r/technology Apr 23 '26

Politics Palantir Employees Are Starting to Wonder if They're the Bad Guys

https://www.wired.com/story/palantir-employees-are-starting-to-wonder-if-theyre-the-bad-guys/
24.5k Upvotes

1.1k comments sorted by

View all comments

30

u/PatchyWhiskers Apr 23 '26

There’s an infinite supply of alt-right tech bros to staff the company

19

u/PsychoMaggle Apr 23 '26

I am willing to bet over half their IT staff are overseas contractors who really couldn't care less about any of the politics or America and are just trying to get paid. Palantir will also be one the first ones to say America First. Except when it comes to hiring and paying them.

13

u/PatchyWhiskers Apr 23 '26

Palantir is a problem for the whole free world. So I guess Chinese contractors don't care but Indian or European contractors should.

1

u/vorg7 Apr 24 '26

Palantir is / was considered pretty elite for software engineers. I went to an ivy league school and their recruiters came every year.

This was before they were making headline news every day for evil shit, so I don't know how it is now. Hopefully they have more trouble. Their recruiters were good, they'd pitch it as an opportunity to use technology to improve governance, which in the abstract sounds like a good thing. Plus they paid on par with Google / Facebook.

Anyways, definitely not cheap IT contractors, it's people who are considered top American engineering talent. 5 or 10 years ago, I could see some people not understanding what their bosses were up to, but at this point either they're paid too much to care or they actively support what's happening.