What does Palantir actually do?
When today’s rich and famous tech companies talk about what they do, they usually say something like, we are connecting the world. And by that they mean we are creating a sexualized Farmville that is as addictive as opioids.
So when I learned that last year’s best performing stock by growth was a Silicon Valley unicorn by the name of Palantir, I was pretty sure I knew what they were up to. Probably they made a streaming service called Boo Boo, a housing rental app called Housley, or earbuds called doinkers or whatever. But just to be sure, I looked them up. At which point it became clear that these cats are a little different from the techies who typically cross my desk.
We built this kill chain, the digital kill chain. How do you defend your country and kill your enemies? Our product is used on occasion to kill people. Two things here, folks. First, I have wet my pants. Second, what about. As always, I began my investigation on Bing, which I use to type in google.com, which I used to search for Palantir. A quick spin through their site will tell you that Palantir is all about AI powered automation for every decision, and delivering mission critical outcomes for the West’s most powerful institute.
Sentences that boldly ask the question what if Genghis Khan and Ronald Reagan had a baby who wrote mind numbingly boring marketing copy? However, I did come across one thing in my research that even I can wrap my noggin around whatever Palantir does, it makes them a lot of money. Palantir stock is booming, absolutely skyrocketing. Palantir has been a standout this week, surging 22%, the biggest outperformer over the last year. Right now, there is no comparable company. I’m here bravely, outside of the offices of Palantir. Their stock rocketed up 340% in 2024, peaking this winter to give them a valuation of over $250 billion.
And although their stock price has dipped since then, they are right up there with the likes of AT&T, IBM and those hunks over at Cisco. But I couldn’t let the money distract me. Not now. If I was to truly understand Palantir, I was going to have to take more drastic measures, like calling people who actually know what they’re talking about. Can you answer that question for me here and now? What exactly does Palantir do?
I will say two things. The fact that you’re asking that question goes to the heart of the company, the confusion over it, and also the mystique of it. Number two is I will tell you what they do. They want to win Defense Department contracts, commercial contracts as well. But I think they have their eye on the prize. Sharon Weinberger is the Wall Street Journal’s national security editor. And much like me, she’s been covering the US defense industry for over 20 years.
They got their start going back to 2003 and trying to come up with a data analytics platform. We’re in the middle of the war on terror. We’re involved in operations in Afghanistan. We’re involved in operations in Iraq. And what is our number one problem there at the time? It’s insurgency. It’s roadside bombs, IEDs that were killing U.S. and allied soldiers and infantry on the ground at a really alarming rate.
So Palantir came in and said, look, we can take all of this information that you’re collecting, and the Defense Department collects a whole lot on the battlefield and integrate it in a database and help you spot bad actors, spot terrorists. That is what they pitched themselves as doing when they were first coming on the scene in 2003, 2004. And really for the first decade of its existence. What they’ve expanded to today is something much bigger in some ways, more interesting, and in some ways kind of posits them to be more successful, which is they are a problem solver for the Department of Defense.
You have a problem. We will solve it. All right, so here’s the deal. Palantir is a data analytics software company that got its start during the war on terror, and today has big ambitions to be the U.S. Department of Defense’s go to problem solver. The idea of a Silicon Valley company saying, we kill things, we kill people, that we’re interested in serving the Department of Defense and the Department of Defense wages war. That was simply unprecedented back in 2003.
It was what made them unique. People hadn’t seen it and that they were going to compete with companies that had been around for decades and dominated the market. The companies Sharon’s talking about here are commonly known as the big defense primes. Places like Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, and Raytheon. The Department of Defense gives these chillers huge contracts to make fighter jets and stuff.
One of the things that these new companies like Palantir are helping to disrupt, which is probably good, is the system of prime contracting and defense contracting. We have a few big contractors that have these giant contracts and they have cost overruns. One reason the Pentagon’s budget is so big. Mark O’Mara is a historian and professor who studies the modern history of American politics and business, and how they overlap, and this is something that leader policymakers have been pushing back against for decades and trying to rectify.
So, yeah, having more companies in the ecosystem, that’s probably really good. Hey, everybody just popping in here to say happy birthday to Jeremy J. Watkins. Jeremy is a man whose information I bought from a third party data broker. I happen to enjoy collecting people’s data and presenting it around my house. Now, if anybody wants to send Jeremy a gift in person, he lives on 28 Stowe Avenue in Hunting Burg, Indiana, and he recently searched for cheap fleece pullovers and hemorrhoid ointment.
And if you don’t like how he’s able to scrounge up all that data on big J here, then I suggest you look up something called incognito. Incognito is an online service that ensures your personal information stays off. Data brokers and people searching sites. Folks, you never know where your personal data might be after you spend time surfing the web. Targeted ads, random newsletter sign-ups, and unwanted spam emails all end up being ways that your info gets slurped up by the bad guys and later put into my personal private collection.
Incognito works by scanning all the people searching sites you may have been linked to, and sending them a request that they get your personal data out of there. Then they continually track down and add any new data brokers to your profile. It might try to sneak in there after you’ve made an account. Right on, right on. And if you go to incognito.com/good work, then you get 60% off an annual plan.
So if you don’t want your data shopped around the shadowy realms of the internet until I print it out and hang it in my guest bathroom, then check out Incognito. Palantir is at the front of a new group of companies who say they are going to disrupt the old, slow, bloated defense primes with their new, efficient, innovative, user-friendly, Silicon Valley style. Because they’re making boring old fighter jets where you live long enough to see someone come along with their own swarm of autonomous attack drones.
They’ve made a ton of really senior hires from US government agencies. And also a number of really senior Palantir executives have been appointed by Trump to senior government positions. Volunteer has been hiring. Well, from the pool of people that know how the government system works. Tappy is the Financial Times West Coast finance editor, and Cynthia O, who is an investigative reporter for the FT, together, they wrote a piece about how successful Palantir has been at landing government contracts, pointing out that the company has done quite a good job of cultivating, shall we say, intimate, toe-tickling relationships with governments.
Palantir has been built on people from government. They are obviously informed that people who work on these really crucial missions and in the armed forces and all those sorts of places where politics has traditionally sold its business. And boy, have these boys been selling some business. Palantir has landed over $1.3 billion in Department of Defense contracts since 2009. This is for stuff like the Army’s Vantage data analytics platform, this James Bond-style AI satellite computer suitcase, and an AI-powered drone system called Project Maven and Titan, the Army’s first AI-defined vehicle, which promises to do things like reduce sensor-to-shooter timelines, reduce soldier workflow burdens and cognitive load, and enable long-range precision fire for the modern battlespace.
Basically, stuff that not only goes vroom vroom and pupu, but also beep boop beep. Scary stuff here. But here’s government contracts extend well beyond the military. During the Covid-19 pandemic, the US contracted Palantir to track outbreak data and set up a system to distribute vaccines. More controversially, Palantir reportedly helped Immigration and Customs Enforcement with all sorts of stuff, including a surveillance system to plan and organize workplace raids on an original contract worth as much as $127 million.
During the 2010s, the New Orleans Police Department ran a secretive partnership with Palantir to test predictive policing technology, which could have been named Minority Report if we had any taste around the world. Palantir’s tech is being used by the Ukrainian military, by the Israeli military for war-related missions, and by the British government to overhaul the technology behind the NHS England state-run health service, which oversees one of the biggest repositories of individual patient data in the world. So in the UK, it became quite a controversial set of contracts were implemented.
The UK government had opened itself up or welcomed Palantir with open arms, where civil liberties groups and privacy groups with privacy concerns were a lot more skeptical. I think there’s been a lot of concern around Palantir, and it’s what it really means for them to provide these services. Especially privacy advocates have been very concerned about its offerings. And volunteers pushed against a lot of this concern. But I think it is about transparency and how much access can you get and what can you do behind the scenes that another company cannot?
And that is being done outside the purview of the public, and even with all of this government work lined up, Palantir has still managed to girlboss its way into an impressive book of commercial business. Banks and government regulators used stuff like Palantir as anti-money laundering and customer data tracking products. BP has been a longtime partner using Palantir software to support its digital transformation program. Volunteers’ chief technology officer tweeted last year that the company’s AI clients include United Airlines, Lowe’s, General Mills, and do not sleep on Tampa General Hospital.
By Jove, they’ve even got their paws in big pickleball neighbors. If you think pickleball paddles are loud, just wait till you hear Titan rolling down your street. It’s the Army’s first AI-defined vehicle, folks. Long-range precision fire for the modern battlespace. Overall, Palantir’s commercial revenue in the United States jumped by 54% last year, a lot of that momentum driven by Palantir’s pivot from data surveillance in their early years to AI products today.
Now, the honchos who originally created this sprawling Palantir beast are none other than Peter Thiel and this guy who looks like if Tiger got electrocuted. His name is Alex Karp. Though Thiel tends to stay in the shadows like the sassy little mystery minx he is, Karp is one of those modern tech CEOs who says a bunch of crazy shit to feverish crowds of employees and retail investors that he calls Palantir, leading them like Mother Flipper and Caesar Augustus. It’s definitely been in this kind of meme stock Reddit retail army category for a while. The subreddit for Palantir traders is, I think it’s about 100,000 people now. I mean, I referred to Alex Karp, the chief executive, as Daddy Karp. He’s really responded to that by saying kind of increasingly, in creep. I’m trying to find a polite way to say it’s just increasingly kind of out there things in his interviews. That’s right, tabby, it’s always dangerous to start calling rich guys daddy because you never know what they’re going to feel emboldened to say next to me as a front man offending half of America.
I don’t think in win lose, I think in domination; almost nothing makes a human happier than taking the lines of cocaine away from these short sellers. I love the idea of getting a drone and having light fentanyl-laced urine spraying on analysts who try to screw us. And now, despite whatever thoughts you have on good ol’ American scent pee, Karp is a tricky figure to pin down. Yes, he partnered with Peter Thiel, the notorious far-right libertarian who backed Trump’s 2016 campaign and bankrolled JD Vance, his political career, to build a data surveillance company for hunting down terrorists. All stuff that might be easy to generalize as conservative.
But then again, he backed Kamala Harris during the latest presidential election. He frequently donates to Democrats. He likes to go trail running and loves Denver. All stuff that might be easy to generalize. As a lesbian, everybody, I think we got a new type of guy on our hands. Karp is someone who comes from a kind of left-wing background. Peter Thiel, who’s the founder and really the person behind Palantir, is famous in the Valley for being a very outspoken conservative or techno-libertarian.
They have these really interesting, strange bedfellows in terms of leadership. But I think they have something in common with the old, old style of the Valley of the Cold War era, in that there’s this understanding that there is a partnership that’s necessary between private industry and the defense establishment in order to get the best tech in the hands of the U.S. government. That’s wax and wane. But the business of war has always been Silicon Valley’s business to some degree.
The relationship that Alex Karp and Palantir are pushing for between the tech industry and the Department of Defense isn’t so much a new status quo as it is a fresh version of an old one. Karp is very open about being a fan of the old school tech industry, one where Lockheed Missiles and SpaceX was the largest employer in Silicon Valley through the 1980s, one where the Department of Defense built the original internet, one where Oppenheimer’s Manhattan Project brought together the finest scientific and engineering minds in the U.S. to collaborate with the government.
In his new book, which I read on the subway and was then immediately hit on by a very foreign attack drone, Alex Karp argues that the tech industry has lost its way over the last few decades, focusing on consumer products that essentially abandon any serious attempt to advance society. He writes that the software industry should rebuild its relationship with the government, and while the blending of business and national purpose makes many uneasy, it is now the job of Silicon Valley to defend the West.
And it’s here. Karp has differentiated himself from his 21st-century tech contemporaries with how open he is about both patriotism and making tech products for killing, but his peers are starting to follow suit. The Valley has always had these ties with Washington, D.C., but often has been very low-key about it and coy about it, and pretended that we don’t do anything with those people over there. They’re like, we don’t care about politics. It matters nothing to our business. We’re a free market miracle.
And in the background they’re like, not this tax break. I’m interested now. It’s just more overt. And now I think there’s a broader public consciousness of like, oh, wait a minute. People like Peter Thiel and Elon Musk, they get a lot of federal contracts. Now, despite Karp and Palantir’s very real momentum, it doesn’t mean that they are that close to revolutionizing the defense industry and unseating those old defense primes. They have yet to prove that they can build a major weapons system better than a Lockheed Martin, Boeing or Raytheon.
They may have their own views on that, but when I look across at what’s being used in Ukraine on a mass scale, that is not yet the Palantirs or Rolls of the world. It doesn’t mean they won’t do it, but they have yet to prove they can. Nonetheless, it is possible the Palantir will be the future, and if they are, then the approach that they have taken to rise to prominence would all mean an entirely new paradigm for how American defense companies operate.
You don’t typically see the heads of Lockheed Martin or Raytheon giving opinions about how the world should be ordered. Lockheed Martin is not trying to appeal to the day traders, or to the meme stocks, or to any of that. Palantir is; they’re kind of trying to sell themselves to the nation writ large. I think that is part of what is new in this era is Silicon Valley. Companies say working with the Pentagon is not a dirty business. It helps national defense. These are good things to do.
And clearly their message is working. Will that work in the long term? We’ll see. Indeed, we will see for now though. In the meantime, I’ve got my eyes on you, Palantir, and I encourage all my fellow citizens to do the same. For if a defense company thinks that it can.
And now for a dramatic reading of Palantir Reddit posts: through 1.6 million into Palantir because the CEO’s head looks like my grandpa’s bald. So are we warmongers? Palantir is a good stock, but isn’t an ethical investment. Hamas really took us to the moon. Zero upvotes, 30 comments. Software and war fire emoji. I’m gonna come. Let’s go to the moon.
This is an experimental rewrite
When today’s wealthy and illustrious tech companies describe their mission, they often proclaim, “We are connecting the world.” In reality, this translates to creating a highly addictive, gamified experience akin to a sexualized version of Farmville, as addictive as opioids.
Upon discovering that last year’s best-performing stock was a Silicon Valley unicorn named Palantir, I thought I had a good sense of their activities. Likely, they had launched a streaming service called Boo Boo, a housing rental app named Housley, or produced earbuds called doinkers, or something along those lines. However, to confirm my assumptions, I decided to investigate further. It quickly became apparent that Palantir stands apart from the typical tech firms I encounter.
One of their claims is: “We built this kill chain, the digital kill chain. How do you defend your country and eliminate your enemies?” It was unnerving to find that their products are sometimes used for lethal purposes. Two immediate responses came to mind: First, I’m completely shocked. Second, what does that mean? Naturally, I began my investigation using Bing—because I use Bing to access google.com—to search for Palantir. A brief exploration of their website revealed that Palantir specializes in AI-driven automation for decision-making and strives to deliver crucial outcomes for some of the West’s most powerful institutions.
The language on their site poses audacious questions: What if Genghis Khan and Ronald Reagan had a child who became a writer of mind-numbingly tedious marketing content? Despite that, my research uncovered something even I could understand: whatever Palantir is up to, it’s incredibly profitable. Their stock is booming, having surged 22% this week alone, making it the top performer over the past year. As it stands, there is no other company quite like it. I find myself outside Palantir’s offices, where their stock skyrocketed by 340% in 2024, peaking this winter and pushing their valuation over $250 billion.
Even though their stock price has seen a dip since then, they remain competitive with giants like AT&T, IBM, and Cisco. However, I couldn’t let the tantalizing profits divert my focus. To truly grasp what Palantir is about, I knew I needed to take more significant action—like consulting individuals who genuinely understand the company. So, could you clarify for me right now: what does Palantir actually do?
Sharon Weinberger: “I’ll make two points. Firstly, the very fact that you’re asking this question reflects the heart of the company—its inherent confusion and mystique. Secondly, I will clarify what they do: they aim to secure contracts from the Defense Department, as well as commercial ones. However, I believe their primary focus is on those Defense contracts.”
Sharon Weinberger is the national security editor for the Wall Street Journal, and like me, she has been examining the U.S. defense industry for over 20 years.
“Palantir began its journey in 2003, seeking to develop a data analytics platform during the war on terror. We were deeply involved in operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, facing a significant challenge at that time: insurgency. Roadside bombs and IEDs were taking the lives of U.S. and allied soldiers at an alarming rate. Palantir stepped in, suggesting that they could aggregate all the information the Defense Department collected on the battlefield into a database to help identify bad actors and terrorists. This was their pitch when they debuted around 2003-2004 and constituted their core function for the first decade of their existence.”
“The scope of what they do has expanded dramatically since then. Today, they position themselves as a problem solver for the Department of Defense. They present the motto: ‘You have a problem, we will solve it.’ So, here’s the bottom line: Palantir is a data analytics software company that originated during the war on terror and now has ambitious plans to be the go-to problem solver for the U.S. Department of Defense. The idea that a Silicon Valley company openly acknowledges its role in ‘killing’ and working with the Department of Defense—an organization that conducts warfare—was utterly unprecedented in 2003.”
“This unique positioning made them stand out, especially as they began competing with long-established defense giants. The companies Sharon mentioned are typically referred to as the big defense primes, including names like Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, and Raytheon, which the Department of Defense awards massive contracts to for aircraft and other military equipment.”
“These newer companies like Palantir are helping to disrupt the traditional system of prime contracting, which has often been plagued by huge cost overruns—a major reason behind the Pentagon’s enormous budget. Mark O’Mara, a historian and professor studying the intersection of American politics and business, emphasizes that there’s been a push among policymakers to address this issue for decades.”
“Having more companies in the ecosystem is likely a positive development. Oh, and a quick interjection here—I want to wish a happy birthday to Jeremy J. Watkins! Jeremy is someone whose information I acquired from a third-party data broker. Yes, I enjoy collecting data about individuals and displaying it around my home. Now, should anyone want to send Jeremy a gift in person, he resides at 28 Stowe Avenue, Hunting Burg, Indiana, and he recently searched for affordable fleece pullovers and hemorrhoid ointment.
If you’re uncomfortable with how easily data can accumulate about you, I suggest looking into a service called Incognito. Incognito is an online platform designed to keep your personal information off data brokers and people-search sites.
You never know where your personal data might end up after you browse the web—ranging from targeted ads and unsolicited newsletter subscriptions to spam emails, all of which lead to your information being collected by unscrupulous parties, eventually ending up in my private collection. Incognito helps by scanning all the people-search sites linked to your identity and requests them to remove your personal data. This service also continuously tracks and adds any new data brokers that may acquire your information after you set up an account.
And if you visit incognito.com/goodwork, you can snag a 60% discount on an annual plan. So if you’re keen on keeping your information out of the shadowy corners of the internet—at least until I decide to print it out and hang it in my guest bathroom—consider checking out Incognito.”
“Palantir is at the forefront of a new wave of companies claiming they will disrupt the outdated, sluggish defense primes with their fresh, efficient, innovative, and user-friendly Silicon Valley approach. This is important, especially when considering traditional military hardware that you’ve lived long enough to witness evolve into autonomous attack drones.”
“They’ve made several senior hires from U.S. government agencies, and numerous Palantir executives have been appointed to senior government roles by Trump. Palantir is indeed tapping into a talent pool that knows the inner workings of the government system.”
Tappy: “Cynthia and I, reporting for the Financial Times, highlighted how incredibly successful Palantir has been in securing government contracts. The company has cultivated, shall we say, uniquely intimate relationships with various governments.”
“Palantir’s foundation is built on expertise drawn from government personnel, those involved in crucial missions in the armed forces—areas where politics has historically intertwined with business. And wow, have they been doing business! Palantir has amassed over $1.3 billion in Department of Defense contracts since 2009, covering projects like the Army’s Vantage data analytics platform, a James Bond-esque AI satellite computer suitcase, and an AI-driven drone initiative called Project Maven, as well as Titan, the Army’s first AI-defined vehicle designed to streamline operations such as sensor-to-shooter timelines, decrease soldier workflow burdens, and enhance long-range precision fire in contemporary battlefields.”
“Essentially, we’re looking at technology that not only goes ‘vroom vroom’ and ‘pupu’ but also ‘beep boop beep.’ Quite unsettling in some respects. Yet, Palantir’s government contracts extend beyond military applications. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. government enlisted Palantir to help monitor outbreak data and establish systems for vaccine distribution. More controversially, they reportedly assisted Immigration and Customs Enforcement in developing a surveillance system to facilitate workplace raids, with an original contract valued up to $127 million.”
“Additionally, in the 2010s, the New Orleans Police Department maintained a clandestine partnership with Palantir to trial predictive policing technology—an initiative that might have been called ‘Minority Report’ if anyone had better taste. Palantir’s technology is currently deployed by the Ukrainian military, the Israeli military for warfare tasks, and the British government to modernize the technology infrastructure behind NHS England, which manages one of the largest pools of individual patient data worldwide. Consequently, the contracts initiated in the UK sparked considerable controversy.”
“The UK government opened its doors wide for Palantir, much to the dismay of civil liberties and privacy advocacy groups, who expressed skepticism and concern. Indeed, many individuals worry about Palantir’s services and what they imply. Particularly concerning are privacy advocates who have voiced strong apprehensions. Despite this pushback, Palantir has worked to counter many of these concerns, mainly revolving around transparency and the extent of access granted, and what can be accomplished behind the scenes that other companies cannot.
Even amid a robust portfolio of government work, Palantir has still successfully navigated its way into a significant commercial sector. Various banks and regulatory bodies utilize Palantir for anti-money laundering and customer data management solutions. BP, for example, has been a long-standing partner, employing Palantir software to assist its digital transformation initiatives. Last year, Palantir’s chief technology officer shared on Twitter that their AI client roster includes United Airlines, Lowe’s, General Mills, and notably, Tampa General Hospital.
By Jove, they’ve even managed to get involved with big pickleball collaborations! If you thought the sound of pickleball paddles was loud, just wait until you hear Titan cruising down your neighborhood. This is the Army’s inaugural AI-defined vehicle, designed for long-range precision fire in modern combat scenarios. Palantir’s overall commercial revenue in the U.S. surged by 54% last year, largely propelled by their shift from early data surveillance practices to contemporary AI products.”
“Now, the prominent figures behind the Palantir juggernaut are none other than Peter Thiel and Alex Karp, who has a peculiar appearance reminiscent of a shockingly electrocuted version of Tiger. While Thiel tends to remain in the background, Karp embodies the profile of a modern tech CEO who exuberantly engages with enthusiastic crowds of employees and retail investors whom he refers to as Palantir—leading them similarly to both a passionate mentor and a Roman ruler.”
“Palantir has certainly entered the chatter surrounding meme stocks and retail trading phenomena, with their subreddit for traders boasting around 100,000 members. I have, in jest, dubbed Alex Karp ‘Daddy Karp,’ and he has amusingly acknowledged this nickname by increasingly stating things that err on the eccentric side during his interviews. This is indeed risky, as calling wealthy individuals ‘daddy’ can unleash unexpected bravado.”
Karp: “In my perspective, I don’t subscribe to a win/lose paradigm; my thoughts center around domination. Few things bring humans more joy than stripping short sellers of their profits. I even entertain the whimsical notion of deploying a drone to deliver fentanyl-laced urine to analysts who dare to undermine us.”
“Despite how one feels about his whimsical comments regarding American-crafted scents, Karp is a complex character. While he collaborated with Peter Thiel—known as a far-right libertarian who supported Trump’s 2016 campaign and financed JD Vance’s political aspirations—to create a data surveillance firm designed to apprehend terrorists, some of his actions might appear easily categorizable as conservative. However, he also backed Kamala Harris during the most recent presidential election and frequently donates to Democratic initiatives. A trail runner with a fondness for Denver, he embodies a new type of personality emerging in the tech space.”
“Karp’s background leans left, while Peter Thiel is recognized in Silicon Valley as a vocal conservative, even a techno-libertarian. They present an intriguing and somewhat paradoxical dynamic within their leadership. However, they share a common belief rooted in the traditional ethos of Silicon Valley from the Cold War era, where a collaboration between private industry and the defense sector was vital to equip the U.S. government with the best technology available.”
“The partnership that Karp and Palantir are advocating between the tech industry and the Department of Defense represents a refreshed interpretation of an old dynamic, rather than an entirely new reality. Karp openly expresses admiration for the traditional tech industry, characterized by firms like Lockheed Missiles and SpaceX, which dominated Silicon Valley throughout the 1980s. Historically, the Department of Defense played a pivotal role in establishing the internet and the Manhattan Project gathered top scientific and engineering talents in the U.S. to collaborate with the government.”
“In his recent book—which I was engrossed in while riding the subway and subsequently caught the attention of a rather peculiar drone—Karp posits that the tech industry has lost focus over the decades, concentrating on consumer products at the expense of advancing societal goals. He contends that the software industry must rebuild its relationship with the government. While merging business interests with national purpose raises eyebrows, he asserts that it is now Silicon Valley’s responsibility to bolster the West’s defense.”
“In this narrative, Karp has set himself apart from his tech contemporaries by openly discussing both patriotism and the creation of tech products aimed at lethal purposes. However, his counterparts are gradually moving in a similar direction. Although Silicon Valley has historically maintained ties with Washington, D.C., it often downplayed those connections, feigning disinterest in politics as if it had no relevance to their business model.
In contrast, it has now become overt. We’re witnessing a growing public awareness of figures like Peter Thiel and Elon Musk, who receive considerable federal contracts. Nonetheless, despite Palantir’s tangible momentum, it does not necessarily imply that they are on the verge of revolutionizing the defense industry or dethroning established defense primes. They have yet to demonstrate the capacity to develop a significant weapons system comparable to what Lockheed Martin, Boeing, or Raytheon produce.”
“While Palantir may have its own visions, when I observe what is in active use in Ukraine on a broad scale, they have not yet reached that level of operability. This isn’t to say they won’t achieve it, but they’ve not proven that they can. Nevertheless, there’s a chance that Palantir could represent the future of defense contracting, and if that becomes a reality, their rise could signal a considerable shift in how American defense companies function.”
“Unlike the leaders of Lockheed Martin or Raytheon, who do not typically voice opinions on global matters, Palantir is intentionally positioning itself to appeal to a broader audience, including day traders and meme stock enthusiasts. They aim to market themselves as a beneficial ally to the nation at large, presenting the notion that collaborating with the Pentagon is not clouded with unethical implications.
In fact, they’re framing these partnerships as integral to national defense. And evidently, this message is resonating. Will it succeed in the long haul? Only time will tell. For now, however, I’m keeping a close watch on Palantir, and I urge fellow citizens to do the same. After all, if a defense contractor presumes that they can…”
“And now, for a dramatic reading of some Palantir Reddit posts: ‘I invested 1.6 million into Palantir because the CEO looks like my grandpa’s bald head.’ So, are we warmongers? Palantir is a strong investment but isn’t ethical. ‘Hamas really took us to the moon.’ Zero upvotes, 30 comments. Software and war fire emoji. I can’t wait, let’s go to the moon!’