Show Notes
In the aftermath of 9/11, the problem wasn't just intelligence failure; it was information stuck in silos. The FBI and CIA had pieces of the puzzle, but no shared picture. Enter Palantir: a company built on the premise that data, if stitched together properly, could surface threats before they metastasise. Co-founded by Peter Thiel and Alex Karp, Palantir's early pitch was deceptively simple: give analysts the ability to see connections across messy datasets without compromising privacy. The arrival of large language models has supercharged what Palantir was already doing: ingesting, structuring, and interrogating enormous amounts of information. The result is a shift from finding needles in haystacks to, arguably, predicting where the needles will land. It's powerful, unsettling, and very on-brand for a company named after an all-seeing stone from Lord of the Rings. Follow If You're Listening on the ABC Listen app. Check out our series on YouTube:https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDTPrMoGHssAfgMMS3L5LpLNFMNp1U_Nq
More from If You're Listening
Donald Trump recently said that if his treasury secretary can’t get bond yields down, the next move might be the military. It sounds absurd, but the US bond market is the quiet foundation underneath almost every price in the global economy, from your mortgage to a company’s loan. When investors lose faith in a government’s ability to manage its money, as happened under the UK’s Liz Truss in 2022, bond yields spike, and borrowing gets more expensive for everyone, instantly. Trump’s tariffs, his war in Iran and his promised $5,000 dividend cheques have investors nervous all over again, and bond yields are climbing. Unlike Liz Truss, Trump has nobody above him to sack him over it. So who actually pays when the bond market loses faith in Donald Trump? Follow If You're Listening on the ABC Listen app. Check out our series on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDTPrMoGHssAfgMMS3L5LpLNFMNp1U_Nq
Before we knew about El Niño, La Niña and the other patterns scientists now use to make long-range weather forecasts, there were men like Inigo Jones, whose prediction methods owed more to astronomy than to meteorology. Farmers, construction companies and brides-to-be all turned to these unorthodox weathermen, who charted the cycles of the planets and the spots on the surface of the sun. Today, producer Jess O’Callaghan tells Matt about the wild west of weather forecasting, before we really knew how to do it. Follow If You're Listening on the ABC Listen app. Check out our series on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDTPrMoGHssAfgMMS3L5LpLNFMNp1U_Nq
Toxic smoke haze is blanketing Malaysia, Singapore and the Philippines, after weeks of fires in Indonesia. In central Chile, flash flooding has trapped people on their roofs, and already Australia’s spring is unusually hot. Scientists have confirmed it’s an El Niño year, and it’s expected to be one of the worst on record, tipping the odds for these extreme weather events. But we haven’t always had this warning — in 1982 there was a whole heap of apocalyptic weather, and no unifying theory to bring it all together. That “super El Niño” would totally change how we think about forecasting the weather. Now climate change threatens to send us back to the 1980s. Follow If You're Listening on the ABC Listen app. Check out our series on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDTPrMoGHssAfgMMS3L5LpLNFMNp1U_Nq
Over recent decades, Hezbollah has become deeply embedded in southern Lebanon. It runs everything from hospitals and schools to infrastructure projects, and even has its own theme park. Naturally, when an email landed in our inbox from listener Alex who’s actually been to that theme park, we wanted to know every detail. So Matt gave him a call. Follow If You're Listening on the ABC Listen app. Check out our series on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDTPrMoGHssAfgMMS3L5LpLNFMNp1U_Nq
A hot mic caught Putin telling Xi that organ transplants could bring immortality. It's not just talk, and it's not new either: Russian leaders have spent nearly a century chasing eternal life, with some genuinely bizarre results. Follow If You're Listening on the ABC Listen app. Check out our series on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDTPrMoGHssAfgMMS3L5LpLNFMNp1U_Nq