This $20 billion startup is reportedly cutting lavish perks as it tries to kill its employees' 'entitlement syndrome' ahead of a possible IPO

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Palantir Technologies — a Palo Alto, California-based analytics company last valued at $20 billion — seeks to reach profitability in 2019 and eyes a potential IPO in 2020.
To do so, the company will need to curb its culture of excessive spending, according to a Wall Street Journal report.
Reportedly called the “Palantir Entitlement Syndrome," its team has become accustomed to next-level corporate extravagance, like 13-course tasting-menu lunches.
The company is said to have begun cutting back on travel perks and reportedly fired employees for expensing off-the-wall purchases like lingerie.

Palantir — a Silicon Valley-based analytics company credited with helping the United States find Osama bin Laden — is trying to tamp down on its culture of corporate spending ahead of a 2020 IPO, according to a Wall Street Journal report on Monday.

Dubbed the “Palantir Entitlement Syndrome," Palantir employees have become accustomed to next-level corporate extravagance, like 13-course tasting-menu lunches at its headquarters complete with lobster tails and sashimi, according to the report.

When perks have been threatened by management in the past, employees have resisted en masse, according to the report. The Journal reports that a companywide debate broke out after artisanal bacon was nixed from the breakfast menu, in an incident known internally as "bacongate."

However, as Palantir, last valued at $20 billion, seeks to reach profitability in 2019 and eyes a potential public offering in 2020, the 14-year-old company has reportedly begun reeling in some of its spending.

According to the Journal, Palantir has started letting go of some of its office space and slowed its hiring of engineers. At the same time, those lavish perks have apparently come under scrutiny — two employees were fired after expensing lingerie and suits, the Journal reports, citing people familiar with the incident. Similarly, last-minute international-business-class travel is no longer an acceptable expense.

Read the full Wall Street Journal report here.

Palantir did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment.

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