How did Palantir get so powerful?

In the aftermath of 9/11, the problem wasn't just intelligence failure; it was information stuck in silos. The FBI and CIA had pieces of the puzzle, but no shared picture. Enter Palantir: a company built on the premise that data, if stitched together properly, could surface threats before they metastasise. Co-founded by Peter Thiel and Alex Karp, Palantir's early pitch was deceptively simple: give analysts the ability to see connections across messy datasets without compromising privacy. The arrival of large language models has supercharged what Palantir was already doing: ingesting, structuring, and interrogating enormous amounts of information. The result is a shift from finding needles in haystacks to, arguably, predicting where the needles will land. It's powerful, unsettling, and very on-brand for a company named after an all-seeing stone from Lord of the Rings. Follow If You're Listening on the ABC Listen app. Check out our series on YouTube:https://www.youtube.com/playli...