Palantir: The UK Wants a Silver Bullet
March 11, 2024
This essay is the work of a dumb dinobaby. No smart software required.
The UK is an interesting nation state. On one hand, one has upmarket, high-class activities taking place not too far from the squatters in Bristol. Fancy lingo, nifty arguments (Here, here!) match up nicely with some wonky computer decisions. The British government seems to have a keen interest in finding silver bullets; that is, solutions which will make problems go away. How did that work for the postal service?
I read “Health Data – It Isn’t Just Palantir or Bust,” written by lawyer, pundit, novelist, and wizard Cory Doctorow. The essay focuses on a tender offer captured by Palantir Technologies. The idea is that the British National Health Service has lots of data. The NHS has done some wild and crazy things to make those exposed to the NHS safer. Sorry, I can’t explain one taxonomy-centric project which went exactly nowhere despite the press releases generated by the vendors, speeches, presentations, and assurances that, by gad, these health data will be managed. Yeah, and Bristol’s nasty areas will be fixed up soon.
The British government professional is struggling with software that was described as a single solution. Thanks, MSFT Copilot. How is your security perimeter working today? Oh, that’s too bad. Good enough.
What is interesting about the write up is not the somewhat repetitive retelling of the NHS’ computer challenges. I want to highlight the comments from the lawyer – novelist about the American intelware outfit Palantir Technologies. What do we learn about Palantir?
Here the first quote from the essay:
But handing it all over to companies like Palantir isn’t the only option
The idea that a person munching on fish and chips in Swindon will know about Palantir is effectively zero. But it is clear that “like Palantir” suggests something interesting, maybe fascinating.
Here’s another reference to Palantir:
Even more bizarre are the plans to flog NHS data to foreign military surveillance giants like Palantir, with the promise that anonymization will somehow keep Britons safe from a company that is literally named after an evil, all-seeing magic talisman employed by the principal villain of Lord of the Rings (“Sauron, are we the baddies?”).
The word choice is painting a picture of an American intelware company which does focus on conveying a negative message; for instance, the words safe, evil, all seeing, villain, baddies, etc. What’s going on?
The British Medical Association and the conference of England LMC Representatives have endorsed OpenSAFELY and condemned Palantir. The idea that we must either let Palantir make off with every Briton’s most intimate health secrets or doom millions to suffer and die of preventable illness is a provably false choice.
It seems that the American company is known to the BMA and an NGO have figured out Palantir is a bit of a sticky wicket.
Several observations:
- My view is that Palantir promised a silver bullet to solve some of the NHS data challenges. The British government accepted the argument, so full steam ahead. Thus, the problem, I would suggest, is the procurement process
- The agenda in the write up is to associate Palantir with some relatively negative concepts. Is this fair? Probably not but it is typical of certain “real” analysts and journalists to mix up complex issues in order to create doubt about vendors of specialized software. These outfits are not perfect, but their products are a response to quite difficult problems.
- I think the write up is a mash up of anger about tender offers, the ineptitude of British government computer skills, the use of cross correlation as a symbol of Satan, and a social outrage about the Britain which is versus what some wish it were.
Net net: Will Palantir change because of this negative characterization of its products and services? Nope. Will the NHS change? Are you kidding me, of course not. Will the British government’s quest for silver bullet solutions stop? Let’s tackle this last question this way: “Why not write it in a snail mail letter and drop it in the post?”
Intelware is just so versatile at least in the marketing collateral.
Stephen E Arnold, March 11, 2024
Palantir to Solve Banking IT Problems: Worth Monitoring
December 21, 2023
This essay is the work of a dumb dinobaby. No smart software required.
Palantir Technologies recast itself as an artificial intelligence company. The firm persevered in England and positioned itself as the one best choice to wrestle the UK National Health Service’s IT systems into submission. Now, the company founded 20 years ago is going to demonstrate its business chops in a financial institution.
A young IT wizard explains to a group of senior executives, “Our team can deal with mainframe software and migrate the operations of this organization to a modern, scalable, more economical, and easier-to-use system. I am wearing a special seeing stone, so trust me.” Thanks, MSFT Copilot. It took five tries to get a good enough cartoon.
Before referencing the big, new job Palantir has “won,” I want to mention an interesting 2016 write up called “Interviewing My Mother, a Mainframe COBOL Programmer” by Tom Jordan. I want to point out that I am not suggesting that financial institutions have not solved their IT problems. I simply don’t know. But my poking around the Charlie Javice matter, my hunch is that banks IT systems have not changed significantly in the last seven years. Had the JPMC infrastructure been humming along with real-time data checks and smart software to determine if data were spoofed, those $175 million dollars would not have flown the upscale coop at JP Morgan Chase. For some Charlie Javice detail, navigate to this CNBC news item.
Here are several points about financial institutions IT infrastructure from the 2016 mom chat:
- Many banks rely on COBOL programs
- Those who wrote the COBOL programs may be deceased or retired
- Newbies may not know how undocumented legacy COBOL programs interact with other undocumented programs
- COBOL is not the go-to language for most programmers
- The databases for some financial institutions are not widely understood; for example, DL/1 / IMS, so some programmers have to learn something new about something old
- Moving data around can be tricky and the documentation about what an upstream system does and how it interacts with a downstream system may be fuzzy or unknown.
Anyone who has experience fiddling with legacy financial systems knows that changes require an abundance of caution. An error can wreck financial havoc. For more “color” about legacy systems used in banks, consult Mr. Jordan’s mom interview.
I thought about Mr. Jordan’s essay when I read “Palantir and UniCredit Renew Digital Transformation Partnership.” Palantir has been transforming UniCredit for five years, but obviously more work is needed. From my point of view, Palantir is a consulting company which does integration. Thus, the speed of the transformation is important. Time is money. The write up states:
The partnership will see UniCredit deploy the Palantir Foundry operating system to accelerate the bank’s digital transformation and help increase revenue and mitigate risks.
I like the idea of a financial services institution increasing its revenue and reducing its risk.
The report about the “partnership” adds:
Palantir and UniCredit first partnered in 2018 as the bank sought technology that could streamline sales spanning jurisdictions, better operationalize machine learning and artificial intelligence, enforce policy compliance, and enhance decision making on the front lines. The bank chose Palantir Foundry as the operating system for the enterprise, leveraging a single, open and integrated platform across entities and business lines and enabling synergies across the Group.
Yep, AI is part of the deal. Compliance management is part of the agreement. Plus, Palantir will handle cross jurisdictional sales. Also, bank managers will make better decisions. (One hopes the JPMC decision about the fake data, revenues, and accounts will not become an issue for UniCredit.)
Palantir is optimistic about the partnership renewal and five years of billing for what may be quite difficult work to do without errors and within the available time and resource window. A Palantir executive said, according to the article:
Palantir has long been a proud partner to some of the world’s top financial institutions. We’re honored that UniCredit has placed its confidence in Palantir once again and look forward to furthering the bank’s digital transformation.
Will Palantir be able to handle super-sized jobs like the NHS work and the UniCredit project? Personally I will be watching for news about both of these contract wins. For a 20 year old company with its roots in the intelligence community, success in health care and financial services will mark one of the few times, intelware has made the leap to mainstream commercial problem solving.
The question is, “Why have the other companies failed in financial services modernization?” I have a lecture about that. Curious to know more. Write benkent2020 at yahoo dot com, and one of my team will respond to you.
Stephen E Arnold, December 18, 2023
Palantir Makes Clear That Its Aggressively Marketed Systems May Not Work as Advertised
December 21, 2022
The real journalists at the Wall Street Journal has made painfully clear that Palantir’s smart software and sophisticated platform for functioning like the seeing stone in Lord of the Rings does not work.
You can read the real news analysis in “Palantir Misfires on Revenue Tied SPAC Deals.” The main point of the write up is that Palantir, equipped with proprietary technology and oodles of seeing stone expert, lost a great deal of money quickly.
The article says:
The bets have backfired.
So what? No big deal. Tens of millions gone, maybe hundreds of millions. The bigger loss is the exposure of the shortcomings of smart software. What did Palantir’s spokesperson say:
The market has turned an it is now clear that these investments were unsuccessful. It was a bet on a group of early stage companies that, with the benefit of hindsight, we wish we did not make.
But Palantir’s marketing since the firm open for intelligence analysis in 2003 or almost two decades ago has pitched the system’s ability to reveal what ordinary intelware cannot identify. In my files, I have some Palantir marketing material. Here’s an example:
Who doesn’t want data sovereignty? ©Palantir Technologies
Several observations:
- The Palantir management team presumably had access to Gotham and other Palantir technology. But the Palantir system did deliver massive financial losses. Some seeing stone.
- In my opinion, Palantir made big bets in order to get a big payoff so that the company’s financial strength and the excellence of its smart software would be evident. What’s evident is that even Palantir’s software and its wizards cannot get the Palantir systems to be right about “bets.”
- Intelware and policeware vendors typically sell to government and selected financial services customers. Converting intelligence software tuned to the needs of a three letter agency has not worked in the past, and it is now evident Palantir may be failing in its commercial push now.
- Intelware works because no matter how slick the intelware is, governments also rely on old fashioned methods before taking action.
- Palantir’s technology is almost 20 years old, based on open source, and highly derivative. There are better, faster, and cheaper options available from Palantir’s competitors.
Net net: Palantir has embraced full throttle marketing. The company has done some interesting things regarding the IBM Analysts Notebook file formats. Palantir’s investment were, in my opinion, investments which made it attractive to the recipients of Palantir’s funds to become Palantir customers. As I write this, Palantir’s marketing is chugging along, but Palantir’s share price is a stellar $6.43 a share. A blind seeing stone? Hmmmm. Good question.
Stephen E Arnold, December 21, 2022
Palantir Technologies: Not Intelware, Now a Leader in Artificial Intelligence
September 27, 2022
I spotted this rather small advertisement in the Wall Street Journal dead tree edition on September 22, 2022. (I have been on the road and I had a stack of newspapers to review upon my return, so I may have the date off by a day or two. No big deal.)
Here’s the ad:
A couple of points jumped out. First, Palantir says in this smallish ad, “Palantir. The industry leader in artificial intelligence software.” That’s a very different positioning for the intelware centric company. I think Palantir was pitching itself a business intelligence solution and maybe a mechanism to identify fraud. Somewhere along the line there was a save the planet or save the children angle to the firm’s consulting-centric solutions.
For me, “consulting centric solutions” means that software (some open source, some whipped up by wizards) is hooked together by Palantir-provided or Palantir-certified engineers. The result is a dashboard with functionality tailored to a licensee’s problem. The money is in the consulting services for this knowledge work. Users of Palantir can fiddle, but to deliver real rock ‘em sock ‘em outputs, the bill by the hour folks are needed. This is no surprise to those familiar with migrations of software developed for one thing which is then, in a quest for revenues, is morphed into a Swiss Army knife and some wowza PowerPoint presentations and slick presentations at conferences. Feel free to disagree, please.
The second thing I noticed is that Palantir presents other leaders in smart software; specifically, the laggards at Microsoft, IBM, Amazon, and the Google. There are many ways to rank leaders. One distinction Palantir has it that it is not generating much of a return for those who bought the company’s stock since the firm’s initial public offering. On the other hand, the other four outfits, despite challenges, don’t have Palantir’s track record in the money department. (Yes, I know the core of Palantir made out for themselves, but the person I know in Harrod’s Creek who bought shares after the IPO: Not a good deal at this time.
The third thing is that Google, which has been marketing the heck out of its smart software is dead last in the Palantir list. Google and its estimable DeepMind outfit is probably not thrilled to be sucking fumes from Microsoft, IBM, and the outstanding product search solution provider Amazon. Google has articles flowing from Medium, technical papers explaining the magic of its AI/ML approach, and cheerleaders in academia and government waving pom poms for the GOOG.
I have to ask myself why? Here’s a breakdown of the notes I made after my team and I talked about this remarkable ad:
- Palantir obviously thinks its big reputation can be conveyed in a small ad. Palantir is perhaps having difficulty thinking objectively about the pickle the company’s sales team is in and wants to branch out. (Hey, doesn’t this need big ads?)
- Palantir has presented a ranking which is bound to irritate some at Amazon AWS. I have heard that some Palantir clients and some Palantir’s magic software runs on AWS. Is this a signal that Palantir wants to shift cloud providers? Maybe to the government’s go-to source of PowerPoint?
- Palantir may want to point out that Google’s Snorkeling and diversity methods are, in fact, not too good. Lagging behind a company like Palantir is not something the senior managers consider after a morning stretching routine.
Net net: This marketing signal, though really small, may presage something more substantive. Maybe a bigger ad, a YouTube video, a couple of TikToks, and some big sales not in the collectible business would be useful next steps. But the AI angle? Well, it is interesting.
Stephen E Arnold, September 27, 2022
Palantir Technologies: Following a Well Worn Path
August 11, 2022
Most intelware vendors are pretty much search and retrieval with a layer of search based applications. I think of these specialized services like an over-priced foam dog bed. The foam is hidden beneath what looks like a rich, comfy, and pet friendly cover. The dog climbs on, sniffs the fumes and scratches the cover. A bite or two and the cover tears and foam shards litter the floor.
When I think of some intelware vendors’ solutions, I keep thinking about that Alibaba-type dog bed. Wow. Not good.
I read “Palantir Stock Skids As Exec Says Downbeat Forecast Is All the More Disappointing Given Opportunities Ahead”, and I saw that dog bed, the torn cover, and the weird pink and green foam chunks in our family room. I know this association is not one shared by those who cheerlead for Palantir or the stakeholders who must look at the value of their “stakes”.
The write up reports:
Government deals “at the billion-dollar range of the contracts that we are working on…have the bug of them taking too long and the feature of, in a highly difficult, tumultuous and politically uncertain world, that you actually get paid and you actually make free-cash flow,” Chief Executive Alex Karp said on the earnings call.
Yep, that’s true.
However, Palantir has been working hard to convince outfits like chocolate companies, big banks, and some pharma companies to rely on Palantir for their information plumbing and intelligence dashboard. (Dashboards are hot, even though many intelware vendors just recycle the components associated with Elasticsearch, a popular open source search and retrieval system, and other members of the species ELK.
If Palantir were closing deals with non governmental entities, wouldn’t that revenue make up for the historically slow and sketchy US government procurement process. For those in the know, FAR is a friend. For those who have racked up a track record of grousing about Federal procurement rules, FAR can be associated with the concept “far outside the circle of decision makers.”
If we accept my assertion of intelware as basic search, indexing and classifying content objects, and output nice looking reports. These reports, by the way, depend upon some widely used numerical recipes. The outputs of competitive intelware systems which use the same test set of content objects is often similar. In some cases, very similar. (In September at CyCon, we will show some screenshots and challenge the audience of law enforcement and intelligence professionals to identify the output with the system generating the diagrams, charts, graphs, and maps. In previous lectures this audience involvement ploy yielded one predictable result: No one could match outputs with the system producing it.
What are the paths available to a vendor of intelware chasing huge contracts for getting close to 20 years? That’s two decades, gentle reader.
Based on my observations and research for my books and monographs, here are the historical precedents I have noticed. Will Palantir follow any of these paths? Probably not, but I enjoy trotting them out in order to provide some color for the search and specialized software sector competitors. What each competitor lacked in applications, stable products and services, and informed and available customer support, the PP (Palantir predecessors) had outstanding marketing, nifty technical jargon, and a bit of the Steve Jobs reality distortion field magic.
- The vendor just gets acquired. Recorded Future is now Insight. Super secretive Detica is BAE Systems, etc. etc. The idea is that the buyer has the resources to make the software work and develop innovations that will keep ahead of open source offerings and pesky start ups. A variation is continuous resales as owners of intelware companies realize there are not enough customers to deliver the claims in PowerPoint decks’ revenue projections. Is one example this sequence? i2 Ltd (UK) —> venture firm –> IBM Corp. –> Harris?
- The vendor hooks up with the government and presents the face of a standalone, independent outfit when affiliated with a government entity. Example: Some intelware firms in China, Israel, and the UK.
- The vendor goes away or turns a few cartwheels and emerges as something else entirely. Example: Cobwebs Technologies doesn’t do intelware; it provides anti money laundering services. I still like LifeRaft’s positioning as a marketing intelligence company.
- Everybody involved with the company moves on, new executives arrive, and the firm emerges as a customer service outfit or a customer experience provider. Rightly or wrongly I think of LucidWorks as this type of outfit.
- A combo deal. The inner workings of this type of deal converts Excalibur into Convera which becomes Ntent and then becomes a property of Allen & Co. Where is Convera today? I heard that some of its DNA survives in Seekr, but I have not heard back from the company to verify this rumor. The firm’s PR professional is apparently busy doing more meaningful PR things.
- Creative accounting. Believe it or not, some senior executives are found guilty of financial fancy dancing. Example: The founder of a certain search vendor with government clients. I think a year in the slammer was talked about.
- The company just closes up. Example: Perhaps Delphis, Entopia, or Stull, among others.
Net net: Vendors selling to law enforcement, crime analysts, and intelligence agencies face formidable competition from incumbents; for example, big Beltway bandits like the one for which I used to work. Furthermore, when selling intelware (event with a name change and a flashy PowerPoint deck) corporate types are not comfortable buying from a company working closely with some of the badge-and-gun agencies. Intelware vendors can talk about big sales to commercial enterprises. True, the intelware vendor may land some deals. But the majority of leads just become money pits: Sales calls, presentations, meetings with shills for the firm’s lawyers, and similar human resources. Those foam chunks from the Alibaba dog bed are similar to some investors’ dreams of giant stakeholder paydays. Oh, well, there is recycling.
Stephen E Arnold, August 11, 2022
An Analyst Wrestles with the Palantir Realities
May 23, 2022
Palantir Technologies in my world view is a services and software company positioned as a provider of intelware. Intelware means software and services which allow users to extract high-value information from text, numeric, and possibly image and video data.
Palantir, founded in 2003, has been influenced from its inception by precursor software like the original i2 Ltd. Analyst Notebook and BAE Systems Detica. Both of these systems allowed user to intake “content”, enter the names of people or things, and display the outputs so that the higher-value facts were presented in a useful way; for example, a chart or a relationship graph.
The US government works to learn about new and potentially useful software and systems. Not surprisingly, a government agency showed interest in Palantir’s software when the entrepreneurs involved in the company started describing the Palantir features and functions. Appreciate that in its early years almost two decades ago, the presentations and demonstrations captured what I call “to be” systems; that is, at some point in the future, Palantir’s system and software would be everything that Analyst Notebook, Detica, and the other intelware vendors could offer. The pitch is compelling.
Palantir, now almost two decades old, is a publicly traded company, and it is working overtime to move beyond sales to governments in the US and elsewhere. One of the characteristics of selling intelware to non-governmental organizations is that the capabilities of the system and its use by government clients are often disconcerting to a financial institution, a big hospital chain, or consulting firm focused on real estate.
Furthermore, intelware systems require data. Some data can be easily imported into a system like Palantir’s; for example, plain ASCII text and Excel spreadsheets. Other data are in a format which must be transformed so that Palantir can import the information. Other data present challenges like converting an image with a date and time stamp into an indexed content object. That indexing, to be helpful and to reduce the likelihood of errors, has to be accurate. Some non-text data must be enriched. French content processing experts refer to this enrichment as “fertilization.”
The write up “Palantir: Complete Disaster” includes this statement:
We think there are three possible courses of action in the disaster that has been Palantir, all of which are correct.
Here are the three “courses of action”:
- Don’t buy shares in Palantir.
- Buy shares, maybe short the stock.
- Buy shares and ride out the downturn.
Each of these options ignore two issues. The first is why Palantir is not closing deals and showing a profit. The second is why an intelware company is not able to amp up its sales to government agencies in the US, Western Europe, and selected government agencies elsewhere.
My view is that Palantir is a tough sell for these reasons:
- To land a deal, the prospect has to know what the payoff from using the Gotham / Foundry system is. “Intelligence” is a hot concept, but it is a tough sell unless there is a “champion” inside the prospect’s organization to grease the skids.
- Competitors offer comparable products for as little as $5,000 per month and some of these competitors bundle third party data which can be fused with the licensee’s data with minimal fiddling with filters and file conversions.
- Newer systems are easier to use, include automated workflows which speed analysts, investigators, and and researchers work.
The slow sales of Palantir follow the same type of curve that sales of Autonomy, Fast Search & Software, and many other “information” or “intelligence” focused products have. The initial sales are from government agencies which want better mouse traps. When the intelware does not deliver markedly significant payoffs, the licensees keep looking for better, faster, and cheaper options.
Will Palantir be able to generate a profit and deliver organic growth?
If the trajectory of precursor companies is the path Palantir is on, the answer is, “No.”
Stephen E Arnold, May 23, 2022
Palantir Technologies: Following in the Footsteps of Northern Light and Autonomy
May 4, 2022
What market sector is the one least likely to resonate with race car fans? I would suggest that the third party Chinese vendor TopCharm23232 is an unlikely candidate. Another outlier might be PicRights, a fascinating copyright enforcement outfit relying on ageing technology from Israel.
What do you think about search and content processing vendors?
I spotted this ad in the Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal which resides behind a very proper paywall.
The full page ad appeared in my Kentucky edition on May 3, 2022. I was interested when Northern Light, a vendor of search systems relying originally on open source technology shaped by Dr. Marc Krellenstein, sponsored a NASCAR vehicle. I wonder how my NASCAR fans were into Northern Light’s approach to content clustering? Some I suppose.
I also noted Autonomy plc’s sponsorship of an F-1 car and the company’s logo on the uniform of the soccer / football club Tottenham Hotspur. (That’s the club logo with a big chicken balancing on a hummingbird egg.)
How did the sponsorships work out? I am not sure about sales and closing deals, but hanging with the race car drivers and team engineers is allegedly a hoot.
Will Palantir’s technology provide the boost necessary to win the remaining F-1 races? I don’t do predictive analytics so, of course, Palantir is a winner. The stock on May 4, 2022, opened at $10.55. For purposes of comparison, Verint which is a company with some similar technology opened at $54.04. Verint does not do race cars from what I have heard.
Stephen E Arnold, May 4, 2022
Stephen E Arnold
Stephen E Arnold
Palantir May Be the New DCGS
March 9, 2022
It is perhaps more important than ever for our military to reliably, efficiently, and securely relay data to the other side of the world. To that end, the army is putting its faith in a firm we have covered often over the last several years. DefenseNews reports, “Palantir Scores $34M Order for Army Data Platform.” Reporter Colin Demarest writes:
“The Army Intelligence Data Platform deal includes software, training, cybersecurity activities and help with testing and initial standup of the capability, the Program Executive Office for Intelligence, Electronic Warfare and Sensors said in an announcement Feb. 22. The award signals the next step for what was once known as the Distributed Common Ground System Capability Drop 2.”
So DCGS is dead, long live AIDP. According to a statement from the Army’s Project Manager Intelligence Systems and Analytics, the platform acts as that branch’s foundation for internal intelligence and its connection to data from the intelligence community. The write-up continues:
“The Army Acquisition Support Center describes the Distributed Common Ground System as a means to buttress a commander’s understanding of threats and his or her environment. It consists of both hardware, like laptops, and software, like data filters and analytics. The Department of Defense in February 2020 named Palantir and BAE Systems as competitors on a $823 million contract to upgrade the Army’s facet of the Distributed Common Ground System. In March 2018, the Defense Department said Palantir and Raytheon would share a $876 million contract for the Distributed Common Ground System-Army Capability Drop 1.”
Perhaps this announcement will boost the intrepid firm’s stock prices. But will this technology work if the cloud goes south or a laptop fails and a replacement cannot access the data? Of course. High tech always performs as long as there are government agencies with hefty budgets.
Cynthia Murrell, March 9, 2022
Palantir Technologies: Will the Company Soar?
February 1, 2022
Palantir is an intelware company that specializes in search technology with consulting services layered on top. According to Seeking Alpha, Palantir might not do well in 2022: “Palantir Stock: Bullish, But Downward Pressure On Price.”
Palantir’s stock has dropped considerably in the past six months. People who purchased stocker before October 2020 are doing all right, but November 2020 buyers lost their money. Palantir is projected to have growth an that appears to be the only bright spot at the moment.
The stock market is experiencing inflation and it is suspected to last longer than six months. Value stocks will benefit the most in this market, while growth stocks, like Palantir, will suffer. Macroeconomic factors will impact growth stocks. Palantir might not be doing too well, but it is doing better than it was last year.
Also there is more positive news:
“What’s especially good is that PLTR continues to “weave” itself into very large organizations. Obviously there are the military partners, which most investors know about. But PLTR is getting closer with commercial partners, left, right, and center. For example, IBM (NYSE:IBM), Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) and Rio Tinto (NYSE:RIO).
Quite importantly, this news isn’t just flowing from PLTR press releases. Sure, some of the distribution is fluff, hype and related PR. However, what gets me excited is that these tie-ups are showing in presentations, case studies, earnings reports, and much more. Again, PLTR is becoming a critical part of the fabric, not just simple player, or dashboard provider.
Third, PLTR regularly provides real-world updates, useful research, plus case studies. This is a strong positive for hiring, and keeping the talent pool aware of PLTR, but it’s also good for designers and developers in other companies that could be doing business with PLTR.
Palantir is definitely going to see upheavals in 2022, but search and intelware technology has always been a challenging sell when repositioned for business use cases.
Whitney Grace, February 1, 2022
Palantir at the Intersection of Extremists and Prescription Fraud
January 5, 2022
Blogger Ron Chapman II, ESQ, seems to be quite the fan of Palantir Technologies. We get that impression from his post, “Palantir’s Anti-Terror Tech Used to Fight RX Fraud.” The former Marine fell in love with the company’s tech in Afghanistan, where its analysis of terrorist attack patterns proved effective. We especially enjoyed the rah rah write-up’s line about Palantir’s “success on the battlefield.” Chapman is not the only one enthused about the government-agency darling.
As for Palantir’s move into detecting prescription fraud, we learn the company begins with open-source data from the likes of census data, public and private studies, and Medicare’s Meaningful Use program. Chapman describes the firm’s methodology:
“Palantir then cross-references varying sets of Medicare data to determine which providers statistically deviate from the norm amongst large data sets. For instance, Palantir can analyze prescription data to determine which providers rank the highest in opiate prescribing for a local area. Palantir can then cross-reference those claims against patient location data to determine if the providers’ patients are traveling long distances for opiates. Palantir can further analyze the data to determine if the patient population of a provider has been previously treated by a physician on the Office of Inspector General exclusion database (due to prior misconduct) which would indicate that the patients are not ‘legitimate.’ By using ‘big data’ to determine which providers deviate from statistical trends, Palantir can provide a more accurate basis for a payment audit, generate probable cause for search warrants, or encourage a federal grand jury to further investigate a provider’s activities. After the government obtains additional provider-specific data, Palantir can analyze specific patient files, cell phone data, email correspondence, and electronic discovery. Investigators can review cell phone data and email correspondence to determine if networks exist between providers and patients and determine the existence of a healthcare fraud conspiracy or patient brokering.”
Despite his fondness for Palantir, Chapman does include the obligatory passage on privacy and transparency concerns. He notes that healthcare providers, specifically, are concerned about undue scrutiny should their patient care decisions somehow diverge from a statistical norm. A valid consideration. As with law enforcement, the balance between the good of society and individual rights is a tricky one. Palantir was launched in 2003 by Peter Theil, who was also a cofounder of PayPal and is a notorious figure to some. The company is based in Denver, Colorado.
Cynthia Murrell, January 5, 2022
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