It’s not every day your boss teaches a meditation class at your company. Things seem to operate differently at Palantir Technologies, and at the Silicon Valley software company, that’s exactly what its co-founder and CEO, Alexander Karp, has done on occasion.
Karp, along with Facebook investor Peter Theil, Nathan Gettings, Joe Lonsdale, Stephen Cohen, started the software company in 2004, and Palantir quickly moved from start-up to multi-billion dollar company with early backing by the CIA and other government agencies, in addition to contracted work for the NYPD, the military, and beyond.
Based in Palo Alto, CA, the Silicon Valley software company offers platforms for managing, integrating, and securing data for analysis and implementation. In addition to investigative agencies, including the NSA and FBI, and law enforcement, Palantir has also worked with the military and U.S. counterterrorism in its defense initiatives, cyber breaches, as well as other data solutions for the automotive, airline, manufacturing, pharmaceutical, and other industries.
Through its platform, Palantir has also aided in bringing down complication financial crimes and uncovering exploited children, sex trafficking rings, and have helped health officials track and contain the spread of disease, and prevented the theft of intellectual property.
At one point, Palantir was even rumored to have possibly helped in the tracking down of Osama bin Laden, however, this was never confirmed by Karp or the company.
The company recently received some backlash because of its contract with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). In a recent Bloomberg interview, Karp defended the company’s work with ICE in a recent Bloomberg report, and said it’s not Silicon Valley’s responsibility to influence policy. “We at Palantir have a view that in societies where there is a functioning democracy,” he said, “meaning there are checks and balances enforced by a functioning judiciary—we will provide the software and will continue to provide the software.”
Today, Palantir is still on the high end with its reported revenue of nearly $1 billion in 2018, according to Bloomberg. As for going public, Karp is reportedly seeking additional funding before taking the company in that direction, potentially in 2022 or later.
