Palantir

Palantir is an IT company which is deep into deep government - the sort of government people like Cummings and Trump love to hate - until they get their hands on the steering wheels. An IT company which is still not making a profit after 17 years and which is now thinking of coming to market, of an initial public offering, if that is the proper market jargon. Wall Street ponders the case.

In one sense they are not new at all. They promise to integrate all the data swilling around back rooms and out on the periphery into stuff which can be used to drive real, evidence based decision making. To make it all available through one awe-inspiring user interface. State of the art graphics all over the walls. The Trumps and Cummings really will be in charge. Except that IT companies have been trading on this promise for as long as I can remember - having been peripherally involved in one such venture back in the early 1980's.

But the power of computers is increasing; they can do a lot more stuff than they could do back then - and many people are uneasy about companies like Palantir having so much access. Or at least selling software which has so much access. While other people are not too keen on the present owners, and the funny ownership structure.

While maybe Cummings will buy into them for the new hi-tech bunker he is said to be building; a bunker from which some real governing can be done. Nothing like the rubbish he inherited from Cameron and May. Perhaps he was entranced as a boy by footage of the Apollo mission control centre at the time of the moon shots. Or is he too young for that?

Slightly miffed that I had never heard of these Palantir people until the FT told me about them.

PS: afficionados of the furniture of the civil service of the 1960's can zoom into the bottom left hand corner of the snap above, where there is a pencil sharpener and a three hole punch. Three hole punched documents from the US having been something of a pain in some segments of my UK working life, when we still used the original, old-world four hole punch. But just remember that I think that the snap is that of a replica control centre, lovingly restored, as if for a BBC costume drama.

Reference 1: https://www.palantir.com/.