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NYPD is canceling its Palantir contract

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Re: NYPD is canceling its Palantir contract

#251

Post by dredmorbius »

fergie wrote: post #131
throwaway055 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've heard Palantir is maybe the most credentials-/prestige-focused tech company in Silicon Valley. I remember thinking that sounds like a good way to build a below-average team that seems very impressive from the outside. When you look at what they're doing, this strategy actually starts to make a lot of sense. They're selling a product that's somewhat incomprehensible. The value of that product is very difficult to…

Yup- when you start thinking of Palantir as an IBM, a Cap Gemini or an Accenture, it starts making a lot more sense.

What is Cap Gemini's significance here?

How would you compare or contrast, say, EDS or Bloomberg?

Re: NYPD is canceling its Palantir contract

#252

Post by dredmorbius »

tp3z4u wrote: post #10

Wouldn'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.

Oddly enough, the same thought's occurred to me of an investment firm with very strong ties to the NSA and cryptography community, with offices located in an interesting position relative to both cable landfalls and some government facilities, as well as a reputation for absolute gee-wizardry and completely-beyond-unbelievable investment returns.

To the point that I hesitate to post this even under my pseudonymic profile.

It's absolutely the stuff of very, very, very bad conspiracy theories. I'd love to prove myself wrong.

Re: NYPD is canceling its Palantir contract

#253

Post by eddigo »

flippy2 wrote: post #229
eddigo wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I interviewed there in 2012. The engineer called me, did his little talk and we jumped into the questions. His first question was the subset sum problem. The literal problem. It wasn't even couched in a practical application. So I said "this is subset sum. You can solve it with dynamic programming. I would look it up in a book." His response was "but I want you to solve it." I stopped the interview and thanked him fo…

Lol. Actually, they are the kind of questions us really sr people ask to ensure people are willing to actually do work. Anyone who brushes off a question stating that it's beneath them is going to get walked right out of the building by my team.

Don't get up. I'd gladly show myself out.

Re: NYPD is canceling its Palantir contract

#254

Post by mathperson »

osrec wrote: post #104

I remember a friend of mine interviewing there. He was flown from London to SF for the interview. He got through the technical questions fairly easily. At the end, he had an interview with one of the co-founders, who asked him "As an FDE, what do you think your role is?". My friend totally BS'd his way through the response, thinking he's messed up the interview. The founder however ate up everything he said, and adde…

"That's when he realised that Palantir was not really selling software, as they originally made out, but consulting, much like Accenture or McKinsey."

I think they do both?

Re: NYPD is canceling its Palantir contract

#255

Post by goldenkey »

pjmlp wrote: post #225
omlswing wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wrong. For most situaions today, there are plenty of apps that "fill your needs". So it comes down to ux. Starting with a shitty ux framework like swing means eventually someone will replace you.

Swing is only a shitty UX framework in the hands of unskilled UI developers.

No, Swing is a piece of shit.

Re: NYPD is canceling its Palantir contract

#256

Post by goldenkey »

slap_shot wrote: post #39
svendisnigh wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I welcome you to start your next hot startup in 2017 using Swing/Java instead of React/React Native/Node/Ruby/Python/Go/Rust/C++ etc. The merits of the stack are determined by both intrinsic factors and the market. Ignoring the market (remember Palantir is hiring in SV / Palo Alto) you risk alienating potential hires and current employees. [1] Another great example is EHR/EMR market with Mumps etc. [1] https://www.qu…

I'm a recent founder a big data platform and a lot of our code is Java. But better yet, we have embraced Cloud Native, so between containers and microservices it doesn't really matter what language we use. We use Java, Python, Go, Ruby, C++ and our front end is React. Individually, every language we use is both powerful and flawed. But together it builds a pretty amazing platform.

Why is there a sheep in your HQ?

Re: NYPD is canceling its Palantir contract

#257

Post by gaius »

jhall1468 wrote: post #185
CydeWeys wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I moved from a "sexy" NodeJS stack at my last job to a staid Java 7 stack at my current job (we can't move to Java 8 until App Engine supports it). The code at my current job is much better written, is more thoroughly tested, and is more pleasant to continue development on. The codebase at my previous job was a rat's nest, caused primarily by lower-skilled developers, no time allocated to technical debt or refactorin…

I've always found it weird when people say stuff like this. Clearly your last team was bad, you even said the developers were less skilled, and time constraints were problems and yet you manage to blame tooling. There's absolutely great test and CI tooling for JavaScript. The fact that you and your team didn't spend enough time to develop an expertise with them isn't the languages fault.

Good engineers will naturally gravitate towards good tools. Therefore away from bad ones. Node.js is not a good tool. Therefore the quality of engineers using it will be poor and get worse over time. The same is true of MongoDB.

Re: NYPD is canceling its Palantir contract

#258

Post by omlswing »

antonvs wrote: post #228
omlswing wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wrong. For most situaions today, there are plenty of apps that "fill your needs". So it comes down to ux. Starting with a shitty ux framework like swing means eventually someone will replace you.

None of that really applies to Palantir. They may have their issues, but I seriously doubt Swing is even on the radar if you look at the actual connection between their sources of revenue and their software.

That's a fair point. You're right, good call.

Re: NYPD is canceling its Palantir contract

#259

Post by omlswing »

pjmlp wrote: post #225
omlswing wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wrong. For most situaions today, there are plenty of apps that "fill your needs". So it comes down to ux. Starting with a shitty ux framework like swing means eventually someone will replace you.

Swing is only a shitty UX framework in the hands of unskilled UI developers.

Hrm. So the folks that wrote JetBrains etc are "unskilled"?

Re: NYPD is canceling its Palantir contract

#260

Post by TeMPOraL »

dzhiurgis wrote: post #246
TeMPOraL wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

God, I have such mixed feelings after viewing the product overview video on their site. On the one hand, you can't deny the wins that comes from bullshit-free operations - no installing, no permissions, no need to deal with sysadmins to approve a new program[0], and updates do themselves. Files are backed up and trivially shared across devices. On the other hand, you're now locked in to a vendor system, with vendor s…

I dread whenever I need to open MS Word and choose G Suite anytime I need to write a longer document...

Because you are on Linux, or because you like your software laggy? ;).
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