Why Booz Allen and Palantir’s partnership is a ‘smart play’

The recent collaboration between defense technology companies Booz Allen Hamilton and Palantir Technologies is a promising development for an ongoing challenge faced by the Department of Defense: scaling.

In December, Booz Allen Hamilton (BAH) and Palantir Technolgies Inc. (PLTR) announced a partnership to “accelerate defense mission innovation”, leading Booz Allen’s stock to rise 6%.

That news is revisited on a new episode of Yahoo Finance’s Warrior Money, hosted by former Congressman and 32nd Under Secretary of the Army Patrick Murphy and enterprise technology investor Dan Kunze.

For Kunze, the partnership is notable for the two companies’ stated emphasis on delivering quickly and at scale—a pressing need for the Department of Defense. He notes the DOD typically presents a challenge not only for “how fast they need things, but [also] at what size and complexity they need it, too.”

Those needs include “interoperability, artificial intelligence, cyber—all the things that we really care about,” says Kunze. “You need a service partner, a strategic partner, to be able to deliver that at scale and execute against the mission. So it’s a smart play.”

“To see these two private companies partnering with the government definitely gives our warfighters a technical and tactical advantage of our enemies,” Murphy adds.

The partnership is also, as Murphy and Kunze suggest, something of an inevitability.

“When I see Palantir partner with Booz Allen, you’re starting to see an alternative defense tech company… partner with a more traditional defense integrator to be able to deliver this sort of stuff at complexity and scale,” explains Kunze. “We talk about alternative versus traditional defense contracting, [but] at some point in time, even the most alternative organizations have to start to deliver at scale.”

Hosted by former Congressman Patrick Murphy and veteran investor Dan Kunze, Yahoo Finance’s Warrior Money is a weekly vodcast dedicated to uplifting military veterans transitioning into civilian life. Through insights from fellow veterans and high-ranking government officials, Murphy and Kunze are helping set vets up for success through financial education and inspiration.

This post was written by Nick Riccardo.