Palantir Applies Lipstick, Much Lipstick
February 16, 2012
I had three people send me a link to the Washingtonian article “Killer App.” On the surface, the write up is about search and content processing, predictive analytics, and the value of these next generation solutions. Underneath the surface, I see more of a public relations piece. but that’s just my opinion.
Let me point out that the article was more of a political write up than a technology article. Palantir, in my opinion, has been pounding the pavement, taking journalists to Starbuck’s, and working overtime. The effort is understandable. In 2010 and 2011, Palantir was involved in a dispute with i2 Group, now a unit of IBM, about intellectual property. The case was resolved and the terms of the settlement were not revealed. I know zero about the legal hassles but I did pick up some information that suggested the i2 Group was not pleased with Palantir’s ability to parse Analyst Notebook file types.
I steered clear of the hassle because in the past I have done work for i2 Ltd., the predecessor to the i2 Group. I know that the file structure was a closely held and highly prized chunk of information. At any rate, the dust is now settling, and any company with some common sense would be telling its story to anyone who will listen. Palantir has a large number of smart people and significant funding. Therefore, getting publicity to support marketing is a standard business practice.
Now what’s with the Washingtonian article? First, the Washington is a consumer publication aimed at the affluent, socially aware folks who live in the District, Maryland, and Virginia. The story kicks off with a description of Palantir’s system which can parse disparate information and make sense of items which would be otherwise lost in the flood of data rushing through most organizations today. The article said:
To conduct what became known as Operation Fallen Hero, investigators turned to a little-known Silicon Valley software company called Palantir Technologies. Palantir’s expertise is in finding connections among people, places, and events in large repositories of electronic data. Federal agents had amassed a trove of reporting on the drug cartels, their members, their funding mechanisms and smuggling routes.
Then the leap:
Officials were so impressed with Palantir’s software that seven months later they bought licenses for 1,150 investigators and analysts across the country. The total price, including training, was $7.5 million a year. The government chose not to seek a bid from some of Palantir’s competitors because, officials said, analysts had already tried three products and each “failed to provide the necessary comprehensive solution on missions where our agents risk life and limb.” As far as Washington was concerned, only Palantir would do. Such an endorsement would be remarkable if it were unique. But over the past three years, Palantir, whose Washington office in Tysons Corner is just six miles from the CIA’s headquarters, has become a darling of the US law-enforcement and national-security establishment. Other agencies now use Palantir for some variation on the challenge that bedeviled analysts in Operation Fallen Hero—how to organize and catalog intimidating amounts of data and then find meaningful insights that humans alone usually can’t.
Sounds good. The only issue is that there are a number of companies delivering this type of solution. The competitors range from vendors of SharePoint add ins to In-Q-Tel funded Digital Reasoning to JackBe, a mash up and fusion outfit in Silver Spring, Maryland. Even Google is in the game via its backing of Recorded Future, a company which asserts that it can predict what will happen. There are quite sophisticated services provided by low profile SAIC and SRA International. I would toss in my former employers Halliburton and Booz, Allen & Hamilton, but these firms are not limited to one particular government solution. Bottom line: There are quite a few heavy hitters in this market space. Many of them outpace Palantir’s technology and Palantir’s business methods, in my opinion
In short, Palantir is a relative newcomer in a field of superstar technology companies. In my opinion, the companies providing predictive solutions and data fusion systems are like the NFL Pro Bowl selections. Palantir is a player, and, in my opinion, a firm which operates at a competitive level. However, Palantir is not the quarterback of the winning team.
From my viewpoint in Harrod’s Creek, the Washingtonian writes about Palantir without providing substantive context. In-Q-Tel funds many organizations and has taken heat because many of these firms’ solutions are stand alone systems. Integrations without legal blow back is important. Firms which end up in messy litigation increase security risks; they do not reduce security risks. Short cuts are not unknown in Washington political circles. It is important to work with companies which demonstrate high value behaviors, avoid political and legal mud fights, and deliver value over time.
The Washingtonian article tells an interesting story, but it is a bit like a short story. Reality has been shaped I believe. Palantir is presented out of context, and I think that the article is interesting for three reasons:
- What it asserts about a company which is one of a number of firms providing next generation intelligence solutions
- The magazine itself which presented a story which reminded me of a television late night advertorial
- The political agenda which reveals something about Washington journalism.
In short, an quite good example of 21st century “real” journalism. That lipstick looks good. Does it contain lead?
Stephen E Arnold, February 16, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Bloomberg Discovers Palantir: Huh?
November 23, 2011
News flash! Bloomberg Businessweek has realized that Palantir, which has garnered more than $90 million in funding,is indispensible to the US intelligence community. Er, okay. You will want to read this “real” news story yourself. Just point your monitored browser at “Palantir: The War on Terror’s Secret Weapon.” Palantir has been a well kept secret at least in Bloomberg’s news room. Palantir ended up in a nifty legal spat with i2 Group, not part of IBM. The settlement was sealed, which certainly catches the attention of the goslings in Harrod’s Creek, but not the “real” journalists in New York. The fact that Palantir is the PowerPoint superstar which has the attention of those attention deficit disorder presenters is not on the radar of the Bloombergians.
Here’s the passage which I enjoyed:
The origins of Palantir go back to PayPal, the online payments pioneer founded in 1998. A hit with consumers and businesses, PayPal also attracted criminals who used the service for money laundering and fraud. By 2000, PayPal looked like “it was just going to go out of business” because of the cost of keeping up with the bad guys, says Peter Thiel, a PayPal co-founder….PayPal’s computer scientists set to work building a software system that would treat each transaction as part of a pattern rather than just an entry in a database. They devised ways to get information about a person’s computer, the other people he did business with, and how all this fit into the history of transactions. These techniques let human analysts see networks of suspicious accounts and pick up on patterns missed by the computers. PayPal could start freezing dodgy payments before they were processed. “It saved hundreds of millions of dollars,” says Bob McGrew, a former PayPal engineer and the current director of engineering at Palantir.
Want more? Well, the story sprawls over six pages.
My view?
First, point your browser to www.inteltrax.com and read the stories about Palantir.
Second, what about the legal dust up? Well, run a Google query and get the scoop. The legal documents are quite interesting as well. The interesting information is available on WestlawNext and Lexis. The free Web content is, well, not industrial strength.
Third, what about Digital Reasoning, a company with groundbreaking entity based analytics? Check that out at www.digitalreasoning.com . For more amusement look at www.recordedfuture.com.
You can read interviews with founders of companies with technology that goes beyond Palantir at these two links:
We are not “real” journalists. On the other hand, you will get some insight into what’s happening with next generation analytics. No turkey on Thanksgiving at Beyond Search.
Stephen E Arnold, November 24, 2011
Freebie. Unlike Palantir’s solutions.
Palantir Raises Additional $70 Million
October 14, 2011
While the company declined to reveal the valuation in the round, we’ve learned from sources that it is around $2.5 billion. Two unnamed New York-based hedge funds anchored the round, and multiple early investors and university endowments participated in the round . . . Palantir told us last year that revenues have at least doubled every year for the last three years. And in the company’s last round last year (in which it raised $90 million), its valuation was pegged at $735 million; so clearly the company has taken a big jump in value in the past year.
This is clearly a lot of money. We have to ask: Palantir, what’s with the burn rate?
Emily Rae Aldridge, October 15, 2011
Palantir Settles Lawsuit and Invests in Ness Computing
September 15, 2011
Palantir Technologies, a software firm providing analytics platforms for premier financial and intelligence clients, based out of Palo Alto, California, has remained silent since the company’s public image suffered blows in a lawsuit instigated by their competitor i2 Group in early 2011 accusing Palantir employees of illegally obtaining i2 software. According to Palantir’s third black eye: i2 lawsuit settled:
Palantir CEO Alex Karp issued a public statement apologizing for his company’s role in preparing a plan for Bank of America to strike back at Wikileaks, the Internet-based nonprofit group famed for obtaining and releasing sensitive documents into the public domain.
Since the February settlement and a Forbes article released in March, little has been heard from the secretive data analysis start-up other than a July 2011 San Fransisco Chronicle article siting Palantir as an investor in another California start-up, Ness Computing. In the article, Palantir Technologies co-founder Joe Lonsdale said his reasoning for investing in the company was because “their engineering culture reminds me of Palantir.”
After months of silence, could Palantir’s interest in Ness Computing signal that they are looking to their roots to put February’s scandal behind them?
Jasmine Ashton, September 15, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Palantir Needs and Gets More Investment Money
May 7, 2011
Palantir caught my attention when it became involved in a messy law suit that was settled out of court. There was another dust up, but I don’t want to drag that cat through the door. “SEC Watch: Palantir Technologies Raises $50 Million In New Funding” said:
According to an SEC filing, the company has just raised $50 million in new funding. This would bring Palantir’s total funding to $175 million.
That’s a great deal of dough. My view is that Palantir is making sales but having to work hard to deliver. Killer graphics are one thing. The system and method to make the data sing is expensive. What happens if the engineers hit a rough patch? I don’t want to think about that nor do the folks who are betting big bucks that Palantir will emerge a winner.
Stephen E Arnold, May 7, 2011
Freebie
Palantir: The Next Big Thing
March 3, 2011
I just read “Facebook Investor Peter Thiel: Palantir Is the Next Facebook or Google.” Quite a write up. The story references the Forbes’ story “Super Crunchers.”
To bring myself up to speed I reviewed my Overflight information about Palantir. It is a busy, busy outfit.
First, the company landed $90 million in venture funding last year. If you figure a 10X return on investment, Palantir was a company with a $1 billion potential.
Will Palantir be “the next big thing”? Image source: http://www.penn-olson.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/social-media2.pn
Second, in late 2010, the company was embroiled in a legal matter with the pioneer in data analytics and data fusion for police and intelligence work. The allegations made by i2 Ltd. involved reverse engineering of the i2 proprietary file format ANB (Analyst Notebook). I don’t want to recover information so you can find my write ups about this at this link for Beyond Search and this link for IntelTrax, our data fusion news service.
Third, the Palantir organization was involved in the some muddled HBGary sales initiative. Some current information about this matter is at “HBGary Suspected Trickery.”
The Forbes write up and the recent item from the Forbes’ blog struck me as discordant. Here’s why:
First, Palantir generated traction via splashy graphics and basic data fusion functions. The assertions about Palantir’s technology as a platform upon which to build intelligence applications are not yet founded. Palantir is trying to move from US government centric products and services to the financial services arena. With $90 million, Palantir can move quickly, but I am not sure that the company’s speeding along has reached the definition. I am reminded of my children’s question when we drove from Washington, DC back to Illinois: “Are we there yet, dad?” The answer then and now is, “No, we are about half way.” Marketing makes things appear one way. Reality is a bit different.
A duct tape roof rack. Looks interesting. Source: http://www.myspaceantics.com/image-myspace-graphic/funny-pictures/duct-tape-roof-rack.jpg.html
Second, there are a number of companies with comparable or better technology than Palantir’s. The company that comes immediately to mind is Digital Reasoning. The firm does the Palantir trick of flashy graphics but—and this is a big but—has a platform called Synthesys 3.x. You can ingest disparate data, analyze it using quite useful, quite advanced analytic methods, and you can “see” where the key item of information is. Unlike Palantir, the Digital Reasoning folks are like a group of Eagle scouts. The team, based on my own observation, does not look for short cuts and avoids stomping on other firm’s systems and methods. If you are not familiar with Digital Reasoning, check them out. I am trying to wrangle another job with this outfit, but I have quite a bit of confidence in the technology and the people. No messy allegations, no out of court settlements.
Third, one of the most common errors made in analyzing next generation search is looking at PowerPoint presentations and crafted reports. The action is algorithmic, systems, and methods. When a person with some but not decades of experience in the types of systems used by law enforcement and intelligence agencies stumbles upon a vendor, the reaction is one of surprise. The desire to share the “insight” is high. The problem is that with experience the deeper values of systems emerge from real world experience, not from a crafted demonstration and a couple of interviews.
Check out the write ups about Palantir. There is quite a bit of interesting information about the firm’s business methods. A JP Morgan deal and a reference to some brush with HBGary is not the same as a figuring the plumbing and finding the dripping joints and careless soldering.
But if Forbes says Palantir is the cat’s pajamas, won’t most people agree? My view is that too many people take public relations as the Gospel. I am a bit more reserved in my acceptance of pronouncements from certain business publications. Are the legal hassle and the HBGary events a coincidence or an indication of business tactics?
Stephen E Arnold, March 3, 2011
Freebie and no public relations inputs whatsoever
i2 and Palantir: Resolved Quietly
February 24, 2011
“Palantir’s Third Black Eye: i2 Lawsuit Settled” reported that the legal dispute between two high profile firms, i2 Ltd and Palantir, in the next generation content processing sector will not go to court. Wise move. Both firms have a public face, but much of each firm’s work is done for government entities that operate out of the spot light.
The story focused on the problems that Palantir has faced in recent weeks. These are interesting, but I found the following passage the one with the payload:
i2’s original complaint, however, makes claims that are embarrassing to both companies. The short version: According to i2, Palantir employee Shyam Sankar obtained i2 software representing himself as a principal of SRS Enterprises, a company registered under the names of his parents in Florida. Sankar then allegedly proceeded to analyze i2’s software and use the results to develop tools to import data from i2’s software for use in Palantir’s analytical tools. (For its part, Palantir responded by alleging that i2 had “unclean hands” because it purportedly used information about Palantir’s products obtained through a company i2 acquired.)
For me the issue is the notion of keeping the ball in bounds. Certain types of clients require vendors to operate according to some very specific rules of conduct. When a company gets out of bounds, the other players grouse. When a company goes out of bounds multiple times, the other players continue to grouse, but the major impact is that the company breaking the rules may be kicked out of the game.
There’s not much information about the terms of the settlement. Hopefully the companies playing in the high stakes game of next generation information processing will observe the rules, avoid legal hassles, and make headlines with innovations. My advice? Give Digital Reasoning a close look. Great technology, visualizations, analytics, and rule following.
Stephen E Arnold, February 24, 2011
Freebie
Data Mining Tactics: Palantir and Friends
February 21, 2011
Here in Harrod’s Creek, life is simple. We have one road, a store, and a pond. Elsewhere, there are machinations that simple folks like me and the goslings have difficulty understanding this type of pitch. I noticed an impassioned blog post from Craft Is Cranium here. Then we saw the Register’s write up “HBGary Quails in the Face of Anonymous.” As I understand the issue, experts working in the commercial side of intelligence saw Wikileaks as a business opportunity. The experts did not want to sell their technology to Wikileaks. The experts wanted to get the US government to pay the experts to nibble away at Wikileaks. The assumption was that Wikileaks was a security challenge and could be sanded down or caged using various advanced technologies. A good example is the thread on Quora.com “Why Would Palantir Go after WikiLeaks?”
The Quora answers are interesting, and as you might imagine, different from what folks in Harrod’s Creek might suggest. First, there is a link to some interesting article titled “Data Intelligence Firms Proposed a Systematic Attack against WikiLeaks.” It is difficult to determine what is accurate and what is information shaping, but what is presented is interesting.
Second, one answer struck me as pure MBA. The proposal to nibble on Wikileaks’ toes was summarized this way:
For money. It’s a pitch deck targeted towards the concerns of governmental and financial institutions.
Third, there is a paraphrase of the specific motive for floating this trial balloon:
“You [the US government] have to respond to Wikileaks immediately, by giving us massive amounts of money for our software and consulting services. You cannot wait to write us a massive blank check, because the threat of Wikileaks is too great.”
What I find interesting is that the sharp edges of the Palantir-type approach may create some problems for search companies now venturing into “business intelligence.” My view is that enterprise search marketers are often crafted with memory foam and rounded edges. The Palantir type approach seems to be elbows and sharp fingernails.
Quite a few search vendors want to play in the “intelligence” sector. I am not sure that technology will win out over attitude and aggressiveness. Palantir, as you may recall, was engaged last year in a legal spat with i2 Ltd., another foundation company in certain intelligence sectors. Incumbents may eat the softer newcomers the way a goose gobbles bread crumbs.
Stephen E Arnold, February 21, 2011
Freebie
Palantir Explained
December 28, 2010
The Stanford GSB So Speaks Blog gives us details about “Shyam Sankar of Palantir Technologies at the GSB.” Palantir is company focused on counter-terrorism within and by using the digital environment. It’s better explained by this video. If you’ve ever seen an episode of NCIS, this is type of program they use to help them catch the bad guys. Apparently, four engineers developed Palantir within a week and the company was founded by the same team as PayPal—used by many EBay aficionados for secure business transactions. They’ve also invented a new buzzword: intelligence augmentation (IA).
“Palantir focuses on IA, rather than AI (Artificial Intelligence). Sankar mentioned a theory on AI stating that AI will continue to be “around the corner in 10 years” in perpetuity. As a result, Palantir focuses on augmenting the intelligence we already have.”
Palantir appears to be a superhero like program, but they are involved in a legal squabble. I may need intelligence augmentation to figure out who’s on first in that matter.
Stephen E Arnold, December 28, 2010
Freebie
i2, Inc. and Palantir
September 19, 2010
In a motion filed Monday Aug. 9, 2010, i2 filed a complaint explained in “Media Advisory from i2.” The plaintiff, www.i2.co.uk, makes allegations related to i2’s intellectual property. You can access the legal documents via Scribd. i2 and Palantir are involved in content processing, data management, and various analytics processes. More about i2 is here. More about Palantir is here. Years ago I did some work for i2 and learned that the firm’s technologies were widely used in intelligence, law enforcement, and related market sectors. Palantir is more of a newcomer. Palantir received an infusion of venture funding in 2010.
Stephen E Arnold, September 19, 2010
Freebie
-
- Subscribe to Beyond Search
Feature archive
News archive
-
