Palantir bros usually are not onerous to come across on-line: There are a number of Palantir-focused subreddits, the most important of which has 109,000 members. Some individuals on X have been capable of amass enormous followings by posting completely in regards to the firm all through the day.
Palantir followers can obsessively give attention to the corporate’s inventory worth. They will behave like American soccer followers when it goes up, celebrating as if their crew scored a landing. When it will get a giant contract, it’s as if their crew bought a brand new star participant. On this context, it is sensible that individuals would wish to buy merch—it’s like shopping for a jersey.
Palantir’s fan base step by step expanded throughout the years that contractors for immigration enforcement and the army have been least widespread in Silicon Valley. For followers, Palantir was a contrarian darkish horse that stood by its ideas, although others detested them.
For Palantir, turning into a life-style model appears extra about getting the corporate’s followers to publicly establish with its model and its mission. That is made express on a white be aware card, with CEO Alex Karp’s signature, that was included with current orders of Palantir merch.
“Thanks in your dedication to Palantir and our mission to defend the West,” the cardboard reads. “The longer term belongs to those that imagine and construct. And we construct to dominate.”
Younes has expressed an analogous sentiment. “Palantir is not only a software program firm,” he wrote on X in August. “It’s a world view—western values, pro-warfighter, downside fixing, conviction, dominant software program, and so forth. that’s why individuals rep the gear.”
These values haven’t at all times been widespread in Silicon Valley. In actual fact, traditionally, they’ve been outright rejected. In 2018, hundreds of Google staff rallied towards the corporate’s involvement in Challenge Maven, a Pentagon challenge analyzing drone footage with AI. Conceding to the employees, Google selected to not renew its Maven contract however stated it wouldn’t cease working with the Pentagon. That very same yr, protests towards Palantir have been popping up in Palo Alto in response to the corporate’s work with ICE. (ICE didn’t cancel any contracts.)
Nevertheless, underneath the second Trump administration, the tech world is starting to overtly embrace aligning with the army—each transactionally, and symbolically. In June, the Military commissioned an elite group of tech executives to be “lieutenant colonels.” Palantir chief know-how officer Shyam Sankar was joined by Meta chief know-how officer Andrew Bosworth, OpenAI chief product officer Kevin Weil, and present Pondering Machines Lab adviser and former OpenAI chief analysis officer Bob McGrew, who additionally labored at Palantir.
Palantir’s present merch retailer seems to capitalize on this vibe change and talk that the corporate is doubling down on its status, branding, and mission. In an April letter to shareholders, Karp wrote that its mission “was for years dismissed as politically fraught and ill-advised.”
“We, the heretics, this motley band of characters, have been forged out and practically discarded by Silicon Valley,” Karp wrote. “And but there are indicators that some throughout the Valley have now turned a nook and begun following our lead.”
