If $750K of lobbying makes them shady, what do you think of millions of dollars spent on lobbying per-quarter by the likes of Google, Amazon, and Apple? [1]
Their VC firm was not the CIA. It was In-Q-Tel, which was founded by the CIA (yes, there is a difference). In-Q-Tel has also funded companies such as FireEye. [2] What's your opinion of them?
I don't really know how to respond to the claim about "Cashing fat the .gov", because I can't parse that sentence. I will point out that Palantir has been increasingly shifting to a corporate client base.
[1] http://www.wired.com/2015/07/google-facebook-amazon-lobbying...
It's semi-public knowledge that In-Q-Tel is the investment arm of the government. They make investments on behalf of any government department that puts up the money.
Re:How Theranos Misled Me
by chrisseaton on Monday December 21, 2015 @05:26AM
(#10770449)
But why does any of that mean they aren't a technology company?
It's as if by 'tech company' you really mean 'fashionable, liberal, consumer web startup or ex-startup', which isn't a reasonable definition of 'technology'.
Palantir getting investment from In-Q-Tel gives them more credibility. The intelligence community is clearly their target market. Getting investment from that community in an overt and legit way doesn't fire any alarms to me.
$750k in lobbying helps
https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/clientsum.php?id=D00005517...
Their VC firm was the CIA:
http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB125200842406984303
Cashing fat the .gov to "fight terrorism" doesn't help make US citizens any safer, but does the founder wealthy enough to buy castles & fly his Stanford undergrad floozy around the world on private jets. Nice work if you can get it.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/15/magazine/the-stanford-unde...