
Big Data, Big Bucks: Palantir Valued at $9 Billion  - Kopion
http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2013/12/05/big-data-big-bucks-palantir-valued-at-9-billion/
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thisiswrong
> In-Q-Tel, a non-profit venture-capital firm established by the CIA

Good old Mussolini style fascism is steaming full speed ahead in the land of
the free.

~~~
MrZongle2
Sssh, we've got to keep the children safe by recording all the minutia of your
online life. Because terrorism.

~~~
ilyanep
This is a reddit-level shitty comment. Unless you agree that the CIA has no
right to exist (and you'd be insane [one of the nicest words I can think to
put here] to think so), I fail to see why it's bad that the government would
contract to people who can do things 100% more efficiently. Also the form of
"shh...don't bring your logic here" comments is especially discussion-killing
and really doesn't belong here.

Full disclosure: I work for Palantir, but I speak for myself, not the company.

~~~
MrZongle2
Fair enough. I'll dispense with the snark and provide a more specific summary
of my thoughts on the matter:

1) Not everybody who works for the government (either directly or as a
contractor) is a power-hungry closet totalitarian. In fact, these people are
_rare_.

2) Nevertheless, these people exist, and the ambitious ones often claw their
way to the upper echelons of whatever organization they work for. Their goals
are likely not as diabolic or lofty as overthrowing a country or subverting
the Constitution, but rather to check the requisite boxes _their_ bosses deem
important and to further their own careers by "empire building".

3) The by-product of these goals can result in the waste of millions of
dollars of taxpayer money, if they over promise and under deliver. They may
exaggerate the scope of a problem in order to make their pet solution seem all
the more critical. Technical problems have more taxpayer dollars thrown at
them, to ensure a fix. Legal restrictions are tackled by lawyers, who seek to
find workarounds.

4) In the end, rules are bent and billions are wasted to solve a "problem"
that really wasn't a serious problem. Most of the hands that touched the
"solution" did not intend to waste money or subvert laws, but either believed
that the end result was for the greater good or simply didn't care one way or
the other.

I see Palantir in this light: not an evil entity, not a shadowy puppet master
plotting the demise of America. But they happily accept contracts from
agencies full of men and women far more interested in checking boxes and
furthering personal careers than any effect it may have on spending or the
personal liberties of strangers.

I see them in the same light as I do the people who built the backscatter
machines used by the TSA in the airports: an interesting tool being misused by
the wrong people in power.

Individuals who work on a project that can be turned against their fellow
citizens and sleep well at night because the work is interesting or the pay is
good have none of my sympathy and are earning an increasing amount of my
contempt as the scope of unconstitutional government espionage becomes more
and more clear.

The CIA -- as well as any other government agency -- is an _organization_ and
has no inherent "right" to do anything, including exist. I don't care about
efficiency if it means that my children and _their_ children grow up in a
country where every electronic record associated with their lives is harvested
and analyzed so they may _supposedly_ be safer from "bad guys".

A pox on anyone who supports this guilt-by-association, pro-precrime,
"efficient" America. It is an Orwellian hell.

How's THAT for a comment?

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angersock
Think of it as an involuntary social network!

~~~
nine_k
Their next project, now in closed alpha, aims "to bring them all and in the
darkness bind them"; the preliminary logo is O-shaped.

Whether they buy a tower for their office remains to be seen.

</TheOnionMode>

~~~
ghostDancer
Remember that the "original" Palantir (the ones in the novel) were created by
the good guys for communication but were used by the bad guys for spying so is
pretty close.

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ig1
Pretty shoddy reporting from the WSJ, Peter Thiel isn't (just) an investor in
Palantir he's a cofounder:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palantir_Technologies](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palantir_Technologies)

~~~
clebio
And editing: > ... the “big data” miner that the counts the CIA and the FBI
among its clients...

An extraneous 'the' in the first sentence.

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jameszhang
Great for them; Palantir is definitely a company I respect. I went to their
office for an interview about 10 months ago for a job I didn't _really_ want.
I didn't get the job and I'm in a better position today, but I have nothing
except great things to say about their people and office. During the visit, I
learned a decent chunk about how big agencies use software like their's just
in a 1-hour demo. They also use their own software to do a lot of humanitarian
work.

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jgalt212
I would have thought post Snowden, Palantir and others like them, would have
diminished prospects in the future.

I guess I am wrong.

~~~
return0
That's like saying that if a gigantic oil deposit is confirmed, the petroleum
industry would collapse.

~~~
jgalt212
To stick with the oil analogy. Yes, but all of sudden now the world at large
has soured on gasoline so Palantir has built this massive refinery that has no
demand because the people no longer trust how folks are a. refining the oil
and b. what they are doing with the gasoline.

~~~
return0
We would all like to believe people care about being spied on and all, but the
truth is everyone is just busy preparing their christmas shopping.

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return0
To acquire the NSA or to be acquired by them? That is the question.

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pbreit
Is it odd to raise $200m at a $5b valuation in September and follow it with
$60m-100m at a $9b valuation a few months later?

~~~
ojbyrne
Its a little odd that its a smaller round, but other than that, it just seems
to indicate rapid growth, which usually needs financing i.e. "growth capital."

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jweir
[http://ecorner.stanford.edu/authorMaterialInfo.html?mid=3052](http://ecorner.stanford.edu/authorMaterialInfo.html?mid=3052)

Podcast with Stephen Cohen speaking at Stanford on starting Palantir.

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anonu
this round of funding is strange to me. Is it necessary? Its already well
established and probably generates sufficient revenue to fund itself - or at a
minimum raise debt if its in need of cash.

------
bonemachine

        s/Big Data/Big Brother/g;

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salient
More like Big Spying.

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sscalia
I'll risk even more downvotes -- but -- Palantir may be the creepiest company
in the valley.

The relationship they have with the DOD/NSA is simply unreal. their offices on
the east coast are full of high-ranking officials, generals, etc -- all the
time.

Palantir powers a lot of the retina-database insurgent tracking software in
Iraq and Afghanistan.

I've personally heard from US Army Special Operations forces that the imaging
software they use to plan "missions" is powered by Palantir (but is frequently
slow and buggy, so they resort to Google maps)

I noticed that an Operator featured in Sanjay Gupthas CNN documentary on
Marajuana had a Palantir patch next to his US Flag patch on his carrier chest
rig.

Creepy stuff.

~~~
3am
I won't downvote you, but I'll disagree with you.

We live in the world we live in, and counter intelligence is necessary. The
fact that it's privatized is nothing different that what's happening with KBR,
Blackwater, Lockheed-Martin, L3, et al. It's more a function of political
realities where critical functions are being subcontracted out.

I'd rather have a Palantir than not have one and be outmaneuvered by other
geopolitical rivals.

edit: hey, rayiner, fair point. I think that logistics and 'private security
contractors' are in a different category than traditional defense contractors.
I'm not really sure where Palantir belongs on that spectrum, so I intentional
casted a wide net.

~~~
VladRussian2
>We live in the world we live in, and counter intelligence is critical.

especially against your own citizens. Do "fusion center" and "Suspicious
Activity Reports" generated by Palantir software ring a bell?

If you remember history, the most amount of intelligence gathered and acted
upon in USSR, East Germany were against their own people, while it was
supposedly under the great goal of counter intelligence against [foreign]
enemy spies, agents, collaborators. Fusion centers with modern equipment and
software is KGB & Stasi wet dream.

~~~
rayiner
If you remember history, every single extant liberal democracy has had
surveillance capabilities for decades, and continue to be healthy free
societies.

~~~
VladRussian2
>If you remember history, every single extant liberal democracy has had
surveillance capabilities for decades, and continue to be healthy free
societies.

the difference here is the actual massive surveillance (basically total
possible by the technological means of the time) performed by the KGB/Stasi
outside of the due process inside the jurisdiction of their respective
countries. It is exactly the emerging characteristic of fusion centers and NSA
activities. Please name an "extant liberal democracy" which has had such
massive surveillance capabilities and applied them in such a way.

~~~
rayiner
The FBI during the 1950's and almost certainly Britain's intelligence agencies
post WWII.

Remember, the FISA mechanism that attracts so much flak these days was put
into place because in the past the NSA had no restrictions or oversight,
effective or ineffective.

~~~
VladRussian2
>The FBI during the 1950's

yes, great example. If people want back to that game of witch hunting, and
with incomparably, multiple orders of magnitude, increased capabilities of
witch hunters (like J. Edgar Hoover looking into a fusion center palantir by
Palantir) - well, i rest my case.

~~~
MrZongle2
Hoover would have killed for the kind of capabilities that Palantir provides.

But then again, so would have the KGB and East German Stasi.

Palantir's developers aren't evil, but the fact that so many folks wish to don
the rose-colored glasses and assume that their work cannot be used for the
_wrong_ things makes me nauseous.

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alttab
Hey, they recruit on LinkedIn like everyone else, leave them alone! /s

