Palantir eyes an IPO in 2020, but will first need to cut spending

Getty

• Palantir
  Technologies — a Palo Alto, California-based analytics
  company last valued at $20 billion — seeks to reach
  profitability in 2019 and eyes a potential IPO in 2020. 
• To do so, the company will need to curb its culture of
  excessive spending,
  according to a Wall Street Journal report.
• Reportedly called the “Palantir Entitlement Syndrome,” its
  team has become accustomed to next-level corporate extravagance,
  like 13-course tasting-menu lunches. 
• The company is said to have begun cutting back on travel
  perks, and reportedly fired employees for expensing off-the-wall
  purchases like lingerie. 

Palantir —
a Silicon Valley-based analytics company credited with
helping the United States find Osama bin Laden — is trying to
tamp down on its culture of corporate spending ahead of a 2020
IPO, according to a
Wall Street Journal report on Monday. 

Dubbed the “Palantir Entitlement Syndrome,” Palantir employees
have become accustomed to next-level corporate extravagance, like
13-course tasting-menu lunches at its headquarters complete with
lobster tails and sashimi, according to the report. 

When perks have been threatened by management in the past,
employees have resisted en masse, according to the report. The
Journal reports that a companywide debate broke out after
artisanal bacon was nixed from the breakfast menu, in an incident
known internally as “bacongate.” 

However, as Palantir, last
valued at $20 billion, seeks to reach profitability in 2019,
and eyes a potential public offering in 2020, the 14-year-old
company has reportedly begun reeling in some of its
spending. 

Read more: 


Mysterious big data company Palantir is reportedly looking at an
IPO — and could see a valuation of $41 billion

According to the Journal, Palantir has started letting go of some
of its office space, and slowed its hiring of engineers. At the
same time, those lavish perks have apparently come under
scrutiny, as the report says that two employees were fired after
expensing lingerie and suits, the Journal reports, citing people
familiar with the incident. Similarly,
last-minute international business-class travel is no longer
an acceptable expense. 

Read the full Wall Street Journal report
here. 

Palantir did not immediately respond to Business Insider’s
request for comment.