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Reflections on Palantir

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Re: Reflections on Palantir

#231
post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People dismiss this type of work as no big deal, but in my experience this is the actual hard work of producing something useful for companies, and what 90% of SaaS resellers will never be able to deliver on.

Yes, it is very hard. But does Palantir succeed? Or do they like some other companies just trick customers with big wallets to buy?

We used them at a bulge bracket investment bank and they failed miserably...

Re: Reflections on Palantir

#232
post #175
post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the most Tyler Cowen-coded response I could imagine, and I mean this in the best way possible.

But what is the Straussian interpretation of your comment?

Those new service sector jobs: get paid to respond to HN comments

Re: Reflections on Palantir

#233
post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Americans get to be the suckers propping up the decent lifestyles of the rest of the western world and much of Asia and the ME America benefited greatly from this position though, it's just the gains have not been equally distributed, and one can make an argument that Americans simply vote for that outcome. It is very unclear to me how the situation of the middle class in the US becomes any better if the US gives u…

>It is very unclear to me how the situation of the middle class in the US becomes any better if the US gives up its leverage for Chinese to dictate the terms. FWIW pre-WW1 the US had even worse inequality while not propping up anyone's lifestyle abroad. This was explained in the other post which I will reproduce here: "looking at history of the US, the only time the people at the top ever gave any semblance of crumbs…

If you believe that the progress is achieved when the masses have it the worst, then the deteriorating condition of the American middle class will naturally help it. What's the point in this accelerationism with allies as casualties then?

Re: Reflections on Palantir

#234

I read the article. It sounds like a Laudatio to amorality for a S&P500 behemoth whose goal is to enable other companies to purge human from their workflow, pardon... to digitalize the business. I'll give it a pass.

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Re: Reflections on Palantir

#235
post #216
post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would also be interesting to hear thoughts on the company of somebody like Cory Doctorow. Edit: aha, found. https://doctorow.medium.com/how-palantir-will-steal-the-nhs-... "Palantir is one of the most sinister companies on the global stage, a company whose pitch is to sell humans rights abuses as a service. The customers for this turnkey service include America’s most corrupt police departments, who use Palantir’s…

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_Colossus

The immigration has always existed, laws of it shifted, and AFAIK the current level of illegal immigration is not that high. So it's not really a large economical or humanitarian problem, and looks like it's much bigger political one.

Re: Reflections on Palantir

#236

I worked there in the weird era. A couple things. 1. As per usual, the things that make palantir well known not even close to being the most dubious things. 2. I agree that the rank and file of palantir is no different from typical sv talent. 3. The services -> product transition was cool, I didn't weigh it as much as should've, but I did purchase fomo insurance after they ipo'd 4. The shadow hierarchy was so bad, it…

Let's hypothesize that a would-be administration in a Western country would like to accomplish full Russian-style autocracy relatively quickly. Let's say they have stated publicly that their plan is to go after immigrants first, opposition leaders second. Numerically, these are two small categories, relatively speaking.

The first question is, what about the third and fourth categories? Would they be dissenters in general, or specific kinds (judged to be riskier for the autocratization process) and which?

The second question is, how would they go about identifying them? Are there products and services at Palantir that may have been designed for this goal?

Re: Reflections on Palantir

#237
post #2

Can someone explain to me what is the Palantir's business model ? I haven't heard any large, meaningful project they been involved in, but I keep hearing the company name & how hot they are and their stocks are going to blow-up any day (some of my friends kept their stocks for the last 4-5 years with very little gain compared to other software companies). I know of the smaller software companies that are less than 10…

The stock has blown up. It has more than doubled for me. Almost tripled. It’s quite expensive now. I would encourage you to do your own research. For some reason, HN has very little depth in stock market understanding. HN passed on META at $100. I know there are some very knowledgeable people here. Wish there was a way to create a “subreddit “ here without all the Reddit noise.

HN has always lacked economic and stock market knowledge and instincts generally speaking. Most comments tend to say it’s rigged, evil capitalist, etc. Guessing because hackers generally tend to swing far left and socialist though weird as a lot of founder and entrepreneurs are active on HN as well.

There is a long tradition of show HN were the comments poo poo startups and ideas which end up being huge and the opposite is also true with praise and admiration of failures.

Re: Reflections on Palantir

#238
> During the 2016-2020 era especially, telling people you worked at Palantir was unpopular. The company was seen as spy tech, NSA surveillance, or worse.

I mean, it is those things. I think just because it's listed on a market doesn't change those things. People are just like, "I value the money it makes me more than the ethical qualms I have about what Palantir is".

Re: Reflections on Palantir

#239
post #216
post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would also be interesting to hear thoughts on the company of somebody like Cory Doctorow. Edit: aha, found. https://doctorow.medium.com/how-palantir-will-steal-the-nhs-... "Palantir is one of the most sinister companies on the global stage, a company whose pitch is to sell humans rights abuses as a service. The customers for this turnkey service include America’s most corrupt police departments, who use Palantir’s…

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Re: Reflections on Palantir

#240
post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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Basically because everyone here is an immigrant of some sort just maybe not first generation. Also because the vast majority of people who show up at the Mexican border are fleeing horrific violence and when you are fleeing horrific violence it is difficult to always do things by the book. And also it is a reaction to just how poorly these people that otherwise would be classified as refugees get treated. Under Trump…

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