I don't think there has ever been a company so poorly understood (willfully or otherwise) as Palantir. They make a software platform, it does not come with any data, does not come connected to any datasources, etc. You can literally sign up right now for a trial and see this for yourself. It looks the same if you were to purchase a license. This headline might as well say 'Say No to PostgreSQL' or 'Say No to Excel' or 'Say No to Salesforce', etc. Wild.
I think when people go against palantir, they are specifically against gotham - their govt/intelligence-only product. It is true that gotham is an app built on top of foundry just like any business builds on top of foundry. But in this case since palantir itself is the one building it (and heavily marketing it may I say) they get the bad rep for it.
If XYZ Inc. built gotham with palantir supplying them foundry, palantir can claim to be "just like postgres".
This all matters only if you're actually against gotham / automated surveillance, of course, and believe that it was not happening until alex karp.
Ok but then why? Or, what's your point here? Like what would explain the behavior you are noting if it really is that absurd and seemingly arbitrary? Is the implication that they just have really bad PR?
There is an important concept alluded to here around skin in the game: "the AI is not going to assume any liability if this code ever malfunctions" -- it is one of the issues I see w/ self-driving cars, planes, etc. If it malfunctions, there is no consequence for the 'AI' (no skin in the game) but there are definitely consequences for any humans involved.
This is not "news". Not news in the sense of "actuality for eyeballs" and not news for those whose job it is to study societal trends and processes.
It might be new and weird for you. You might want to take an other look, as this is the kind of information you will normally only see in academia. That it got your attention is an exceptional blip.
For those in academia, they have been paying attention for years.
The republic of Weimar was overthrown by captains of industry, far right and cultists that reached a shared understanding. It was not just "Hitler".
So for an international community of well-meaning, informed people in academia and governments current events are highly alarming, as the transition implies lots of other things.
The big picture stories do not normally reach the public, and now it almost sounds like a conspiracy theory.
For some it is not a coincidence that on a Musk platform conspiracy theories are heavily boosted. At least it makes a sane conversation about the currents of our time very hard.
Lack of manual journals would be a non-starter, I am actually not clear how a business could possibly run their books without manual journals.
An example: you make something that uses 5 inputs. I have inventory and cost of goods sold accounts for each of those inputs, but my invoices out to customers only reference the final product. This is where ERPs add insanely complex inventory management solutions. However, the simple way to deal with it instead is to use a manual journal to reconcile your inventory and cost of goods sold accounts monthly or however often you like.
Interesting example - Complex ERP inventory management and manufacturing experience here:
It seems reasonable to need manual adjustments, but I'm not sure if entries would be needed. Deciding how to make corrections and adjustments seems to be key in any manual journal entries, or not.
If journal entries derive from transactions elsewhere, chaining those together, or something to adjust them them is pretty reasonable.
About split entries like the scenario you've outlined? Cost of Goods Sold, vs manufacturing are all often in different parts of the ERP that may not tie back to journals always. Perhaps there is a pattern to setup that is repeatable. I'm not sure if you have a software background, but source code control of managing the bits of what changed when is important.
Another scenario where manual stuff might not work is if we have a just in time manufacturing process, and don't complete the finished goods until the items are on the truck and signed for by the driver (un damaged) so then you can finalize manufacturing, invoicing, shipping documents, etc. There's ways to reduce having to undo all of those if product is damaged between manufacturing and shipping. Of course this has it's own caveats. Implemented OK in SAP though.
Overall, a real need and goal is: reducing the amount accountants or anyone who works with an accounting data has to dump out data from the accounting system to "manipulate the data" to get a view of what happened/happening/needs to happen.
Unpopular take based on experience: It's been my experience that a good chunk of accounting groups that run around with their hair on fire that the system is somehow not working... calls in someone with database or analysis skills, to discover something wasn't done as needed, or not configured and implemented. In this way, the Technical ERP whisperers out there who are not accountants but handle the "in depth analysis"..
If you might consider it, and YC wasn't a fit, I think something like tinyseed.com might be right up your alley.
This is both mission based, as well as a sore need. I don't feel good right now, for example, having to consider which accounting system I'll be using next. Because it should mostly just be an API first, and I guess some screens activated where the API can't just run processes for me.
It's because every small business has this problem and need, and there are a lot of small businesses. But selling technology to small businesses is extremely hard.
From the outside looking in, it seems to me that the biggest benefit of YC is the people you get to meet and build relationships with along w/ the advice and feedback and accountability to focus on the things that actually matter to growing a business. These are lessons and relationships that will carry through even if you decide that VC-backed hypergrowth isn't for you and you want a small lifestyle business. Joining YC does not preclude you from doing things differently, but it does provide access to some amazingly smart and capable people that would be hard, if not impossible, to replicate somewhere else.
Revenue is irrelevant when looking at savings, you have to look at net revenue or gross margin. Majority of Spotify’s revenue goes to record labels. If you are making -40mm / yr then a $90mm swing is a huge deal.
Also, can’t just look at salary - employees cost a lot more than their salary. 10% employer tax, health care, other ancillary benefits, IT equipment / space, etc. A $150k salary probably costs the company $250k all in.
money saved on staff reduction - money spent on layoff packages - (temporary reduction in productivity, because of lower staff morale)
Research shows there is no long-term benefit of layoffs other than the short-term gain in cash flow. Layoffs are only beneficial if they are needed for survival of the company
Layoffs result in a 30% increase in staff turnover. As markets tend to be more challenging, it can take some months before people actually leave. This can have a knock on effect, especially if senior and respected staff leave.
No they don't, because you never know if you're next. I have a bunch of friends at Google (you know, one of the richest companies on the planet and 94% 'survived' another day).
Many are scared. You don't know if there'll be another round and if you're in it. People aren't now magically more productive because they survived and their peers didn't.
My vague recollection from an HR person was employees are 1.5x or 2.5x (something like that) their salary as a cost to the company. So $250k sounds about in the middle.
Health care is paid through taxes in Sweden and your access to it is not dependent on your employment. You can have a private insurance (and I assume a company like Spotify does) but it’s mostly for getting access to some private doctors offices with shorter queues to some things. We don’t really have privately run hospitals as the US.
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