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Palantir's secret weapon isn't AI – it's Ontology. An open-source deep dive

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Re: Palantir's secret weapon isn't AI – it's Ontology. An open-source deep dive

#31

Post by wbsun »

echelon wrote: post #24
bluegatty wrote: post #18

This feels like pets.com made by Accenture consultants.

Palantir's secret weapon is the closeness and affinity to the DoD. The tech stack ontological model is flexible like Salesforce so that it can be jammed into any task or contract quicky. It isn't engineered, it's glued in. They're able to do this fast because they have a flexible model and because they have the friendly relationships. Their moat deepens every year with every new integration. It's smart as hell, actua…

> Palantir's secret weapon is the closeness and affinity to the DoD.

Is it a secret? I got an impression that it has been well known. How could you get any big number contracts without former secretaries or retired generals in your board or in your ‘consulting’ team?

Re: Palantir's secret weapon isn't AI – it's Ontology. An open-source deep dive

#32

Post by runarberg »

echelon wrote: post #24
bluegatty wrote: post #18

This feels like pets.com made by Accenture consultants.

Palantir's secret weapon is the closeness and affinity to the DoD. The tech stack ontological model is flexible like Salesforce so that it can be jammed into any task or contract quicky. It isn't engineered, it's glued in. They're able to do this fast because they have a flexible model and because they have the friendly relationships. Their moat deepens every year with every new integration. It's smart as hell, actua…

> Engineers turn their nose at this, but look who has tapped into this wealthy revenue stream.

This may be one of the most tone deaf, american imperialist sentiment, I’ve heard on HN for a while.

Engineers who have any sense of morality have a pretty good reason to turn their nose at this, and there is no but needed to follow that sentence.

Re: Palantir's secret weapon isn't AI – it's Ontology. An open-source deep dive

#35

Post by mannyv »

I worked at a company where the VPs etc spewed the word "ontology" all the time. We were never sure if they knew they were spewing bullshit or they really believed what they were saying was real.

Ontology is one of those fancy words that sounds important but is basically, as another poster pointed out, a standardized vocabulary.

Re: Palantir's secret weapon isn't AI – it's Ontology. An open-source deep dive

#37

Post by trollbridge »

est wrote: post #22
trollbridge wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Believe it or not, this stuff is still incredibly valuable.

I have to admit, those fancy concepts pay the bills.

I'm having a blast with using PostgreSQL to hold unstructured data in JSON-B and then creating views off of that that "feel" like more conventional SQL.

If performance becomes an issue, just turn it into an MV... and then consider some indexing on the JSON itself.

Re: Palantir's secret weapon isn't AI – it's Ontology. An open-source deep dive

#39

Post by rapind »

est wrote: post #3

It's just view, materialized view, udf, stored procedure in fancy corp speak.

> fancy Karp speak.

The paypal mafia are all about stories. They can attract talent and investor money with those stories, but they are just tall tales full of hype, and people are catching on (ok that last bit might be a hopium).

Re: Palantir's secret weapon isn't AI – it's Ontology. An open-source deep dive

#40

Post by zdragnar »

runarberg wrote: post #32
echelon wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Palantir's secret weapon is the closeness and affinity to the DoD. The tech stack ontological model is flexible like Salesforce so that it can be jammed into any task or contract quicky. It isn't engineered, it's glued in. They're able to do this fast because they have a flexible model and because they have the friendly relationships. Their moat deepens every year with every new integration. It's smart as hell, actua…

> Engineers turn their nose at this, but look who has tapped into this wealthy revenue stream. This may be one of the most tone deaf, american imperialist sentiment, I’ve heard on HN for a while. Engineers who have any sense of morality have a pretty good reason to turn their nose at this, and there is no but needed to follow that sentence.

If you read the comment a little more closely, it is very obvious that the "this" engineers turn their noses up at is the flexible model full of glue code, ala Salesforce, as opposed to "good architecture".

It's more or less in the same vein as pointing out that WordPress powered a massive chunk of the Internet despite violating almost every good coding practice you can name, and that getting things done is what makes money, not building ivory towers.

The fact that you turned that argument into some sort of anti American screed says much more about you than the parent.

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