In-Q-Tel, the CIA’s investment arm, was early investor into Palantir.
"The company has found itself at the center of a topic that has become especially important for the United States: how to use AI in defense, intelligence and government management. Palantir has historically been close to this market. Its early investor was In-Q-Tel, the CIA’s investment arm, and its largest customers for a long time were U.S. government agencies and the military. That connection has become even stronger: last year, Palantir had nearly $900 million in contracts with the Pentagon, and earlier the company received a U.S. Army contract worth up to $10 billion over 10 years."
Could Palantir be compared with Raytheon? A major U.S. defense contractor and industrial corporation with manufacturing concentrations in weapons and military and commercial electronics. Raytheon makes air traffic control systems, radars and sensors, satellite sensors, missile defense systems, missiles.
They (maybe) pioneered forward-deployed software engineers. They certainly didn't pioneer sending engineers, or other experts, to help integrate systems.
no one is going to conflate a Palantir FDE with an actual pipehitter
Contractors doing IT support aren't "Operators" in the tactical sense, nor agents in the LE sense, nor Officers in the IC sense, nor a Boeing/Lockheed/Leidos/etc type developing weapons.
"The company has found itself at the center of a topic that has become especially important for the United States: how to use AI in defense, intelligence and government management. Palantir has historically been close to this market. Its early investor was In-Q-Tel, the CIA’s investment arm, and its largest customers for a long time were U.S. government agencies and the military. That connection has become even stronger: last year, Palantir had nearly $900 million in contracts with the Pentagon, and earlier the company received a U.S. Army contract worth up to $10 billion over 10 years."
https://tradersunion.com/news/editors-picks/show/1992613-pal...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palantir