
How Silicon Valley's Palantir Wired Washington - hownottowrite
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/08/palantir-defense-contracts-lobbyists-226969
======
bazqux2
I cannot say enough bad things about Palantir. Their technology is worse than
the free alternatives and their consultants are not worth the money. They are
losing their big commercial customers because of this and now need 'Hail Mary'
contracts from the US govt to remain in business.

There is already a lot of information out how bad Palantir is. I hear from
friends who work there that the BuzzFeed article on them is accurate. In
short, like much in the valley, Palantir financially set up as an
unmaintainable pyramid scheme.

One way for them to get out would be to pay Goldman Sachs to get Meg Wittman
use HP shareholder money to buy Palantir at face value. This worked for
Autonomy - a similar scam 'Big Data' company where the founders got away with
it.

~~~
tptacek
This is the kind of Palantir criticism I want to hear more of on HN. Could you
flesh it out? What are the open or free alternatives?

~~~
bazqux2
Sure, I'll give a few examples.

A guy from BP told me in 2013 that they forked iPython, replaced all iPython
references with Palantir and tried to sell it to them for $500K p.a.

For me; back in the day (2010) they were less secretive about their technology
which was essentially an ontological reasoner. This was pre the Big Data hype
boom - and AFAIK Palantir has never been about Big Data. Ontological reasoners
have problems that prevent them from scaling or generalizing so they generally
fail. Due to a long long history of failing ontological systems have a very
bad name. But they look good for guided demos and has a ton of academic
backing so it's easy to sell - as long as you call it something else - which
is what they did. So if you want to use ontologies a better open source
alternative software is Protege. But for the problems Palantir targets I'd
recommend using standard machine learning technology where all the good stuff
is open sourced.

As an aside, Peter Thiel also helped found Quid. A start-up that ripped off
the Gephi layout engine and charges people $20K p.a. a seat. They've since
rebuilt it but like Palantir it's still not solving people's problem and
they've evolved into a consulting firm.

~~~
nickpsecurity
They apparently say it right here about the ontology approach:

[https://www.palantir.com/palantir-
gotham/technologies/](https://www.palantir.com/palantir-gotham/technologies/)

That's especially hilarious given that approach's failures are what led to
investment in machine learning in the first place. Such approaches tend to
assume precise information, variables, and rules about the world. Most
problems Palantir wants to address... the hard ones... are imprecise with
hidden variables/relationships. The machine learning techniques did very well
on those kind of mess problems. So, research shifted.

If Palantir is using ontologies for that stuff, then that would certainly be a
sign for buyers to run. I still encourage academics to look into such
approaches with probabilistic, simple methods in case any advances come up.
Fuzzy logic was main one in my day. Just stumbled on a claim today a drone AI
did human-level performance using that. Some corroboration for R&D in underdog
solutions but _not production apps_. Haha.

~~~
bazqux2
Huh, so they are open about it now. They definitely were not when I talked to
them. I guess enough time has passed that people have forgotten the hard won
lessons of the past.

I worked on scaling and generalizing ontologies at university and had already
switched to working with Big Data / ML at a big company when Palantir tried to
recruit me. I talked to some of their senior engineers about their tech and
made the point that their tech sounded just like ontologies. I tried to get
them to admit what it was so I could be sure I was having an honest
conversation with them. They flatly denied it and made it out like the whole
thing was their great new idea. I was unimpressed.

I was still interested in working for them. Access to hard interesting
problems can be hard to come by. In the end I couldn't take their legendary
arrogance and insecurities - to me these are bright red flags of a toxic
corporate culture. And they low balled me. I would have temporarily put up
with the toxic culture for large piles of money.

~~~
nickpsecurity
"I was still interested in working for them. Access to hard interesting
problems can be hard to come by. In the end I couldn't take their legendary
arrogance and insecurities - to me these are bright red flags of a toxic
corporate culture. And they low balled me. I would have temporarily put up
with the toxic culture for large piles of money."

Smart decision. Far as ontologies, the Cyc project to create common sense in
machines was my favorite at the time. Used ontological, knowledge base if my
broken memory is accurate. I was and still am firmly convinced that finding an
architecture suitable to solve that problem is a pre-requisite for the AI's we
really want. Deep-learning is approximating it but closer to how brain does
vision than common sense. Minsky noted at one point he could count number of
researchers doing common sense on a single hand or so. That's a hard problem
if you want one. Also unbelievably hard to get funded. (sighs)

~~~
bazqux2
Thanks. There is some interesting work being done with Deep Learning mixed
with Bayesian Models and external databases of facts. The training apparently
ungodly slow though. My work these days is visual so CNN works well enough.
I'm not an authoritative expert in this field though so I'm taking 6 months
off to study it intensely, after which I hope to be able to make some
meaningful contributions.

------
carewornalien
Felt compelled to create an account to describe my experiences with Palantir
as well. We tried to engage with them for some threat intel work. They set up
an instance for a client and in the course of the engagement:

\- they exposed our data to other clients and other clients' data to us by
accident

\- had significant unplanned downtime

\- their platform buckled under relatively small amounts of object graph data

\- provided a fat client app that was the most bloated mess of repackaged and
unacknowledged open-source JAR files I've ever seen

------
ktamura
I've always found Palantir's sales&marketing strategy to be unique and
fascinating among Silicon Valley startups.

Palantir is a high-touch, B2B enterprise software startup, and as such, they
are no different than other startups when it comes to sales&marketing. They
need to find leads (= potential customers), close them as customers and retain
them.

Yet, Palantir's leadership and employees have repeatedly emphasized that they
don't do sales or marketing. The OP confirms that they meant that they do
sales and marketing _differently than other companies_.

Retaining lobbyists and policy advisers is one example. Typically, enterprise
software companies retain industry analyst firms like Gartner, Forrester, etc.
and "influence" their opinions via briefing/consulting. These industry analyst
firms also work with technology buyers and make recommendations to them based
on their knowledge of software/service providers and the needs of the buyer.

To be sure, no analyst firm is 100% pay to play because if they favor select
vendors too much, they lose credibility, access to information and hence
influence. That said, it's naive to think that they are 100% free from monied
vendor incentives.

It did not occur to me until reading this post that the same model applies to
lobbying, and that's where Palantir invested their influencer marketing
budget.

Palantir often emphasizes their technological innovation and unique culture
(again, a great marketing strategy to attract great technical talent and put
them in sales engineering roles). However, I've come to believe that
Palantir's greatest innovation is in their business strategy.

~~~
bane
> Yet, Palantir's leadership and employees have repeatedly emphasized that
> they don't do sales or marketing.

That was definitely a matra a few years ago, but then they started plastering
adverts all over D.C.'s metro stations [1] and started hiring sales, BD,
marketing and advertising people in huge numbers [2]. In addition, they've
clearly hired some great PR firms to get "news" articles written about them in
high profile newspapers.

At this point, looking at their venture raises and the lack of major
technology investment (outside of integration and customization), I'd say
they're probably one of the best funded traditional sales & marketing
organization in this space.

1 - [https://www.quora.com/How-much-is-Palantir-Technologies-
spen...](https://www.quora.com/How-much-is-Palantir-Technologies-spending-to-
advertise-along-the-DC-metro-system)

2 - [https://www.palantir.com/careers/](https://www.palantir.com/careers/)

------
roymurdock
> While still a fraction of what the Pentagon's biggest contractors spend,
> Palantir's lobbying expenditures grew from $300,000 in 2010 to over $1
> million by 2015.

Expected this number to be a lot higher as this seems to be the articles
thesis: palantir aggressively outspent and outmaneuvered the traditional war
contractors.

Also, given that palantir has secured $500m in gov contracts (1.2b*40%) the
ROI on the ~$10m they've spent on lobbying is massive. I find it hard to
believe that it accounts for a substantial portion of palantir's success.

~~~
maxerickson
Maybe their intelligence is so good that they knew exactly which wheel to
grease and that it didn't need a lot of grease.

More seriously, it's interesting to consider them turning their expertise
against their customers.

------
somenomadicguy
Thus the reason I hang up on startup recruiters the moment they say "A peter
thiel funded start-up". I'm not sure what is a sadder waste of this amazing
braintrust we have in the United States today, all of the advertising start-
ups, or sociopathic dreck like Palantir.

~~~
manigandham
This is the wrong attitude - there is no "waste" of braintrust. Innovation
doesnt work like that, it comes from all over by people working on what they
want to work on.

What's wrong with advertising startups? Some of the most valuable companies on
this planet are advertising companies because it's an essential part of
success for any business.

~~~
erikpukinskis
Most people in most startups are not "working on what they want to work on"
they are working on what their boss wants them to work on.

Heck, I would wager that >50% of startup employees are not even doing the work
they think is most important _for the success of the startup_. They are doing
the work their boss (who by definition is further removed from the facts)
thinks is most important.

Heck, I wouldn't be surprised if >50% of startup employees are doing work they
_know_ is not important for the success of the startup.

That's what happens when you run a command and control organization. You lose
>50% of your output, in exchange for guaranteed alignment of whatever is
leftover. As long as you pay people <50% of what they are worth you can still
make money.

~~~
jomamaxx
"their boss (who by definition is further removed from the facts)"

While I agree that poor leadership is common, I strongly beg to differ with
the reasoning that leadership is removed from the facts.

Friend - 'Engineering' is not 'the facts', or not usually.

Customers, business opportunities, markets, investors - these are usually the
'facts' in a business, and sometimes it means doing things that don't seem
obvious to a coder.

I've never seen something great come to fruition that involved a linear
progress from 'need' to 'product'. It's usually messy, and involves all sorts
of actors.

For example, hacking together a 'throw away' something to impress a customer
or to ensure they believe in the capacity of the company would likely been
seen as a 'waste' from an ops perspective, but it's certainly not if the
business situation calls for it.

Sometimes the facts are in the code, but this is much less often than one
would realize.

That said, Palantir is a little scammy. They're just CGI or Accenture by
another name.

~~~
erikpukinskis
> Friend - 'Engineering' is not 'the facts', or not usually.

Not sure why you're referencing engineering? I didn't say anything about that.
Not all startup employees are engineers.

> Customers, business opportunities, markets, investors

Customer support is going to have more facts about customers, investors are
going to have more facts about investment terms and opportunities, marketing
team is going to have more facts about markets, biz dev is going to have more
facts about business relationships.

Management is not going to have more facts in any area than anyone really.
Their job isn't to understand what's happening in detail, it's to maintain the
structure of communication which allows different parts of the company to make
good decisions.

If management starts thinking they know more than their employee on a topic,
something has gone terribly wrong. They hired someone who doesn't know what
they are doing, or they are preventing information from flowing to where it is
needed, or they are just being hubristic.

------
ejcx
This article makes Palantir sound really weak to me.

Palantir makes money selling their product. They are not a real competitor or
Northrop Grumman or Raytheon. The big primes are massive and organized to win
lots of different big contracts over a long time period.

If they wanted to compete with the big primes they would be at a massive
disadvantage paying expensive SV engineers who are hard to clear versus cheap
DC engineers who are easy to clear.

If they have had 1b in revenue I'm not sure what that means. They have raised
about 1b, but paid like 5000 employees. Financially not bad but they are big,
I kind of expect a lot more federal money than that to keep them in a good
place.

I'm not sure what the future of Palantir looks like.

~~~
jdavis703
Having worked in DC and SV I'm not sure DC engineers are cheap, especially the
ones who can clear.

~~~
ejcx
I have too. The ceiling for an engineers salary is much lower in DC. Also
young people have a much lower salary as well. Some managers might be pretty
close in compensation though.

We are talking about DMV. Working in the city is very uncommon for big primes.
All their HQs are in Tysons

It's more than DC though. Big primes have satellite offices everywhere.

~~~
Yhippa
I have noticed that about DC. I've met plenty of quality engineers but the
salaries seem surprisingly low here. It would almost be better to take a
slight pay cut but live in Richmond, VA where the cost-of-living is much
lower.

Either way I have major doubts about having an engineering career in DC.

------
swingbridge
I recently read how Palantir is currently suing the government because they
got pissed the Army is considering dumping them and is trying to bid out the
work to others. They're coming across as a bit desperate in this whole thing
and to be fair they probably are since if Uncle Sam pulls out they're probably
toast.

There was a lot of press a few months back about how they've been dumped by a
lot of their private sector customers for costing too much and delivering too
little. If the government catches on and and does the same thing that sort of
destroys their business model.

~~~
analogmemory
Are you kidding? The government LOVES to overpay for underwhelming software.

~~~
davidu
That's really not accurate.

While it happens, there are many projects and efforts that are tightly
controlled, managed, and executed.

And when projects go off the rails, people are generally pretty unhappy. The
government is huge though, so bad apples and bad actors exist... but it's not
accurate to write hyperbolically as you do.

~~~
us0r
> but it's not accurate to write hyperbolically as you do.

Yes it is. Give me 5 on-time, on-budget IT projects I'll give you 50 that
flopped.

------
bane
Lots of questions over how much firms of this type spend on lobbying, here's
an article with some figures.

[http://watchdog.org/124909/defense-
spending/](http://watchdog.org/124909/defense-spending/)

As an example Lockheed Martin spent around $14.4m in 2013 and does about
$45b/year in revenue.

According to this Palantir spent around $1m in 2015 and gets about $1b/year in
revenue.

~~~
tmd83
Lobbying from what I understand is a more polite form of corruption for the
most part. I think in the parts of the world where corruption is more direct
(bribes) you actually have to pay a lot more to get this kind of returns.

------
jomamaxx
Palantir is just a secretive CGI: mediocre devs doing outsourced work. There
is no product. Just a brand.

~~~
akhilcacharya
>mediocre devs

Really? They pretty much hire from the best (Stanford, etc) - how are they
mediocre?

~~~
pikzen
Because coming out of a prestigious school doesn't make you good by default.
It just means you were able to pass their tests well enough, whether it is
from actual skill or playing the tests.

------
fullshark
Is a million a lot to spend on lobbying?

~~~
trimbo
Not sure relative to revenue, but the top lobbying group (US Chamber of
Commerce) spent $85MM last year.

[https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/top.php?showYear=2015&inde...](https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/top.php?showYear=2015&indexType=s)

------
jgalt212
I look at consultants like home improvement, if you can spend $100 and improve
the value of your home by $70, you've basically won.

As an aside, there should be a JP Power rankings for consultancies. Is there?

~~~
ajb
Maybe this is a typo, but the way you wrote it, you lost $30.

~~~
avs733
no, it very much depends on what your time is worth and the time it would take
you vs. someone you pay to do a job.

If I pay someone $100 to raise the value of my home $70, but it would take me
10hrs and I value my time at $100 an hour then it would cost me $1,000 to do
what I hired someone to do for $100

~~~
poikniok
Why would you do it in the first place? By definition your EV is $30 higher by
just not doing anything.

~~~
jgalt212
a combination of "this time it's gonna be different", and I need some on-
demand expertise.

------
JabavuAdams
I just love the name of the company and its perhaps unintended implications.

The Palantiri were seeing stones ... allowing rulers to observe distant
events, but ...

The Orthanc-Palantir was used by Sauron (the big bad) to enslave Saruman (the
lead Wizard), causing him to betray the forces of good.

So, now we finally see why Thiel (Saruman) endorsed Trump (Sauron).

