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Palantir and other tech companies are stocking offices with tobacco products

fortune.com

61–70 of 120 posts

Re: Palantir and other tech companies are stocking offices with tobacco products

#61

Funny. At least since Covid, I’ve noticed a number of employers, often at municipalities or other governments, but sometimes at private companies, are adding terms that employees cannot use any nicotine products whatsoever. What’s even stranger is the always go out of their way to explicitly note that non tobacco cessation aids are not allowed either. Seems like pure virtue signaling, though at least one person has s…

This is almost always because the company gets a break on health insurance premiums for enacting such a policy.

Re: Palantir and other tech companies are stocking offices with tobacco products

#64
> Palantir’s move is just one of the ways biohacking has taken the Silicon Valley tech space by storm.

It's not a new phenomenon, either. I remember biohacking being mentioned in the late aughts, if not earlier, and it's referenced as being part of SV culture in the 2012 novel Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore [0].

0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._Penumbra%27s_24-Hour_Books...

Re: Palantir and other tech companies are stocking offices with tobacco products

#65
post #18

It's even funnier actually. Yes, Palantir does have free Zyn vending machines in every office, but the Zyn is only for visiting customers. Employees are explicitly prohibited from using the machines. Just vice signaling all the way down.

>The pouches are available for free in Palantir’s offices for employees and guests over the age of 21, a Palantir spokesperson told the Wall Street Journal. Palantir, which did not respond to requests for comment, pays to stock the products. Is the article wrong in this statement?

Yes, palantir is lying to the press, suprise suprise!

Re: Palantir and other tech companies are stocking offices with tobacco products

#66
post #61

Funny. At least since Covid, I’ve noticed a number of employers, often at municipalities or other governments, but sometimes at private companies, are adding terms that employees cannot use any nicotine products whatsoever. What’s even stranger is the always go out of their way to explicitly note that non tobacco cessation aids are not allowed either. Seems like pure virtue signaling, though at least one person has s…

This is almost always because the company gets a break on health insurance premiums for enacting such a policy.

Ah that makes sense. Was something changed recently to enable this? I’ve certainly seen employer health insurance discounts for not smoking for years, but the complete ban, listed in a job application, and explicitly including cessation aids feels like something I’ve only seen in recent years.

Re: Palantir and other tech companies are stocking offices with tobacco products

#67
post #11

Not much different than a fully stocked fridge with alcoholic beverages. Consume responsibly, we're all adults.

Tech companies are less receptive to alcohol than they used to be. There was a post (can't find it now) from a VC firm saying something like, "We encourage our companies to throw no alcohol parties; there's less risk of all kinds, and overall it's less messy."

Re: Palantir and other tech companies are stocking offices with tobacco products

#68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nicotine is addictive, much more so than coffee

it's like 25x more addicting than coffee, not sure how OP misses that

Probably not the case for some modern pure nicotine products (gum, patches). Vaping is harder to say due to lack of data and clear cases of addiction in young people, but pure nicotine is definitely a different animal than the classical delivery forms. See my response to GP.

Re: Palantir and other tech companies are stocking offices with tobacco products

#69
post #4

“While the pouches are considered a tobacco product, they don’t contain any tobacco, and are instead made from the plant fiber cellulose” It’s just Zyn, which doesn’t seem that dramatically different than coffee. But maybe that’s because I don’t drink coffee or use nicotine

Nicotine is addictive, much more so than coffee

bullshit. i've been smoking cigars for 5 years now. sometimes 2 or 3 a day and have zero issues stopping or going without a smoke for months. i was surprised as i was never smoker, but it is what it is. nicotine addiction is not nicotine addiction but cigarette addiction. cigars are pure tobacco. nothing else. cigarettes have over thousand ingredients in them. cigars also have higher nicotine dose than cigarettes and as i have said, zero issues.

know thy enemy.

Re: Palantir and other tech companies are stocking offices with tobacco products

#70
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nicotine is addictive, much more so than coffee

Nicotine is depending on how you measure the 3rd or 4th most addictive substance on the planet. It's up there with Heroine, Fentanyl, Cocaine, and Meth. If you consider heroine a "not even once" type of drug then nicotine should give you pause.

What dimension of “addictive” are you anchoring on? Capture rate? Withdrawal severity? Reinforcement strength? Relapse rate after quitting? Nicotine dominates on some of those and not others.
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