Buffett Brain · Research note
Score updated 22 Oct 2026 · analysis from 1 Jun 2026
PLTR· Technology
Palantir Technologies
Palantir is a genuinely fine software business priced like a lottery ticket, with a P/E near 150 daring you to pay 231 times operating profit.
Buffett fit
Weak fit
Owner
50
Durability
62
Management
75
Price
0
Score updated 22 Oct 2026 · analysis from 1 Jun 2026
Buffett's checklist
Each number against Buffett's bar, and where it ranks among Technology stocks in our database.
How much profit the business makes on each dollar invested in it. Higher is better.
What is left of each sale after the cost of making the product. A high number often means pricing power.
The cash the business earns for its owners, compared with the price of the whole company.
How fast sales grew each year over the last five years.
How many years of today's profit you pay for at today's price. Lower means cheaper.
How much the company owes compared with what it owns outright. Lower is safer.
The four pillars
How the business measures up on each of Buffett's four tests.
If I owned all of Palantir at this price, I would be handing over the better part of $150 for every dollar of annual earnings the company makes today.
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Durability scores a middling 62, and I understand why. The 84.1% and the stickiness of deeply embedded data platforms argue for staying power, since ripping out Palantir once it is wired into operations is genuinely painful.
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Management earns a 75, the brightest spot in the file, and it is deserved on the balance sheet: is a trivial 0.025, net debt is negative at roughly negative 1.03 times EBITDA, and runs at 1.29 times net income, so the reported profits are real cash.
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There is none, and I will not pretend otherwise. A valuation score of 0 is the engine shouting that this stock is expensive, and the inputs back it: a near 150, an EV to operating profit of 231, and an owner-earnings yield of 0.64%.
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- The full reasoning behind all four pillars
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For and against
The strongest points on each side, with the numbers behind them.
In its favor
7- 1Software-class of 84.1%, the mark of a business that scales with little incremental cost.
- 2Strong 38.1% shows the model now drops a healthy share of revenue to operating profit.
- 3Revenue still at roughly 30.5% a year, rare growth for a company of this size.
- 4A fortress balance sheet with of just 0.025 and net debt negative at about negative 1.03 times EBITDA.
Concerns
7- 1Valuation is extreme: a near 150, an EV to operating profit of 231, and an earnings yield of just 0.66%, which is why the valuation score is 0.
- 2Owner-earnings yield of only 0.64% means an owner is paid almost nothing relative to the price.
- 3Five-year of just 0.43% reveals durable profitability is a recent development, not a long record.
- 4Share count is still rising about 5.4% a year, diluting existing owners over time.
Price history
$196+658.1%· 5-year return
Weekly closing prices. Touch or hover the line for a date.
The business
How the business works
Palantir sells data integration and analytics platforms, Gotham to governments and Foundry to enterprises, on multi-year contracts that lean toward subscription. The economics are excellent on the surface: an 84.1% and a 38.1% mean the software scales beautifully, and revenue is still at roughly 30.5% a year. The trouble is never the business quality here, it is the price the market has stapled to it.
How this analysis has moved
The call has held across 5 reviews.
Sep 27, 2026 → Oct 22, 2026
What other investors would say
The same company, judged by three other documented playbooks.
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