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Comment by chinathrow | Hacker News Reader

If you find it "creeeeeeepy" what they do, why would you look into working there?

Good people working for bad companies have some small ability to change culture.

"Is this legal?", "Do I need a warrant to do this intercept?", "Is this compatible with our rules?", "What would our regulators say if they knew we did this?", "How will the oversight and scrutiny committee respond to this action?"

It's not much, but it's about as good as me from the outside writing a letter to my MP which is about all I can do.

EDIT: to expand on this a bit. Imagine you're a mathematician and that you have a neuro-diversity. In the past you may have struggled to get a job because employers sometimes discriminate against neuro-atypicality. GCHQ definitely does not do so - they mention in press releases they recognise the advantages of neuro-diversity. So one option would be something like the Heilbronn Institute for Mathematical Research. As an employer Google gives you 20% time. Heilbronn gives you 50% time, 50% of the time you're doing work directed by GCHQ/CESG, the rest of the time you do what you like. That is potentially interesting maths with interesting people. The money at GCHQ isn't great compared to the SV bubble, but for the UK it's okay, and there other benefits.

http://www.bristol.ac.uk/maths/research/heilbronn/

http://web.maths.bris.ac.uk/research/heilbronn_institute/

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/11111584/...

A professor in college suggested to me that if good people don't work for defense companies, then only bad people will be working in defense companies.

With everything revealed in the Snowden leaks, it doesn't seem like the good people are having much of an impact.

I left the NSA a few months ago after working for them four years for that very reason. I realized nothing I did was going to affect what they were doing, and while I personally couldn't effect any change, I could at least leave and not contribute to it. So I did.

I just wanted to say that reading your comment was encouraging and made me happy.

Thanks for posting this.

Did you consider IAD or one of the defense contractors focused on highly-secure technology? Hell, even groups doing R&D funded by NSF or DARPA on secure systems work. There's a ton of stuff going on out there that either (a) benefits security of government/military or (b) could benefit everyone at some point.

I can understand if (a) didn't interest you but being ex-NSA might help with positions doing (b). Not sure how INFOSEC people would react given the climate, though. Wise ones should see a skill and character reference from getting and quiting the job respectively.

Thank you not only for posting this, but also for refusing to contribute.

I commend you for your decision.

At that point, why should there even be private defense companies? Why do we accept that weapons manufacturing is outside of democratic control and civilian restraint?

Interesting question. I have no idea one way or the other, I've never studied economics beyond 101. An exploration of that question might include why the US relied on private industry for WWII military needs, rather than building its own factories or taking over existing ones.

The US effectively commandeered private industry in WWII. They were compensated, but that was nothing like the current military weapons procurements system.

But they were still private. Under orders, just like individual citizens were under orders, with the draft and rationing. It was arguably an existential threat.

But the commandeered private industry was what the current MIC grew from. It wouldn't have happened without WWII.

It's not outside of civilian control and democratic restraint in the US. It's just an extremely convoluted route from that to the end product.

In fact, we'd probably get a better deal if there were less so. The amount of money wasted on politically-supported but infeasible/impractical systems is mind boggling.

This contains a hidden logical error. For example, no good people are working to simulate the original ENIAC at the vacuum tube level on the Apple watch.

But no bad people are working on it either.

That didn't work out so well for Edward Snowden.

> That didn't work out so well for Edward Snowden.

And that's the whole point of making a sacrifice. Not everything has to work out in your favor. If a man cannot sacrifice even his life and well being for a greater good, what type of person is he?

Why do we insist that good people must be punished for doing good? You should be supporting good works, not sacrifices

In a perfect world, that would be the way it works.

"Good people working for bad companies have some small ability to change culture."

Let me stop you right there. I see where you're going but I'm going to interject that the nature and incentives an organization matter a lot. Palantir, starting with founders & investors, is set up to provide as much data analysis capability as possible to as many as possible. It's especially going to do this for government given it's aiming at public sector contracts and has In-Q-Tel as an investor. I can't be sure but wouldn't be surprised if the latter prevents them from saying no to benefiting intelligence community.

All together, every aspect of how this business is set up will push corporate and government surveillance. Nobody or even a small group of them will change that. It's intrinsic to their business. So, anyone joining will be 99% contributing to that and maybe 1% making a difference... if they're lucky.

So, nature of an organization and whether it allows a given change should be considered first. Then, lines of reasoning like yours follow from there. Palantir looks worst than most in this respect.

good people joining bad companies can do nothing about it unless they are going to join as its ceo.

good people(those who have high morals) will never work for these kinda company on a matter of principle. some good people with slightly less moral either become complacent in this as the money is good n they will turn a blind eye as each day pass. some others will try to blow whistle n get crushed. the evil people end up running the place.

those who have the power to quickly change the attitude of system is the goddamn president

"good people joining bad companies can do nothing about it unless they are going to join as its ceo."

It's worse than that. Even CEO's answer to someone: the owners or the board. So, if those want evil course of action, even most CEOs' hands are going to be tied. The people with the greatest impact are probably the VC's given they can fund what they want to see happen. They can create a lot of good by funding things that are both marketable and positive for society.

Anyone below owner has no guarantee of doing anything out of the parameters of the company. It's the nature of capitalism and often business in general.

You are very right. VCs and defence sector with too much money. But ceo is not in a bad position. If ceo can find new market for the products, one which brings more profits and better prospects, VC and board will be onboard with it.

There's potential there. Just not when the market is inherently leaning toward sneaky usages like Big Data mining.

The VCs also answer to someone. They answer to their investors and limited partners. Those guys usually want monetary return on investment, except in special cases for unique funds. The only people who have nobody to answer to are the billionaires. Some of them do good like Bill Gates. Some don't.

Good point. I overlooked it when writing the comment. So, much more inertia and incentives to fight than people realize.

I totally agree. When a company is pursuing dysfunctional negative goals there's very little chance to drive change. When you're outside the company you can ask politicians if this company is being regulated effectively; if you're inside the company you can ask if you're operating in compliance with what little regulation the company has. Either way there's not much anyone can do, and so boycotting such companies is a valid thing to do.

Exactly my question - can't believe you are being downvoted. Says something about the mindset of tech.

These guys are the bad guys. The idea that people can "change the culture" is at best naive.

Perhaps they looked into working there before finding out the true nature of the work.

That was exactly it. It was a big flashy up and coming place to work in DC back in 2012-2013ish, so I poked around the careers page and was interested until I read all of the accounts on Glassdoor of how horrid working there was. Later I researched their technologies as part of a project I was working on for my employer, and came to learn of their involvement in the US Government's efforts to spy on everyone.

A while ago, I remember looking at the Palantir Glassdoor comments and being appalled. But now they've been whitewashed with a total flood of "5 stars". Curious whether there was an internal campaign to do so...

Update: and from GD itself, "actively asking employees to write positive Glassdoor reviews because reality has become too scathing for us to handle."

Probably because of the first part ("...doing some of the coolest most innovative big data parsing that there is"). "Creeeeeepy" companies tend to offer good pay to do cool work with smart people. Something that hits 3/4 targets can be tempting (pay, work, people, values).

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