Palantir is one of the newer sweethearts of WSB, Reddit, and retail investors worldwide and with good reason - a polarizing, highly secretive, niche business whose majority of market share comes from selling software to the governments, defense, and intelligence sector. But beyond these memes, let’s take a look at how Palantir operates as a business. Along the way, we can also learn just how much money there is to be made selling to the CIA and the greater American military complex. Palantir is riding on the big data trend just like Snowflake, but what’s unique to Palantir is that the company rides on bigger winds based on macro geopolitical trends. Despite intense public scrutiny, Western governments have continued to actively promote and invest in tech-driven governance with items such as preventative policing, public surveillance, and facial recognition.