CC BY-SA 2.0 ↗
Palantir Technologies
- Year
- 2003
- Creator
- Peter Thiel, Alex Karp, Stephen Cohen
- Company
- Palantir Technologies
- Location
- Palo Alto, California (later Denver, Colorado, then Aventura, Florida)
- Room
- The Rebuild ↗
Description
Palantir Technologies is a software company that Peter Thiel, Alex Karp, and Stephen Cohen started in Palo Alto in 2003. Its first product, Gotham, helps defense and intelligence analysts find patterns in large sets of data.
Importance
Peter Thiel wanted to use the anti-fraud methods of PayPal against terrorism, and two of the first Palantir engineers came from PayPal. A second product, Foundry, later served large companies. In 2020, Palantir listed its shares on the New York Stock Exchange through a direct listing, so the company did not sell new shares.
Interesting fact
A voting trust of the three founders holds a special class of stock that can give them almost 50 percent of all votes.
Sources
- Palantir Technologies Inc. Form S-1 registration statement ↗US Securities and Exchange Commission (EDGAR) · 2020-08-25
- Palantir Technologies Inc. company filings and business address ↗US Securities and Exchange Commission (EDGAR) · 2026
- Does Palantir See Too Much? ↗The New York Times Magazine · 2020-10-21