Inside Palantir • Hacker News Board

Re: Inside Palantir

#231

Post by deprave » Sat, May 07, 2016, 12:27 PM UTC

_tpzm wrote: post #213

callmeed wrote: post #60

My understanding is that Palantir is running an engineering mill/sweatshop using fresh out of school CS grads (particularly from Stanford). That much of their time is spent simply writing client-specific code that imports and cleans up data from disparate enterprise systems. That its not challenging, innovating, or exciting. Of course this is all anecdotal based on what I've heard from friends and a Palantir engineer…

Yes, it's consulting. Palantir has done an amazing job branding itself as a product company even tho it's mostly not, and for a long time, up to ~1000 employees in 2012, branding itself as a startup. A surprising number of my friends and classmates (Stanford '12/'13) ended up working there. Stanford emails out a jobs summary for each graduating class. For 2013 graduates the #1 most common job title was Forward Deploy…

On one hand I agree with you that borrowing a term like "sweatshop" to describe Palantir is ridiculous. The abuse of language not just in this instance, but overall, is ridiculous to both extremes.

Having said that, I think the intention was to describe Palantir in relative terms compared to other companies in SV. With that in mind, then yes, Palantir is one of the worst places to work at among companies of the same type: well-funded startups with a rather convenient revenue stream.

Re: Inside Palantir

#232

Post by davej » Sat, May 07, 2016, 12:37 PM UTC

To get an idea of the kind of stuff Palantir do then it's worth taking a look at the presentation that was leaked during the HBGary leaks: http://www.businessinsider.com/palantir-wikileaks-2011-2?IR=...

Re: Inside Palantir

#233

Post by criddell » Sat, May 07, 2016, 12:40 PM UTC

KKKKkkkk1 wrote: post #175

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?).

How can I determine which school belongs to which tier? I always thought of University of Toronto as a top school based on the fact that it employs some of the best computer scientists in the world (Geoff Hinton is practically a celebrity nowadays). Apparently they were a third-world diploma mill all along and I never knew.

> How can I determine which school belongs to which tier?

Just out of curiosity, what is it that you do that you need to know this?

Re: Inside Palantir

#234

Post by Anderkent » Sat, May 07, 2016, 12:44 PM UTC

jonathankoren wrote: post #214

dbt00 wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked at Palantir for over 7 years, and that doesn't sound like any of the projects I knew about or any of the people that I worked with.

While I'll defer to you about what people you know, I don't understand how that doesn't sound like any Palantir product you know. It's the core product. When it's sold commercially it's used to find people committing fraud, and those people could be arrested, put on trial, and if found by a jury of their peers to have committed the crime beyond a reasonable doubt, thrown in jail for a number of years. When it's sold…

> When it's sold commercially it's used to find people committing fraud, and those people could be arrested, put on trial, and if found by a jury of their peers to have committed the crime beyond a reasonable doubt, thrown in jail for a number of years.

Um, and that's a bad thing how, assuming they really committed fraud?

> When it's sold to militaries and intelligence agencies it's used to make kill lists.

Militaries and intelligence agencies do much more than just make kill lists. And I sincerely doubt such lists are created without human supervision. But being mostly a pacifist I've never wanted to work with those projects, so I don't know the details.

disclaimer: I work at Palantir.

Re: Inside Palantir

#235

Post by Anderkent » Sat, May 07, 2016, 12:45 PM UTC

dschiptsov wrote: post #209

SAP-like scam. Highly refined, Oxford-educated sales and execs, selling with high-status deceptive techniques grossly overpriced, lovest quality outdated by a decade crap, for support and maintenance of which they are billing their victims for each hour spend by expensive suit wearing nonsense talking consultants. BTW, the guys who went there for sweatshop positions are those who barely managed to graduate. But in sa…

> BTW, the guys who went there for sweatshop positions are those who barely managed to graduate

Bullshit. I work at the London office, most of the FDEs have firsts from cambridge/oxford/imperial/some other top european university.

Re: Inside Palantir

#236

Post by nvarsj » Sat, May 07, 2016, 12:59 PM UTC

callmeed wrote: post #60

My understanding is that Palantir is running an engineering mill/sweatshop using fresh out of school CS grads (particularly from Stanford). That much of their time is spent simply writing client-specific code that imports and cleans up data from disparate enterprise systems. That its not challenging, innovating, or exciting. Of course this is all anecdotal based on what I've heard from friends and a Palantir engineer…

I know someone whose partner works at Palantir London. I've heard similar about the London office. Second hand though. What I've heard is, there is very little in the way of basic engineering practices or organization. People hacking stuff together all over the place, very poor test practices, stuff is broken all the time. Hero coding to get things working. And cult vibe through the roof. They weren't happy there.

Re: Inside Palantir

#237

Post by s_q_b » Sat, May 07, 2016, 1:10 PM UTC

callmeed wrote: post #60

My understanding is that Palantir is running an engineering mill/sweatshop using fresh out of school CS grads (particularly from Stanford). That much of their time is spent simply writing client-specific code that imports and cleans up data from disparate enterprise systems. That its not challenging, innovating, or exciting. Of course this is all anecdotal based on what I've heard from friends and a Palantir engineer…

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10980506

This was my guess. The government is disentangling itself from the company, because IAD guys are starting to realize that Palantir is just another consulting firm.

Moreover, they're a consulting firm that failed to deliver on their promises. I'm not sure if they'll be audited and put to sleep, or if they have enough government patrons.

FinTech has realized Palantir's tech is pretty pictures and the rest is just a datalake setup. To negotiate and buy it is hard, even when it was the new hot company. Then to actually run the software be prepared to pay high rates for their "forward deployed engineers", which the rest of us just call "software consultants."

Their branding is excellent, in that they managed to offer a more "West Coast mentality," as I've heard sneered by government clients.

Having worked and lived with devs from the Bay Area, I can say that the the government could use a lot of help from Silicon Valley. But Palantir is not the help they need.

Re: Inside Palantir

#238

Post by argonaut » Sat, May 07, 2016, 1:16 PM UTC

huac wrote: post #118

callmeed wrote: post #60

My understanding is that Palantir is running an engineering mill/sweatshop using fresh out of school CS grads (particularly from Stanford). That much of their time is spent simply writing client-specific code that imports and cleans up data from disparate enterprise systems. That its not challenging, innovating, or exciting. Of course this is all anecdotal based on what I've heard from friends and a Palantir engineer…

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.

This applies to almost every tech and non-tech company, so this doesn't necessarily imply anything. All companies want to hire "the best" (let us set aside the totally valid question of whether or not elite schools graduate the best). And if you've done such a killer job at selling the reputation of the company to the public that all the top graduates want to work with you, why wouldn't you hire them?

Re: Inside Palantir

#239

Post by ethanbond » Sat, May 07, 2016, 1:17 PM UTC

gaius wrote: post #221

ethanbond wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, true. I removed the claim re: the quality of the team, hopefully it's a bit less misleading.

By the way, if Palantir's product actually works, your manager already knows you're talking about them.

That wasn't the concern. I said the team is very good relative to my experience at other places. They know that I like 'em already, don't worry ;)

Re: Inside Palantir

#240

Post by argonaut » Sat, May 07, 2016, 1:19 PM UTC

jonathankoren wrote: post #210

[deleted] wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[deleted]

You can justify any biases with that attitude.

Worth pointing out that you can pick apart any hiring criteria with the statement that "I've met lots of people who met the criteria but were idiots, and many people who didn't meet the criteria and where very intelligent."