What, exactly, did they think Palantir did when they got hired? It’s not Meta, you can’t really plausibly claim that you bumbled into a situation you did not anticipate a decade ago because of the company’s veneer of positivity… - ThreadSky

amandamull.bsky.social • 3 days ago

What, exactly, did they think Palantir did when they got hired? It’s not Meta, you can’t really plausibly claim that you bumbled into a situation you did not anticipate a decade ago because of the company’s veneer of positivity…

Reposted from Bobby Allyn

NEW: 13 ex-Palantir employees condemn work with the Trump administration as violating Palantir's code of conduct, including using products to collect data on immigrant children.

"These injustices could be facilitated by the very software infrastructure we help build."

www.npr.org/2025/05/05/n...

Comments

kirkmurphy.bsky.social•3 days ago

We thought we’d only trim Saruman’s shrubbery?

hollyanderson.bsky.social•3 days ago

“As orcs, we feel the Uruk-hai go too far”

hollyanderson.bsky.social•3 days ago

* sorry, I wrote this before I saw what they titled their letter and now I want to crawl into a hobbit hole and die of secondhand embarrassment

foodecology.bsky.social•3 days ago

It's actually kind of perfect. The hubris! Even in disgruntled defeat, the hubris.

ranamar.bsky.social•2 days ago

People who didn't realize that Sharkey was Saruman the Many-Colored.

But being charitable, they seem to have thought that only good guys would ever have access, and a good guy wouldn't use it wrong.

jburdick32.bsky.social•3 days ago

My eyes might be permanently rolled from seeing that

jjoe.bsky.social•3 days ago

They think they are just regretting that "they delved too greedily and too deep, and disturbed that from which they fled" when they really were just some of the orcs fighting over frodo's mithril in the tower of cirith ungol

jtp2106.me•3 days ago

I got a call about a job there over 10 years ago. I did some research on what they did and it was an immediate no from me

afoolserrand18.bsky.social•3 days ago

I used to teach at a university that had major partnerships with companies like Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman and would have undergrad students doing marketing, PR, and engineering internships. Students were most often clueless about the company’s larger projects…

carenloathing.bsky.social•3 days ago

Yeah they both put in effort into obscuring it and seek out the ones who don't know better. They say they are public service jobs and helping people vs some consumer tech that just wants to get rich, and it's not entirely wrong they *are* mission-driven, just not the mission they advertise.

carenloathing.bsky.social•3 days ago

At a college fair they advertised some probably very tiny HHS data project trying to improve health outcomes like it was typical of their work.

thepmann.bsky.social•3 days ago

“I never thought the Tornent Nexus would be used to hurt people!”

mudsludge.bsky.social•3 days ago

The name says it all. It's a dead giveaway you're working for an evil company

caren.bsky.social•3 days ago

I mean, goddammit, there were MOVIES. You don't even have to actually read LOTR to know Palantirs are communication devices to pure evil and are corrupting forces to even the most innocent.

Why do they think Thiel named his company that??? Did they think he was working to benefit humanity?

just-odd.bsky.social•3 days ago

Oh they know why he named it that....check out the letter. About 20% of it is a discussion of Lord of the Rings.

caren.bsky.social•3 days ago

Oh my head.

I hadn't actually read the letter yet.

How incredibly embarrassing.

aftd.dev•3 days ago

I imagine it's similar to John Yoo's flip.

Doing things to brown people abroad in the name of freedom: NBD

Doing things to brown people at home in the name of freedom: Concerning

alrightyes.bsky.social•3 days ago

@amandamull.bsky.social Do I have a medium post for you!? https://medium.com/@nabeelqu/reflections-on-palantir-52433cf95439

machinedidact.bsky.social•3 days ago

I have to say I am grateful to the Twitter crowd of 2018 who told me who was an arms dealer, for example, and who wasn’t, from big names I didn’t know. Helped me make career choices, because they don’t put it in clear terms on their websites.

locutusof.bsky.social•3 days ago

They knew what they were getting into when they started working there. Which means there’s something different happening right now.

Something so scary that they feel the need to speak out.

Sleep tight.

lifecoachjen.bsky.social•3 days ago

They helped Israel with targeting data, so it sounds about on brand for them.

sciantixo.bsky.social•3 days ago

https://bsky.app/profile/jennycohn.bsky.social/post/3lo7snvvgds2i

darthbluesky.bsky.social•3 days ago

real “are we the baddies” energy over there rn amanda

twesq.bsky.social•3 days ago

“How was I supposed to know working for a company named for a Torment Nexus was less than above board ethically?”

amandamull.bsky.social•3 days ago

It certainly is Darth

turtlebee.bsky.social•3 days ago

I know a couple of people who went there and they kept trying to claim they weren't going to work for evil. I think the recruiters were really good at selling it as tackling hard social problems with tech. One quit pretty shortly after and was embarrassed. The other I, uhh, "lost" track of.

orca7-sf.bsky.social•3 days ago

Exactly. Fuck those assholes. Being berated in public places -- like, say, at a restaraunt for lunch -- is too good for them, but it would be a start.

Anybody out here skilled at doxxing?

orca7-sf.bsky.social•3 days ago

Yes, they all signed, but details are important.

caioalmendra.bsky.social•3 days ago

The company is named after an magical artifact an evil wizard uses ffs

legalminimum.bsky.social•3 days ago

When I was on the NCMEC Board we had a person on our Tech Committee from Palantir whose job title was Philanthropic Engineer, and whose job was to help nonprofits with tech issues. I can see such a person being naive enough to believe their employer had principles.

amandamull.bsky.social•3 days ago

Like I know the company is secretive about a lot of stuff but I cannot recall a time at which it has ever been secretive about bring a government surveillance contractor

crystalpepsi.bsky.social•3 days ago

A company named after evil seeing stones can’t possibly be bad

june-6-bug.bsky.social•3 days ago

Right!? No self respecting nerd would ever work there

cptowers.bsky.social•3 days ago

it's named after the evil stones from lord of the rings! you lost plausible deniability when they named the thing!

orca7-sf.bsky.social•3 days ago

At that, ... I just saw the title of their letter.

ffs

orca7-sf.bsky.social•3 days ago

Just downloaded it. Have not read it yet.

I expect it to be pretty eyerolling.

baileymcc.bsky.social•3 days ago

I wonder how evil the world domination plan is if these guys are like ok no

beware1984.bsky.social•3 days ago

What about Palantir's involvement in the Genocide in Gaza?

jameslamanna.bsky.social•3 days ago

Palantir has been shady for years. These ex-employees either lived in an alternate reality or just suddenly developed amnesia when the paychecks stopped.

jkeehn.bsky.social•3 days ago

1st day: "So when do we start manufacturing the orbs, guys? Every kid in America is going to want one!"

heyincendiary.bsky.social•3 days ago

More even than that, they're FORMER employees. They went in, did their bit, made some blood money, then got out and belatedly bleated about the ethics of the completely unmysterious Peter Thiel.

amias.net•3 days ago

Wow, too unethical for the least ethical company in the world is quite something

unenthusiast.com•3 days ago

"I thought we were building SkyNET ironically"

tomagellan.bsky.social•3 days ago

But the LOTR reference 😭

thecleric.bsky.social•3 days ago

The most surprising part of this story: Palantir had a code of conduct.

eduardoramirez.bsky.social•3 days ago

In the 2010s they tried to expand into the business analytics space. They grifted Amex and Coca Cola into paying them massive sums for shitty software. That all fell apart 5-10 years ago. Anyone with a non-evil job was laid off or transferred to the fascism division quite a few years ago.

0ne-dude.bsky.social•3 days ago

No shit!
Cozy up to the leopard...it eats your face.

rudell.bsky.social•3 days ago

“Oh, you know, we’re part of the Eco Skies Alliance!”

ejmaron.bsky.social•3 days ago

I can't believe my former employer, We Do Evil, LLC, is now doing evil

empath75.bsky.social•3 days ago

I have been turning down palantir recruiters for over 10 years, now.

kenburnside.bsky.social•3 days ago

Do they not know the context of the fucking name of the company?

oasisbysea.bsky.social•3 days ago

They thought they were developing AI to kill children in Gaza, not deport people at home. 🤦

whatsarasaid.bsky.social•3 days ago

Let people get smarter as they age & events overtake them, this is good

cherylestora.bsky.social•3 days ago

This. They recruit virtually exclusively people without a fully formed prefrontal cortex. I know I did since dumb edgelord-ish shit between 18-25.

citizenjer.bsky.social•3 days ago

eternalcatwar.bsky.social•3 days ago

like 4 jobs ago back in 2014 or so we looked into contracting with them for data analytics and landed on the conclusion that they were the creepiest motherfuckers on the planet

somedonuts.bsky.social•3 days ago

Look, I was uncomfortable in my previous role at Lockheed Martin… 😒

moman.bsky.social•3 days ago

As an employee of Philip Morris, I am appalled that we are violating the company’s code of conduct by not focusing on wellness.

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