- Palantir has taken an unusual approach to sales, traditionally avoiding hiring a large sales force.
- According to Bloomberg, he held boot camps to attract customers.
- CEO Alex Karp likened them to “a rock concert”; they included perks like circuit racing.
Palantir has avoided traditional means of selling software for many years, and although the company now has a sales force, it still uses a somewhat unconventional approach to generating business.
The data mining company, co-founded by PayPal mob member Peter Thiel, has held software boot camps to recruit new customers, Bloomberg reported Tuesday.
At one such camp in Pontiac, Michigan, speakers gave presentations, attendees tried out Palantir’s software for themselves, and the happy hour even featured a professional driver taking attendees on rides. walks on an outdoor running track, according to Bloomberg.
Palantir used the events to sell its artificial intelligence platform, or AIP. The company held more than 500 training camps last year and plans to hold an average of five per day around the world this year, according to Bloomberg.
“We can’t do enough,” CEO Alex Karp said during the company’s fourth-quarter earnings conference call. “We’re limiting how many people can come. It’s like a rock concert. It’s like, yeah, yeah, if you know anyone, we can take you backstage.”
“We are already overloaded for our AIP training camp,” he added during the results call. “And it’s just that we don’t know how to actually meet that demand.”
Still, one thing Palantir hopes is that people who attend the camps come away knowing how to use its tools — and how to show others how to use them. But some analysts say more needs to be done to support growth.
“Right now, they need more labor,” Morningstar analyst Malik Ahmed Khan told Bloomberg. Meanwhile, Rishi Jaluria, managing director of software at RBC Capital Markets, emphasized that “this is very complex software.”
businessinsider
