Co-founder Joe Lonsdale: Palantir was founded to kill communists

Founding Motives: Communists, Terrorists, or Profit?

• Some commenters doubt that “killing communists” was ever a genuine operational focus; they see it as post-hoc bravado or political theater.
• Others frame anti-communism as one of several “domestic counterinsurgency” motivations, but emphasize that early Palantir work was more plausibly about the War on Terror, CIA/FBI needs, and protecting wealth and corporate interests.
• There’s skepticism that U.S. agencies or Palantir customers in the 2000s were targeting ex-Soviet communists; Islamic extremism and general security threats seem more realistic drivers.
• One commenter notes a key executive has described himself as a socialist, which clashes with a “kill communists” origin story.

Surveillance, Lists, and Repression

• Several people highlight Palantir’s role as a data analytics contractor feeding state and corporate power: “software to protect rich people and eliminate troublemakers.”
• Concern is raised about large-scale data collection on U.S. citizens from the outset, not just foreigners, and its use in immigration/deportation contexts.
• Historical analogies are drawn to CIA-supported anti-communist purges (e.g., Indonesia 1965–66), where name lists enabled mass killings; Palantir is described as a modern supplier of such lists.
• One side argues Palantir is over-mythologized and should be seen as a politically branded but ordinary gov contractor; others warn that downplaying its role in list-making is dangerous.

Death Penalty and Authoritarian Impulses

• A separate thread reacts to the co-founder’s support for public hangings of repeat violent offenders.
• Many argue there is no good evidence capital punishment deters crime, and worry about false accusations and the state’s fallibility.
• Some defend its incapacitation effect (dead offenders can’t reoffend), which others counter is not “deterrence” and morally corrosive.
• There’s debate over crude historical arguments that mass executions reduced violence, with criticism that such claims ignore confounders and weak methodology.
• Several see the rhetoric as sadistic rather than policy-driven, and connect it to broader fears of an arbitrary, cruel legal system empowered by surveillance tools.

Communists as Imaginary Enemies

• Multiple commenters say they’ve essentially never met self-identified communists, and view U.S. anti-communist panic as delusional.
• Others respond that people with communist views often hide them given U.S. stigma, especially from strangers.
• Some are disturbed that killing “communists” is being discussed as normal politics in the U.S., given the tiny real constituency and the risk of labeling broader leftists as targets.