The Best Palantir Bear Thesis?

Palantir closed today at $8.30 after a monster market rally (eventually selling off) due to inflation in the United States coming in at just 5% year over year.

A Palantir investor asked on twitter for a solid bear case around the company. Alex who runs the popular YouTube channel, Ticker Symbol You, argued that ChatGPT in combination with preexisting automation tools like Zapier can easily provide small-medium sized businesses the AI capabilities that a software like Foundry would, making Palantir’s overall TAM much smaller than it currently is. It was actually an incredibly interesting bear case. I’d argue it has some merit, but lacks the nuance for why organizations, especially the largest ones, trust a software like foundry. Arny, another great Palantir investor, had a response video to the argument here. You can visit the full twitter thread here.

Palantir just announced their latest AIP platform, claiming it will be the 4th major addition to their suite of platform products: Foundry, Gotham, Apollo, and now AIP. However, is Apollo the most overlooked over all their platforms? I spoke to an early tesla, now all-in Palantir investor, who argued that Apollo may be the most interesting and eventually biggest product from Palantir. You can listen to the soundbite here.

I visited a private investment fund that has a significant position in Palantir. They’ve been in the stock since 2018, and therefore got invited to the latest Foundry Con in Palo Alto. When we met, they told me that they spoke to the people from Tampa Bay and asked one question: “Why didn’t you go with any alternative to Palantir?” The folks from the hospital responded: “There was no alternatives.” This was one of the most fascinating partnerships Palantir has announced - you can read more about why from their own blog here.

Why did Palantir leave Silicon Valley? Part of it had to do with how bad the culture became in regards to innovation at the intersection of protecting western values. You can watch a clip here of us from the Palantir Weekly podcast discussing why they left.

That’s all for today on Daily Palantir - see you tomorrow!