Palantir's Alex Karp is not the typical tech CEO. It makes sense then that one of the big data company's foundational principles is rooted in the lessons of a 1970s Toyota executive. Karp is a firm believer in the Five Whys, a simple system that aims to uncover the root cause of an issue that may not be immediately apparent. The process is straightforward. When an issue arises, someone asks, "Why?" Whatever the answer may be, they ask "why?" again and again until they have done so five times.
Greater Manchester Integrated Care Board (ICB) has again put off its adoption of an NHS data platform prescribed by the UK government and run by Palantir until there is more evidence that it will be in the "best interests" of the city's population. The national Federated Data Platform (FDP) was created by the US spy-tech firm under a much-criticized £330 million ($445 million) seven-year contract awarded in November 2023. NHS England, the health quango set to be merged into the central government health department, signed the deal with the controversial US vendor after a series of non-competitive deals totaled £60 million ($81 million).
Palantir ( Nasdaq: PLTR) stock has lost 10% in the last 5 days after fading AI enthusiasm and negativity surrounding insider sales have caught up with a premium valuation. There is a noticeable shift in retail investor sentiment on Reddit, X, and elsewhere as users shift from cautiously optimistic, to exhausted. It's not just Palantir. Other AI wunderkinds like Oracle (Nasdaq: ORCL) and Corweave (Nasdaq: CRWV) have fallen 25%, and 45% respectively in just the last month.
In a recent interview, Alex Karp said that his company Palantir was the most important software company in America and therefore in the world. He may well be right. To some, Palantir is also the scariest company in the world, what with its involvement in the Trump administration's authoritarian agenda. The potential end point of Palantir's tech is an all-powerful government system amalgamating citizens' tax records, biometric data and other personal information the ultimate state surveillance tool.
In a statement, the companies said their agreement would help NHS staff use the FDP to support operations, improve care, drive up efficiency, and drive down waiting lists. They said the apprenticeship program would launch in February 2026 with a curriculum tailored to NHS roles including analysts, administrators, managers, and clinical staff. Louis Mosley, Palantir executive vice president for UK and Europe, stated:
A meme worthy interview wtih CEO Alex Karp wielding a sword during captured the attention of retail investors already primed by Palantir's blowout Q3 earnings. In that Q3 release the company reported an impressive $1.2B in revenue. That not only beat estimates, it delivered on an enviable 'Rule of 40' score of 114%. More on that in a moment. U.S. commercial revenue surged 121% year-over-year, and total contract value jumped 151% to $2.76B, signaling accelerating enterprise adoption.
Markets are still concerned that AI valuations are stretched. Leading recent AI losses, Palantir ( NASDAQ: PLTR) dropped, even after beating earnings estimates with solid guidance to boot. EPS of 21 cents beat estimates of 17 cents. Revenue of $1.18 billion was above estimates of $1.09 billion. While impressive, the market has become nervous about Palantir's valuation - especially as it trades at 200x forward earnings.
This ascent has confounded most financial analysts and the chattering class, whose frames of reference did not quite anticipate a company of this size and scale growing at such a ferocious and unrelenting rate,
Karp notes that while the company has "grown quite significantly," it has kept to its "constraints." "Our head count is one manifestation of this disciplined approach," Karp wrote in the letter to shareholders. "The casual expansion of our ranks would have diminished the need to lean even more heavily on the strength of our software and the Ontology and to ensure their continued maturation.
Palantir said on Thursday it had struck a partnership with Lumen Technologies that will see the telecommunications company using the data management company's AI software to build capabilities to support enterprise AI services. The companies are calling the deal "a multi-year, multi-million-dollar strategic partnership," but Bloomberg reports, citing anonymous sources, that Lumen is going to invest more than $200 million in Palantir over several years.
Such valuations are almost unheard of when you discount smaller companies. In the same vein, expanding the earnings multiple from here is going to be an uphill battle. Palantir managed to fight its way upwards by posting one stellar earnings beat after another. In Q2 2024, it beat revenue estimates by 3.99%, with a 3.17% beat the next quarter, and a stellar 6.65% beat to finish off the year.
Palantir plans to make the UK its European HQ for defense. The move will create up to 350 new jobs, an official announcement stated. The data analytics company, founded with cash from the CIA-backed investment fund In-Q-Tel, has attracted controversy by providing digital profiling tools for the CIA and US immigration agency ICE. None of that was about to stop the UK from diving into bed with Palantir, though.
As skilled workers become essential to tech companies like his own, Karp thinks they'll also get more expensive. "Artist-shaped people are going to be incredibly valuable, and they're going to demand to be very highly paid," he added. (Karp and Palantir employees sometimes refer to the company's culture as "an artist colony.") And after an AI frenzy of a summer, higher pay isn't all that surprising.
Gotham is an investigative platform built for police, national security agencies, public health departments, and other state clients. Its purpose is deceptively simple: take whatever data an agency already has, break it down into its smallest components, and then connect the dots. Gotham is not simply a database. It takes fragmented data, scattered across various agencies and stored in different formats, and transforms it into a unified, searchable web.
An organizer, wearing a keffiyeh and a shirt reading "Divest from Genocide," stood on a table: "We're all standing here today to hold companies like Palantir and Microsoft accountable for their role powering the world's first AI-assisted genocide." Behind them, nearly 100 activists from Jewish Voice for Peace filled the lobby of Palantir's Seattle offices on July 14, 2025. Activists carried banners featuring giant eyes with yellow irises: "First Palantir Surveils, then IDF Kills." "First Palantir Tracks, then ICE attacks."
