues or savings. This is CEO (since fired) kept bragging to shareholders about rubbing elbows with Palantir's Alex Karp and gleaming with joy about the potential of their AI collaboration.
That's the impression I get about PLTR.
They're like if McKinsey was re-loaded with software, and sales engineers and they hunt C-Suite and government clients to "speak AI." I haven't looked recently, but one bearish sentiment was that they need growth to sustain their high P/E, and there are only so many more governments/CEOs in their addressable market to add.
Then the motives became very clear to me- Palantir wants to sell more software by creating an image of a secretive panacea while the c level wants to create an image that they are forward thinking and using cutting edge tools to transform operations. It’s a two way fortuitous grift but I have no doubt the investors pouring money into it have also gotten ensnared in this grift and it’s grown from questionable sales tactics to a full blown bubble.
When the former CFO becomes CEO and starts talking about the potential of a vendor's black box, it calls into question everything else they've said like thinking a journalist's coverage is accurate until they blunder a topic your familiar with.
They have a lot of "forward deployed engineer" roles which basically means staff with security clearances who get locked in SCIFs and provide on-site technical support.
Which is really why they keep getting hired: when you write into your contract "it stays on premises and technical support can't take logs off site" they agree to it (at a hefty mark up because all of that sucks to do).
A relevant comparison would be that SpaceX didn't build fancy rockets and their was a lot of similarly old players in the space. They still took it over pretty thoroughly.
FDE is not the only thing they sell.
Software Licenses for their products (Gotham/Foundry/AIP) is why countries (and businesses) deal with them.
Some of their stuff for handling data and versioned pipelines seem very well done.
Same thing with Tesla.
Still have >$300 billion market cap on <$5 billion annual revenues. This is AFTER falling 30% since December.
Musk+Thiel is also in the mix with Golden Dome, the space weapons program that was always Musk's mission. The inside "joke" is that Mars = Wars.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
They already are.. but.. have you seen the DOW?
If you just google ontology you probably end up reading some Heidegger and conclude how deep these guys must be.
Whenever I hear Karp say it I always think of it like he is saying "Database" or "The Database". "What makes Palantir different is Database".
I think so much of Palantir is performative and for sales performances.
Notice how you got vague here?
Is it "lived experience" performing knitting, talking to your mom about knitting, asking how your mom's knitting is different than other knitting and she...struggles?
If you don't see the issue, then you weren't following the thread.