There is a company out there.
While its founding date is similar to that of Meta and Tesla, it rarely appears in the daily lives of ordinary people.
However, its business spans military industry, finance, artificial intelligence, and various other fields. It has even played a shadow role in the hunt for Osama bin Laden and behind the scenes of the Russia-Ukraine battlefield.
Not only that, but the CEO of this company has publicly defended Trump's immigration policies, openly supports Israel, and has even gone so far as to say that his company's products are designed for killing.
Yet, its market value has still been hyped up to 400 billion dollars.
Today, let’s talk about this star enterprise that countless retail investors have hailed as being tied to the national destiny of the United States: Palantir.
The birth of Palantir is inseparable from that world-shaking terrorist attack.
The September 11 attacks in 2001 didn’t just shatter the sense of security within the American homeland; they also shattered the confidence of American intelligence agencies. After the attacks, everyone from high-ranking officials to ordinary citizens was asking the same question: aren't American intelligence agencies supposed to be powerful? Why couldn't they stop the terrorist attack from happening?
After more than two years of investigation, the 9/11 Commission released a report attributing the failure to different departments failing to connect the dots. Before the incident, multiple systems that should have been responsible failed to function.
For example, the State Department was in charge of visa affairs but failed to notice that the visas and passports of several hijackers were forged. The CIA was responsible for tracking criminals outside the US, while the FBI was responsible for the interior. After the terrorists entered the country, the tracking work was not handed over in time. The Federal Aviation Administration was responsible for airline and airport security, but the "No Fly List" was not updated with the names of the terrorists.
In other words, the US never lacked intelligence; rather, the intelligence was fragmented—like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle scattered on the ground, with no one to put them together.
At this very juncture, when the demand for national security was rising, a Silicon Valley heavyweight sensed the change. He is the famous godfather of Silicon Valley venture capital and one of the co-founders of PayPal: Peter Thiel.
At that time, PayPal had just developed an anti-fraud data analysis system. The core logic of this system was to find abnormal connections within a transaction network. By analyzing capital flow networks, IP address correlations, and abnormal patterns in user behavior, it identified fraudulent accounts hidden behind normal transactions.
Peter Thiel believed that the logic PayPal used to catch scammers could actually be replicated to track terrorists. Terrorist organizations are not "lone wolves"; they need funds, they need communication, and they need to move. From planning to executing an attack, they will inevitably leave traces in financial systems, transportation systems, and communication networks. As long as these clues can be linked together, can't we catch the bad guys?
So, in 2003, Palantir was born, draped in the halo of using technology to fight terrorism. The following year, Peter Thiel hired his former colleague from Stanford Law School, Alex Karp, to serve as the company's CEO.
But the newly born Palantir wasn't very well-received. At the time, Silicon Valley's cultural DNA was still anti-government—at least on the surface. Google, Apple, and Yahoo were all working on search engines, the internet, and consumer electronics. A company like Palantir, which specialized in surveillance and intelligence analysis for the government, would usually be dismissed by venture capital firms as a "fascist" organization.
The turning point came after a failed pitch meeting. An investor who rejected them suggested they contact an agency that specifically handles this kind of work: IN-Q-TEL.
This is a venture capital arm under the CIA. The primary mission of this department is to bypass cumbersome government procurement processes and provide funding for technologies that might be useful to intelligence agencies. After contacting IN-Q-TEL, Palantir received an investment of about 2.3 million dollars. While this amount wasn't huge, its significance was monumental. Under the arrangement of IN-Q-TEL, they met their ideal clients: frontline intelligence analysts. This also meant that Palantir had received the "national team's" seal of approval.
Once you take the Master's money, you must do the Master's bidding. Driven by the needs of intelligence agencies, Palantir's Gotham was born.
Although the name is Gotham, this thing isn't for Batman. It’s for frontline agents, intelligence analysts, and military commanders. Its core capability is called "Data Ontology." It sounds abstract, but to put it simply: it’s like selling "game hacks." While you can't have wallhacks or x-ray vision in the real world, Gotham helps intelligence agencies integrate data scattered everywhere and then maps this data into more understandable objects: people, money, locations, and events.
Who a person has met, where they have been, and how money flows are all linked into a web of relationships. For example, if a target already being tracked by the CIA suddenly makes contact with someone who has never been on the radar before, this new person will be entered into Gotham's system. The target’s profile will also be updated simultaneously to fill in this previously unknown connection. Afterward, as long as intelligence personnel continue to add data, this relationship map will automatically refresh. The updated results can also be synced to others using the system.
Through this complex relationship network, intelligence agencies can see which funds have problematic sources and which personal contacts are unusual, allowing them to predict attacks or deploy military operations in advance.
According to media reports, during the war in Afghanistan, the US military intelligence department used Palantir's products to improve their ability to predict the locations of Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs). There was even feedback from frontline personnel in Afghanistan stating that Palantir's analytical capabilities were stronger than the US Army's own Distributed Common Ground System. Through word of mouth among intelligence personnel, Palantir gradually opened up its market. By 2013, Palantir's clients included the CIA, FBI, NSA, and many other agencies.
If Palantir only made intelligence software for defense departments, it would be, at most, the next Lockheed Martin or a more advanced digital arms dealer. But Palantir chose not to put all its eggs in one basket. While serving intelligence agencies, Palantir discovered that large enterprises in the business world faced problems similar to those of government agencies.
The internal data situation of a multinational bank or a large manufacturing enterprise is actually quite similar to that of intelligence agencies before 9/11. Sales department data is in the CRM system, and logistics data is in the supply chain system—the so-called "data silos." In this situation, seeing whether a company is developing healthily or if a "landmine" might explode is quite complicated. Coincidentally, those years coincided with the financial crisis, where "black swan" events occurred frequently. The business environment became increasingly volatile. For large enterprises, the marketplace was turning into a battlefield.
Since it’s a battlefield, it naturally requires a command system and intelligence analysis. Palantir then modified its "hack system" used on the battlefield into customized enterprise-level software: Palantir Foundry.
Unlike Gotham, which primarily solves the "bad guy" problem, Foundry solves the problem of data not flowing within an enterprise. It helps companies integrate production control, financial management, supply chains, and other links, putting them all onto one platform.
Seeing this, some of you might have already realized that Palantir is actually a very "stereotypical" big data company. What it makes is essentially Software as a Service (SaaS). In Silicon Valley, such companies are not just common; they are a dime a dozen. In fact, the business logic in this industry is essentially the same, and there are no real technical barriers. After all, everyone is doing data ingestion, cleaning, modeling, and visualization. Looking at the business form alone, it’s hard to call Palantir "special."
What’s even more miraculous is that in recent years, Palantir has caught the AI wave and become an "AI company." Although the company doesn't make large models itself, its business has happened to become a springboard for AI to move from concept to implementation.
You have to understand that the profit industrial AI brings is actually highly correlated with the degree of a company's digitalization. The more complete the data, the more integrated the systems, and the more standardized the processes, the easier it is for AI to become productive. As a big data company, Palantir's data ontology does exactly the job of integrating data. It also has the capability and experience to interface with enterprises, militaries, and governments.
So, Palantir developed something called AIP. This AIP is essentially a "shell" for connecting large models to real-world systems. The stronger the large model, the better the final result. Even if the model is mediocre, Palantir can live quite comfortably by providing deeply customized SaaS for its clients. But since they've caught this wave, it's impossible not to ride it. "AI" sounds much more exciting than "Big Data."
Looking at the development history of this company alone, Palantir doesn't seem that different from other tech companies, except for its national security background. But in the last two years, Palantir hasn't looked like a mere software vendor anymore; it’s more like an infrastructure embedded in the operation of American society.
As early as its IPO in 2020, Palantir declared its goal was to become the "default operating system of the United States." Looking at it now, they weren't bragging. Last year, Palantir not only landed a 113 million dollar project with the Department of Homeland Security and the Pentagon but also reached a long-term cooperation deal worth 795 million dollars with the Department of Defense. Even the Social Security Administration and the IRS want to sign contracts with them.
In addition to government agencies, Palantir has many commercial clients covering finance, energy, manufacturing, healthcare, and other fields. Not only that, this company is particularly favored by the capital markets. Last year, the total return on the company's stock exceeded 150%, which is about five times that of NVIDIA. Countless retail investors treat this company as the "US National Destiny Stock."
To this end, The Economist specifically published a report bashing Palantir as possibly the most overvalued company in history. Its market value reached 430 billion dollars, which is more than 600 times its expected earnings for 2024. In the eyes of many traditional tech analysts, Palantir has neither disruptive technological breakthroughs nor a product form that is difficult to replicate; it is more like a repeatedly repackaged "data integration solution." Being hyped up like this by the market is truly hard to justify.
So, what does Palantir rely on?
Remember? When the company was first founded, the trend in Silicon Valley was to reject the government. A company making "spy software" like Palantir was considered an outlier. But times have changed. Now, globalization is receding, and free trade is more difficult than ever. In a country like the US, which frequently "leaves the chat," the mainstream internal political environment is "Realism," "Nation First," and "Order-oriented." This has instead given tech companies with clear political inclinations, like Palantir, more opportunities to perform.
This point is very evident in CEO Alex Karp. Last year, this guy published a book called The Technic Republic. He wrote that America's technological dominance requires a deeper fusion of Silicon Valley with defense interests, and that deterrence through technological dominance can avoid many wars. It's safe to say he isn't even pretending anymore.
Perhaps having tasted the sweetness of nationalism, at a time when the tech decoupling between China and the US is being politicized and other tech companies are still wavering, Karp was the first to step forward. He explicitly called China a long-term strategic competitor of the US and the West, repeatedly emphasizing that key technologies, data, and algorithmic services must not serve the Chinese system. They even produced a promotional video clearly suggesting that their products could be used in a potential future conflict over the Taiwan Strait.
At the end of the day, it is difficult to measure today’s Palantir by the standards of a traditional tech company. It is more like a microcosm. When we are in an era where globalization is receding and the priority of national security is constantly being raised, nationalist tech companies like Palantir—deeply tied to technology and power—have moved from the fringes of Silicon Valley to the center of the world stage.
It penetrates the government on one hand and takes root in core industries on the other, shaping itself into a "Digital Leviathan." It doesn't just sell software; it influences how power operates and how decisions happen. Furthermore, the company’s sense of mystery seems to be meticulously maintained. The more you ask, the less they say; the less evidence you can get, the more it seems they are genuinely involved in something. Consequently, the media has its favorite material: a company that looks like a CIA outsource, with a product whose details are never disclosed. If they didn't write them as the mastermind behind international events, they would be failing their readers' imaginations.
From counter-terrorism to war, from intelligence analysis to multinational law enforcement, as long as there is a "new gig" on the world stage, someone always thinks Palantir is behind it. Even the recent US raid in Venezuela caused Palantir's stock to jump by three percent.
For Palantir's supporters, the company has, in a sense, become part of the underlying logic of the Western state machine. Once Palantir is given this label, it automatically gains a "political correctness" buff. Supporters feel this company can "MAGA," and government budgets will continuously tilt toward it. This is why it dares to openly use AI and facial recognition technology to expand government surveillance, assist the US immigration agency ICE in deporting illegal immigrants, and even sell services to foreign intelligence agencies.
In other words, the messier the world, the more expensive "order" becomes. Palantir's service is used to maintain the order of hegemony. That is why it is favored by capital markets, political elites, and "rednecks" alike.
Many people say technology is neutral, but Palantir has never branded itself as neutral. It unashamedly preaches nationalism and even craves proving its value in war, yet it is still regarded by Wall Street as the "National Destiny Stock" of the United States.
The rise of Palantir also illustrates one thing: this world is bidding farewell to the era of peace and entering a period of turbulence. This unstable geopolitics has intensified a massive demand for innovation in military industry and defense technology. In a sense, the right-wing Silicon Valley tech companies represented by Palantir are no longer keen on connecting the world through the internet, but rather on arming the nation through technology.
While Palantir can help the military see the battlefield clearly, perhaps no one can see clearly what kind of future this narrative of technological militarization will lead humanity toward.