Platform teams need different validation cycles

As a platform PM, your psychology has to really change around validation. The cycles are five to ten times longer. You're not designing the end user's experience - you're designing a canvas for developers to build their own creative ideas on.

Why don't you figure out what the scalable solution is for this? We will build you a product. You won't need to come ask us every time to build something. And then you'll know the parameters in which you can negotiate.

Palantir's approach contrasts with typical enterprise software companies that try to fit existing products to customer needs rather than building new solutions.

The really radical thing Palantir said was, 'No. Go in and if you need a completely new product to do this, you can go ahead and build it.'

Engineering fundamentals in a lot of ways are the contracts that differentiate an R&D team from an operational product team. Bringing that fundamentals process into it is going to feel candidly a little bit unnatural to the researchers.