Palantir could be the most overvalued company that ever existed

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

Historical overvaluation and metrics

  • Commenters compare Palantir to extreme historical bubbles, especially the South Sea Company, whose market cap allegedly reached several times Britain’s annual GDP while producing little real value.
  • There’s pushback on comparing company market cap (a “stock”) to GDP (a yearly “flow”); some say it’s a misleading but quick way to convey scale, others argue it’s as meaningless as comparing a river’s flow to a dam’s volume.
  • Crypto is cited as an example of how tiny float + headline “market cap” can create absurd valuations.

Tesla, bubbles, and P/E

  • Tesla is repeatedly raised as a rival for “most overvalued,” with its very high P/E and heavy dependence on EV sales, subsidies, and accounting gains (e.g., Bitcoin).
  • Some argue wild market caps are a hallmark of bubbles; others counter that for liquid stocks, market price is still the best available measure of value, even if imperfect.

What Palantir actually does

  • Several people ask what the “magic sauce” is.
  • Descriptions from the thread:
    • Platform (e.g., Foundry) that ingests messy organizational data, cleans and integrates it into a “single pane of glass,” then surfaces analytics and operational tools.
    • Heavy use of “forward deployed engineers” (effectively high-end consultants) embedded with clients—especially governments—to understand domain problems and build bespoke workflows.
  • Skeptics say the tech isn’t fundamentally unique versus other enterprise data/analytics/ERP stacks; the differentiation is branding, political connections, and willingness to do sensitive surveillance/defense work.

Political, ethical, and geopolitical angles

  • Many comments focus on Palantir as an arm of the security state: ICE, intelligence agencies, military, and potentially an “American social-credit system.”
  • Some fear it becoming an “OS for government” with deep lock-in, enabling price hikes and austerity elsewhere in the public sector.
  • Others argue its global market is large and not EU-dependent, but note competition from Chinese surveillance vendors and trust issues in regions wary of US neo-colonial behavior.
  • Ethical investors describe intentionally excluding Palantir despite defense exposure in their portfolios.

Valuation, growth assumptions, and investor behavior

  • The article’s claim that Palantir must grow revenue 15x over 25 years at ~35% annually is flagged as a math error; commenters recalc this as ~11.4% CAGR for 15x, saying 35% corresponds to ~1500x.
  • Some call the analysis “dumb” for assuming constant margins and ignoring software operating leverage; others reply Palantir may behave more like a services firm if it relies on ongoing data-cleaning labor.
  • P/E-based screens show Palantir isn’t even the most extreme by that metric; many smaller names look worse.
  • A recurring theme is that Palantir, like Tesla or certain defense firms, attracts ideological investors who buy into a political/military worldview, not just cash flows—seen as both a strength for hype and a risk for long-term returns.

Perceptions of leadership and brand

  • The CEO’s highly animated public appearances and founders’ extreme political/religious rhetoric are cited as red flags by some, but also as part of a cultivated “edgy,” military-coded brand that resonates with a certain investor base.

Reactions to the article and media

  • Multiple commenters complain the linked article is effectively an ad, with intrusive sponsorship disguised as a bullet point, undermining its credibility.
  • Some see broader “anti-tech hysteria” in the thread; others frame the criticism as rational skepticism about surveillance capitalism and bubble valuations.