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Palantir acquires Kimono

kimonolabs.com

71–80 of 141 posts

Re: Palantir acquires Kimono

#73
Kimono had a beautiful chrome extension which allowed me to easily extract things quickly without needing to write any selectors / scraping. Much love to this team; best of luck!

Re: Palantir acquires Kimono

#74

The worst part about Palantir is their ability to masquerade as this hip startup, as though working for them is as innocent as working for Imgur or Twitter or whatever. They recruit the hell out of MIT students, and it sucks seeing my friends interview for this incredibly shitty company that has openly said it won't go public since that would make running their business "very difficult" (hm, because you're doing repr…

On one hand, Palantir have (at best) questionable connections and I wouldn't be a rush to work for them. On the other, with the level of pay/benefits they provide, I'm not surprised they can find people without similar qualms (or people who overlook or aren't aware of them). I won't share specifics (as they aren't mine to share), but I have a friend working for Palantir overseas. Once essential benefits (e.g. accommo…

It's cool to get a 6 fig GBP salary but tbh, assuming what I've heard about the working hours there is true, I could still just do a combo of freelancing and contracting and make way, way more cash.

Re: Palantir acquires Kimono

#75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have the ability to intern at Palantir you have the ability to intern at any number of more responsible companies. Palantir has a bigger booth at the career fair, but I'd bet working at Apple or Uber is just as much of a resume boost at much less of a societal cost. (source: am a college student)

Interning at Apple or Uber has much more stiff competition though. The barrier to entry for Palantir is remarkably low considering their pay, it's not surprising that college students apply for Palantir. (Source: am college senior)

Will they hire you if you smoke pot? I hear college students sometimes do that.

Re: Palantir acquires Kimono

#76

"Why? As a team, we’re very proud of the product we built, now used by over 125k developers, data scientists and businesses" ... from FAQ: "service will shut down Feb 29, 2016" In fact, they are so proud, they're giving all but ~2 weeks notice to said 125K developers, data scientists, and businesses to migrate off the platform? That is an abysmally small amount of time and if I was a paying customer, i'd be furious.…

Sort of plays right into the whole argument being made over on another thread ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11105198 ) that companies shouldn't rely too heavily on proprietary tools to solve their data challenges. Palantir is the poster child for black box software company that keeps trying to sell you more expensive licenses for their mystery algorithm. I know they've had some success in the government sect…

There is no mystery algorithm. It's just cheap college labor working obscene hours to pump out "data analysis" scripts. The sad thing is that it actually works. The places that hire palantir are so mired in bureaucracy and process that whatever palantir builds seems to be better. Of course, just like SAP and Accenture you're now kinda locked in with support contracts.

Modern tools like spark and mesos in theory let you do what palantir does and then some but it assumes your internal IT team is semi-competent which more often than not is not a correct assumption.

Re: Palantir acquires Kimono

#77

"Why? As a team, we’re very proud of the product we built, now used by over 125k developers, data scientists and businesses" ... from FAQ: "service will shut down Feb 29, 2016" In fact, they are so proud, they're giving all but ~2 weeks notice to said 125K developers, data scientists, and businesses to migrate off the platform? That is an abysmally small amount of time and if I was a paying customer, i'd be furious.…

> we couldn’t be happier to announce

The tone of the announcement is in bad taste given the bad news for their customers.

Re: Palantir acquires Kimono

#78
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it won't go public since that would make running their business "very difficult" (hm, because you're doing reprehensible work perhaps?) Well, more generally, anyone who has a nonstandard set of ethical beliefs, and is basing their company around that set of beliefs, can't really go public without their belief-set being thrown under the bus of their shareholders' belief-set. For example, I've often considered starti…

You could go the Google and Facebook route of having voting-class and non-voting class shares. Sergey and Larry, and Zuck still retain control of their companies.

Until they die, the company goes bankrupt, or it's subject to such a compelling buyout offer that they can't responsibly decline it.

Capitalism wins, eventually.

Re: Palantir acquires Kimono

#79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interning for Palantir is a pretty big resume boost for college students, and they have one of the highest paying internships in the valley. There's some serious benefits to going to Palantir.

Sorry I can't stop myself: Interning as a prison ward in Auschwitz is a pretty big resume boost for anyone who served in a prison system, and Nazis have one of the highest paying internships abroad. There's some serious benefits of becoming a prison ward in Auschwitz. That's how I see this parasite company.

Curious to know what Palantir are doing that you have a such an issue with - surely they aren't committing genocide?

Re: Palantir acquires Kimono

#80
post #65

The worst part about Palantir is their ability to masquerade as this hip startup, as though working for them is as innocent as working for Imgur or Twitter or whatever. They recruit the hell out of MIT students, and it sucks seeing my friends interview for this incredibly shitty company that has openly said it won't go public since that would make running their business "very difficult" (hm, because you're doing repr…

Some business owners just don't want shareholders inserting their opinion where it isn't wanted. If they don't need the funding, there's no reason to go public.

Careful, you're going to cause a VC to throw a tantrum.
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