Palantir was born in the Bay Area in 2003, so it’s not a surprise that the AI data analysis firm would advertise here like so many other firms whose indecipherable billboards litter our skyline.
But its new installation at San Francisco International Airport is so much more than just an ad: it’s a winking, cynical tribute to the hellscape we currently occupy, and a bland admission that, yes, they’re the baddies — but, you know, in a cool way.
This week, a photo of the ad went viral on Reddit. At first, it seems entirely banal: Cast in black and white, the wall-sized screen reads “Palantir Technologies Est: 2003 USA,” with a tagline that shouts “SOFTWARE THAT DOMINATES.”
Much of the reaction on Reddit was negative, not just because of the ad’s gargantuan scale or aggressive messaging, but because of the heinous lore of Palantir itself. The company’s rep is so bad that, frankly, it must know what it’s doing by posting such a monolithic ad in SFO where tourists and immigrants from around the world fly in every day.
Is Palantir’s intention ragebait and virality, or to whitewash its profitable flouting of civil rights with bland reminders that it occupies a central position in the techno-zeitgeist? I’m really not sure, and that scares me more than a little.
Palantir — like the first Trump administration — was launched in part by the billionaire Peter Thiel, and it has become one of the most controversial tech companies in America because of its partnerships with ICE and the U.S. military. As has been widely reported, the company profits off the killing of Palestinians and mass deportations of immigrants under the Trump administration.
Thiel co-founded PayPal and over the years evolved into a kind of right-wing bag man, funding a morass of reactionary groups and destroying press outlets, all while declaring he does not believe in democracy and building the blueprint for a techno-capitalist syndicate to run America (think feudalism, but more Waymos).
He’s also worked to mentor Vice President J.D. Vance and “Dark Enlightenment” thinker Curtis Yarvin, whom he foisted on the mainstream. For this ilk, “progressive” isn’t just a slur, it’s a pathway to literal extinction. To these self-styled John Galts, trust in political institutions is naiveté verging on idiocy. And Thiel’s ideology of “superior persons” leading society is not just a personal belief, it’s a business plan that includes marketing via a dystopian ad placement in the airport of America’s “wokest” city. For the widely reported chess “prodigy,” this is the equivalent of taking the board and smashing it with a sledgehammer. Apparently, we’re supposed to see this as another step toward revolution (and the tech singularity).
Naturally, Palantir doesn’t divulge its terrible politics in its marketing materials; on its site, the company states that “our software powers real-time, AI-driven decisions in critical government and commercial enterprises in the West, from the factory floors to the front lines.” (Is your dog’s head turning from all those whistles?) In addition to receiving tens of millions from ICE and nearly $800 million from the Department of Defense, Palantir contracts with juggernauts like Morgan Stanley and AT&T. With skyrocketing revenue and rising market valuation, Palantir is officially bigger than Disney.
In that context, the ad feels less like marketing and more like a taunt. Palantir doesn’t need our money. It wants our complicity, and will mock us along the way. The slogan cares little about value statements like “Think Different” or “Just Do It.” It is “software that dominates,” regardless of what you want it to do. At Harvey Milk Terminal, it has found a home to burrow into our heads, living rent-free while we struggle to figure out the path ahead.
Palantir’s ad has nothing to sell but a reputation, and it happens to read like a threat.
