How does buzzfeed get the scoop on this? I didn't know they did tech reporting.
NYPD is canceling its Palantir contract
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Re: NYPD is canceling its Palantir contract
#12Wouldn't it be hilarious if their secret sauce analysis turns out to be a secret backchannel to the CIA/NSA and not some fancy algorithm.
You'd hope the NYPD knows how to set up a firewall and how to detect data exfiltration at that scale.
Re: NYPD is canceling its Palantir contract
#13Palantir has an outdated software stack (Java/Swing). Their genius lied in creating "mythical image" and cleverly overselling it to the less proficient government agencies (apparently NSA was smart enough to see through the ruse). And then in turn sell the "spooky/mysterious" image to bunch of naive Stanford/Berkeley undergrads and convince them to work for peanuts.
Sadly in 2017, their tech stack is falling apart, they have no meaningful ML/AI strategy, the agencies/corporation cannot be fooled any longer, and employees have suddenly realized that the stock (without an IPO in sight) might be worthless and have begun leaving.
Finally the political environment along association with Thiel isn't helping them make any new friends.
Having known several people who work or were hired at Palantir, I can assure you it probably has the worst overconfident brogrammer culture. So much so that I truly hope no US government agency is using them for critical functions because its nothing more than hot air.
Re: NYPD is canceling its Palantir contract
#14> The department has created a new system to replace Palantir.
> The new system, named Cobalt, is a group of IBM products tied together with NYPD-created software.
You really have to wonder about the quality of this internal product. From what I've gleaned about Palantir over the years, they supposedly have one of the hardest dev interview processes. People that work there are on top of their game.
My gut feel is that NYPD does not have as robust of an internal dev situation. Or perhaps they shopped it out to contractors? Either way... skeptical that the system is better. But who knows! It's possible the subset of features a police department actually needs from Palantir might be much smaller than the feature set they're paying for (and not too hard to construct themselves). Whatever is going on, it's clearly a cost-benefit issue.
Although, if they're fighting for Palantir's analysis, it seems they need something that Palantir does that they can't do themselves from the data. There really isn't much one can conclude from this article. Only speculation.
EDIT: From responses on this thread it seems that the "hardcore super secret analysis" image Palantir promotes might be more bark than bite. What if NYPD actually did create something better? Intriguing.
Re: NYPD is canceling its Palantir contract
#15How does buzzfeed get the scoop on this? I didn't know they did tech reporting.
BuzzFeed News is very good. The money they make from monetizing their meme-y content helps with their journalism.
Re: NYPD is canceling its Palantir contract
#16> The department has created a new system to replace Palantir. > The new system, named Cobalt, is a group of IBM products tied together with NYPD-created software. You really have to wonder about the quality of this internal product. From what I've gleaned about Palantir over the years, they supposedly have one of the hardest dev interview processes. People that work there are on top of their game. My gut feel is tha…
Anyone can have hardest dev interview process, but that's a poor measure of ability to develop software.
Palantir is just another Theranos in disguise, it essentially sells an under-performing graph database with outdated visualization tools while making money providing consulting services using "Forward Deployed (OMG!! You mean like soldiers! /s) Software Engineers".
Re: NYPD is canceling its Palantir contract
#17Wouldn't it be hilarious if their secret sauce analysis turns out to be a secret backchannel to the CIA/NSA and not some fancy algorithm.
You'd hope the NYPD knows how to set up a firewall and how to detect data exfiltration at that scale.
By backchannel I meant via people. As in the Palantir analyst calls up their friends at the CIA/NSA for help. CIA/NSA data collection remains secret, Palantir justify their expense, and NYPD find the guy. The problem is that you can't reproduce your results. The other problem is the erosion of civil liberties - but I'm only speculating with a thought experiment.
Re: NYPD is canceling its Palantir contract
#18How does buzzfeed get the scoop on this? I didn't know they did tech reporting.
They were the first ones to break news on how Palantir was in trouble and failing a while back as well.
Re: NYPD is canceling its Palantir contract
#19Palantir has an outdated software stack (Java/Swing). Their genius lied in creating "mythical image" and cleverly overselling it to the less proficient government agencies (apparently NSA was smart enough to see through the ruse). And then in turn sell the "spooky/mysterious" image to bunch of naive Stanford/Berkeley undergrads and convince them to work for peanuts. Sadly in 2017, their tech stack is falling apart, t…
I have friends that work there and say the same thing.
I turned down a job there a long time ago, I did ontologies academically so I already knew they didn't work for what they were trying to do.
Re: NYPD is canceling its Palantir contract
#20> The department has created a new system to replace Palantir. > The new system, named Cobalt, is a group of IBM products tied together with NYPD-created software. You really have to wonder about the quality of this internal product. From what I've gleaned about Palantir over the years, they supposedly have one of the hardest dev interview processes. People that work there are on top of their game. My gut feel is tha…
> From what I've gleaned about Palantir over the years, they supposedly have one of the hardest dev interview processes.
I was working for a competitor when they tried to get me on board as one of their "forward deployed software engineers" - which appeared to be a lot of big talk for hiring a bunch of recent grads and burning them out pumping out menial interfaces for customers so they would feel they were getting value.
The interview was very normal, not particularly onerous.