Palantir was funded by In-Q-Tel. In-Q-Tel is the CIAs VC arm. It's a non-profit VC for the intelligence community. So, they don't even care if their investment makes money, they just want spy tech at whatever their budget can afford.

Not conspiracy theory or speculation, all public info.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In-Q-Tel

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/additional-publicat...;

It's absolutely a spook shop. Many people working there don't seem to realize they're spooks though. They highly target a lot of young, naive, fresh grads.