Short answers, pulled from the story.
Palantir Technologies was founded in 2003 by Peter Thiel, Stephen Cohen, Joe Lonsdale, Alex Karp, and Nathan Gettings. The company was created to apply fraud detection logic from PayPal to national security challenges.
Peter Thiel chose the name Palantir from the seeing stones in J.R.R. Tolkien's legendarium to symbolize the ability to see what is hidden and connect disparate pieces of information. The early office locations were named after places in Tolkien's world including The Shire in Palo Alto and Rivendell in McLean.
Palantir Technologies went public on the 30th of September 2020 through a direct public offering on the New York Stock Exchange. The company traded under the ticker symbol PLTR after filing for an IPO in July 2020.
In-Q-Tel a venture capital corporation associated with the CIA invested £1.3 million in Palantir Technologies to help the company connect with prospective users. This early funding allowed the company to develop its technology without the pressure of short-term financial returns.
Palantir Technologies supported the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board by integrating transactional data with open-source and private data sets to screen entities receiving stimulus funds. Vice President Joe Biden credited the company with helping to fight fraud in the stimulus program during a press conference at the White House in 2010.