Palantir Touts Government Work While Lambasting Tech Peers

Palantir Technologies Inc. spent the past decade trying to shed its image as a tool of the U.S. government and sell its data-mining software to businesses. But in its pitch to institutional investors ahead of a public stock debut, the company will return to its roots.

A prospectus published Tuesday to list Palantir shares on the New York Stock Exchange opened with a letter from Alex Karp, the chief executive officer who started the company with billionaire Peter Thiel. Passages from Karp’s missive read like they were taken from the script of a USO tour. It opens with comments about “our welfare ...