Just in time for the 20th anniversary of September 11, several news agencies have noticed that Palantir is calling for a Black Swan Event. Source: click here That brings up two questions. What is a Black Swan Event and who in the world is Palantir?
First, let's give you some examples of a Black Swan Event. The current Covid 19 pandemic is a great example. The 2008 financial crisis comes to mind. And of course the dotcom bubble crashing in the wake of September 11 qualifies. According to Investopedia (source click here):
- A black swan is an extremely rare event with severe consequences. It cannot be predicted beforehand, though after the fact, many falsely claim it should have been predictable.
- Black swan events can cause catastrophic damage to an economy by negatively impacting markets and investments, but even the use of robust modeling cannot prevent a black swan event.
- Reliance on standard forecasting tools can both fail to predict and potentially increase vulnerability to black swans by propagating risk and offering false security.
Chances are you've lived through one and according to Palantir you are going to live through another soon.
So who is Palantir? Well they are a bunch of nerds that use computers to do things, primarily for the government. For instance, their data crunching helped find a person by the name of Osama Bin Laden. Have you heard of him? They also were able to help find and convict Bernie Madoff. Recently, the government has hired them to help manage our current pandemic. The majority of their revenue comes from the government, servicing such institutions as the CIA, the FBI and the CDC. I imagine when you are working in such circles data flows both ways. The government gives you confidential data for you to crunch and you help them use it wisely. So what are they doing with this information?
Their current activities are interesting. They have paid off all their debt, taken custody of a large amount of gold for storage in their Northeastern United States vault and started to accept Bitcoin as payment. Source: click here
So what do you make of this? Let’s book a call to discuss. Click here.