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Palantir Could Be the Most Overvalued Company That Ever Existed

duttish

I'll throw the British South Sea Trading Company into the ring for that title of most overvalued company ever.

It had the king himself on the board. The company value represented a decent fraction of the national gdp at the time. All without actually never producing anything of actual value. It was just bribes and speculation all the way through. It's wild.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Sea_Company

Extra History did a more easily digestible series, which was how I learned about it in the first place. https://youtu.be/k1kndKWJKB8

petesergeant

> The company value represented a decent fraction of the national gdp at the time.

The company's market-cap was almost 3 times national GDP

maratc

We should stop comparing incomparable things, like companies market cap (measured in dollars or pounds) to national GDPs (measured in dollars or pounds per year,) unless we want to reach outrageous but incorrect conclusions.

duttish

Oh wow, thanks. I misremembered, thought it was like 1/3 and didn't have time to look it up again.

danpalmer

Like Tesla, Palantir is an ideological investment for many, and likely why it's so over valued. Retail investors buy these stocks because they're buying into a world view. Tesla's is obvious (and it's not about green investments). Palantir's is a little less so, but they have built up an image that's right wing (but mostly not culture war), military-coded, and layered on American exceptionalism. They sell to the CIA, they sell to ICE, they help private healthcare companies milk their customers. This is all part of a world view that many people are in favour of, and Palantir represents it well. Andruil will likely do well for similar reasons once they go public.

This is not really to fault them. I see the company as far more mature than Tesla. They've cultivated a brand that works well for them. This is also not intended to be a criticism of Palantir investors, there are many reasons to invest, and even if you subscribe to the above that is of course your right! Many people invest for ideological reasons, myself included, and that's fine.

whycombinetor

This is the first time I've seen an ad presented as a bullet point in a list of otherwise-salient bullet points. Nefarious.

_ink_

Yeah, all credibility was immediately lost when I read that. I just closed the tab and put it away as ad piece.

dataflow360

Try using Safari’s Reader view on this ad-riddled page, and you’re greeted with all-text content that’s… 100% ad!

porridgeraisin

Yeah that's insane.

gethly

Palantir is only the 15th most overvalued:

https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/stock-screener

richardatlarge

Michael Burry shares his own thoughts on the subject, toward the end

https://pca.st/episode/17966c7b-a56e-46f7-ab2d-03d86dbad650

jqpabc123

TSLA has to be in the mix with a PE over 300.

Jean-Papoulos

>Palantir would need to grow its revenues roughly 15-fold (yes, 1,500%) over the next quarter century, implying sustained annual revenue growth in the 35% range over this time frame.

That's actually a pretty reasonnable ask for a tech company, if you believe Palantir can grow to the level of FAANG.

Quothling

To me it would depend a lot on how US/EU relations continue to grow/break. If digital sovereignty ends up putting Palantir in a position where they won't be able to seel their intelligence tools to European secret police organisations, then it's probably overvalued. If relationships work out fine, then they'll basically be the Microsoft of mass survailance, which may make them overvalued but surely not the most overvalued company that ever existed?

null

[deleted]

jddj

Palantir gives an investor exposure to the "the elites no longer need the people as much" ai thematic.

Could authoritarianism grow at a compound 35% year on year? Possibly, for a while.

uxhacker

Can somebody explain how the software actually adds value? How is it really that amazing? Or is it just a buzz word?

nextstep

For the sake of democracy and freedom of human expression, I hope that their software is a bloated, bureaucratic mess and can’t power the efficient dystopia which Alex Karp wants.