What kind of company is Palantir?

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Palantir is a big data company

Palantir (ticker: PLTR) is a technology company that adopted a direct listing (DPO) in September 2020. I mentioned this company founded by Peter Thiel in my blog article “Zero to One“. It is a typical big data company, in addition to government units, it now also provides services to corporate customers.

Its success is highly controversial

Palantir is an ideal enterprise with both devil and angel status and lofty goals. Because its value and competitiveness are built on the edge of law and privacy, its moat does not lie in technology itself. It has a certain level of technology, but it is not top; because C3.ai (ticker: AI), Alphabet (ticker:s: GOOGL and GOOG), Splunk (ticker: SPLK) and other companies on the market that own even better technology than Palantir.

Main products

Whether it is Gotham (Palantir’s products targeted at corporate users) or Foundry (previously known as Palantir Government, Palantir targeted at government units’ products), the two product lines, in order to show the power of its products, Palantir must collect tons of unknown information, otherwise Gotham or Foundry is just Excel with a nicer interface. For another analogy, we can think of Gotham as a software platform on which the user can find a needle in a haystack (you read this sentence correctly). From this we can see how high users expect it, or how Palantir boasts the power of its products.

Rely on government tenders to make money

The point is that most of these data are not available. This is the fundamental reason why Palantir is more successful in the government case, while the corporate case is less successful. Because the government has any information about you and me, think about it. Why Edward Snowden is still wanted by the United States for treason and has to flee to Russia to hide? You understand how sensitive this information is and how unpopular it is. The main factor for Palantir’s success is to rely on Peter Thiel and others have a wealth of high-level contacts in the relationship between government departments and super-large enterprises, especially in the major departments of the United States.

credit: wikimedia

An atypical technology company

If you are a long-term investor and only focus on investing in artificial intelligence and big data, then Palantir is a well-established company. Because after a sharp drop of 50% from the high point, the market has given it a more reasonable price range. And CEO Alex Karp also stated that the company can grow by 30% every year in the next 5 years. In terms of its market value (US$30-40 billion), it can be regarded as a very good annual growth rate. Alex, who majored in philosophy. He has already said, don’t expect the company’s stock price to rise sharply, because the company will only focus on long-term company development.

Palantir’s recent stock price chart (data from Google Finance)

In order to stay away from the troubles of Silicon Valley, let employees concentrate on work. The company also moved away from densely populated areas on the east and west sides of the United States and moved its head office to Denver, Colorado, which is a mountainous region.

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