Palantir Technologies (palantir.com)
Overview & Context
Palantir Technologies, founded in 2003 by Peter Thiel, Alex Karp, and others, develops powerful big‑data analytics platforms used by government and corporate clients worldwide.
Core Platforms
- Gotham: Designed for intelligence and defense agencies, used in counter‑terrorism and surveillance.
- Foundry: Serves commercial clients—financial, healthcare, industrial—for data integration and analytics.
- Apollo: A continuous deployment and orchestration engine.
Government & Defense Integration
Palantir was originally backed by In-Q-Tel, the CIA’s venture capital arm, and has partnered with ICE, the Department of Defense, and local police departments.
Wired. (2020). Palantir’s Intelligence Ambitions.
Palantir has faced criticism for enabling deportation tracking, predictive policing, and dragnet surveillance practices.
The Daily Beast. (2023). The Most Terrifying Company in America Is Probably One You’ve Never Heard Of.
Palantir as a Brand of Techno-Authoritarianism
Critics argue that Palantir’s software enables the fusion of private-sector surveillance capabilities with the coercive power of the state, exemplifying trends in techno-authoritarian governance.
Citation
OpenAI. (2025). Overview of Palantir Technologies. Generated by ChatGPT (GPT‑4). Retrieved from chat.openai.com