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Palantir and Prism: A Possible Link

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Re: Palantir and Prism: A Possible Link

#121

Post by chris_mahan »

joezydeco wrote: post #65
natch wrote: post #33

Palantir has hundreds of employees swarming around downtown Palo Alto. Hundreds. Somebody is paying that company a LOT of money for something. There is something very weird about the employees in Palo Alto: I never see them at local meetups, events, parties, and such. They are truly strangers who keep to themselves and don't engage with the local community... and very young. I get the feeling they come from afar and…

One of the most visible Palantir employees is Michael Lopp (aka Rands), ex-Apple and Borland engineering manager and now a director at Palantir. Lopp is pretty visible, writing a blog ( http://www.randsinrepose.com ), publishing a few books, and speaking at numerous conferences. But you're right, it seems Palantir takes a lot of it's culture from Apple as opposed to Google.

What? I subscribe to his mailing list, and read his blog... Yikes.

Re: Palantir and Prism: A Possible Link

#122

Post by garry »

I can personally confirm Palantir Prism is not NSA's Prism. I helped build that team and write that software in 2006. It was Palantir Finance, and it was built for use at hedge funds and financial houses as a quant analysis platform for traders.

Re: Palantir and Prism: A Possible Link

#123

Post by garry »

aridiculous wrote: post #40

I told my sister-in-law (a very level-headed economist) about Palantir and she just referred to them as paramilitary thugs. It hadn't occurred to me to phrase it like that because they are a young, hip group that borrows from Lord of the Rings and evidently posts cartoons on their walls. Karp's M.O. is to simply list off all the possible use cases of data inference, including good ones. It makes him sound like a wise…

This is the first time I've heard Palantir being called paramilitary thugs. Are there specific claims that would substantiate that? (I was an early employee.)

Re: Palantir and Prism: A Possible Link

#124

Post by brown9-2 »

aridiculous wrote: post #40

I told my sister-in-law (a very level-headed economist) about Palantir and she just referred to them as paramilitary thugs. It hadn't occurred to me to phrase it like that because they are a young, hip group that borrows from Lord of the Rings and evidently posts cartoons on their walls. Karp's M.O. is to simply list off all the possible use cases of data inference, including good ones. It makes him sound like a wise…

"Thugs"? For people that make, sell, and customize software?

That sounds like a description people would attach to Blackwater.

Re: Palantir and Prism: A Possible Link

#128

Post by marcamillion »

gohrt wrote: post #119
marcamillion wrote: post #108

Whenever Thiel talks about Palantir, I get a bit confused. I wonder if he suffers from cognitive dissonance. One of his most successful companies is a company that does big data analysis for the DOD (likely the Intelligence Community)...yet he is stridently libertarian - to the point where he is a Seasteader. So I can't quite reconcile the two.

1. Many Libertarians give defense spending a free pass, calling defense the only essential function of government. 2. Libertarians are opposed to giving money to govt, not taking money from govt.

Yes...but the core of a libertarian is that they value their LIBERTY over anything else.

It can't just be that Thiel wants to make money. Would he be involved in a company that is systematically eroding the very liberties that he publicly claims to cherish, all for a few more hundreds of millions of dollars?

I doubt it.

So there must be something else going on - and I am genuinely interested.

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