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Inside Palantir

buzzfeed.com

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Re: Inside Palantir

#181

Post by [deleted] »

sgnelson wrote: post #171
desdiv wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Palantir could easily achieve 97% of their results with tier 2 grads, but because they only take Stanford/Princeton/MIT/etc, they can justify their high prices to clients. Do we actually have any data on Palantir's hiring practices? Because my personal anecdata is that I have a friend working there and he's from a tier 2 school (University of Toronto, maybe even tier 3?).

Does anyone else find it a bit ironic that the same guy who wants to pay people to drop out of college is also the guy who only wants to hire from the "Top schools." I'm old enough now to know where you went to school doesn't correlate to who you are as a person and your level of intelligence (however you may wish to define the different types of intelligence). That and I've met way too many people from "Top Schools"…

[deleted]

Re: Inside Palantir

#182

Post by phaus »

vonklaus wrote: post #69
leroy_masochist wrote: post #6

This article was way, way better sourced than I thought it'd be. Especially for Buzzfeed of all places.

for me, buzzfeed is like hyundai. Hyundai had the reputation prob anytime before 8ish years ago of being total unreliable shit. However, they made a massive set of enigineering improvements, created better styling and started standing behind their products with the best warranty in the industry, 100k miles. They even created a luxury line under the hyundai brand and started offering more expensive cars. During hte pe…

Hyundai's transformation happened much earlier than 8 years ago. By the time I bought my first car in 2002, they already had a decent reputation and a 100k warranty.

Re: Inside Palantir

#183

Post by xapata »

Tossrock wrote: post #29
misuba wrote: post #12

At least they have the decency to tell you who they work for right in their name.

It always kind of amazed me as a pick for a company name. Like, they realize palantirs are a tool of the bad guys, right? They're not a good thing! It's like naming your company "Stormtrooper", or "Dementor".

There's a company in Boston called Vecna [0]. I always thought it was odd to name a company after a famous evil lich [1]. Though now that I'm reading the company's About page, I see both names were probably inspired by the Czech word for "eternal".

[0] http://www.vecna.com/about-vecna/

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vecna

Re: Inside Palantir

#184

Post by sw4lsec »

ZanyProgrammer wrote: post #129

I'm curious if any positions require pre employment drug tests, random urinalysis, or security clearances. What a miserable life for a 20 something in the private sector!

You are aware there are many people out there with technical skills who choose not to use drugs for a multitude of reasons? For these people, a security clearance can add tons of job possibilities, a higher salary, and greater job security, with the only tradeoff of being more "miserable" according to the occasional HN poster.

Re: Inside Palantir

#185

Post by thucydides »

laxatives wrote: post #173
spacehome wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, that's nuts. My gmail account is the gateway to password resetting a bunch of different accounts, not to mention all the private correspondences. It would have to be quite the value proposition to make me give up the keys. And these idiots give it away for nothing at all?

Yes. We had numerous SSN and bank account details, basically anything you might find in a personal or professional email inbox. Obviously we weren't making use of any of this, but if we had one malicious engineer, things could have gone very poorly. One automated tool inadvertently posted an individual's SSN on the paid version of our site was very angry. The level of access was something we were always discouraged f…

Holy... Okay, just went to https://security.google.com/settings/security/permissions and revoked permissions for a bunch of apps. Thanks for this story.

Re: Inside Palantir

#186

Post by arkades »

jrbapna wrote: post #137
huac wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note that that work doesn't require a top CS degree. Palantir could easily achieve 97% of their results with tier 2 grads, but because they only take Stanford/Princeton/MIT/etc, they can justify their high prices to clients. It's classic consulting - McKinsey/Bain/BCG could achieve 97% of their results with tier 2 grads instead of Harvard/Wharton grads at lower salaries, but you gotta wow the clients to win the jobs.

What strikes me is when the clients know this to be true, but don't actually care. They have a budget and they need to spend it! Looking forward to the day when the market catches up to them.

It's not a budgetary issue. Generally the consultants are brought in to bring about a conclusion that the managerial team already decided upon. The expense and prestige of the consulting firm now backs this conclusion with sunk cost fallacy, and the managerial team has political leverage to push forward with their plan.

And, if it fails, political cover.

Re: Inside Palantir

#187

Post by rcpt »

CydeWeys wrote: post #138
willalden wrote: post #121

Hi all -- I wrote the Palantir article. It's really awesome to see all this discussion about it. As I say in the post, please don't hesitate to contact me if you'd like to chat confidentially. I am always eager to hear any tips or new information. Find me on WhatsApp, Telegram, Signal, or encrypted email. Contact info here: https://www.buzzfeed.com/williamalden/inside-palantir-silico...

By the way, your PGP key has no signatures on it. It could trivially be swapped out on your webhost if the server was compromised and no one would know the difference. You should go to a PGP key-signing party. I would offer to sign your key, but you aren't in the NYC office like I would've assumed. Fortunately there's no shortage of people to sign your key in SF!

This seems relevant right now https://moxie.org/blog/gpg-and-me/

Re: Inside Palantir

#188

Post by jonnathanson »

arkades wrote: post #186
jrbapna wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What strikes me is when the clients know this to be true, but don't actually care. They have a budget and they need to spend it! Looking forward to the day when the market catches up to them.

It's not a budgetary issue. Generally the consultants are brought in to bring about a conclusion that the managerial team already decided upon. The expense and prestige of the consulting firm now backs this conclusion with sunk cost fallacy, and the managerial team has political leverage to push forward with their plan. And, if it fails, political cover.

This.

People bring in consultants for one of two possible outcomes:

1) Rubber stamp a preconceived conclusion or idea;

2) Test out an idea and take the hit if it fails.

Basically, they are there to ensure a win-win scenario for the commissioning member(s) of management.

Re: Inside Palantir

#189

Post by gaius »

From a linked article:

"The primary payday for the best engineers is that you get to work with the best engineers,"

Funny how that's not the same for execs!

Re: Inside Palantir

#190

Post by jsprogrammer »

askafriend wrote: post #105
nilkn wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I interviewed there a few years ago. I can tell you that at least at the time the impression given during the interviews was that of a deep, intellectually enriching place. Mostly everyone I talked to went to Stanford, Berkeley, Princeton, or a similarly ranked school. Many of those not straight out of school had come from Google or Facebook. The interview questions were among the hardest and most technically demandi…

I had a similar experience as well. They put me in a very fancy hotel and let me charge anything to the room (don't worry, I absolutely did take advantage of this). On top of that, they sent an S550 to pick me up on the day of the interview...

You negotiated to keep the S550 and unlimited expense account, right?
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