It was a cold March morning at a discreet mid-Atlantic hotel when Palantir staged its developer conference. Attendees—defense contractors, military officers, and corporate execs—arrived expecting mild weather and instead got steady snow and handouts of heavy blankets. The scene looked rough, but spirits were high. For this audience, Palantir was delivering the goods, and the stock-market glow only helped the mood.

From secretive roots to a crowded tent

Getting in required a bit of luck. Palantir has not always been comfortable with critical press, so invitations were selective. The company, founded in 2003 by Peter Thiel and Alex Karp, has long had one foot in defense and one foot in the commercial world. Lately, the commercial side has been exploding.

Shyam Sankar, Palantir’s chief technology officer, told the crowd the commercial business is growing about 120 percent year over year, while government revenue grew roughly 60 percent. Sankar is one of several senior tech executives who also serve as lieutenant colonels in the Army Reserve, which underlines how tightly tied the company remains to the military.

Generative AI changed the playbook

Palantir’s pitch is that generative AI sped up what the company has always done: move engineers into customer operations and help build tools that actually get used. The old model involved "forward deployed engineers" physically embedded with customers. Large language models let Palantir scale that expertise, so engineers now focus on helping customers build their own capabilities on Palantir’s platforms.

Ted Mabrey, who runs the commercial business, said every improvement in those models felt custom-built for Palantir. Sankar framed it more colorfully: the company aimed to build what he called "Iron Man suits for cognition," and advances in AI removed the human-limited bottleneck that had slowed growth.

Keynotes and a surprising demo

  • Speakers included a U.S. Navy vice admiral, the lead for the Maven battlefield AI project, and executives from big corporate customers, a sign of how Palantir spans defense and commercial clients.
  • A standout demo came from Mixology Clothing, a family-run fashion business with about 450 employees. CEO Jordan Edwards said he discovered Palantir through social media and now uses the system to drive buying decisions and automated negotiations. For one product line, he claimed a 17-point margin swing, from losing $9 per unit to gaining $9 per unit. He now calls himself a "forward deployed CEO."

Defense is still the company’s core

Despite booming commercial revenues, Palantir’s identity remains rooted in defense contracting. The company once fought to be considered for Army contracts and learned to focus on measurable outcomes. Executives argue that that discipline helped them succeed commercially.

Sankar’s recent book includes a chapter titled "The Factory Is the Weapon," and both Sankar and CEO Alex Karp have criticized the tech world for what they see as insufficient attention to national defense. At the conference Karp said that with an active battlefield in the Middle East, Palantir’s priority is supporting troops. He framed the company’s role bluntly, saying Palantir was built to give warfighters "an unfair advantage." He added that the company takes pride in helping American forces return home safely, even if that means people on the other side do not.

Controversy and context

Karp’s remarks came not long after a missile struck a girls’ school in Iran, killing civilians. The incident is under investigation. Palantir declined to comment on whether its tools were involved. The CEO told the audience that employees can hold various political views but must support warfighters in combat. His comments received applause.

Palantir’s tone contrasts with companies that have pushed for limits on battlefield use of AI. The company’s leadership has little patience for arguments that would restrict military applications. Sankar went so far as to criticize some AI leaders personally, saying inventors are often the last to understand their creations and arguing that some tech executives pursue grand, moral narratives that he finds hollow.

A deliberate identity

Palantir’s pitch is simple: use AI to win, and let customers who share that aim work with them. Sankar said there is "gravity" to the defense mission, and that moral urgency forced the company to make software that actually works. Mabrey added that Palantir’s reputation filters customers, producing fewer partnerships but deeper ones. "We do not come in and tell them what to do, and they do not tell us what to do," he said.

The company has also weathered ethical questions about some government customers. Asked why Palantir continued working with certain agencies after controversial operations, Sankar characterized specific incidents as tragic but said democratic systems provide mechanisms for accountability and that companies must decide whether they believe in those systems.

Outside the echo chamber

When the conference ended and the snow kept falling, it was clear the event existed in its own bubble. Outside that bubble, a vigorous debate continues about how AI should be used and what limits, if any, should exist on battlefield applications. Palantir has chosen to step out of that debate and concentrate on tools to help warfighters gain an edge. For Palantir, the companies arguing for stricter limits are not the ones they aim to serve.

That choice has been profitable and energizing for the company, and the conference made clear that Palantir’s leadership sees no reason to change course.