11–20 of 114 posts
Thus the reason I hang up on startup recruiters the moment they say "A peter thiel funded start-up". I'm not sure what is a sadder waste of this amazing braintrust we have in the United States today, all of the advertising start-ups, or sociopathic dreck like Palantir.
I recently read how Palantir is currently suing the government because they got pissed the Army is considering dumping them and is trying to bid out the work to others. They're coming across as a bit desperate in this whole thing and to be fair they probably are since if Uncle Sam pulls out they're probably toast. There was a lot of press a few months back about how they've been dumped by a lot of their private secto…
I've always found Palantir's sales&marketing strategy to be unique and fascinating among Silicon Valley startups. Palantir is a high-touch, B2B enterprise software startup, and as such, they are no different than other startups when it comes to sales&marketing. They need to find leads (= potential customers), close them as customers and retain them. Yet, Palantir's leadership and employees have repeatedly emphasized…
That was definitely a matra a few years ago, but then they started plastering adverts all over D.C.'s metro stations [1] and started hiring sales, BD, marketing and advertising people in huge numbers [2]. In addition, they've clearly hired some great PR firms to get "news" articles written about them in high profile newspapers.
At this point, looking at their venture raises and the lack of major technology investment (outside of integration and customization), I'd say they're probably one of the best funded traditional sales & marketing organization in this space.
1 - https://www.quora.com/How-much-is-Palantir-Technologies-spen...
Thus the reason I hang up on startup recruiters the moment they say "A peter thiel funded start-up". I'm not sure what is a sadder waste of this amazing braintrust we have in the United States today, all of the advertising start-ups, or sociopathic dreck like Palantir.
What's wrong with advertising startups? Some of the most valuable companies on this planet are advertising companies because it's an essential part of success for any business.
There is already a lot of information out how bad Palantir is. I hear from friends who work there that the BuzzFeed article on them is accurate. In short, like much in the valley, Palantir financially set up as an unmaintainable pyramid scheme.
One way for them to get out would be to pay Goldman Sachs to get Meg Wittman use HP shareholder money to buy Palantir at face value. This worked for Autonomy - a similar scam 'Big Data' company where the founders got away with it.
http://watchdog.org/124909/defense-spending/
As an example Lockheed Martin spent around $14.4m in 2013 and does about $45b/year in revenue.
According to this Palantir spent around $1m in 2015 and gets about $1b/year in revenue.
I recently read how Palantir is currently suing the government because they got pissed the Army is considering dumping them and is trying to bid out the work to others. They're coming across as a bit desperate in this whole thing and to be fair they probably are since if Uncle Sam pulls out they're probably toast. There was a lot of press a few months back about how they've been dumped by a lot of their private secto…
I cannot say enough bad things about Palantir. Their technology is worse than the free alternatives and their consultants are not worth the money. They are losing their big commercial customers because of this and now need 'Hail Mary' contracts from the US govt to remain in business. There is already a lot of information out how bad Palantir is. I hear from friends who work there that the BuzzFeed article on them is…
This article makes Palantir sound really weak to me. Palantir makes money selling their product. They are not a real competitor or Northrop Grumman or Raytheon. The big primes are massive and organized to win lots of different big contracts over a long time period. If they wanted to compete with the big primes they would be at a massive disadvantage paying expensive SV engineers who are hard to clear versus cheap DC…
This article makes Palantir sound really weak to me. Palantir makes money selling their product. They are not a real competitor or Northrop Grumman or Raytheon. The big primes are massive and organized to win lots of different big contracts over a long time period. If they wanted to compete with the big primes they would be at a massive disadvantage paying expensive SV engineers who are hard to clear versus cheap DC…
Having worked in DC and SV I'm not sure DC engineers are cheap, especially the ones who can clear.
We are talking about DMV. Working in the city is very uncommon for big primes. All their HQs are in Tysons
It's more than DC though. Big primes have satellite offices everywhere.