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How Peter Thiel’s Palantir Pushed Toward the Heart of U.K. Health Care

Peter Thiel at a conference in Florida last year. At an event in England this year, he called public support for the N.H.S. “Stockholm syndrome.” | Chandan Khann/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
THE NEW YORK TIMES: Palantir, the analytics company led by Peter Thiel, has courted N.H.S. England with pandemic help and assertive lobbying. Its big reward may be yet to come.

It began with a £1 contract.

In the hours after a pandemic was declared in March 2020, Palantir, the secretive American data analytics company, was invited to 10 Downing Street along with other tech groups, including Amazon, Google and Meta, to discuss how it could help the British government respond.

Within days, Palantir’s software was processing streams of data from across England’s National Health Service, with Palantir engineers embedded to help. The company’s services, used by the C.I.A. and Western militaries for more than a decade, were deployed to track emergency room capacity and direct supplies of scarce equipment.

Palantir charged the government just one pound.

The deal provided the company with a valuable toehold. Since then, Palantir, which is chaired by Peter Thiel, the billionaire investor and one of President Donald J. Trump’s major 2016 donors, has parlayed the work into more than £60 million in government health contracts. Its biggest reward may be yet to come: a seven-year contract worth up to £480 million — about $590 million — to overhaul N.H.S. England’s outdated patient data system.

But an outcry over Palantir’s rapid ascent within the N.H.S., the beleaguered but beloved public institution that provides free health care across the country, has been building for months among some lawmakers, doctors and privacy campaigners. It could come to a head in October, when the winning bid is expected to be announced. » | Euan Ward and Adam Satariano | Euan Ward and Adam Satariano, reporting from London, spoke to health service officials, Palantir employees and industry insiders, as well as reviewing email correspondence and notes from internal meetings. | Friday, September 29, 2023

It would appear that the privatisation of our beloved National Health Service is to be kicked up a few notches. – © Mark Alexander

Palantir: Trump-backer’s Data Firm That Wants Access to Your NHS Records

THE GUARDIAN: Company co-founded by Silicon Valley’s Peter Thiel has been criticised for US defence and immigration contracts

Peter Thiel’s Palantir is favourite to win a £360m contract to amalgamate a wide range of NHS health data on to a single platform. Photograph: John Lamparski/Getty Images
For a company tipped to provide the NHS’s new overarching data platform, it is appropriate that Palantir Technologies is named after an all-seeing orb.

Palantir, which draws its name from the powerful crystal balls deployed in JRR Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, is the favourite to win a £360m contract for the NHS’s Federated Data Platform (FDP). Covering everything from individual patients’ data to vaccination programmes, waiting lists and medical trials, the FDP will aggregate data from multiple sources and different formats on to a single platform.

According to a document sent to potential bidders for the five-year contract, it will “provide access to real-time data to enable decision-making to better coordinate care”. Speaking at London Tech Week last week, the health secretary, Sajid Javid, said: “This is the perfect moment to bring data together and reap the benefits.”

The ambitious scope of the platform has alarmed campaign groups, who fear for patient confidentiality, privacy and data security, but the identity of the frontrunner has also caused concern.

US-based Palantir was co-founded by Peter Thiel, one of Silicon Valley’s few high-profile Donald Trump supporters. The $15.6bn (£12.7bn) company has been criticised for its work with the US immigration agency, as well as its intelligence service and defence contracts. It already works closely with NHS England by providing software that processes data for a variety of purposes including take-up of Covid-19 vaccines and managing the post-pandemic bounce back in elective care (surgery or treatment booked in advance). » | Dan Milmo, Global technology editor | Tuesday, January 21, 2022

Palantir, the all-seeing US tech company, could soon have the data of millions of NHS patients. My response? Yikes!: You might never have heard of tech billionaire Peter Thiel’s CIA-backed analytics company. But it could know all about you if it wins a contract to manage NHS data »

This is troubling news indeed! I don’t want any company owned by this Trump-supporting ideologue to have any access to my NHS data. Thank you, but no thank you! In any case, he has got crackpot ideas on ageing. You can check out some of his ideas on YouTube. Here’s a link to one interview. It doesn’t look to me as though he is “winning the fight”!

That BoJo is considering giving this man and his company access to all this sensitive data in the NHS shows the need to kick BoJo out of office with dispatch.

This is another Brexit bonus, I guess. One can see it on the horizon in the sunny uplands yonder. – © Mark Alexander

Er investiert in eine neue Generation von Trumpisten

Beeindruckt vom ehemaligen Präsidenten Trump: Peter Thiel auf einer Wahlveranstaltung des republikanischen Kandidaten 2016 | Bild: AP
MILLIARDÄR PETER THIEL
FRANKFURTER ALLGEMEINE ZEITUNG: Peter Thiel setzt darauf, dass der politische Stil des ehemaligen Präsidenten eine Zukunft hat. Der Investor ist anders als Trump. Aber nicht weniger gefährlich.

Ende 2020 sah Peter Thiel die Zeit gekommen, sein Portfolio zu erweitern. Der Investor zockte nicht mehr nur mit innovativen Technologien, sondern setzte sein Geld auf etwas anderes: eine neue Generation von Trumpisten. Thiel folgt dabei den Regeln, die er selbst aufgestellt hat. Er identifiziert Wachstumsmärkte und disruptive Geschäftsmodelle. Nur die Größenordnung veränderte sich. Es geht nicht mehr allein darum, den Markt zu beherrschen, sondern um die Macht in der Republikanischen Partei. Thiel will, was Donald Trump versagt blieb: Er möchte den politischen Kurs Amerikas nachhaltig verändern.

„Unternehmen sind in gewisser Weise wie Staaten“, schreibt Thiel in seiner Start-up-Bibel „Zero to one“, von der noch die Rede sein wird. Fehlentscheidungen seien schwer zu korrigieren, womöglich erst nach einer Krise oder Pleite. Für jeden Gründer sei es am wichtigsten, welche Partner er sich aussuche. Thiel hat dafür ein Händchen. 1999, während des Dotcom-Booms, gründete er den Onlinebezahldienst Paypal – mit Leuten, die heute im Silicon Valley als „Paypal Mafia“ bekannt sind: unter ihnen Elon Musk, der später Space X und Tesla gründete; der Kopf hinter Linked-In gehörte ebenfalls dazu, die drei Youtube-Gründer auch. » | Von Majid Sattar, Politischer Korrespondent für Nordamerika mit Sitz in Washington | Freitag, 15. April 2022

Um weiterzulesen, muß man abonniert sein. Hier finden Sie die aktuellen Sonderangebote der Frankfurter Allgemeinen Zeitung.

Peter Thiel verlässt Facebook – für Trump

Der deutschstämmige Investor Peter Thiel | Bild: AP
DEUTSCHSTÄMMIGER INVESTOR
FRANKFURTER ALLGEMEINE ZEITUNG: Peter Thiel hat eine prägende Rolle in der Geschichte von Facebook gespielt. Nun will sich der Investor noch stärker in die Politik einmischen – und Donald Trumps Agenda unterstützen.

Der deutschstämmige Investor Peter Thiel wird den Verwaltungsrat von Meta Platforms verlassen. Wie der Mutterkonzern des sozialen Netzwerks Facebook am Montag nach Börsenschluss mitteilte, will sich Thiel bei der kommenden Aktionärsversammlung nicht mehr zur Wiederwahl stellen. Vorstandschef Mark Zuckerberg gab keine direkte Begründung, sagte aber, es sei ihm immer klar gewesen, dass Thiel irgendwann „andere Interessen“ verfolgen wolle. » | Von Roland Lindner, New York | Dienstag, 8. Februar 2022

Inside Peter Thiel’s Shadowy Political Dealings | The Mehdi Hasan Show

Sep 24, 2021 • Peter Thiel is a tech billionaire with influence in both Silicon Valley and… far-right politics? Max Chafkin, who wrote the biography on the mogul, joins the show.

The Mehdi Hasan Show: Insightful reporting and probing interviews that examine the day's events and provide a deeper level of context for the politics of our interconnected society.

Rachel Maddow: RNC's Openly Gay Speaker Peter Thiel a 'Tough Nut' | MSNBC | 2016

Jul 22, 2016 • PayPal Co-Founder Peter Thiel said he was "proud to be gay" and a Republican on the RNC stage. Rachel Maddow, Eugene Robinson and Steve Schmidt discuss.