| My name is Ari and I'm a senior software engineer at Palantir. I was the second member of the Palantir Government backend team so I've been with the company almost five years. I've seen this place grow up around me. To describe me a bullish about this place would be an understatement. I can categorically confirm that this is not BS: we don't have sales people, we don't have marketing people. This doesn't mean that we don't have people performing those functions -- of course we do! However, the people performing those functions are all technical folk who have stepped into the breach to do the needed work to grow our business. As a commenter in the TechCrunch article mentioned, "I'm the founder at my startup. Just because I sweep the floor sometime doesn't mean I'm the janitor." I think what we said got a little garbled as it was distilled into the TechCrunch article. When we said, "we have no sales people", what was meant was that we don't have people who know nothing about the product, worrying about their commission and their quota and adding essentially zero value to the process. The people who come up with our marketing messages are not people with marketing degrees -- they're engineers who intimately understand our technology and the benefits that it brings to our customers. Even I've stepped up into that role: along with writing our backend data importer and authoring our XML formats and processing pipelines, I also run our college recruiting program, and write for and edit our tech blog . Does that make me a recruiter or a blogger? Not in the sense of the word that most people would use it. I'm an engineer, proud of it and my technical achievements, and anyone who calls me otherwise better do it when I can't hear them. I'm an engineer that does recruiting and blogging, just like we have other engineers that do sales and marketing. I look back over my time here and I marvel at the amazing place that we've built. It's an engineer's fantasy land that really exists - I can only think that this is what Google was like, circa 2000. But don't just take my word for it, come and check us out for yourself. Shoot me an email to ari@palantir.com and I'll set up a visit, a proper interview, or whatever is appropriate for your situation. |
We've all filled many hats, I even take the trash out, or change the toner in the printer from time to time at my place, but that doesn't make me a trash man or the "toner guy", I understand what you are saying. But really, sometimes when a person's job is something other than their title or their degree would indicate, that's their job. Sorry, but if you spend 80% of your time engineering, you're an engineer. Likewise, if you spend 80% of your time selling you're a salesman. It doesn’t matter if your degree is “Ethnomusicology” and your title says “Forward Deployed Engineer”.
I know of a couple people there that have transitioned in the last year or so into full-time sales roles but started as engineers. That's not to say that they won't transition back to engineering later on. But for the time being, they are "salesmen". If you split your time more evenly, and it sounds like you personally do, perhaps you just fill several roles? I bet you have at least one person on staff who spends 3/4 of his/her time recruiting. But that's unlike some of your colleagues who, while they may do more than one thing (which not unusual at any organization no matter how large or small), spend most of their time doing sales and marketing. In fact I've just had people in two organizations who are deployed in theater right now relay to me how they purchased your solution after meeting with teams of sales people over the last few months.
There's no doubt that you guys are building some very good technology (deployment issues notwithstanding). But that technology has to stand for itself if what you and Karp are saying is to have any credibility. And I know that carpet bombing D.C. with advertisements, business development associates and sales people is not accurately reflecting your statements no matter how it’s spun. In fact, by making a big deal out of "not having a sales or marketing department", isn't that yet just another form of advertisement?
Statements like, "I can categorically confirm that this is not BS: we don't have sales people, we don't have marketing people. This doesn't mean that we don't have people performing those functions -- of course we do! However, the people performing those functions are all technical folk who have stepped into the breach to do the needed work to grow our business." are just splitting hairs and come off as untrue when interfacing with the sales, BD and marketing staff of your company. I’m sorry, but I and many people in the IC are immune to these types of Jedi mind tricks – and I’m giving you an honest assessment of what we all talk about in reference to your company. Please take this as constructive criticism. Efforts to not have a sales and marketing department, purely to obfuscate the presence of sales and marketing staff, and then pump up the lack of sales and marketing people, does not help the credibility of these kinds of statements.
I think something like, "what was meant was that we don't have people who know nothing about the product, worrying about their commission and their quota and adding essentially zero value to the process. " is fundamentally stronger to your message. "Our sales and marketing staff are also all engineers on our products" is much closer to the truth than what was presented in the Tech Crunch article and here. If that was the message that was getting out across the IC, I think that your company’s credibility would be much stronger. But right now it’s seen as precisely the opposite. Here’s an exact quote from an analyst downrange I work with from time to time in reference to issues they’ve been having with their Palantir deployment, “they ultimately fell for a slick talking salesman that showed how well Palantir handles canned data. They got EXACTLY what they paid for.” Another from PM I work with from time to time, “do you know of anybody who’s happy with the Palantir install?” I’m not sharing these to knock your product, but to help provide you with some insight into where the minds of your customers are. And by customers, I don’t mean the acquisition folks and deputy directors who sign off on the purchase, I’m talking about the people who you are trying to help, the end analysts.
I know that in general, the people I’ve met from your company are extremely bullish on how you guys are doing, and that’s great. Their enthusiasm for what they are doing is commendable. But what I, and my colleagues in the community are not seeing is a steady, reserved hand of reality coming in and helping you guys turn the reality distortion field from 11 to a nice, listenable 5. Obviously you guys have to trumpet your product and make it look as good as possible, I get that. But don’t be deaf to the cries of your customers! One thing that I definitely came away with from working with a few of your deployed engineers is that they definitely want to do what they can to help the customer. But that implies not just listening to how you can be better, but also where you are falling down.
> "I've even I've stepped up into that role: along with writing our backend data importer and authoring our XML formats and processing pipelines, I also run our college recruiting program, and write for and edit our tech blog . Does that make me a recruiter or a blogger? "
Yes. It does. Depending on context or time spent on those activities. To give you an example at my own company, I'm an engineer, an application manager, a product manager, a salesman, business development, trainer, analyst, and half a dozen other hats. If I'm in doing a sales pitch, you can guess sure as the sky is blue that I'm a "saleman" for that context, I'm not an NLP algorithm specialist, or an Operations Manager, or a "toner guy". But it's certainly extremely helpful that I know those roles so I can answer those questions in the pitch if they come up. My education is in Computer Science, Mathematics and Management, it doesn’t really matter though if for that day, the job I’m doing is “Analyst”. Two years ago, I spent 80% of my time in sales, I was a “salesman”. I’ve now starting moving much of that work off of my plate and maybe only spend 40% of my time doing that. But to say that we’ve never had a “salesman” would be fallacious.