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NYPD is canceling its Palantir contract

buzzfeed.com

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Re: NYPD is canceling its Palantir contract

#71
post #52

How does buzzfeed get the scoop on this? I didn't know they did tech reporting.

The author of this article (William Alden) writes consistently negative headlines about two companies: Palantir and Uber. That’s his beat at Buzzfeed. https://www.buzzfeed.com/williamalden

Are you saying he is unfairly negative or that there are so many such stories that it is a full time job?

Re: NYPD is canceling its Palantir contract

#72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Either way, I'd kill myself before I worked at Palanatir. And I've put myself in poverty before by quitting a multi-national pharma that bought my company out and I lived on my 10k savings over 15months while I found a new job. Palanatir is not harming the world because of 4-5 shitty executives. They are harming the world because of 100's of shitty employees that only want money. Fuck all of them.

> They are harming the world because of 100's of shitty employees that only want money. Can you explain this more? I don't work at Palantir, but I do insist I get paid for working every two weeks. How are they harming the world? I mean, aside from converting oxygen to carbon dioxide.

They are saying "don't work for them" / boycott them. They are arguing that if they had no employees, they would cease to be.

Re: NYPD is canceling its Palantir contract

#73
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This dig at Palantir’s stack is outright false. A ton of their “products” are modern TypeScript + React UIs over reasonable open-source datastores, and they open-source plenty of stuff from that stack. Check out this React component, which is pretty cool: https://palantir.github.io/react-mosaic/ Plenty more examples here: https://palantir.github.io

Either way, I'd kill myself before I worked at Palanatir. And I've put myself in poverty before by quitting a multi-national pharma that bought my company out and I lived on my 10k savings over 15months while I found a new job. Palanatir is not harming the world because of 4-5 shitty executives. They are harming the world because of 100's of shitty employees that only want money. Fuck all of them.

I wrote this one of the last times Palantir was discussed and I think it remains true. The company is about ego and bullshit...and they have done a really good job of selling the emperors new clothes.

>I cannot say enough bad things about Palantir.

>I cannot comment about the technology but I sure as hell can at a people level. I was a speaker at a conference where one of the Palantir cofounders gave a keynote. This was a conference organized by college students for their peers. As with all such situations these kids worked incredibly hard and his talk was incredibly disrespectful to that.

>If I hadn't been so disgusted I would have thought to record it. Rather than talk about anything relevant to his audience, or frankly anything informative, he told 'stories'. We have all seen that type of talk, but I have never seem one which so blatantly braggadocious about his interactions with this and other country's intelligence branches. I found it somewhat ironic, for someone who works for Peter Theil, that the level to which the talk, and his representation of the 'good' the company does was so absolutely and unapologetically statist and authoritarian. He talked about who's jet he rode on, who he knew, and other things that seemed simply organized to ensure we knew just how important he was. Several of the stories were overtly misogynistic, and none of them had any useful knowledge about Palintir or working for them. I was sitting with another speaker and we were literally shaking our heads. I felt bad for the organizers and felt the shame he[the speaker] seemed incapable of.

Re: NYPD is canceling its Palantir contract

#74

Palantir 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…

Java is one of the most widely used languages in the world. I get the impression that people who think using Java is an issue are usually just hiding their own inadequacies by repeating hype they read on the Internet.

Re: NYPD is canceling its Palantir contract

#75

Palantir 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…

  outdated software stack ...
  no meaningful ML/AI strategy
Yeah, because not being buzzwordy enough is just SO much more important than having meaningful products and services that fulfill a vital role.

Re: NYPD is canceling its Palantir contract

#77
post #44

Palantir 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…

Technology stacks do not make or break businesses..... It's foolish to think so.

Unless the business is a tech company selling enterprise software. If, as other commenters have mentioned, their software is subsumed by cheap or free open alternatives, that could be detrimental.

Re: NYPD is canceling its Palantir contract

#78
post #71
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The author of this article (William Alden) writes consistently negative headlines about two companies: Palantir and Uber. That’s his beat at Buzzfeed. https://www.buzzfeed.com/williamalden

Are you saying he is unfairly negative or that there are so many such stories that it is a full time job?

Neither, it's a feedback loop. By writing negative stories, when company insiders have a scoop and they want to leak it, they know they can contact Mr. Alden because they've seen his previous articles on the company and his track record of not revealing leakers. Mr. Alden then writes an article using such leaked information, which generates buzz within the company (employees share these articles among themselves), resulting in more insiders who know about Mr. Alden and what he does. This encourages more people to share with Mr. Alden.

A similar situation happened with WSJ's Christopher Weaver and Theranos, after his initial few articles, several Theranos investors contacted him with more information, which lead to more articles published, and further attracted people who had company information to share.

Re: NYPD is canceling its Palantir contract

#79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They are harming the world because of 100's of shitty employees that only want money. Can you explain this more? I don't work at Palantir, but I do insist I get paid for working every two weeks. How are they harming the world? I mean, aside from converting oxygen to carbon dioxide.

They are saying "don't work for them" / boycott them. They are arguing that if they had no employees, they would cease to be.

I still don't get why Palantir is making the world worse, besides being apparently a bad product.

Re: NYPD is canceling its Palantir contract

#80

Palantir 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 interviewed there a couple years ago. the guy forgot to call me for the phone screen. I emailed the recruiter and they said sorry they can reschedule for 7pm that night when he got home. on the call (which started at 7:15) he talked 90% of the time. he would ask me two or three questions at a time, and when I would get a chance to answer one he would jump in and answer the rest of them for me. I was rejected for la…

It's amazing how many mediocre people are being propped up by investors all over the place.
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