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- Palantir first served U.S. intelligence, helping map insights that supported counter-terrorism efforts. Over time, it expanded into commercial sectors.
Palantir first served U.S. intelligence, helping map insights that supported counter-terrorism efforts. Over time, it expanded into commercial sectors.
Critics point to its use by agencies like ICE, the Department of Defense, and foreign militaries—including Israel and Ukraine—for surveillance, deportation efforts, and military targeting.
Pascal Hetzscholdt
August 12, 2025
Palantir Technologies: What Do They Actually Do?
by ChatGPT-5
1. Public Misunderstandings & Clarifications
Palantir is often perceived as a data broker, a giant database or a constant data miner. None of these characterizations are accurate. Instead, the company offers specialized software that integrates and analyzes customers’ own data, without centrally collecting or selling it. Even former employees admit it’s hard to explain succinctly what Palantir does—but they agree it’s fundamentally about enabling complex data workflows.
2. Core Products & Functionality
Palantir offers three primary platforms:
Gotham: Designed for government and law enforcement. It ingests existing customer data—such as crime reports or booking logs—and surfaces connections between people, places, and events within minutes.
Foundry: Built for commercial clients, enabling operations like inventory tracking, factory monitoring, order flow, or building digital twins. It provides an interactive interface for non-technical users to work with data.
Apollo: A deployment and update platform—think of it as a remote control for pushing updates to Gotham or Foundry across various environments—from cloud to on-premise.
Together, these platforms let organizations overlay a powerful "software operating system" onto messy legacy infrastructure, without requiring them to rebuild their entire data architecture
3. Origins & Evolution
Founded in 2003 by Peter Thiel, Alex Karp, and others—with early support from the CIA’s In-Q-Tel—Palantir first served U.S. intelligence, helping map insights that supported counter-terrorism efforts. Over time, it expanded into commercial sectors while maintaining strong ties with government, defense, and intelligence clients.
4. Real-World Impact & Controversy
Palantir’s software has been deployed in many high-stakes contexts:
Defense & Intelligence: Tools have been used in battlefield planning, thwarting terrorist threats, and supporting aviation (e.g., Airbus’s Skywise platform uses Foundry to improve manufacturing and supply chains).
Commercial Optimization: Clients like American Airlines, Heineken, Wendy’s, and Walgreens use its AI and analytics tools to streamline operations.
Government Services: Palantir helped with vaccine distribution and pandemic data management (e.g., NHS COVID Data Store), and continues to support healthcare, manufacturing, and financial sectors.
At the same time, critics point to its use by agencies like ICE, the Department of Defense, and foreign militaries—including Israel and Ukraine—for surveillance, deportation efforts, and military targeting. These deployments have spurred widespread ethical concern and protests.
5. Financial Momentum & Market Presence
Palantir is experiencing explosive growth:
Q2 2025 revenue exceeded $1 billion, up 48% year-over-year. Government revenue rose 53% ($426 million) while U.S. commercial revenue surged 93% ($306 million).
The company raised its full-year 2025 revenue projection to $4.1–4.2 billion.
A landmark $10 billion, decade‑long contract with the U.S. Department of Defense is among Palantir’s most significant commitments.
Its market capitalization has soared—surpassing major firms like IBM, Salesforce, and Cisco—and its stock has more than doubled in 2025 alone.
In Summary
Palantir builds powerful platforms—Gotham, Foundry, and Apollo—that overlay an advanced, secure operating layer onto an organization’s existing data infrastructure. These tools allow both technical and non-technical users to integrate diverse data sources, analyze complex datasets, and draw actionable, AI-powered insights—without the need to rebuild underlying systems. The company serves both government and commercial clients at massive scale, playing a critical—and often controversial—role in modern data-driven operations.
Sources:
1. Wired – “What Does Palantir Actually Do?”
Detailed feature explaining what Palantir does, clarifying common misconceptions, and describing its products, internal culture, and controversies.
🔗 https://www.wired.com/story/palantir-what-the-company-does
2. Palantir Technologies – Official Company Site
Product overviews of Gotham, Foundry, Apollo, and AI Platform; case studies; investor relations.
🔗 https://www.palantir.com
3. Financial Times – “Palantir lifts outlook as AI boom sends quarterly revenue to $1bn”
Covers Q2 2025 results, revenue growth, and government/commercial contracts.
🔗 https://www.ft.com/content/d2f8e180-2b27-48ef-9d70-2d156733d25f
4. The Times – “Palantir raises revenue forecast to $4bn as AI demand takes off”
Discusses revenue jump, AI adoption, and commercial sector performance.
🔗 https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/palantir-raises-revenue-forecast-to-4bn-as-ai-demand-takes-off-pm76bd0d2
5. Built In – “What Is Palantir?”
Explains the company’s history, products, and industry applications.
🔗 https://builtin.com/articles/what-is-palantir
6. GraniteShares – “What Does Palantir Technologies Do?”
Breaks down Gotham, Foundry, and Apollo for investors and explains market positioning.
🔗 https://graniteshares.com/institutional/us/en-us/research/what-does-palantir-technologies-do
7. Wikipedia – “Palantir Technologies”
Background on founding, funding, major contracts, and controversies.
🔗 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palantir_Technologies
8. The Daily Beast – “The Most Terrifying Company in America Is Probably One You’ve Never Heard Of”
Older but still relevant profile of Palantir’s origins and intelligence links.
🔗 https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-most-terrifying-company-in-america-is-probably-one-youve-never-heard-of
9. The Guardian – “Companies aiding Trump’s immigration crackdown see ‘extraordinary’ revenues”
Discusses Palantir’s ICE contracts and political implications.
🔗 https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/aug/10/trump-immigration-companies-profit
10. Reddit – “What is Palantir? Part 1 DD”
Unofficial but useful breakdown of how Palantir overlays its platform onto legacy systems.
🔗 https://www.reddit.com/r/PLTR/comments/x2iga2/what_is_palantir_part_1_dd
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It's probably not the best basis for the US either. A LOT more disciplines, experts and scientists of many more fields are required. A tech heavy think-tank(er) is likely going to topple. But Karp does display a lot of masculinity though, with his strong talk! 🦾 🤖 💪 Clip:
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