Profile of Palantir CEO Alex Karp and the controversies around Palantir's trustworthiness; Karp claims his progressivism offsets Thiel's relationship with Trump
The tech giant helps governments and law enforcement decipher vast amounts of data — to mysterious and, some say, dangerous ends. Tweets: @chrisamccoy , @empo11on , @chrisamccoy , @warrenisdead , @traceyfutures , @aaschapiro , @keilypolitics , @aaschapiro , and @rmac18 Tweets: McCoy / @chrisamccoy : Palantir is effectively the data science department of the United States government. Yes, they see too much. https://www.nytimes.com/... AK Martin / @empo11on : Has @WFP published anything yet on the results of its work with @PalantirTech? I ask having read in @NYTmag that “Palantir's tech has played a 𝒌𝒆𝒚 𝒓𝒐𝒍𝒆 in WFP's effort to get food and supplies distributed amid the pandemic.” Where's the evidence?! https://www.nytimes.com/... McCoy / @chrisamccoy : On a second read of this long Palantir genesis story, “why” it exists makes sense. The barbell philosophies they had to solve for, and hopefully still try to, are fascinating and important. https://www.nytimes.com/... https://twitter.com/... @warrenisdead : here's a fun, illuminating quote from Thiel where he endorses a Christian Providentialist view of the world, obscured through a work of fantasy fiction that therefore allows him to assume the role of Christian Providence without naming it as such https://www.nytimes.com/... https://twitter.com/... @traceyfutures : “Palantir says it does not do business in countries that it considers adversarial to the U.S. and its allies, namely China and Russia. In the company's early days, Palantir employees, invoking Tolkien, described their mission as “saving the shire.” https://www.nytimes.com/... Avi Asher-Schapiro / @aaschapiro : There's a lot to say about this flattering profile of Palantir & its CEO, but one thing that stands out is the author admitting towards the top he's not capable of understanding Karp's PhD dissertation....& then proceeding to try & profile the guy. https://www.nytimes.com/... https://twitter.com/... @keilypolitics : Palantir has rejected some potential clients because it was worried about how they might use its software. It had spurned a lucrative offer from the Saudi government because of Riyadh's human rights record. @iyad_elbaghdadi @mmcauliff https://www.nytimes.com/... Avi Asher-Schapiro / @aaschapiro : A few weeks ago, Palantir said it couldn't speak to the media, when @weinbergersa wrote this incisive piece: https://nymag.com/... But, both the CEO & founder were super chatty in today's NYT piece, which coincidentally, is much more sympathetic https://www.nytimes.com/... @rmac18 : Weird to frame the guy who wrote Facebook its first investor check as being worried about personal privacy. https://www.nytimes.com/... https://twitter.com/...