Monday, June 02, 2014

Palantir: Goes Boldy Where Marketers Had Only Dreamed Of

As profiled by the most recent edition of the Sunday New York Times, 10-yr old Palantir Technologies, a software company whose investors include the US Central Intelligence Agency-backed venture capital firm In-Q-Tel, Palantir helps clients unlock secrets. In the world of marketing, and more specifically, within the context of marketers who now foam at the mouth when provided tools to extrapolate insight from tons of metadata, for those Mad Men (and women) intrigued by the rhetorical question”What’s Next?” within the framework of marketing technology and applications, Palantir is very possibly the next generation’s Google Inc; irrespective of the assortment of privacy-related concerns that go hand in hand with the company’s secret sauces.


An audacious call perhaps, but this blogger was [presciently] one of the very earliest proponents of Google search technology in the late 1990′s, well before this company went public in 2004. It has forever since become a ubiquitous tool for research, and of course, a Wall Street darling. Now this blogger is banging the table and shouting “Pay Attention to Palantir.”


 Palantir’s offices in Palo Alto, Calif., house computer monitors galore, not to mention more unusual desk décor, a cot and games. Credit Peter DaSilva for The New York Times Palantir’s offices in Palo Alto, Calif., house computer monitors galore, not to mention more unusual desk décor, a cot and games. Credit Peter DaSilva for The New York Times


Though Palantir’s CEO Alex Karp says he eschews the notion of monetizing this business enterprise via a public stock offering (much to the chagrin of its early and latter stage venture investors), the company’s list of corporate clients now extends across every industry, including the world’s biggest financial companies, manufacturers, and healthcare concerns. For those using Palantir tools to analyze buying decisions, trends and for projecting just about anything a business (or government) would want to forecast with reliability, Palantir software is seemingly light years ahead of Google and the assortment of other tech czars focused on number crunching and data analysis.


For the full story from the NY Times, please click here.



Palantir: Goes Boldy Where Marketers Had Only Dreamed Of

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