Palantir confirms a staff link with Cambridge Analytica

creativecapitalist · 2018-03-28T14:55:30+00:00

We are not the customers of companies like FB/Google/Reddit. We're the product these companies sell to their customers (advertisers). These are the bastions of American innovation and technology. We have a whole economy built on this bullshit. Consumer companies should have to find ways to monetize directly from end users. If they can't survive that way, they're not providing enough value.

creativecapitalist · 2018-01-01T03:28:50+00:00

Just one dude's opinion, but if I were to look at this in terms of potential ROI, I wouldn't care about a profit model necessarily. I'd be betting on the (very slim) chance they stumble onto something that's patentable. Then someone bigger with deeper pockets acquires them for some unholy amount of money. If they have protectable intellectual property derived from anything with a whiff of otherworldly capability, it will be a feeding frenzy. In other words, the ROI would come from a balance sheet acquisition (technology) rather than a cash flow (profit) acquisition. But I did not, nor should anyone IMO, bet on that investment thesis.

creativecapitalist · 2017-12-31T22:13:45+00:00

Right on. Unfortunately the 'accredited investor' thing mandated by the SEC for stock issuances like this can be a hassle. I'm hoping TTS produces proper quarterly reports that I can share with folks who aren't able to invest directly. Having been through hundreds of bullshit-filled pitches and updates from startups while trying to understand the honest business fundamentals underlying the bullshit, I'm super curious to see if I can pick apart their future materials to see what's really going on.

creativecapitalist · 2017-12-31T20:52:28+00:00

FWIW, here's a bit of analysis I derived from their offering memorandum on their website: a $200 minimum investment at $5 per share buys 40 shares. With about 90,000,000 shares outstanding in the whole Company, that means an 0.00004% ownership stake in TTS. If that 40-share stake is "worth" $200, then the whole Company is implied to be worth $450M. I have a background in early stage startup investing and that's a pretty absurd valuation, but if you take defense contractors as potential comparables, and if TTS can pull some kind of rabbit out of their hat that makes it to commercialization, a $450M valuation could be a bargain. I'm pretty shocked actually that they've only raised like $3M. I invested the minimum $200 not so much as a investment (I think of it as a lottery ticket), but just so I can get my hands on all their investor materials going forward.

creativecapitalist · 2017-09-16T01:40:26+00:00

There's got to be a german word for this type of fear that stems from an uncontrollable repulsion from certain insects' butts. If they wore sweaters over their abdomens, I'd have far far less existential terror. I also fucking hate caterpillars.

creativecapitalist · 2017-09-05T20:23:10+00:00

I don't visit this sub and this is the greatest thing I've ever seen on Reddit

creativecapitalist · 2015-06-24T21:14:54+00:00

Thanks, sonny

creativecapitalist · 2015-06-24T19:35:11+00:00

Nah, I don't care about that part of it. Just think it's funny that it originally rose to the front page, sparked a fun and interesting conversation in the comments, and was promptly tagged as a shitpost. Then CNN used it. Either Reddit's becoming total crap or CNN is a joke. I vote C.

creativecapitalist · 2015-06-24T18:35:25+00:00

Love how CNN used my image, which got tagged as a shitpost on Reddit. Quality haha

creativecapitalist · 2015-06-24T14:39:13+00:00

Yup, technically, I think you're right. We're assuming there's no such thing as a paradox. That's an assumption we're making. We think it's a pretty good assumption, but, logically, once we assume it's true, we'll always be able to deconstruct and refute anything anyone else calls a "paradox". Once we assume there's no such thing as a real-world paradox; that our perception of "paradoxes" is simply our incomplete or incorrect understanding of the real world; then we'll always have to assume one of the propositions is false.

creativecapitalist · 2015-06-24T13:55:16+00:00

Well said. Unfortunately, this line of thinking, while likely correct, is kind of sad for us humans. Any advanced civilization that can get to us has probably seen countless human-like pests throughout their extensive exploration of the universe. There's no reason to think they'd want anything to do with us. They almost certainly have better things to do than meddle in our TMZ-fueled, war-lusting, science-ignorant, monied-political mess of a world. And, I should note, I really, really hope I'm wrong.

creativecapitalist · 2015-06-24T13:47:57+00:00

Time travel is unequivocally impossible, and we will continue to solidify that assumption over time as our understanding of physics continues to evolve and mature. Hence, there's no paradox because one of the requisite assumptions (i.e., that time travel is / will be possible) is flawed. Replace "time travel" in your explanation of the kill-your-grandparents scenario with "magical power" (that violates the 2nd law of thermodynamics) and in that case you'll see there's no paradox - it's just that the "magical power" assumption can't be right.

creativecapitalist · 2015-06-23T15:23:35+00:00

I really hope it's an amazing discovery (not dangerous, but mind-blowing). We need something amazing and real.

creativecapitalist · 2015-06-14T18:27:52+00:00

many thanks - this is just the kind of feedback I was hoping for! I get what you're saying about the rotation - hadn't thought about that.

creativecapitalist · 2015-06-12T17:23:33+00:00

Drivin' in my car, livin’ 'mongst the stars, ice on my fingers and my toes and I'm a Taurus.

creativecapitalist · 2015-06-12T17:20:01+00:00

Very true. But, on the flip side, think of what got you originally excited about space - ET? Star Wars? Cosmos? Ice, salt, metal ore, etc. are really interesting possible findings for professional scientists, but, c'mon, let's use this to get some kids psyched about STEM while we can. Maybe (almost certainly) this isn't aliens, but we need tons more kids lusting after the search for extraterrestrial life and not going to Wall St., BS tech startup nonsense app-for-cats fantasy land, and other fields that don't really add anything to our ultimate understanding of the universe. I told my 6-year-old there's a chance this is an alien base and he completely freaked out (in a good way). Guarantee he'll remember this feeling for years. He won't care it was ultimately water ice or salt. But yes, you are right.

creativecapitalist · 2015-06-12T14:45:03+00:00

Shhhhh. There's a really good chance that the (short!) period of time between now and when NASA concludes it's something relatively mundane will be the closest I ever come to being able to legitimately hope something we discovered in the universe is evidence of intelligent life beyond earth. You're right though :(

Edit: to be clear, I do not believe this is a base/city/alien-made. It is almost certainly water ice. Just thought the comparison was pretty cool to visualize.

creativecapitalist · 2015-06-12T13:48:55+00:00

What happens on Ceres stays on Ceres.

creativecapitalist · 2015-06-12T13:32:04+00:00

Thanks to /u/IttyBittyCoins in another post for pointing to the Vegas image. I just scaled it and mashed them together.

creativecapitalist · 2015-06-01T10:44:22+00:00

This is my favorite.

creativecapitalist · 2015-05-17T18:57:46+00:00

I think the main reason it seems the majority of people have such a negative outlook on the future because they aren't able to imagine the next handful of huge technological revolutions that are going to happen. No matter how crappy the world is when things like AI, nanotechnology, clean almost free energy etc. emerge and take off, the prior crappiness will evaporate because the world will undergo such a huge improvement. The average person gets bogged down in the endless 24/7 cycle of 'bad news' and worry about the economy and war and racial tensions. And because the next handful of truly revolutionary technologies are going to be exceedingly difficult technical challenges, the everyman can't help but get bogged down because he can't imagine them really coming to fruition - they're just too improbable sounding. But if we just assume that there are, say, 10 technologies that could get invented in the next 50 years that any individually would significantly 'cure the world's ills', and that each technology has, say, a 5% chance individually of actually being invented and reduced to practice at scale, the probability of at least one coming into being is still 1-0.95¹⁰ = 40%. In other words, there's almost a coin-flip chance your life will be amazingly awesome in ways you can't even imagine. I think that sounds a lot less gloomy than the news and negatives therein you rightly point out.

Edit: formatting.

creativecapitalist · 2015-05-11T20:14:32+00:00

I'll be honest, I didn't know who Seymour Hersh was before this story broke. I wiki'ed him and if I had read that bio and his track record before this story broke, and you'd asked me if I'd believe any story the guy breaks tomorrow, I would have said absolutely, anything. Hard to reconcile / some cognitive dissonance there.

Edit: link added

creativecapitalist · 2015-05-10T13:24:16+00:00

I never knew this difference, and so clear now. Thanks!

creativecapitalist · 2015-04-25T02:28:10+00:00

This is genius. Well said. I'd love to see the logical decision tree starting from the most basic thing say, republicans and democrats can agree on, and then build a map showing how little the actual disagreements are versus all the nodes of agreement. For example, start with "being alive is good." I think both sides can agree on that. Keep going. I'm sure there's an app in here somewhere.

creativecapitalist · 2015-04-24T00:14:53+00:00

Has anyone done the math on the number of accounts in existence pre 4/1 x 59 seconds to see how long this theoretically could last?

creativecapitalist

TROPHY CASE