Palantir Technologies: Keeping Momentum, Job One
November 29, 2018
Hop in your time machine and think back about five years. While it feels like the olden days of horse-drawn carriages already, it was a golden age for big data analytics startups. Tops on that list for many was Palantir. Thought, today things are much different, as we discovered in a recent Cheddar video, “Why Palantir’s Valuation is Withering Away.”
According to the article:
“Not long ago Palantir Technologies was valued at $20 billion and one of Silicon Valley’s brightest tech companies. Today, the big data analytics company’s worth has been slashed to $6 billion by Morgan Stanley as it heads towards an IPO.”
Perhaps part of the lag draws from Palantir’s secrecy, considering it works for organizations like the CIA and others.
However, stakeholders and employees still have big dreams like many other Silicon Valley shop: They want to go public.
A drop in valuation and concern over whether they can ever turn a profit is starting to seriously tarnish this once golden child of the tech industry.
Beyond Search does not want to draw parallels with Autonomy or other search centric firms. Some of these outfits found that the momentum of selling sizzle was difficult to maintain in a room with open windows.
Worth watching how this financial drama plays out as Amazon gears up to become the go to provider of policeware and possibly business intelligence services.
Patrick Roland, November 29, 2018
Protestors Want Palantir to Drop US Government Contract
October 24, 2018
The United States needs massive immigration reform. One of the arguments surrounding the US immigration controversy is if illegal immigrants are truly criminals and should be treated as such? Palo Alto Online shares how one tech company’s software is being used to for US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, “Protestors Demand Palantir End ICE Contract.”
Palantir Technologies is based in Palo Alto and its software powers a database on immigrants that ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) uses to enforce immigration law. Protestors met at the company’s headquarters in July with an attempt to deliver a protest letter to CEO Alex Karp. Those who were at protest include Tech Workers Coalition, Sacred Heart Community Service, Silicon Valley Rising, Santa Clara County Democratic Party, Working Partnerships USA, and SEIU United Service Workers West.
The protestors claim that Palantir enables ICE to abuse immigrants and refugees and the company should end its relationship with ICE on a morality stand. Palantir locked its office and did not send out a representative to collect the letter. Protestors also want Silicon Valley to stand up to the Trump administration and not be complicit with its actions. Palantir is not the only company with ICE contracts:
“According to a June 20 report by NBC News, Palantir accepted more than $4.9 million from ICE on May 30, which is part of a $39 million contract dating back to 2015 for operations and maintenance of Falcon, the company’s intelligence database, which tracks immigrants’ records and relationships, NBC found in a government database search.Other tech companies have also taken ICE contracts, including Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Thomson Reuters, Microsoft, Motorola Solutions, according to the NBC report. The protesters said that employees at some of the other firms have asked their companies to turn down ICE contracts.”
With an alleged Palantir IPO approaching, dumping contracts does not seem to be a workable idea.
Whitney Grace, October 24, 2018
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Palantir Technologies: A Canary Sings Off Tune
May 14, 2018
Short honk: I read “If You Thought Cambridge Analytica Was Scary, Well This Lot’s F*cking Terrifying.” The intent of the write up is to equate Palantir with Cambridge Analytica. I am not sure I am convinced, but the write up includes an interesting chart. In fact, the chart identifies some individuals allegedly involved with Cambridge Analytica and some allegedly associated companies. Note that the larger version of the chart takes the intrepid researcher to another site and suggests that anyone who wants to include the chart in an article use the link, not a screen capture. Worth a gander says the Beyond Search goose. Please, note that the Beyond Search goose is not terrified.
Stephen E Arnold, May 14, 2018
Picking and Poking Palantir Technologies: A New Blood Sport?
April 25, 2018
My reaction to “Palantir Has Figured Out How to Make Money by Using Algorithms to Ascribe Guilt to People, Now They’re Looking for New Customers” is a a sign and a groan.
I don’t work for Palantir Technologies, although I have been a consultant to one of its major competitors. I do lecture about next generation information systems at law enforcement and intelligence centric conferences in the US and elsewhere. I also wrote a book called “CyberOSINT: Next Generation Information Access.” That study has spawned a number of “experts” who are recycling some of my views and research. A couple of government agencies have shortened by word “cyberosint” into the “cyint.” In a manner of speaking, I have an information base which can be used to put the actions of companies which offer services similar to those available from Palantir in perspective.
The article in Boing Boing falls into the category of “yikes” analysis. Suddenly, it seems, the idea that cook book mathematical procedures can be used to make sense of a wide range of data. Let me assure you that this is not a new development, and Palantir is definitely not the first of the companies developing applications for law enforcement and intelligence professionals to land customers in financial and law firms.
A Palantir bubble gum card shows details about a person of interest and links to underlying data from which the key facts have been selected. Note that this is from an older version of Palantir Gotham. Source: Google Images, 2015
Decades ago, a friend of mine (Ev Brenner, now deceased) was one of the pioneers using technology and cook book math to make sense of oil and gas exploration data. How long ago? Think 50 years.
The focus of “Palantir Has Figured Out…” is that:
Palantir seems to be the kind of company that is always willing to sell magic beans to anyone who puts out an RFP for them. They have promised that with enough surveillance and enough secret, unaccountable parsing of surveillance data, they can find “bad guys” and stop them before they even commit a bad action.
Okay, that sounds good in the context of the article, but Palantir is just one vendor responding to the need for next generation information access tools from many commercial sectors.
Palantir: Cambridge Analytica Secondary Shock Wave
April 19, 2018
Data analysis firm Palantir has come under scrutiny after it was learned that one of its employees contributed to Cambridge Analytica’s acquisition of private data back in 2013 and 2014. Now BuzzFeed News emphasizes, “Palantir Had No Policy on Social Media Data Collection Prior to 2015.” The company was used to working with internal data for organizations like the FBI and JPMorgan Chase, to name just a couple big-name examples, where the data is clearly their clients’ property. When Palantir began working with social-media data, it seems they failed to anticipate the need for a comprehensive policy. Reporter William Alden writes:
“Palantir insiders felt that the company’s ‘ad hoc’ approach to handling social media data for customers in general was ‘becoming unworkable,’ a senior engineer said in an October 2014 memo not related to Cambridge Analytica. Palantir took steps to develop a social media data policy in early 2015, soliciting input from employees who’d worked on customer accounts involving the use of such data, an email from that time shows. Palantir has said previously that its employee, Alfredas Chmieliauskas, advised the Cambridge Analytica team in ‘an entirely personal capacity’ from 2013 to 2014, and that Cambridge Analytica was never a Palantir customer. There is no indication in the documents seen by BuzzFeed News that the push by Palantir to develop the social media policy had anything to do with Cambridge Analytica. Rather, the push was tied to requests by Palantir’s customers to mine social data during a time when Facebook’s restrictions on accessing and gathering data were much looser.”
The article reveals a few more details about Palantir’s internal discussion, and reminds us that the prevailing attitude toward social-media data was much more relaxed then than it is today. We trust that the company has tightened up their policy since. Founded in 2004, Palantir is based in Palo Alto, California, and has offices around the world.
This alleged interaction may cause a gentle breeze or a cyclone. Stay tuned.
Cynthia Murrell, April 19, 2018
FOIA Suit Seeks Details of Palantirs Work with ICE
March 21, 2018
Well, this should be interesting. The Electronic Privacy Information Center (Epic.org) has announced, “EPIC FOIA- EPIC Sues for Details of Palantir’s Government Systems.” The brief write-up reports the watchdog’s complaint requesting information on the relationship between data-analysis firm Palantir and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE). The announcement specifies:
The federal agency contracted with the Peter Thiel company to establish vast databases of personal information, and to make secret determinations about the opportunities for employment, travel, and also who is subject to criminal investigations. EPIC is seeking the government contracts with Palantir, as well as assessments and other related documents. The ICE Investigative Case Management System and the FALCON system pull together vast troves of personal data from across the federal government. EPIC wrote in the complaint, ‘Palantir’s “big data” systems raise far-reaching privacy and civil liberties risks.’
Palantir’s role in creating “risk assessment” scores for travelers (US citizens and non-citizens alike) was revealed through an earlier FOIA lawsuit from EPIC. It would be interesting to see what information the organization is able to shake loose.
Cynthia Murrell, March 21, 2018
Short Honk: Palantir Technologies and DCGS
March 10, 2018
I don’t know if the information in “Army Taps Raytheon, Palantir for Potential $876M Ground Intell system Support Contract.” The Beyond Search and Dark Cyber teams will monitor the subject. The GovConWire stated on March 9, 2018:
Raytheon and Palantir Technologies have won spots on a potential 10-year, $876 million contract to help the U.S. Army address technology requirements for the service branch’s Distributed Common Ground System.
If on the money, this is big news. Our perception was that Palantir was not in the DCGS winner’s circle. Looks like IBM and its technology partners have to adapt.
Stephen E Arnold, March 10, 2018
Palantir Executive Reveals How Silicon Valley Really Works
March 5, 2018
I usually ignore the talking heads on the US television cable channels. I did perk up when I heard a comment made by Alex Karp, one of the founders of Palantir Technologies. The company’s Gotham and Metropolitan product lines (now evolved to a platform called Foundry), its licensing deals with Thomson Reuters, and the company’s work for commercial organizations is quite interesting. Most consumers and many users of high profile online services are unaware of Palantir. Some click centric outfits like Buzzfeed rattle the Palantir door knob with revelations about the super low profile company. The reality is that Palantir is not all that secret. In fact, a good online researcher can unearth examples of the company’s technology, including its plumbing, its interfaces, and its outputs. Dig further, and one can pinpoint some of the weaknesses in the company’s technology, systems, methods, and management approach.
In the CNBC interview, which appeared as an online story “CNBC Exclusive: CNBC Transcript: Palantir Technologies Co-Founder & CEO Alex Karp Joins CNBC’s Josh Lipton for Rare Interview Airing Today,” I noted several insights. Critics of Palantir might describes these comments in another way, but for me, I thought the ideas expressed were interesting and suggestive.
Here’s the first one:
I believe that Silicon Valley is creating innovation without jobs, and it’s really hurting our world.
I read this to mean that if one cannot get hired in a world infused with smart software, job hunters and seekers are dead in the water. Those homeless people, by extension, will replicate the living conditions in shanties in Third World countries. Most Silicon Valley cheerleaders sidestep what is a massive phase change in society.
The second statement I noted is:
Realize that most Silicon Valley companies don’t care and nor do they have a corporate responsibility to care.
For me, Mr. Karp is making clear that chatter from FAGMA (Facebook, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Apple) about doing the right thing, trying to be better, and accepting the responsibility which falls upon the shoulders of quasi-monopolies is just that—chatter. Palantir, it seems, is a critic of the Silicon Valley way. I find this fascinating.
The third statement I circled is:
We are primarily a creative organization, so that means we create, we try not to look at what other people are doing, or obviously not overly.
This statement does not hint at the out of court settlement with i2 Group. The legal dust up, which I discussed in this post, was not mentioned by either the interlocutor or Mr. Karp. The omission was notable. I don’t want to be skeptical of this “creative organization” phrase, but like many people who emerged from the start up scene, the “history” of innovation often has an important story to tell. But unless the CNBC interviewer knows about the allegations related to the ANB file format and other Analysts Notebook functions, the assertion creeps toward becoming a fact about Palantir’s innovation. (Note: I was an adviser to i2 Group Ltd., before the company’s founders sold the enterprise.)
The original interview is interesting and quite revelatory. Today, I believe that history can be reshaped. It’s not fake news; it’s a consequence of how information is generated, disseminated, and consumed in an uncritical way.
Stephen E Arnold, March 5, 2018
Palantir: Accused of Hegelian Contradictions
January 29, 2018
I bet you have not thought about Hegel since you took that required philosophy course in college. Well, Hegel and his “contradictions” are central to “WEF 2018: Davos, Data, Palantir and the Future of the Internet.”
I highlighted this passage from the essay:
Data is the route to security. Data is the route to oppression. Data is the route to individual ideation. Data is the route to the hive mind. Data is the route to civic wealth. Data is the route to civic collapse.
Thesis, antitheses, synthesis in action I surmise.
The near term objective is synthesis. I assume this is the “connecting the dots” approach to finding what one needs to know.
I learned:
The stakes for big data couldn’t be bigger.
Okay, a categorical in our fast changing, diverse economic and political climate. Be afraid seems to be the message.
Palantir’s point of operations in Davos is described in the write up as “a pimped up liquor store.” Helpful and highly suggestive too.
The conclusion of the essay warranted a big red circle:
So next time you hear the names Palantir or Alex Karp, stop what you’re doing and pay attention. The future – your future – is under discussion. Under construction. This little first draft of history of which you’ve made it to the end (congratulations and thanks) – the history of data – is of a future that will in time come to be seen for what it is: digital that truly matters.
Several observations:
- The author wants me to believe that Palantir is not a pal.
- The big data thing troubles the author because Palantir is one of the vendors providing next generation information access.
- The goal of making Palantir into something unique is best accomplished by invoking Fancy Dan ideas.
I would suggest that knowledge about companies like Gamma Group FinFisher, Shoghi, Trovicor, and some other interesting non US entities might put Palantir in perspective. Palantir has an operational focus; some of the other vendors perform different information services.
Palantir is an innovator, but it is part of a landscape of data intercept and analysis organizations. I could make a case that Palantir is capable but some companies in Europe and the East are actually more technologically advanced.
But these outfits were not at Davos. Why? That’s a good question. Perhaps they were too busy with their commercial and government work. My hunch is that a few of these outfits were indeed “there”, just not noticed by the expert who checked out the liquor store.
Stephen E Arnold, January 29, 2019
Palantir and Google: Surprising Allegation from St Louis
November 16, 2017
I read “Thiel Gave Money to Missouri Attorney General Going after Google.” The article reports:
Peter Thiel, the venture capitalist who backed Donald Trump’s presidential run, gave $300,000 to a political campaign of Josh Hawley, the Missouri attorney general who opened an antitrust investigation into Google this week.
My reaction was, “Is there a connection between this donation and the investigation of Google by Josh Hawley, the Missouri attorney general?”
The article appears to make this connection. I am not so quick to seize upon this implication. From my point of view, without more factual information, the story leaves me as cold as a catfish pulled from the Crooked River.
Stephen E Arnold, November 16, 2017
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