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
Palantir Technologies: Valuation Doubts?
October 18, 2017
i read “Palantir Will Struggle to Hold On to $20 Billion Valuation, Study Says.” Interesting stuff because beating up on hapless Silicon Valley companies is becoming a mini-trend. Facebook is in the dog house because it sells ads. Google is in the kennel because Europe finds its business practices less than Euro-cool. Twitter. Poor Twitter. Its part time boss is going to improve controls on the Wild West of short messages.
Now it is Palantir, the software company which offers an alternative to the IBM Analyst Notebook system. I thought Palantir was in the cat bird seat to provide technology that would deliver certain functionality to various US government agencies, financial institutions, and other organizations wanting to make sense of data.
I learned from the Bloomberg write up:
If Palantir Technologies Inc. pursues plans for a public offering and follows through by 2019, it will need to rein in spending and woo corporate customers just to be able to hang on to a $20 billion valuation it was awarded two years ago, according to a new study. It could also be worth a lot less.
Bloomberg cites a “study” which reveals that Palantir technology needs some set up and configuration before the users can make sense of digital information processed by the system.
This apparently comes as a surprise to Bloomberg and the SharesPost research team.
The reality of next generation information access systems is different from an iPhone or Android app one downloads and uses immediately. I know this is a surprise to many “experts,” but next generation information access systems are complicated. I explain why in my 2015 CyberOSINT: Next Generation Information Access Systems.
What’s interesting is that instead of putting the Palantir systems in a meaningful context, the report and apparently Bloomberg want to make another Silicon Valley outfit look like a bent penny.
Valuation is in the eye of the beholder and the Excels generated by whiz kids who want to buy a new Porsche.
Bloomberg quotes the report as a way to wrap up the news story with a stomp on Palantir’s foot; to wit:
Palantir “is currently valued much higher than its peers in the big data and analytics space,” Kulkarni wrote, adding that he believes Palantir will maintain the rich valuation if it keeps adding corporate clients and expedites cost cutting. He wrote that Palantir remains an attractive acquisition target – Oracle weighed the option last year but demurred – and estimated Palantir’s low-end value in 2019 at $13.8 billion.
Is there another view of Palantir? Guess not.
Stephen E Arnold, October 18, 2017
Palantir Settlement Makes Good Business Sense
October 11, 2017
Palantir claims it is focusing on work, not admitting its guilt over a labor dispute in a recent settlement. This is creating a divide in the industry about what it exactly does mean. We first learned of the $1.66 million settlement in How To Zone’s story, “Palantir Settles Discrimination Complaint with U.S. Labor Agency.”
How did we get here? According to the story:
The Labor Department said in an administrative complaint last year that it conducted a review of Palantir’s hiring process beginning in 2010. The agency alleged that the company’s reliance on employee referrals resulted in bias against Asians. Contracts worth more than $370 million, including with the U.S. Defense Department, Treasury Department and other federal agencies, were in jeopardy if the Labor Department had found Palantir guilty of discrimination.
Serious accusations. But this settlement might not signal what you think it does. Palantir said in a statement:
We settled this matter, without any admission of liability, in order to focus on our work.
This might be the smartest action on their behalf. Consider what happened to SalesForce when they got wrapped up in a legal battle earlier this year. It not only slowed down their sales, but some experts feel the suit may have altered enterprise search for good.
Something tells us Palantir, with its rich government contracts, wants to simply put this behind them and not get caught in a legal web.
Patrick Roland, October 11, 2017
Palantir Technologies: Recycling Day Old Hash
July 31, 2017
I read “Palantir: The Special Ops Tech Giant That Wields As Much Real World Power as Google.” I noticed these hot buttons here:
“Special ops” for the Seal Team 6 vibe. Check.
“Wields” for the notion of great power. Check.
“Real world.” A reminder of the here and now, not an airy fairy digital wonkiness. Check.
“Google.” Yes. Palantir as potent as the ad giant Google. Check.
That’s quite a headline.
The write up itself is another journalistic exposé of software which ingests digital information and outputs maps, reports, and visualizations. Humans index too. Like the i2 Analyst Notebook, the “magic” is mostly external. Making these Fancy Dan software systems work requires computers, of course. Humans are needed too. Trained humans are quite important, essential, in fact.
The Guardian story seems to be a book review presented as a Gladwell-like revisionist anecdote. See, for example, Done: The Secret Deals That Are Changing Our World by Jacques Peretti (Hodder & Stoughton, £20). You can buy a copy from bookshop.theguardian.com. (Online ad? Maybe?)
Read the Palantir story which stuffed my Talkwalker alert with references to the article. Quite a few bloggers are recycling the Guardian newspaper story. Buzzfeed’s coverage of the Palo Alto company evoked the same reaction. I will come back to the gaps in these analyses in a moment.
The main point of the Guardian’s July 30, 2017, story strikes me as:
Palantir tracks everyone from potential terrorist suspects to corporate fraudsters…child traffickers, and what they refer to as subversives. But it all done using prediction.
Right. Everyone! Potential terrorist suspects! And my favorite “all”. Using “prediction” no less.
Sounds scary. I am not sure the platforms work with the type of reliability that the word “all” suggests. But this is about selling books, not Palantir and similar companies’ functionality, statistical methods, or magical content processing. Confusing Hollywood with reality is easy today: At least for some folks.
Palantir licenses software to organizations. Palantir is an “it,” not a they. The company uses the lingo of its customers. Subversives is one term, but it is more suggestive in my opinion than “bad actor,” “criminal,” “suspect,” or terrorist.” I think the word “tracks” is pivotal. Palantir’s professionals, like Pathfinder, look at deer tracks and nails the beastie. I want to point out that “prediction”—partly the Bayesian, Monte Carlo, and Markovian methods pioneered by Autonomy in the mid 1990s—is indeed used for certain processes. What’s omitted is that Palantir is just one company in the content processing and search and retrieval game. I am not convinced that its systems and methods are the best ones available today. (Check out Recorded Future, a Google and In-Q-Tel funded company for some big league methods. And there are others. In my CyberOSINT book and my Dark Web Notebook I identify about two dozen companies providing similar services. Palantir is one, admittedly high profile example, of next generation information access providers.
The write up does reveal at the end of the article that the Guardian is selling Jacque Peretti’s book. That’s okay. What’s operating under the radar is a book promo that seems to be one thing but is, in the real world, a nifty book promotion.
In closing, the information presented in the write up struck me as a trifle stale. I am okay with collections of information that have been assembled to make it easy for a reader to get the gist of a system quickly. My Dark Web Notebook is a Cliff’s Notes about what one Tor executive suggests does not exist.
When I read about Palantir, I look for information about:
- Technical innovations within Gotham and Palantir’s other “products”
- Details about the legal dust up between i2 and Palantir regarding file formats, an issue which has some here and now relevance with the New York police department’s Palantir experience
- Interface methods which are designed to make it easier to perform certain data analysis functions
- Specifics about the data loading, file conversion, and pre-processing index tasks and how these impact timeliness of the information in the systems
- Issues regarding data reconciliation when local installs lose contact with cloud resources within a unit and across units
- Financial performance of the company as it relates to stock held by stakeholders and those who want the company to pursue an initial public offering
- What are the specific differences among systems on offer from BAE, Textron, and others with regards to Palantir Gotham?
Each time I read about Palantir these particular items seem to be ignored. Perhaps these are not sufficiently sexy or maybe getting the information is a great deal of work? The words “hash” and “rehash” come to my mind as one way to create something that seems filling but may be empty calories. Perhaps a “real journalist” will tackle some of the dot points. That would be more interesting than a stale reference to special effects in a star vehicle.
NB. I was an adviser to i2 Group Ltd., the outfit that created the Analyst’s Notebook.
Stephen E Arnold, July 31, 2017
China Transwarp: Can This Be a Palantir Challenger?
July 24, 2017
One of my sources provided me with a link to a write up which may be translated as “Yujialong star ring technology common to build China Palantir” or “Yu Jialong together star ring technology together to build China’s Palantir.” The link to the original article is here. “Yu Jialong” is a subsidiary of Boone Group, which may no longer be in operation. The point of the write up is that a group of Chinese wizards is working to create a “Chinese Palantir. The group is hoodek up with Six Ring Technology. TenCent is providing some financing.
This may be the experts who are tackling the Palantir like system.
There is the challenge of seamlessly importing the file formats used by developers of cyINT eDiscovery systems. I have added it to mist of companies engaged in moving beyond Analyst’s Notebook and Gotham systems.
Stephen E Arnold, July 24,2017
Drugmaker Merk Partners with Palantir on Data Analysis
July 21, 2017
Pharmaceutical company Merk is working with data-analysis firm Palantir on a project to inform future research, we learn from the piece, “Merk Forges Cancer-Focused Big Data Alliance with Palantir” at pharmaceutical news site PMLive. The project is an effort to remove the bottleneck that currently exists between growing silos of medical data and practical applications of that information. Writer Phil Taylor specifies:
Merck will work with Palantir on cancer therapies in the first instance, with the aim of developing a collaborative data and analytics platform for the drug development processes that will give researchers new understanding of how new medicines work. Palantir contends that many scientists in pharma companies struggle with unstructured data and information silos that ‘reduce creativity and limit researchers’ corrective analyses’. The data analytics and sharing platform will help Merck researchers analyse real-world and bioinformatics data so they can ‘understand the patients who may benefit most’ from a treatment.
The alliance also has a patient-centric component, and according to Merck will improve the experience of patients using its products, improve adherence as well as provide feedback on real-world efficacy.
Finally, the two companies will collaborate on a platform that will allow improved global supply chain forecasting and help to get medicines to patients who need them around the world as quickly as possible. Neither company has disclosed any financial details on the deal.
This is no surprise move for the 125-year-old Merk, which has been embracing digital technology in part by funding projects around the world. Known as MSD everywhere but the U.S. and Canada, the company started with a small pharmacy in Germany but now has its headquarters in New Jersey.
Palantir has recently stirred up some controversy. The company’s massive-scale data platforms allow even the largest organizations to integrate, manage, and secure all sorts of data. Its founding members include PayPal alumni and Stanford computer-science grads. The company is based in Palo Alto, California, and has offices around the world.
Cynthia Murrell, July 21, 2017
Palantir Technologies: The Buzzfeed Beat
July 3, 2017
I read “There’s a Fight Brewing between the NYPD and Silicon Valley’s Palantir.” Two points about this story. Palantir Technologies, a vendor profiled in my CyberOSINT and Dark Web Notebook reports is probably going to keep its eye on the real journalistic outfit Buzzfeed. I don’t know much about “real” journalism, but my hunch is that if Palantir’s stakeholders find the Buzzfeed write up coverage interesting, some of those folks might spill their Philz coffee.
The other point is that the New York Police Department may find questions about its contractual dealings a bit of distraction from the quotidian tasks the force faces each day. I would not characterize “real” journalists asking questions “annoying,” but I would hazard the phrase “time consuming” or the word “distracting.”
“You want me to believe that?” asks Max, a skeptical show dog who knows that some owners will do anything to win.
The point of the “Fight Brewing” write up strikes me as a story designed to suggest that Palantir Technologies may be showing some signs of stress. When I read the story, I thought of the news which swirled around some of the defunct enterprise search companies when one of their client engagements went south. Vendors hit with these situations can do little but ride out the storm.
Hey, enterprise search was routinely oversold. When a system was up and running, the results were usually similar to the results generated by the previous “solution to all your information problems.” The search engineers who coded the systems knew that overpromising and under delivering were highly probable once the on switch was flipped. But the sales professional were going to say what was necessary to close the deal. In fact, most of the fancy promises about an enterprise search system set the company up for failure.
Is that what’s going on in the NYPD-Palantir “showdown”? To wit:
Palantir explained the system’s functions and outputs. The NYPD signed on. Then when the system was installed, additional work was needed to make the Palantir system meet the expectations set by the Palantir sales engineers.
The “Fight Brewing” story says:
The NYPD quietly began work last summer on its replacement data system, and in February it announced internally that it would cancel its Palantir contract and switch to the new system by the beginning of July, according to three people familiar with the matter. The new system, named Cobalt, is a group of IBM products tied together with NYPD-created software. The police department believes Cobalt is cheaper and more intuitive than Palantir, and prizes the greater degree of control it has over this system.
Keep in mind that I, before I retired in 2013, had been an adviser to the original i2 Group Ltd., the company which created in my opinion the analytic and visualization method which defines modern cyber eDiscovery in the 1990s.
The notion that IBM, which now owns i2’s Analyst’s Notebook, is working hard to close deals in key Palantir accounts from what I have heard in the general store in Harrod’s Creek.
I don’t have to go much farther than my own experience to get a sense that the “fight” may be a manifestation of how the world works when it comes to making sales for systems like Palantir’s Gotham or IBM’s i2. In my work career I have seen some interesting jabs and punches thrown to close a deal.
The NYPD, like any organization, wants systems which work and represent good value. Incumbent vendors have to find a way to retain a customer. Competitors have to find a way to get a licensee of one product to switch to a different product.
I noted this statement in the “Fight Brewing” story:
Palantir has struggled to expand its work with the police force, the emails show. As of March and April 2015, Palantir had had “little exposure to the top brass,” and although it wanted to add more business, “the door there clearly still remains closed given the larger political environment,” staffers wrote in emails. A staffer at one point invoked a phrase popularized by Thiel, author of Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future, saying that Palantir still needed to get “from 0->1 at NYPD.”
Now how many police forces in the US can afford a comprehensive cyber eDiscovery system like Palantir Gotham or IBM Analyst’s Notebook? This is an important point because the number of potential customers is quite small. For example, after NY, LA, Chicago, Miami, and maybe three or four other cities, the sales professional runs out of viable prospects. How many counties can foot the bill for the software, the consultants, and the people required to tag and analyze the data? The number is modest. How many US states can afford the investment in high end cyber eDiscovery software? Again, the number is small, and you can count out Illinois because getting bills paid is an interesting challenge. The same market size problem exists for US government entities.
Palantir: Outside In or In In or?
June 12, 2017
I try to keep up with Palantir Technologies’ news. I love the job openings; for example, a real estate person for the firm’s New York office. I noted a more substantive item called “Palantir Goes from Pentagon Outsider to Mattis’ Inner Circle.” General James Mattis is affectionately known by some as “Mad Dog.” In 2016, a real journalist described General Mattis as a “warrior monk.” For me, I will stick with General Mattis and ignore suggestions that he would only visit a monastery if it were stocked with certain essential items. I have heard these items include beer and possibly. Well, never mind.
The point of the write up is that on General Mattis’ watch, Palantir is a technology outfit which interests him. Perhaps a more accurate statement is that the functionality of Gotham matches his A to B thinking with regard to getting actionable intelligence.
The write up tells me:
Palantir’s startup mentality has led it to shun the way business is typically done in Washington and, as a result, made some enemies in the process, including some larger, more traditional defense companies.
I wondered, “Is IBM one of those traditional companies?” What’s a little out of court settlement between friends?
The point of the write up seems to be that three people working in the General Mattis’ unit had some involvement with Palantir. The 64 dollar question is, “So what?”
The write up put my mind at ease with this statement:
Byron Callan, an analyst with Capital Alpha Partners, said he is “skeptical” that three staffers with ties to Palantir will cause the Pentagon to flip its position on the company or start doing business with it. But he said having these Silicon Valley voices on the inside could foster a continuation of some of former Defense Secretary Ash Carter’s priorities to build bridges between the Pentagon and industry in hubs of innovation. “It was debatable whether this whole push that Carter had when he was SecDef would survive,” Callan said. “When you have people at Palantir in the positions they are, you have to believe there are some voices that are not just standing in the visitors area waiting to get in and talk about it.”
My experience is that one’s work experience can be a plus. I snagged a gig while working at a well known firm with Craig Hosmer, then a Congressman and a retired admiral. Big time consulting firms and high profile government contractors flow into and out of the government in my experience.
Is Palantir now in or is Palantir sort of in? Of course, Palantir could be “in” but still on the outside? Other permutations are possible, but almost anything is possible when one catches Potomac fever even writing about employees’ work history.
Stephen E Arnold, June 12, 2017
Palantir Settles Discrimination Case
May 15, 2017
Does this count as irony? Palantir, who has built its data-analysis business largely on its relationships with government organizations, has a Department of Labor analysis to thank for recent charges of discrimination. No word on whether that Department used Palantir software to “sift through” the reports. Now, Business Insider tells us, “Palantir Will Shell Out $1.7 Million to Settle Claims that It Discriminated Against Asian Engineers.” Writer Julie Bort tells us that, in addition to that payout, Palantir will make job offers to eight unspecified Asians. She also explains:
The issue arose because, as a government contractor, Palantir must report its diversity statistics to the government. The Labor Department sifted through these reports and concluded that even though Palantir received a huge number of qualified Asian applicants for certain roles, it was hiring only small numbers of them. Palantir, being the big data company that it is, did its own sifting and produced a data-filled response that it said refuted the allegations and showed that in some tech titles 25%-38% of its employees were Asians. Apparently, Palantirs protestations weren’t enough on to satisfy government regulators, so the company agreed to settle.
For its part, Palantir insists on their innocence but say they settled in order to put the matter behind them. Bort notes the unusual nature of this case—according to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, African-Americans, Latin-Americans, and women are more underrepresented in tech fields than Asians. Is the Department of Labor making it a rule to analyze the hiring patterns of companies required to report diversity statistics? If they are consistent, there should soon be a number of such lawsuits regarding discrimination against other groups. We shall see.
Cynthia Murrell, May 15, 2017
-
- Subscribe to Beyond Search
Feature archive
News archive
-
