(2025-12-27) Ford Ai Explains Palantir

Paul Ford: AI explains Palantir. I spent a lot of time using AI tools to generate text, and most of it was predictably forgettable, but I did get ChatGPT to help me finally understand what Palantir does. Basically, they strap a graph database on a CRM and some dashboards, solve deploy for police departments, throw consultants in front of that, and use a government-friendly version of agile to actually ship product in months instead of years

In the end, it’s all React components talking to APIs and migrating databases for cops, but they gave things really alpha names like “Foundry” and “Gotham” and are really good at sales. For example, they sue customers who won’t let them pitch. I’ve probably written 400 proposals in my life, and that one never occurred to me.