（ 「行使ウィンドウ」 ） 当社の株価が一定の閾値に達した場合。タイムベスト SAR は、 $間の行使価格です。39–$70 $間の最大評価値60–$180.
当社は、次の仮定を用いて、行使価格におけるストライク価格を持つ SAR と最大評価価格を持つ SAR の間の公正価値の差額として計算されたブラック · ショールズオプション価格モデルを用いて、タイムベスト SAR の付与日の公正価値を決定しました。
9か月で終わる 2024年9月30日
予想ボラティリティ率
55.0% - 59.2%
予想期限(年単位)
3.7 - 9.2
リスクフリー金利
3.4% - 3.7%
期待配当収益率
—%
予想されるボラティリティ率は、当社の暗黙のボラティリティと過去のボラティリティ、および同等の上場会社の過去のボラティリティの組み合わせに基づいています。期待期間は、 SAR が未払いと予想される期間を表します。リスクフリー金利は、 SAR の予想期間に対応する期間において、補助金付与時点で有効な米国財務省ゼロクーポン発行に基づいています。当社は、普通株式の配当を支払ったことがないため、予想配当利回りはゼロです。
2024 年 9 月 30 日に終了した 3 ヶ月間と 9 ヶ月間については、 48.0 当該 SAR の行使価格が当該期間のクラス A 普通株式の平均市場価格を上回っていたため、希釈純株当たり利益の計算からクラス A 普通株式の株式で決済することができる 100 万 SAR 。潜在的に希釈されるクラス A 普通株式の最大数は、その時点における当社のクラス A 普通株式価格で割られた最大増益額に等しい分数です。
10 年以上にわたり、ゴッサムは世界の防衛機関、諜報機関、災害救援機関などに洞察力を得てきた。ファウンドリーは、個々の機関だけでなく、業界全体の中央オペレーティングシステムになりつつあります。2021 年に商用ソリューションとして提供を開始した Apollo は、クラウドに依存しない単一の制御層で、新機能、セキュリティアップデート、プラットフォーム構成の継続的な提供を調整し、重要なシステムの継続的な運用を確保するのに役立ちます。アポロは、お客様が事実上あらゆる環境でソフトウェアを実行できるようにします。
2023 年には、既存のソフトウェアプラットフォームと LLM を含むジェネレーティブ AI モデルを組み合わせることで、最近の人工知能のブレークスルーから価値を引き出すことができる、商業および政府部門のお客様向けに設計された最新の製品である AIP の展開を開始しました。AIP は、ユーザーが LLM やその他の AI をデータやオペレーションと接続し、必要とする法的、倫理的、セキュリティ上の制約の中で意思決定を容易にするユニークな機能だと考えています。
当社の Palantir Cloud サブスクリプションは、お客様に Palantir が管理するホストされた環境でソフトウェア機能にアクセスする権利を与え、以下に説明するように、スタンダード対応の O & M サービスとともに販売されます。当社は、契約期間中、当社のホスティングソフトウェアへの継続的なアクセスを提供することに同意します。Palantir Cloud サブスクリプションに関連する収益は、 Palantir サービスの管理権の顧客への移転と整合的に、一般的に契約期間中に配分可能なベースで認識されます。
オンプレミスソフトウェア
当社のソフトウェアサブスクリプションの販売により、お客様は、契約期間中、社内ハードウェアインフラストラクチャまたは独自のクラウドインスタンスのいずれかで機能的知的財産を使用する権利を与え、また、スタンダード対応の O & M サービスと併せて販売されます。O & M サービスには、ソフトウェアの運用に必要な重要なアップデートおよびサポートおよびメンテナンスサービスが含まれます。したがって、ソフトウェアが契約期間中に意図されたユーティリティを維持するために必要です。この要件により、当社は、ソフトウェアのサブスクリプションと O & M サービス （ 当社がオンプレミスソフトウェアと呼ぶ ） は、高度に相互依存し、相互に関連しており、契約の文脈において単一の明確な履行義務を表していると結論付けました。収益は一般的に、契約期間中に配分可能な基準で認識されます。
当社の研究開発は、新しいプラットフォーム、機能、モジュールの追加、機能の強化、プラットフォームのユーザビリティの向上など、当社の製品の開発と洗練を継続することを目的としています。研究開発費用には、主に当社のプラットフォームや製品の開発 · 改良活動に従事する人材の給与、株式報酬費用、手当、サードパーティのクラウドホスティングサービスおよびその他の IT 関連費用、旅費、配分間接費が含まれます。研究開発費用は発生したまま支出されます。
当社のクラス A 普通株式への投資は、高いリスクを伴います。クラス A 普通株式への投資を決定する前に、以下に記載されているリスクと不確実性、およびフォーム 10—Q に記載されている「経営陣の財務状況および営業結果に関する検討および分析」および連結財務諸表および付属注釈を含む、四半期報告書の他のすべての情報とともに、慎重に検討する必要があります。また、当社の事業、財務状況、業績または見通しは、現在知られていない、または現在重要ではないと考えられているリスクや不確実性によって損なわれる可能性があります。これらのリスクが実際に発生した場合、当社の事業、財務状況、業績および見通しに悪影響を及ぼす可能性があります。その場合、当社クラス A 普通株式の取引価格が下落し、投資の一部または全部を失う可能性があります。
リスク要因の概要
当社の事業には、クラス A 普通株式に投資する前に考慮すべき多くのリスクと不確実性があります。これらのリスクは、以下に詳しく説明されており、以下に関連するリスクを含みますが、これらに限定されません。
当社のプラットフォームとサービスは複雑で、幅広いネットワーク環境に展開されています。当社のプラットフォームの実装は、お客様の固有の環境に合わせて既存のプラットフォームを構成することが多いため、複雑で長いプロセスになります。お客様の固有のニーズを満たすことができない場合、お客様の不満や当社の評判が損なわれ、当社の事業に重大な損害を与える可能性があります。さらに、当社のプラットフォームの適切な使用には、お客様のトレーニング、当社の技術スタッフの初期または継続的なサービス、および契約期間中の O & M サービスが必要となる場合があります。トレーニングおよび継続的なサービスに当初の見積もりよりも多くの支出が必要な場合、当社のマージンは予測よりも低くなります。
当社の成功は、タイムリーに新しい割り当てに人材を移行する能力を含め、お客様にサービスを提供するためのスキルと経験を適切な組み合わせた人材を効果的に調達し、スタッフを配置する能力にかかっています。お客様のニーズを満たすためにタイムリーに人材を有効活用できなければ、事業が損なわれることがあります。さらに、 if
当社のプラットフォームが導入され、お客様の既存の情報技術投資およびデータと統合されると、お客様は当社のプラットフォームに関するあらゆる問題の解決のために当社の O & M サービスに依存します。当社のプラットフォームは、大規模で複雑なテクノロジー環境にますます展開されており、将来の成功は、そのような展開で使用するための当社のプラットフォームの販売を増やす能力に依存すると考えています。さらに、効果的な継続的なサービスを提供する能力、またはそのようなサービスをタイムリー、効率的、またはスケーラブルな方法で提供する能力は、お客様の環境、当社のプラットフォームの最新バージョンへのアップグレード、および当社の集中型プラットフォーム管理およびサービスへの参加に一部依存する場合があります。
当社は、契約期間中に当社のプラットフォームおよび O & M サービスによる収益のかなりの部分を認識しているため、新規売上高および更新の減少または増加は、当社の業績に直ちに反映されない場合があります。
当社は、一般的に、契約期間中に当社のプラットフォームおよび O & M サービスからの収益を認識します。その結果、各四半期に認識される収益の一部は、前期に締結された顧客契約に由来しています。その結果、 1 つの四半期における新規契約または更新契約の減少は、その四半期の認識収益に重大な影響を与える可能性があります。しかし、このような減少は、今後の四半期の収益に悪影響を及ぼします。したがって、売上高や更新の大幅な減少、顧客の大幅な解雇、契約条件や価格方針の変更の可能性の影響は、将来期間まで営業結果に十分に反映されることはありません。また、収益認識モデルのタイミングにより、収益は一般的に適用される契約期間中に認識されるため、特定の期間における追加売上を通じて収益を急速に増加させることが困難です。
If the market for our platforms and services develops more slowly than we expect, our growth may slow or stall, and our business, financial condition, and results of operations could be harmed.
The market for our platforms is rapidly evolving. Our future success will depend in large part on the growth and expansion of this market, which is difficult to predict and relies on a number of factors, including customer adoption, customer demand, changing customer needs, the entry of competitive products, the success of existing competitive products, potential customers’ willingness to adopt an alternative approach to data collection, storage, and processing and their willingness to invest in new software after significant prior investments in legacy data collection, storage, and processing software. The estimates and assumptions that are used to calculate our market opportunity are subject to change over time, and there is no guarantee that any particular number or percentage of the organizations covered by our market opportunity estimates will pay for our platforms and services at all or generate any particular level of revenue for us. Even if the market in which we compete meets the size estimates and growth forecasts, our business could fail to grow at the levels we expect or at all for a variety of reasons outside our control, including competition in our industry. Further, if we or other data management and analytics providers experience security breaches or incidents, loss, corruption, or unavailability of or unauthorized access to customer data, disruptions in delivery, or other problems, this market as a whole, including our platforms, may be negatively affected. If software for the challenges that we address does not achieve widespread adoption, or there is a reduction in demand caused by a lack of customer acceptance, technological challenges, weakening economic conditions (including due to the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict and related economic sanctions, heightened interest rates, or monetary policy changes), security or privacy concerns, competing technologies and products, decreases in corporate spending, or otherwise, or, alternatively, if the market develops but we are unable to continue to penetrate it due to the cost, performance, and perceived value associated with our platforms, or other factors, it could result in decreased revenue and our business, financial condition, and results of operations could be adversely affected.
•exposure to litigation or other claims in connection with, or inheritance of claims or litigation risk as a result of, the transaction, including but not limited to claims from former employees, customers, or other third parties, which may differ from or be more significant than the risks our business faces;
•potential goodwill impairment charges related to acquisitions;
•we may encounter difficulties in, or may be unable to, successfully sell any acquired products;
•the transaction may involve the entry into geographic or business markets in which we have little or no prior experience or where competitors have stronger market positions;
•an acquisition may require us to comply with additional laws and regulations, or to engage in substantial remediation efforts to cause the acquired company to comply with applicable laws or regulations, or result in liabilities resulting from the acquired company’s failure to comply with applicable laws or regulations;
•our use of cash to pay for the transaction would limit other potential uses for our cash;
•if we incur debt to fund such a transaction, such debt may subject us to material restrictions on our ability to conduct our business as well as financial maintenance covenants; and
•to the extent that we issue a significant amount of equity securities in connection with such transactions, existing stockholders may be diluted and earnings per share may decrease.
We have accepted, and may continue to accept, securities as noncash consideration or invest in securities, including but not limited to in connection with customer contracts, partnerships, or strategic investments. For example, we have made and may continue to make strategic investments pursuant to certain approved agreements (“Investment Agreements”) to purchase, or commit to purchase, shares of various entities, including special purpose acquisition companies and/or other privately-held or publicly-traded entities (each, an “Investee,” and such purchases, the “Investments”); however, we do not currently anticipate entering into new Investment Agreements to purchase, or commit to purchase, securities of special purpose acquisition companies. Our ability to sell or transfer, or realize value from noncash consideration and our investments may be limited by applicable securities laws and regulations, including the requirement that offers or sales of securities must be registered with the SEC pursuant to applicable laws or qualify for an exemption from such registration, and our ability to liquidate and realize value from our equity securities may be negatively and materially impacted by any delays or limitations on our ability to offer, sell, or transfer such equity securities. In addition, certain of our equity securities are speculative in nature and may be volatile or decline in value or be entirely lost. We have realized, and may continue to realize, losses related to these equity securities, which could have a negative impact on our future financial position, results of operations, earnings per share, and cash flows.
Additionally, in connection with approving and signing the Investment Agreements, we and each Investee or an associated entity entered into a commercial contract for access to our products and services (collectively, the “Strategic Commercial Contracts”). The total value of Strategic Commercial Contracts, which is calculated as the sum of the cumulative revenue recognized from Strategic Commercial Contracts and the remaining deal value of such contracts, was $376.7 million, inclusive of $40.4 million of contractual options, as of September 30, 2024. Strategic Commercial Contracts with remaining deal value as of September 30, 2024 have original contract terms, including contractual options, of five and seven years and are subject to termination for cause provisions. When determining the total value of these Strategic Commercial Contracts, we assess customers’ financial condition, including the consideration of their ability and intention to pay, and whether all or some portion of the value of the contracts continue to meet the criteria for revenue recognition, among other factors. Certain companies with which we have entered into commercial contracts have been, and may continue to be, unable to generate sufficient revenues or profitability or to access any necessary financing or funding in a timely manner or on favorable terms to them, which has negatively impacted, and may continue to negatively impact, our expected revenue and collections. These companies are generally engaged in businesses that involve novel and unproven technologies, products, and services and such companies have been, and may continue to be, unable to perform all or some of their obligations under any commercial contracts that we enter into with them in a timely manner or at all. For example, some of our early-stage Investee customers filed for bankruptcy or terminated their contracts with us, and the remaining value of the commercial contracts with such customers that is not expected to be recognized as revenue has been excluded from the total value of Strategic Commercial Contracts above. As of September 30, 2024, the cumulative amount of revenue recognized from Strategic Commercial Contracts was $296.6 million, of which $42.7 million was recognized by us during the nine months ended September 30, 2024.
The occurrence of any of these risks could have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations, and financial condition. Moreover, we cannot assure you that we would not be exposed to unknown liabilities.
Risks Related to Intellectual Property, Information Technology, Data Privacy, and Security
If any of the systems of any third parties upon which we rely, our customers’ systems, locations, or environments, or our internal systems, are breached or if unauthorized access to customer, third-party, or our data is otherwise obtained, public perception of our platforms and O&M services may be harmed, and we may lose business and incur losses or liabilities.
Our success depends in part on our ability to provide effective data security protection in connection with our technology platforms and services, and we rely on information technology networks and systems to securely store, transmit, index, and otherwise process electronic information. Because our platforms and services are used by our customers to store, transmit, index, or otherwise process and analyze large data sets that often contain proprietary, confidential, and/or sensitive information (including in some instances personal or identifying information, personal health information, government classified information, and other information subject to regulatory or statutory control or requirements), our software is perceived as an attractive target for attacks by computer hackers or others seeking unauthorized access, and our software faces threats of unintended exposure, exfiltration, alteration, deletion, loss, or unavailability of data. Additionally, because many of our customers use our platforms to store, transmit, and otherwise process proprietary, confidential, or sensitive information, and complete mission critical tasks, they have a lower risk tolerance for security vulnerabilities in our platforms and services than for vulnerabilities in other, less critical, software products and services.
Our platforms and services operate in conjunction with, and we are dependent upon, third-party products and components across a broad ecosystem, including our customer environments. There have been and may continue to be significant attacks on certain third-party providers, and we cannot guarantee that our or any third-party providers’ systems, networks, products or
サイバー攻撃は、 AI が生成したソースコードからの悪意のあるコードなど、当社または第三者が AI ツールの出力を組み込んだ結果である可能性があります。
当社のテクノロジーとビジネスプラクティスは、これらのリスクを軽減するように設計されています。例えば、当社のプラットフォームには、データセットへのユーザーのアクセスを規制および制限し、より効果的で責任ある AI 機能を開発、展開、管理するのに役立つデータガバナンスツールと機械学習モデリングツールが含まれています。ただし、これらの管理がお客様によって、またはお客様のために適切に実施されていない場合、または人権、プライバシー、雇用、その他の社会問題への影響が疑われるまたは実際の影響のために論争や問題のある AI ソリューションを有効または提供する場合、ブランドや評判の害、規制または法的精査を受ける可能性があります。
当社は、一部のお客様をサポートするために、 Amazon Web Services （ 以下「 AWS 」 ） 、 Microsoft 、およびその他の第三者が運営するコンピューティングインフラストラクチャに依存しており、お客様または当社の運用インフラストラクチャにおけるエラー、中断、パフォーマンス上の問題、または障害は、当社の事業、財務状況、および事業結果に悪影響を及ぼす可能性があります。
Furthermore, our platforms are in many cases important or essential to our customers’ operations, including in some cases, their cybersecurity or oversight and compliance programs, and subject to service level agreements (“SLAs”). Any interruption in our service, whether as a result of an internal or third-party issue, could damage our brand and reputation, cause our customers to terminate or not renew their contracts with us or decrease use of our platforms and services, require us to indemnify our customers against certain losses, result in our issuing credit or paying penalties or fines, subject us to other losses or liabilities, cause our platforms to be perceived as unreliable or unsecure, and prevent us from gaining new or additional business from current or future customers, any of which could harm our business, financial condition, and results of operations.
Moreover, to the extent that we do not effectively address capacity constraints, upgrade our systems as needed, and continually develop our technology and network architecture to accommodate actual and anticipated changes in technology, our business, financial condition, and results of operations could be adversely affected. The provisioning of additional cloud hosting capacity or upgrading technology, infrastructure, and software applications each require lead time and resources. AWS, Microsoft Azure, and other third parties have no obligation to renew their agreements with us on commercially reasonable terms, or at all. In addition, if we fail to meet the minimum usage commitments we have in place with third-party cloud hosting providers, we may be required to pay certain penalties or fees, including the difference between the minimum usage commitments and our actual usage, which could negatively affect our financial condition and results of operations. If AWS, Microsoft Azure, or other third parties increase pricing terms, terminate or seek to terminate our contractual relationship, establish more favorable relationships with our competitors, change or interpret their terms of service or policies in a manner that is unfavorable to us, or fall out of favor with our customers who use our cloud-based services, we may be required to transfer to other cloud providers or invest in a private cloud. If we are required to transfer to other cloud providers or invest in a private cloud, we could incur significant costs and experience possible service interruption in connection with doing so, or risk loss of customer contracts if they are unwilling to accept such a change.
A failure to maintain our relationships with our third-party providers (or obtain adequate replacements), and to receive services from such providers that do not contain any material errors or defects, could adversely affect our ability to deliver effective products and solutions to our customers and adversely affect our business and results of operations.
Our policies regarding customer confidential information and support for individual privacy and civil liberties could cause us to experience adverse business and reputational consequences.
We strive to protect our customers’ confidential information and individuals’ privacy interests consistent with applicable laws, directives, and regulations. Consequently, we do not provide information about our customers to third parties without legal process. From time to time, government entities may seek our assistance with obtaining information about our customers or could request that we modify our technology platforms in a manner to permit access or monitoring. In light of our confidentiality and privacy commitments, we may legally challenge law enforcement or other government requests to provide information, to obtain encryption keys, or to modify or weaken encryption. To the extent that we do not provide assistance to or comply with requests from government entities, or if we challenge those requests publicly or in court, we may experience adverse political, business, and reputational consequences among certain customers or portions of the public. Conversely, to the extent that we do provide such assistance, or do not challenge those requests publicly in court, we may experience adverse political, business, and reputational consequences from other customers or portions of the public arising from concerns over privacy or the government’s activities.
Failure to adequately obtain, maintain, protect and enforce our intellectual property and other proprietary rights could adversely affect our business.
Our success and ability to compete depends in part on our ability to protect proprietary methods and technologies that we develop under a combination of patent and other intellectual property and proprietary rights in the United States and other jurisdictions outside the United States so that we can prevent others from using our inventions and proprietary information and technology. Despite our efforts, third parties may attempt to disclose, obtain, copy, or use our intellectual property or other proprietary information or technology without our authorization, and our efforts to protect our intellectual property and other proprietary rights may not prevent such unauthorized disclosure or use, misappropriation, infringement, reverse engineering or other violation of our intellectual property or other proprietary rights. Effective protection of our rights may not be available to us in every country in which our technology platforms or services are available. The laws of some countries may not be as protective of intellectual property and other proprietary rights as those in the United States, and mechanisms for enforcement of intellectual property and other proprietary rights may be inadequate. Also, our involvement in standard setting activity or the need to obtain licenses from others may require us to license our intellectual property. Accordingly, despite our efforts, we may be unable to prevent third parties from using our intellectual property or other proprietary information or technology.
In addition, we may be the subject of intellectual property infringement or misappropriation claims, which could be very time-consuming and expensive to settle or litigate and could divert our management’s attention and other resources. These claims could also subject us to significant liability for damages if we are found to have infringed patents, copyrights, trademarks, or other intellectual property rights, or breached trademark co-existence agreements or other intellectual property licenses and could require us to cease using or to rebrand all or portions of our platforms. Any of our patents, copyrights, trademarks, or other intellectual property rights may be challenged by others or invalidated through administrative process or litigation.
While we have issued patents and patent applications pending, we may be unable to obtain patent protection for the technology covered in our patent applications or such patent protection may not be obtained quickly enough to meet our business needs. Furthermore, the patent prosecution process is expensive, time-consuming, and complex, and we may not be able to prepare, file, prosecute, maintain, and enforce all necessary or desirable patent applications at a reasonable cost or in a timely manner. The scope of patent protection also can be reinterpreted after issuance and issued patents may be invalidated. Even if our patent
applications do issue as patents, they may not issue in a form that is sufficiently broad to protect our technology, prevent competitors or other third parties from competing with us or otherwise provide us with any competitive advantage. Even if our patents issue in a form that covers our technology, enforcing patents against suspected infringers is time consuming, expensive, and involves risks associated with litigation, including the risk the suspected infringers file counterclaims against us.
In addition, any of our patents, copyrights, trademarks, or other intellectual property or proprietary rights may be challenged, narrowed, invalidated, held unenforceable, or circumvented in litigation or other proceedings, including, where applicable, opposition, re-examination, inter partes review, post-grant review, interference, nullification and derivation proceedings, and equivalent proceedings in foreign jurisdictions, and such intellectual property or other proprietary rights may be lost or no longer provide us meaningful competitive advantages. Such proceedings may result in substantial cost and require significant time from our management, even if the eventual outcome is favorable to us. Third parties also may legitimately and independently develop products, services, and technology similar to or duplicative of our platforms. In addition to protection under intellectual property laws, we rely on confidentiality or license agreements that we generally enter into with our corporate partners, employees, consultants, advisors, vendors, and customers, and generally limit access to and distribution of our proprietary information. However, we cannot be certain that we have entered into such agreements with all parties who may have or have had access to our confidential information or that the agreements we have entered into will not be breached or challenged, or that such breaches will be detected. Furthermore, non-disclosure provisions can be difficult to enforce, and even if successfully enforced, may not be entirely effective. Additionally, as more information about us and our platforms is made or becomes publicly available, it may be more difficult to manage actions by third parties with respect to, or other use of, such information. We cannot guarantee that any of the measures we have taken will prevent infringement, misappropriation, or other violation of our technology or other intellectual property or proprietary rights. Because we may be an attractive target for cyberattacks, we also may have a heightened risk of unauthorized access to, and misappropriation of, our proprietary and competitively sensitive information. We may be required to spend significant resources to monitor and protect our intellectual property and other proprietary rights, and we may conclude that in at least some instances the benefits of protecting our intellectual property or other proprietary rights may be outweighed by the expense or distraction to our management. We may initiate claims or litigation against third parties for infringement, misappropriation, or other violation of our intellectual property or other proprietary rights or to establish the validity of our intellectual property or other proprietary rights. Any such litigation, whether or not it is resolved in our favor, could be time-consuming, result in significant expense to us and divert the efforts of our technical and management personnel. Furthermore, attempts to enforce our intellectual property rights against third parties could also provoke these third parties to assert their own intellectual property or other rights against us, or result in a holding that invalidates or narrows the scope of our rights, in whole or in part.
We have been, and may in the future be, subject to intellectual property rights claims, which are extremely costly to defend, could require us to pay significant damages and could limit our ability to use certain technologies.
Our success and ability to compete also depends in part on our ability to operate without infringing, misappropriating or otherwise violating the intellectual property or other proprietary rights of third parties. Companies in the software and technology industries, including some of our current and potential competitors, own large numbers of patents, copyrights, trademarks and trade secrets and frequently pursue litigation based on allegations of infringement, misappropriation or other violations of intellectual property rights. In addition, many of these companies have the capability to dedicate substantial resources to enforce their intellectual property rights and to defend claims that may be brought against them. Such litigation also may involve non-practicing patent assertion entities or companies who use their patents as a means to extract license fees by threatening costly litigation or that have minimal operations or relevant product revenue and against whom our patents may provide little or no deterrence or protection. We have received notices, and may continue to receive notices in the future, that claim we have infringed, misappropriated, misused or otherwise violated other parties’ intellectual property rights, and, to the extent we have made or will make more information about our platforms publicly available and become exposed to greater visibility, we face a higher risk of being the subject of intellectual property infringement, misappropriation or other violation claims, which is not uncommon with respect to software technologies in particular. There may be third-party intellectual property rights, including issued patents or pending patent applications, that cover significant aspects of our technologies, or business methods. There may also be third-party intellectual property rights, including trademark registrations and pending applications, that cover the goods and services that we offer in certain regions. We may also be exposed to increased risk of being the subject of intellectual property infringement, misappropriation, or other violation claims as a result of acquisitions and our incorporation of open source and other third-party software into, or new branding for, our technology platforms, as, among other things, we have a lower level of visibility into the development process with respect to such technology or the care taken to safeguard against infringement, misappropriation, or other violation risks. In addition, former employers of our current, former, or future employees may assert claims that such employees have improperly disclosed to us confidential or proprietary information of these former employers. Any intellectual property claims, with or without merit, are difficult to predict, could be very time-consuming and expensive to settle or litigate, could divert our management’s attention and other resources, and may not be covered by the insurance that we carry. These claims could subject us to significant liability for damages, potentially including treble damages if we are found to have willfully infringed a third party’s intellectual property rights. These claims could also result in our having to stop using technology, branding or marks found to be in violation of a third party’s rights and
any necessary rebranding could result in the loss of goodwill. We could be required to seek a license for the intellectual property, which may not be available on commercially reasonable terms or at all. Even if a license were available, we could be required to pay significant royalties, which would increase our expenses. As a result, we could be required to develop alternative non-infringing technology, branding or marks, which could require significant effort and expense. If we cannot license rights or develop technology for any infringing aspect of our business, we would be forced to limit or stop sales of one or more of our platforms or features, we could lose existing customers, and we may be unable to compete effectively. Any of these results would harm our business, financial condition, and results of operations.
Further, our agreements with customers and other third parties generally include indemnification provisions under which we agree to indemnify them for losses suffered or incurred as a result of third-party claims of intellectual property infringement, misappropriation, or other violations of intellectual property rights, damages caused by us to property or persons, or other liabilities relating to or arising from our platforms, services, or other contractual obligations. Large indemnity payments could harm our business, financial condition, and results of operations. Any dispute with a customer with respect to such obligations could have adverse effects on our relationship with that customer and other existing customers and new customers and harm our business and results of operations.
Real or perceived errors, failures, defects, or bugs in our platforms could adversely affect our results of operations and growth prospects.
Because we offer very complex technology platforms, various errors, defects, failures, or bugs have occurred and may in the future occur, especially when platforms, products, or capabilities are introduced, configured or reconfigured, or when upgrades, new versions or other product or infrastructure updates are deployed, installed, configured, or released. Our platforms are often installed and used in large-scale computing environments with different operating systems, software products and equipment, and data source and network configurations, which may cause errors or failures in our platforms or may expose undetected errors, failures, or bugs in our platforms. Despite our internal systems and processes, errors, failures, or bugs may not be found or may not be properly mitigated or remediated in configured, reconfigured, upgraded or new software or other releases until after commencement of commercial shipments. Errors, failures, defects, and bugs have affected the performance of our platforms and can also delay the development or release of new platforms, products, or capabilities or upgrades or new versions of platforms, adversely affect our reputation and our customers’ willingness to buy platforms from us, and adversely affect market acceptance or perception of our platforms. Many of our customers use our platforms in applications that are critical to their businesses or missions and may have a lower risk tolerance to errors, failures, defects, or bugs in our platforms than in other, less critical, software products. Any errors or delays in releasing new software or new versions of platforms, allegations of unsatisfactory performance, real or perceived errors, defects, or failures, such as data loss, or untimely or ineffective upgrades, patches, or other fixes to address errors, failures, defects, or bugs, could increase the risk of security vulnerabilities, cause us to lose revenue or market share, increase our service costs, cause us to incur substantial costs in redesigning the software, cause us to lose significant customers, cause us to issue credits or refunds, subject us to liability for damages and divert our resources from other tasks, any one of which could materially and adversely affect our business, results of operations and financial condition. In addition, our platforms could be perceived to be ineffective for a variety of reasons outside of our control. Hackers or other malicious parties could circumvent our or our customers’ security measures, and customers may misuse our platforms resulting in a security breach or perceived product failure.
Real or perceived errors, failures, or bugs in our platforms and services, or dissatisfaction with our services and outcomes, could result in customer terminations and/or claims by customers for losses sustained by them. In such an event, we may be required, or we have chosen, or in the future may choose, for customer relations or other reasons, to expend additional resources in order to help correct any such errors, failures, or bugs. Although we have limitation of liability provisions in our standard software licensing and service agreement terms and conditions, these provisions may not be enforceable in some circumstances, may vary in levels of protection across our agreements, or may not fully or effectively protect us from such claims and related liabilities and costs. We generally provide a warranty for our software products and services and an SLA for our performance of software operations. In the event that there is a failure of warranties in such agreements, we are generally obligated to correct the product or service to conform to the warranty provision, or, if we are unable to do so, the customer is entitled to seek a refund of the purchase price of the product and service (generally prorated over the contract term). In the event of a violation of an SLA, some customers may be entitled to seek a refund of a portion of the applicable monthly fee, with such portion determined by the magnitude of SLA violation, subject to a cap of a portion of total monthly fees, as applicable. The sale and support of our products also entail the risk of product liability claims. We maintain insurance to protect against certain claims associated with the use of our products, but our insurance coverage may not adequately cover any claim asserted against us. In addition, even claims that ultimately are unsuccessful could result in our expenditure of funds in litigation and divert management’s time and other resources.
In addition, our platforms integrate a wide variety of other elements, and our platforms must successfully interoperate with products from other vendors and our customers’ internally developed software. As a result, when problems occur for a customer using our platforms, it may be difficult to identify the sources of these problems, and we may receive blame for a security,
•compliance with multiple and changing foreign laws and regulations, including those governing employment, privacy, data protection, information security, data transfer, AI, and the risks and costs of non-compliance with such laws and regulations;
•new and different sources of competition not present in the United States;
•heightened risks of unfair or corrupt business practices in certain geographies and of improper or fraudulent sales arrangements that may cause us to withdraw from particular markets, or impact financial results and result in restatements of financial statements and irregularities in financial statements;
•volatility in non-U.S. political and economic environments, including by way of examples, the potential effects of the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict, as well as economic sanctions the United States and other countries have imposed on Russia, and the ongoing conflict resulting from Hamas’ attack on Israel;
•weaker protection of intellectual property rights in some countries and the risk of potential theft, copying, or other compromises of our technology, data, or intellectual property in connection with our non-U.S. operations, whether by state-sponsored malfeasance or other foreign entities or individuals;
•volatility and fluctuations in currency exchange rates, including that, because many of our non-U.S. contracts are denominated in U.S. dollars, an increase in the strength of the U.S. dollar in the past has made our products more expensive for non-U.S. dollar denominated customers, which may make doing business with us less appealing to such customers;
•management and employee communication and integration problems resulting from language differences, cultural differences, and geographic dispersion;
•difficulties in repatriating or transferring funds from, or converting currencies in, certain countries;
•potentially adverse tax consequences, including multiple and possibly overlapping tax regimes, the complexities of foreign value-added tax systems, and changes in tax laws;
•lack of familiarity with local laws, customs, and practices, and laws and business practices favoring local competitors or partners; and
•interruptions to our business operations and our customers’ business operations subject to events such as war, incidents of terrorism, natural disasters, public health concerns or epidemics (such as the COVID-19 pandemic), shortages or failures of power, internet, telecommunications, or hosting service providers, cyberattacks or malicious acts, or responses to these events.
The number and significance of our legal disputes and inquiries may increase as we continue to grow larger, as our business expands in employee headcount, scope, and geographic reach, and as our platforms and services become more complex. Additionally, if customers fail to pay us under the terms of our agreements, we may be adversely affected due to the cost of enforcing the terms of our contracts through litigation. Litigation or other proceedings can be expensive and time consuming and can divert our resources and leadership’s attention from our primary business operations. The results of our litigation also cannot be predicted with certainty. If we are unable to prevail in litigation, we could incur payments of substantial monetary damages or fines, or undesirable changes to our platforms or business practices, and accordingly, our business, financial condition, or results of operations could be materially and adversely affected. Furthermore, if we accrue a loss contingency for pending litigation and determine that it is probable, any disclosures, estimates, and reserves we reflect in our financial statements with regard to these matters may not reflect the ultimate disposition or financial impact of litigation or other such matters. These proceedings could also result in negative publicity, which could harm customer and public perception of our business, regardless of whether the allegations are valid or whether we are ultimately found liable. Additional information regarding certain of the lawsuits we are involved in is described further in Note 7. Commitments and Contingencies in our condensed consolidated financial statements included elsewhere in this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q.
Failure to comply with anti-bribery and anti-corruption laws could subject us to penalties and other adverse consequences.
As we operate and sell our platforms and services around the world, we are subject to the United States Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (“FCPA”), the U.K. Bribery Act, the U.S. domestic bribery statute contained in 18 U.S.C. § 201, the United States Travel Act, and other anti-corruption and anti-bribery laws and regulations in the jurisdictions in which we do business, both domestic and abroad. These laws and regulations generally prohibit improper payments or offers of improper payments to government officials, political parties, or commercial partners for the purpose of obtaining or retaining business or securing an improper business advantage.
We have operations, deal with and make sales to governmental or quasi-governmental entities in the United States and in non-U.S. countries, including those known to experience corruption, particularly certain emerging countries in East Asia, Eastern Europe, Africa, South America, and the Middle East, and further expansion of our non-U.S. sales efforts may involve additional regions.
Corruption issues pose a risk in every country and jurisdiction, but in many countries, particularly in countries with developing economies, it may be more common for businesses to engage in practices that are prohibited by the FCPA or other applicable laws and regulations, and our activities in these countries pose a heightened risk of unauthorized payments or offers of payments by one of our employees or third-party business partners, representatives, and agents that could be in violation of various laws including the FCPA. The FCPA, U.K. Bribery Act and other applicable anti-bribery and anti-corruption laws also may hold us liable for acts of corruption and bribery committed by our third-party business partners, representatives, and agents. We and our third-party business partners, representatives, and agents may have direct or indirect interactions with officials and employees of government agencies or state-owned or affiliated entities and we may be held liable for the corrupt or other illegal activities of our employees or such third parties even if we do not explicitly authorize such activities. The FCPA or other applicable laws and regulations also require that we keep accurate books and records and maintain internal controls and compliance procedures designed to prevent any such actions. While we have implemented policies and procedures to address compliance with such laws, we cannot ensure that our employees or other third parties working on our behalf will not engage in conduct in violation of our policies or applicable law for which we might ultimately be held responsible. Violations of the FCPA, the U.K. Bribery Act, and other laws may result in whistleblower complaints, adverse media coverage, investigations, imposition of significant legal fees, loss of export privileges, as well as severe criminal or civil sanctions, including suspension or debarment from U.S. government contracting, and we may be subject to other liabilities and adverse effects on our reputation, which could negatively affect our business, results of operations, financial condition, and growth prospects. In addition, responding to any enforcement action may result in a significant diversion of management’s attention and resources and significant defense costs and other professional fees. Our exposure for violating these laws increases as our non-U.S. presence expands and as we increase sales and operations in foreign jurisdictions.
Governmental trade controls, including export and import controls, sanctions, customs requirements, and related regimes, could subject us to liability or loss of contracting privileges or limit our ability to compete in certain markets.
Our offerings are subject to U.S. export controls, and we incorporate encryption technology into certain of our offerings. Our controlled software offerings and the underlying technology may be exported outside of the United States only with the required export authorizations, which may include license requirements in some circumstances. Additionally, our current or future products may be classified under the Commerce Department Export Administration Regulations (“EAR”) or as defense articles subject to the United States International Traffic in Arms Regulations (“ITAR”). Most of our products, including our core software platforms, have been classified under the EAR and are generally exportable without needing a specific license, under an EAR exception for encrypted software. If a product, or component of a product, is classified under the ITAR, or is ineligible for the EAR encryption exception, then those products could be exported outside the United States only if we obtain the applicable export license or qualify for a different license exemption or exception. In certain contexts, the services we provide might be classified as defense services subject to the ITAR separately from the products we provide. Compliance with the EAR, ITAR, and other applicable regulatory requirements regarding the export of our products, including new releases of our products and/or the performance of services, may create delays in the introduction of our products in non-U.S. markets, prevent our customers with non-U.S. operations from deploying our products throughout their global systems or, in some cases, prevent the export of our products to some countries altogether.
Furthermore, our activities are subject to the economic sanctions, laws and regulations of the United States and other jurisdictions. Such controls prohibit the shipment or transfer of certain products and services without the required export authorizations or export to countries, governments, and persons targeted by applicable sanctions. We take precautions to prevent our offerings from being exported in violation of these laws, including: (i) seeking to proactively classify our platforms and obtain authorizations for the export and/or import of our platforms where appropriate, (ii) implementing certain technical controls and screening practices to reduce the risk of violations, and (iii) requiring compliance with U.S. export control and sanctions obligations in customer and vendor contracts. However, we cannot guarantee the precautions we take will prevent violations of export control and sanctions laws.
As discussed above, if we misclassify a product or service, export or provide access to a product or service in violation of applicable restrictions, or otherwise fail to comply with export regulations, we may be denied export privileges or subjected to significant per violation fines or other penalties, and our platforms may be denied entry into other countries. Any decreased use of our platforms or limitation on our ability to export or sell our platforms would likely adversely affect our business, results of operations and financial condition. Violations of U.S. sanctions or export control laws can result in fines or penalties, including civil penalties of over $300,000 or twice the value of the transaction, whichever is greater, per EAR violation and a civil penalty of over $1,000,000 or twice the value of the transaction, whichever is greater, per ITAR violation. In the event of criminal
knowing and willful violations of these laws, fines of up to $1,000,000 per violation and possible incarceration for responsible employees and managers could be imposed.
We also note that if we or our business partners or counterparties, including licensors and licensees, prime contractors, subcontractors, sublicensors, vendors, customers, shipping partners, or contractors, fail to obtain appropriate import, export, or re-export licenses or permits, notwithstanding regulatory requirements or contractual commitments to do so, or if we fail to secure such contractual commitments where necessary, we may also be adversely affected, through reputational harm as well as other negative consequences, including government investigations and penalties. For instance, violations of U.S. sanctions or export control laws can result in fines or penalties, including significant civil and criminal penalties per violation, depending on the circumstances of the violation or violations.
Negative consequences for violations or apparent violations of trade control requirements may include the absolute loss of the right to sell our platforms or services to the government of the United States, or to other public bodies, or a reduction in our ability to compete for such sales opportunities. Further, complying with export control and sanctions regulations for a particular sale may be time-consuming and may result in the delay or loss of sales opportunities.
Also, various countries, in addition to the United States, regulate the import and export of certain encryption and other technology, including import and export permitting and licensing requirements, and have enacted laws that could limit our ability to distribute our platforms or could limit our customers’ abilities to implement our platforms in those countries. For example, following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and as the conflict has continued, the United States and other countries have imposed economic sanctions and severe export control restrictions against Russia, Belarus, and certain regions of Ukraine, and the United States and other countries could continue to impose wider sanctions and export restrictions and take other actions should the conflict further escalate. Any new export restrictions, new legislation, changes in economic sanctions, or shifting approaches in the enforcement or scope of existing regulations, or in the countries, persons, or technologies targeted by such regulations, could result in decreased use of our platforms by existing customers with non-U.S. operations, declining adoption of our platforms by new customers with non-U.S. operations, limitation of our expansion into new markets, and decreased revenue.
Changes in accounting principles or their application to us could result in unfavorable accounting charges or effects, which could adversely affect our results of operations and growth prospects.
We prepare our condensed consolidated financial statements in accordance with GAAP. In particular, we make certain estimates and assumptions related to the adoption and interpretation of these principles including related to the recognition of our revenue. If these assumptions turn out to be incorrect, our financial results and position could materially differ from our expectations and could be materially adversely affected. A change in any of these principles or guidance, or in their interpretations or application to us, may have a significant effect on our reported results, as well as our processes and related controls, and may retroactively affect previously reported results or our forecasts, which may negatively impact our financial statements.
If our judgments or estimates relating to our critical accounting policies are based on assumptions that change or prove to be incorrect, our results of operations could fall below expectations of securities analysts and investors, resulting in a decline in our stock price.
The preparation of our financial statements in conformity with GAAP requires management to make judgments, estimates, and assumptions that affect the amounts reported in the condensed consolidated financial statements and accompanying notes. We base our estimates on historical experience and on various other assumptions that we believe to be reasonable under the circumstances, as provided in the section titled “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” the results of which form the basis for making judgments about the carrying values of assets, liabilities, and equity, and the amount of revenue and expenses that are not readily apparent from other sources. Our results of operations may be adversely affected if our assumptions change or if actual circumstances differ from those in our assumptions, which could cause our results of operations to fall below the expectations of securities analysts and investors, resulting in a decline in the trading price of our Class A common stock. Significant judgments, estimates, and assumptions used in preparing our condensed consolidated financial statements include, or may in the future include, those related to revenue recognition.
We could be subject to additional tax liabilities.
We are subject to federal, state, and local income taxes in the United States and numerous foreign jurisdictions. Determining our provision for income taxes requires management judgment, and the ultimate tax outcome may be uncertain. In addition, our provision for income taxes is subject to volatility and could be adversely affected by many factors, including, among other things, changes to our operating or holding structure, changes in the amounts of earnings in jurisdictions with differing statutory tax rates, changes in the valuation of deferred tax assets and liabilities, and changes in U.S. and foreign tax laws. Moreover, we are subject to the examination of our income tax returns by tax authorities in the United States and various foreign jurisdictions,
which may disagree with our calculation of research and development tax credits, cross-jurisdictional transfer pricing, or other matters and assess additional taxes, interest or penalties. While we regularly assess the likely outcomes of these examinations to determine the adequacy of our provision for income taxes and we believe that our financial statements reflect adequate reserves to cover any such contingencies, there can be no assurance that the outcomes of such examinations will not have a material impact on our results of operations and cash flows. If U.S. or other foreign tax authorities change applicable tax laws, our overall taxes could increase, and our financial condition or results of operations may be adversely impacted.
For example, provisions enacted by the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act related to the capitalization for tax purposes of research and experimental (“R&E”) expenditures became effective on January 1, 2022. Beginning January 1, 2022, all U.S. and foreign based R&E expenditures must be capitalized and amortized over five years and 15 years, respectively. Beginning January 1, 2022, we began capitalizing and amortizing R&E expenditures over five years for domestic research and 15 years for international research rather than expensing these costs as incurred. However, recently proposed tax legislation, if enacted, would restore the ability to deduct currently domestic R&E expenditures through 2025 and would retroactively restore this benefit for 2022 and 2023. Additionally, the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, enacted on August 16, 2022, imposes a one-percent non-deductible excise tax on the value of net repurchases of stock that are made by U.S. publicly traded corporations on or after January 1, 2023, which may affect our Share Repurchase Program.
Many countries are beginning to implement legislation and other guidance to align their international tax rules with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s (“OECD”) Base Erosion and Profit Shifting recommendations and action plan that aim to standardize and modernize global corporate tax policy, including changes to cross-border tax, transfer pricing documentation rules, and nexus-based tax incentive practices. The OECD is also continuing discussions surrounding fundamental changes in allocation of profits among tax jurisdictions in which companies do business, as well as the implementation of a global minimum tax (namely the “Pillar One” and “Pillar Two” proposals). Many countries have enacted or begun the process of enacting laws based on Pillar Two proposals, which may adversely impact our provision for income taxes, net income, and cash flows. We have considered the impact of Pillar Two rules and determined that we became subject to such rules starting January 1, 2024 in some jurisdictions, but we do not believe that such developments will have a material impact on our financial condition or results of operations during the year ended December 31, 2024.
As a result of the heightened scrutiny of corporate taxation policies, prior decisions by tax authorities regarding treatments and positions of corporate income taxes could be subject to enforcement activities, and legislative investigation and inquiry, which could also result in changes in tax policies or prior tax rulings. Any substantial changes in domestic or international corporate tax policies, regulations or guidance, enforcement activities or legislative initiatives may materially adversely affect our business, the amount of taxes we are required to pay and our financial condition and results of operations generally.
We may not be able to utilize a significant portion of our net operating loss carryforwards and tax credits, which could adversely affect our results of operations.
We record an asset for the future tax benefits from unused U.S. federal, state, and foreign net operating losses (“NOLs”) and tax credits subject to a full valuation allowance. Federal, state, and foreign taxing bodies often place limitations on NOLs and tax credit carryforward benefits. As a result, we may not be able to utilize our NOLs and tax credits. In general, under Section 382 of the United States Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as amended (the “Code”), a corporation that undergoes an ownership change is subject to limitations on its ability to utilize its pre-change NOLs to offset future taxable income. Future changes in our stock ownership, some of which are outside of our control, could result in an ownership change under Section 382 of the Code. If our existing NOLs are subject to limitations arising from an ownership change, our ability to utilize NOLs could be limited by Section 382 of the Code, and a certain amount of our prior year NOLs could expire without benefit. Changes in the law may also impact our ability to use our NOLs and tax credit carryforwards. In addition, there is also a risk that the expiration of our existing NOLs or tax credits or a limitation on their use to offset future income tax liabilities could result from statutory or regulatory changes, which could adversely affect our results of operations.
Our results of operations may be harmed if we are required to collect sales or other related taxes for our license arrangements in jurisdictions where we have not historically done so.
States and some local taxing jurisdictions have differing rules and regulations governing sales and use taxes, and these rules and regulations are subject to varying interpretations that may change over time. We collect and remit U.S. sales and use tax, value-added tax (“VAT”), and goods and services tax (“GST”) in a number of jurisdictions. It is possible, however, that we could face sales tax, VAT, or GST audits and that our liability for these taxes could exceed our estimates as state and foreign tax authorities could still assert that we are obligated to collect additional tax amounts from our customers and remit those taxes to those authorities. We could also be subject to audits in states and foreign jurisdictions for which we have not accrued tax liabilities. One or more states or countries may seek to impose incremental or new sales, use, or other tax collection obligations on us or may determine that such taxes should have, but have not been, paid by us.
Risks Related to Relationships and Business with the Public Sector
A significant portion of our business depends on sales to the public sector, and our failure to receive and maintain government contracts or changes in the contracting or fiscal policies of the public sector has adversely affected and could continue to adversely affect our business, results of operations, financial condition, and growth prospects.
We derive a significant portion of our revenue from contracts with federal, state, local, and foreign governments and government agencies, and we believe that the success and growth of our business will continue to depend on our successful procurement of government contracts. For example, we have historically derived, and expect to continue to derive, a significant portion of our revenue from sales to agencies of the U.S. federal government, either directly by us or through other government contractors. Our perceived relationship with the U.S. government could adversely affect our business prospects in certain non-U.S. geographies or with certain non-U.S. governments.
Sales to such government agencies are subject to a number of challenges and risks. Selling to government agencies can be highly competitive, expensive, and time-consuming, often requiring significant upfront time and expense without any assurance that these efforts will generate a sale. We also must comply with laws and regulations relating to the formation, administration, and performance of contracts, which provide public sector customers rights, many of which are not typically found in commercial contracts.
Accordingly, our business, financial condition, results of operations, and growth prospects may be adversely affected by certain events or activities, including, but not limited to:
•changes in fiscal or contracting policies or decreases in available government funding;
•changes in government programs or applicable requirements;
•restrictions in the grant of personnel security clearances to our employees;
•ability to maintain facility clearances required to perform on classified contracts for U.S. federal government and foreign government agencies;
•ability to achieve or maintain one or more government certifications, including, but not limited to, our existing FedRAMP, IL2, IL4, IL5, and IL6 authorizations;
•changes in the political environment, including before or after a change to the leadership within the government administration, or due to ongoing conflicts such as the Russia-Ukraine conflict and related economic sanctions or the conflict resulting from Hamas’ attack on Israel, and regional instability, and any resulting uncertainty or changes in policy or priorities and resultant funding;
•changes in the government’s attitude towards the capabilities that we offer, especially in the areas of national defense, cybersecurity, and critical infrastructure, including the financial, energy, telecommunications, and healthcare sectors;
•changes in the government’s attitude towards us as a company or our platforms as viable or acceptable software solutions;
•appeals, disputes, or litigation relating to government procurement, including but not limited to bid protests by unsuccessful bidders on potential or actual awards of contracts to us or our partners by the government;
•the adoption of new laws or regulations or changes to existing laws or regulations, including as may relate to the implementation of AI by federal agencies;
•budgetary constraints, including automatic reductions as a result of “sequestration” or similar measures and constraints imposed by any lapses in appropriations for the federal government or certain of its departments and agencies, for example in connection with an extended federal government shutdown;
•influence by, or competition from, third parties with respect to pending, new, or existing contracts with government customers;
•changes in political or social attitudes with respect to security or data privacy issues;
•potential delays or changes in the government appropriations or procurement processes, including as a result of events such as war, incidents of terrorism, natural disasters, and public health concerns or epidemics, such as the COVID-19 pandemic; and
•increased or unexpected costs or unanticipated delays caused by other factors outside of our control, such as performance failures of our subcontractors.
Such events or activities, among others, have caused and could continue to cause governments and governmental agencies to delay or refrain from purchasing our platforms and services in the future, reduce the size or payment amounts of purchases from
existing or new government customers, or otherwise have an adverse effect on our business, results of operations, financial condition, and growth prospects.
We have contracts with governments that involve classified programs, which may limit investor insight into portions of our business.
We derive a portion of our revenue from programs with governments and government agencies that are subject to security restrictions (e.g., contracts involving classified information, classified contracts, and classified programs), which preclude the dissemination of information and technology that is classified for national security purposes under applicable law and regulation. In general, access to classified information, technology, facilities, or programs requires appropriate personnel security clearances, is subject to additional contract oversight and potential liability, and may also require appropriate facility clearances and other specialized infrastructure. In the event of a security incident involving classified information, technology, facilities, or programs or personnel holding clearances, we may be subject to legal, financial, operational, and reputational harm. We are limited in our ability to provide specific information about these classified programs, their risks, or any disputes or claims relating to such programs. As a result, investors have less insight into our classified programs than our other businesses and therefore less ability to fully evaluate the risks related to our classified business or our business overall. However, historically the business risks associated with our work on classified programs have not differed materially from those of our other government contracts.
Our business could be adversely affected if our employees cannot obtain and maintain required personnel security clearances or we cannot establish and maintain a required facility security clearance.
Certain government contracts may require our employees to maintain various levels of security clearances and may require us to maintain a facility security clearance to comply with U.S. and international government agency requirements. Many governments have strict security clearance requirements for personnel who perform work in support of classified programs. Obtaining and maintaining security clearances for employees typically involves a lengthy process, and it can be difficult to identify, recruit, and retain employees who already hold security clearances. If our employees are unable to obtain security clearances in a timely manner, or at all, or if our employees who hold security clearances are unable to maintain their clearances or terminate employment with us, then we may be unable to comply with relevant U.S. and international government agency requirements, or our customers requiring classified work could choose to terminate or decide not to renew one or more contracts requiring employees to obtain or maintain security clearances upon expiration. To the extent we are not able to obtain or maintain a facility security clearance, we may not be able to bid on or win new classified contracts, and existing contracts requiring a facility security clearance could be terminated, either of which would have an adverse impact on our business, financial condition, and results of operations.
Many of our customer contracts may be terminated by the customer at any time for convenience and may contain other provisions permitting the customer to discontinue contract performance, and if terminated contracts are not replaced, our results of operations may differ materially and adversely from those anticipated. In addition, our contracts with government customers often contain provisions with additional rights and remedies favorable to such customers that are not typically found in commercial contracts.
Many of our contracts, including our government contracts, contain termination for convenience provisions. Customers that terminate such contracts may also be entitled to a pro rata refund of the amount of the customer deposit for the period of time remaining in the contract term after the applicable termination notice period expires. Government contracts often contain provisions and are subject to laws and regulations that provide government customers with additional rights and remedies not typically found in commercial contracts. These rights and remedies allow government customers, among other things, to:
•terminate existing contracts for convenience with short notice;
•reduce orders under or otherwise modify contracts;
•for contracts subject to the Truth in Negotiations Act, reduce the contract price or cost where it was increased because a contractor or subcontractor furnished cost or pricing data during negotiations that was not complete, accurate, and current;
•for some contracts, (i) demand a refund, make a forward price adjustment, or terminate a contract for default if a contractor provided inaccurate or incomplete data during the contract negotiation process and (ii) reduce the contract price under triggering circumstances, including the revision of price lists or other documents upon which the contract award was predicated;
•cancel multi-year contracts and related orders if funds for contract performance for any subsequent year become unavailable;
•decline to exercise an option to renew a multi-year contract or issue task orders in connection with indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity (“IDIQ”) contracts;
•claim rights in solutions, systems, or technology produced by us, appropriate such work-product for their continued use without continuing to contract for our services, and disclose such work-product to third parties, including other government agencies and our competitors, which could harm our competitive position;
•prohibit future procurement awards with a particular agency due to a finding of organizational conflicts of interest based upon prior related work performed for the agency that would give a contractor an unfair advantage over competing contractors, or the existence of conflicting roles that might bias a contractor’s judgment;
•subject the award of contracts to protest by competitors, which may require the contracting federal agency or department to suspend our performance pending the outcome of the protest and may also result in a requirement to resubmit offers for the contract or in the termination, reduction, or modification of the awarded contract;
•suspend or debar us from doing business with the applicable government; and
•control or prohibit the export of our services.
If a customer were to unexpectedly terminate, cancel, or decline to exercise an option to renew with respect to one or more of our significant contracts, or if a government were to suspend or debar us from doing business with such government, our business, financial condition, and results of operations would be materially harmed.
Failure to comply with laws, regulations, or contractual provisions applicable to our business could cause us to lose government customers or our ability to contract with the U.S. and other governments.
As a government contractor, we must comply with laws, regulations, and contractual provisions relating to the formation, administration, and performance of government contracts and inclusion on government contract vehicles, which affect how we and our partners do business with government agencies. As a result of actual or perceived noncompliance with government contracting laws, regulations, or contractual provisions, we may be subject to audits and internal investigations which may prove costly to our business financially, divert management time, or limit our ability to continue selling our platforms and services to our government customers. These laws and regulations may impose other added costs on our business, and failure to comply with these or other applicable regulations and requirements, including non-compliance in the past, could lead to claims for damages from our channel partners, penalties, and termination of contracts and suspension or debarment from government contracting for a period of time with government agencies. Any such damages, penalties, disruption, or limitation in our ability to do business with a government could adversely impact, and could have a material adverse effect on, our business, results of operations, financial condition, public perception, and growth prospects.
Evolving government procurement policies and increased emphasis on cost over performance could adversely affect our business.
Federal, state, local, and foreign governments and government agencies could implement procurement policies that negatively impact our profitability. Changes in procurement policy favoring more non-commercial purchases, different pricing, or evaluation criteria or government contract negotiation offers based upon the customer’s view of what our pricing should be may affect the predictability of our margins on such contracts or make it more difficult to compete on certain types of programs.
Governments and government agencies are continually evaluating their contract pricing and financing practices, and we have no assurance regarding the full scope and recurrence of any study and what changes will be proposed, if any, and their impact on our financial position, cash flows, or results of operations.
Increased competition and bid protests in a budget-constrained environment may make it more difficult to maintain our financial performance and customer relationships.
A substantial portion of our business is awarded through competitive bidding. Even if we are successful in obtaining an award, we may encounter bid protests from unsuccessful bidders on any specific award. Bid protests could result, among other things, in significant expenses to us, contract modifications, or even loss of the contract award. Even where a bid protest does not result in the loss of a contract award, the resolution can extend the time until contract activity can begin and, as a result, delay the recognition of revenue. We also may not be successful in our efforts to protest or challenge any bids for contracts that were not awarded to us, and we would be required to incur significant time and expense in such efforts.
In addition, governments and agencies increasingly have relied on competitive contract award types, including IDIQ and other multi-award contracts, which have the potential to create pricing pressure and to increase our costs by requiring us to submit multiple bids and proposals. Multi-award contracts require us to make sustained efforts to obtain orders under the contract. The competitive bidding process entails substantial costs and managerial time to prepare bids and proposals for contracts that may not be awarded to us or may be split among competitors.
We are experiencing increased competition while, at the same time, many of our customers are facing budget pressures, cutting costs, identifying more affordable solutions, performing certain work internally rather than hiring contractors, and reducing product development cycles. To remain competitive, we must maintain consistently strong customer relationships, seek to understand customer priorities, and provide superior performance, advanced technology solutions, and service at an affordable cost with the agility that our customers require to satisfy their objectives in an increasingly price competitive environment. Failure to do so could have an adverse impact on our business, financial condition, and results of operations.
The U.S. government may procure non-commercial developmental services rather than commercial products, which could materially impact our future U.S. government business and revenue.
U.S. government agencies, including our customers, often award large developmental item and service contracts to build custom software rather than firm fixed-price contracts for commercial products. We sell commercial items and services and do not contract for non-commercial developmental services. The U.S. government is required to procure commercial items and services to the maximum extent practicable in accordance with FASA, 10 U.S.C. § 2377; 41 U.S.C. § 3307, and the U.S. government may instead decide to procure non-commercial developmental items and services if commercial items and services are not practicable. In order to challenge a government decision to procure developmental items and services instead of commercial items and services, we would be required to file a bid protest at the agency level and/or with the Government Accountability Office. This can result in contentious communications with government agency legal and contracting offices, and may escalate to litigation in federal court. The results of any future challenges or potential litigation cannot be predicted with certainty, however, and any dispute or litigation with the U.S. government may not be resolved in our favor; moreover, whether or not it is resolved in our favor, such disputes or litigation could result in significant expense and divert the efforts of our technical and management personnel. These proceedings could adversely affect our reputation and relationship with government customers and could also result in negative publicity, which could harm customer and public perception of our business. The enforcement of FASA has resulted in a significant increase in our business with the U.S. federal government. Any change in or repeal of FASA, or a contrary interpretation of FASA by a court of competent jurisdiction, would adversely affect our competitive position for U.S. federal government contracts.
A decline in the U.S. and other government budgets, changes in spending or budgetary priorities, or delays in contract awards have affected and may continue to significantly and adversely affect our future revenue and limit our growth prospects.
Because we generate a substantial portion of our revenue from contracts with governments and government agencies, and in particular from contracts with the U.S. government and government agencies, our results of operations could be adversely affected by government spending caps or changes in government budgetary priorities, as well as by delays in the government budget process, program starts, or the award of contracts or orders under existing contract vehicles, including as a result of a new U.S. administration. Current U.S. government spending levels for defense-related and other programs may not be sustained beyond government fiscal year 2024. Future spending and program authorizations may not increase or may decrease or shift to programs in areas in which we do not provide services or are less likely to be awarded contracts. Such changes in spending authorizations and budgetary priorities may occur as a result of shifts in spending priorities from defense-related and other programs as a result of competing demands for federal funds and the number and intensity of military conflicts or other factors.
The U.S. government also conducts periodic reviews of U.S. defense strategies and priorities which may shift Department of Defense budgetary priorities, reduce overall spending, or delay contract or task order awards for defense-related programs from which we would otherwise expect to derive a significant portion of our future revenue. A significant decline in overall U.S. government spending, a significant shift in spending priorities, the substantial reduction or elimination of particular defense-related programs, or significant budget-related delays in contract or task order awards for large programs have affected and could continue to adversely affect our future revenue and limit our growth prospects.
Risks Related to Ownership of Our Class A Common Stock
The public trading price of our Class A common stock may be volatile and may decline regardless of our operating performance.
Prior to the listing of our Class A common stock, there was no public market for shares of our Class A common stock. The market prices of the securities of other recently public companies have historically been highly volatile. The public trading price of our Class A common stock has been, and may in the future be, subject to fluctuations in response to various factors, including those listed in this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q, some of which are beyond our control. These fluctuations could cause you to lose all or part of your investment in our Class A common stock since you might be unable to sell your shares at or above the price you paid. Factors that could cause fluctuations in the public trading price of our Class A common stock include the following:
•the number of shares of our Class A common stock publicly owned and available for trading;
•price and volume fluctuations in the overall stock market from time to time;
•volatility in the trading prices and trading volumes of technology stocks;
•the inclusion, exclusion, or deletion of our Class A common stock from any major trading indices, such as the Standard & Poor’s (“S&P”) 500 Index;
•changes in operating performance and stock market valuations of other technology companies generally, or those in our industry in particular;
•sales or expected sales of shares of our Class A common stock by us or our stockholders;
•our repurchase of shares of our Class A common stock pursuant to our Share Repurchase Program;
•short-selling of our Class A common stock or related derivative securities;
•failure of securities analysts to maintain coverage of us, changes in financial estimates by securities analysts who follow our company or our failure to meet these estimates or the expectations of investors;
•any financial projections we may provide to the public, any changes in those projections or our failure to meet those projections;
•announcements by us or our competitors of new platforms, products, services, or capabilities;
•the public’s reaction to our press releases, other public announcements, and filings with the SEC;
•rumors and market speculation involving us or other companies in our industry;
•actual or anticipated changes in our results of operations or fluctuations in our results of operations;
•actual or anticipated developments in our business, our competitors’ businesses, or the competitive landscape generally;
•litigation involving us, our industry or both, or investigations by regulators into our operations or those of our competitors;
•actual or perceived privacy or security breaches or other incidents;
•developments or disputes concerning our intellectual property or other proprietary rights;
•announced or completed acquisitions of businesses, services or technologies by us or our competitors;
•changes in our management, including any departures of one of our Founders;
•new laws or regulations, public expectations regarding new laws or regulations or new interpretations of existing laws or regulations applicable to our business;
•changes in accounting standards, policies, guidelines, interpretations, or principles;
•any significant change in our management;
•other events or factors, including those resulting from war, including the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict, incidents of terrorism, such as Hamas’ attack against Israel, pandemics, or responses to these events; and
•general macroeconomic conditions, such as heightened interest rates and slow or negative growth of our markets.
In addition, stock markets, and the market for technology companies in particular, have experienced price and volume fluctuations that have affected and continue to affect the trading prices of equity securities of many companies. Stock prices of many companies, including technology companies, have fluctuated in a manner often unrelated to the operating performance of those companies. In the past, following periods of volatility in the overall market and the trading price of a particular company’s securities, securities class action litigation has often been instituted against these companies. Such litigation, including the purported class action lawsuits and derivative lawsuits filed against us and certain of our officers and directors, could result in substantial costs and a diversion of our management’s attention and resources and harm our business, financial condition, and results of operations. Further, in the future, we may be the target of additional litigation of this type.
Our amended and restated bylaws designate a state or federal court located within the State of Delaware as the exclusive forum for substantially all disputes between us and our stockholders, and also provide that the federal district courts will be the exclusive forum for resolving any complaint asserting a cause of action arising under the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, each of which could limit our stockholders’ ability to choose the judicial forum for disputes with us or our directors, officers, stockholders, or employees.
Our amended and restated bylaws provide that, unless we consent in writing to the selection of an alternative forum, the sole and exclusive forum for (a) any derivative action or proceeding brought on our behalf, (b) any action asserting a claim of breach of a fiduciary duty owed by any of our current or former directors, stockholders, officers, or other employees to us or our
stockholders, (c) any action or proceeding asserting a claim arising pursuant to, or seeking to enforce any right, obligation or remedy under, any provision of the Delaware General Corporation Law, our amended and restated certificate of incorporation, or our amended and restated bylaws, (d) any action or proceeding as to which the Delaware General Corporation Law confers jurisdiction on the Court of Chancery of the State of Delaware, or (e) any action or proceeding asserting a claim that is governed by the internal affairs doctrine shall be the Court of Chancery of the State of Delaware (or, if the Court of Chancery does not have jurisdiction, another state court in Delaware or, if no state court in Delaware has jurisdiction, the federal district court for the District of Delaware) and any appellate court therefrom, in all cases subject to the court having jurisdiction over the claims at issue and the indispensable parties; provided that the exclusive forum provision will not apply to suits brought to enforce any liability or duty created by the Exchange Act.
Section 22 of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the “Securities Act”), creates concurrent jurisdiction for federal and state courts over all such Securities Act actions. Accordingly, both state and federal courts have jurisdiction to entertain such claims. To prevent having to litigate claims in multiple jurisdictions and the threat of inconsistent or contrary rulings by different courts, among other considerations, our amended and restated bylaws also provide that the federal district courts of the United States of America will be the exclusive forum for resolving any complaint asserting a cause of action arising under the Securities Act.
Any person or entity purchasing or otherwise acquiring or holding or owning (or continuing to hold or own) any interest in any of our securities shall be deemed to have notice of and consented to the foregoing bylaw provisions. Although we believe these exclusive forum provisions benefit us by providing increased consistency in the application of Delaware law and federal securities laws in the types of lawsuits to which each applies, the exclusive forum provisions may limit a stockholder’s ability to bring a claim in a judicial forum of its choosing for disputes with us or any of our directors, officers, stockholders, or other employees, which may discourage lawsuits with respect to such claims against us and our current and former directors, officers, stockholders, or other employees. Our stockholders will not be deemed to have waived our compliance with the federal securities laws and the rules and regulations thereunder as a result of our exclusive forum provisions. Further, in the event a court finds either exclusive forum provision contained in our amended and restated bylaws to be unenforceable or inapplicable in an action, we may incur additional costs associated with resolving such action in other jurisdictions, which could harm our results of operations.
Sales of substantial amounts of our Class A common stock in the public markets or the perception that sales might occur, including sales by our Founders and their affiliates, could cause the trading price of our Class A common stock to decline.
Sales of substantial amounts of our Class A common stock in the public markets or the perception that sales might occur, could cause the trading price of our Class A common stock to decline.
In addition to the supply and demand and volatility risk factors discussed above, sales of a substantial number of shares of our Class A common stock into the public market, particularly sales by our directors, executive officers, and principal stockholders, or the perception that these sales might occur in large quantities, could cause the trading price of our Class A common stock to decline. As of September 30, 2024, approximately 0.2 million options will expire through December 2024 if not exercised prior to their respective expiration dates, and we expect many holders will elect to exercise such options prior to expiration. Upon exercise, the holders will receive shares of our Class A or Class B common stock, which may subsequently be sold.
As of September 30, 2024, there were 2,172,437,083 shares of our Class A common stock outstanding, 96,366,544 shares of our Class B common stock outstanding and 1,005,000 shares of our Class F common stock outstanding. Substantially all of these shares may be immediately sold, although sales by our affiliates remain subject to compliance with the volume limitations of Rule 144.
Further, as of September 30, 2024, there were outstanding options to purchase an aggregate of 61,457,243 shares of our Class A common stock and 171,899,715 shares of our Class B common stock, 38,819,951 shares of our Class A common stock and 33,675,000 shares of Class B common stock subject to RSUs, 47,963,098 shares of our Class A common stock subject to SARs, and 861,875 shares of our Class A common stock subject to P-RSUs. All shares of our common stock reserved for future issuance under our equity compensation plans have been registered for sale under the Securities Act. Subject to compliance with Rule 144 or the availability of an alternative exemption, the shares issued upon exercise of stock options or SARs, or upon settlement of RSUs or P-RSUs will be available for immediate resale in the United States in the open market.
We also may issue our capital stock or securities convertible into our capital stock from time to time in connection with a financing, acquisition, investments or otherwise. Any such issuance could result in substantial dilution to our existing stockholders and cause the trading price of our Class A common stock to decline.
There are no guarantees that our Share Repurchase Program will result in increased shareholder value.
In August 2023, our Board of Directors authorized a stock repurchase program of up to $1.0 billion of our outstanding shares of Class A common stock (the “Share Repurchase Program”). We have repurchased, and may continue to repurchase, shares of Class A common stock from time to time, as authorized by our Board of Directors, through open market purchases, in privately negotiated transactions or by other means, including through the use of trading plans intended to qualify under Rule 10b5-1 under the Exchange Act, in accordance with applicable securities laws and other restrictions. The timing and the amount of stock repurchases in the Share Repurchase Program will be determined by Palantir’s management, based on its evaluation of factors including business and market conditions, corporate and regulatory requirements, and other considerations.
There are a number of ways in which the Share Repurchase Program could fail to result in enhanced shareholder value. For example, any failure to repurchase stock after we have announced our intention to do so may negatively impact our stock price. The existence of the Share Repurchase Program could also cause our stock price to trade higher than it otherwise would and could potentially reduce the market liquidity for our stock. The market price of our common stock could decline below the levels at which we repurchased shares and short-term stock price fluctuations could reduce the effectiveness of this program.
Additionally, repurchasing our Class A common stock will reduce the amount of cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities we have available to fund working capital, capital expenditures, capital preserving investments, strategic acquisitions or business opportunities, and other general corporate purposes, and there are no guarantees that the Share Repurchase Program will result in increased shareholder value. Furthermore, the timing and amount of repurchases have been, and will in the future be, subject to liquidity, market and economic conditions, compliance with applicable legal requirements and other relevant factors.
Provisions in our amended and restated certificate of incorporation and amended and restated bylaws may discourage certain types of transactions that may involve an actual or threatened acquisition of the Company, which will likely depress the trading price of our Class A common stock.
Our amended and restated certificate of incorporation and amended and restated bylaws contain provisions that may make the acquisition of our company more difficult, including the following:
•our multi-class common stock structure, which provides our Founders and their affiliates with the ability to effectively control the outcome of matters requiring stockholder approval, even if they own significantly less than a majority of the shares of our outstanding common stock;
•prior to the Final Class F Conversion Date (as defined in our amended and restated certificate of incorporation), the holders of our common stock will only be able to take action by written consent if the action also receives the affirmative consent of a majority of the outstanding shares of our Class F common stock, and after such point the holders of our common stock will only be able to take action at a meeting of the stockholders and will not be able to take action by written consent for any matter;
•from and after the Final Class F Conversion Date, our Board of Directors will be classified into three classes of directors with staggered three-year terms;
•our amended and restated certificate of incorporation does not provide for cumulative voting;
•certain transactions, other than restructuring transactions or transactions that otherwise do not involve a Change of Control (as defined in our amended and restated certificate of incorporation), which transactions require, pursuant to Section 251(c) or Section 271(a) of the Delaware General Corporation Law, the approval of the holders of a majority of the voting power of all of the outstanding shares of our capital stock entitled to vote thereon, will require approval by the holders of at least 55.0% of the voting power of all of the outstanding shares of our capital stock entitled to vote thereon if the record date for determining the stockholders entitled to vote to approve such transaction occurs prior to the Final Class F Conversion Date;
•certain transactions prior to the Final Class F Conversion Date, that would require disclosure pursuant to Item 404(a) of Regulation S-K, between any of our Founders (or their controlled affiliates), on the one hand, and us, on the other, in which consideration exchanges hands between our Founders (or their controlled affiliates) and us, and such consideration has a fair market value in excess of $50.0 million as determined in accordance with our amended and restated bylaws will require approval by either (i) the holders of at least 66 2/3% of the voting power of all of the outstanding shares of our capital stock, voting together as a single class, or (ii) an Independent Committee (as defined in our amended and restated bylaws);
•the acquisition of our equity securities by our Founders (including their controlled affiliates), prior to the Final Class F Conversion Date, in a “Rule 13e-3 transaction” (as defined in Rule 13e-3 under the Exchange Act) will be conditioned on approval by (i) an Independent Committee and (ii) the holders of a majority of the voting power of our capital stock that is held by our stockholders other than the Founders (including their controlled affiliates) and any holder of the Class F Common Stock;
•vacancies on our Board of Directors will be able to be filled only by our Board of Directors and not by stockholders;
•our directors may only be removed as provided in the Delaware General Corporation Law;
•a special meeting of our stockholders may only be called by the chairperson of our Board of Directors, our Chief Executive Officer, our President, or our Board of Directors pursuant to a resolution adopted by a majority of the total number of authorized directorships, whether or not there exist any vacancies or other unfilled seats in previously authorized directorships;
•our amended and restated certificate of incorporation authorizes undesignated preferred stock, the terms of which may be established and shares of which may be issued without further action by our stockholders, except that any designation and issuance of preferred stock must receive the affirmative vote of a majority of the outstanding shares of our Class F common stock; and
•advance notice procedures apply for stockholders to nominate candidates for election as directors or to bring matters before an annual meeting of stockholders.
These provisions, alone or together, could discourage, delay or prevent a transaction involving a change in control of our company. These provisions could also discourage proxy contests and make it more difficult for stockholders to elect directors of their choosing and to cause us to take other corporate actions they desire, any of which, under certain circumstances, could limit the opportunity for our stockholders to receive a premium for their shares of our Class A common stock, and could also affect the price that some investors are willing to pay for our Class A common stock.
If securities or industry analysts do not publish research or publish inaccurate or unfavorable research about us, our business or our market, or if they change their recommendation regarding our Class A common stock adversely, the trading price and trading volume of our Class A common stock could decline.
The trading market for our Class A common stock will depend in part on the research and reports that securities or industry analysts publish about us, our business, our market or our competitors. If one or more of the analysts who cover us downgrade our ordinary shares or publish inaccurate or unfavorable research about us, the trading price of our Class A common stock would likely decline. If these analysts publish target prices for our Class A common stock that are below the then-current public price of our Class A common stock, it could cause the trading price of our Class A common stock to decline significantly. Further, if one or more of these analysts cease coverage of Palantir or fail to publish reports on us regularly, demand for our Class A common stock could decrease, which might cause our Class A common stock trading price and trading volume to decline.
Although we currently are not considered to be a “controlled company” under the NYSE corporate governance rules, we may in the future become a controlled company due to the concentration of voting power among our Founders and their affiliates.
Although we currently are not considered to be a “controlled company” under the NYSE corporate governance rules, we may in the future become a controlled company due to the concentration of voting power among our Founders and their affiliates resulting from the issuance of our Class F common stock. See “Risks Related to the Multiple Class Structure of our Common Stock, the Founder Voting Trust Agreement, and the Founder Voting Agreement” below. A “controlled company” pursuant to the NYSE corporate governance rules is a company of which more than 50% of the voting power is held by an individual, group, or another company. In the event that our Founders and their affiliates or other stockholders acquire more than 50% of the voting power of the Company, we may in the future be able to rely on the “controlled company” exemptions under the NYSE corporate governance rules due to this concentration of voting power and the ability of our Founders and their affiliates to act as a group. If we were a controlled company, we would be eligible, and could elect, not to comply with certain of the NYSE corporate governance standards. Such standards include the requirement that a majority of directors on our Board of Directors are independent directors, subject to certain phase-in periods, and the requirement that our compensation, nominating and governance committee consist entirely of independent directors. In such a case, if the interests of our stockholders differ from the group of stockholders holding a majority of the voting power, our stockholders would not have the same protection afforded to stockholders of companies that are subject to all of the NYSE corporate governance standards, and the ability of our independent directors to influence our business policies and corporate matters may be reduced.
We do not expect to pay dividends in the foreseeable future.
We have never declared nor paid cash dividends on our capital stock. We currently intend to retain any future earnings to finance the operation and expansion of our business, as well as to fund our Share Repurchase Program, and we do not anticipate declaring or paying any dividends to holders of our capital stock in the foreseeable future. In addition, our credit facility contains restrictions on our ability to pay dividends. Any determination to pay dividends in the future will be at the discretion of our Board of Directors. Consequently, stockholders must rely on sales of their Class A common stock after price appreciation, which may never occur, as the only way to realize any future gains on their investment.
Risks Related to the Multiple Class Structure of our Common Stock, the Founder Voting Trust Agreement, and the Founder Voting Agreement
The multiple class structure of our common stock has the effect of concentrating voting power with certain stockholders, in particular, our Founders and their affiliates, which will effectively eliminate your ability to influence the outcome of important transactions, including a change in control.
Our Class A common stock has one (1) vote per share, and our Class B common stock has ten (10) votes per share with respect to each matter submitted to our stockholders. Assuming that the Founders and certain of their affiliates collectively meet the Ownership Threshold (as defined below) on the applicable record date for a vote of the stockholders (except as provided in our amended and restated certificate of incorporation), shares of Class F common stock will generally have a number of votes per share in respect of a matter submitted to our stockholders that would cause the total votes of all shares of Class F common stock, together with the votes attributable to shares of Class A common stock and Class B common stock held by our Founders and their affiliates that are subject to the voting agreement among our Founders and Wilmington Trust, National Association (the “Founder Voting Agreement”) and the votes attributable to shares of Class A common stock and Class B common stock held by our Founders and their affiliates that are designated as Designated Founders’ Excluded Shares (as defined in our amended and restated certificate of incorporation), in each case entitled to vote on such matter, to equal, with respect to such matter, 49.999999% of the voting power of (i) all of the outstanding shares of capital stock of the Company entitled to vote on such matter (including in the case of the election of directors); or (ii) the shares present in person or represented by proxy and entitled to vote on such matter only if a majority of the shares present in person or represented by proxy and entitled to vote on such matter is the applicable voting standard (as applicable, “49.999999% of the Voting Power”). Accordingly, subject to limited exceptions described in our amended and restated certificate of incorporation and amended and restated bylaws, such Founders will effectively control all matters submitted to the stockholders for the foreseeable future, including the election of directors, amendments of our organizational documents, compensation matters, and any merger, consolidation, sale of all or substantially all of our assets, or other major corporate transaction requiring stockholder approval. Our Founders and their affiliates also hold the substantial majority of our outstanding Class B common stock. Because of the ten-to-one voting ratio between our Class B and Class A common stock, even without regard to the voting power of the Class F common stock, our Founders and their affiliates collectively control a significant portion of the voting power of our capital stock based on their current ownership and may significantly increase their ownership of Class B common stock in the future due to the exercise of currently outstanding stock options or the settlement of RSUs.
The Founders may have interests that differ from yours and may vote in a way with which you disagree, and which may be adverse to your interests. This concentration of voting power is likely to have the effect of limiting the likelihood of an unsolicited merger proposal, unsolicited tender offer, or proxy contest for the removal of directors. As a result, our governance structure, including the provisions of our amended and restated certificate of incorporation, may have the effect of depriving our stockholders of an opportunity to sell their shares at a premium over prevailing market prices and make it more difficult to replace our directors and management.
The Founder Voting Trust Agreement and the Founder Voting Agreement also have the effect of concentrating voting power with our Founders and their affiliates, which will effectively eliminate your ability to influence the outcome of important transactions, including a change in control.
All shares of our Class F common stock are held in a voting trust (the “Founder Voting Trust”), established by our Founders pursuant to a voting trust agreement (the “Founder Voting Trust Agreement”) with Wilmington Trust, National Association as trustee (the “Trustee”). Our Founders are also currently party to the Founder Voting Agreement. Our Founders have agreed through the Founder Voting Trust Agreement and Founder Voting Agreement that all of the shares of Class F common stock and all of the shares of our capital stock over which they and their affiliates have granted a proxy under the Founder Voting Agreement will be voted in the manner instructed by a majority of our Founders who are then party to the Founder Voting Agreement. Accordingly, together with the multiple class structure of our common stock and subject to limited exceptions described in our amended and restated certificate of incorporation and amended and restated bylaws, such Founders will effectively control all matters submitted to the stockholders for the foreseeable future, including the election of directors, amendments of our organizational documents, compensation matters, and any merger, consolidation, sale of all or substantially all of our assets, or other major corporate transaction requiring stockholder approval.
Upon the withdrawal or removal of any of our Founders from the Founder Voting Agreement, including upon their death or disability, the remaining Founders or Founder, as the case may be, will determine the manner in which the shares of our Class F common stock as well as the shares subject to the Founder Voting Agreement are voted. In such cases, the voting power of our outstanding capital stock will be further concentrated among the remaining Founders, which may be as few as one. Further, if there are only two Founders who are party to the Founder Voting Agreement, one Founder will be able to effectively defeat any stockholder action, except for the election of directors or other matters that are decided by a plurality of votes, if his instruction to vote the shares of Class F common stock differs from the other Founder. The Founders who are then party to the Founder
Voting Agreement will retain the right to direct the voting of the Class F common stock without regard to their employment status with us.
All shares of our Class F common stock are held in the Founder Voting Trust and voted pursuant to the Founder Voting Trust Agreement. Accordingly, our Founders who are then party to the Founder Voting Agreement will control any vote that requires the affirmative vote of the holders of a majority of our Class F common stock, including action of our stockholders by written consent, the designation or issuance by us of shares of preferred stock, and certain amendments to our amended and restated certificate of incorporation relating to our preferred stock.
Although we are a third-party beneficiary of the Founder Voting Agreement and the Founder Voting Trust Agreement, we do not have a general consent right with respect to amendments thereto, and either agreement may be amended or modified in the future in a manner that is adverse to our stockholders, which may include increasing the ability of one or more of our Founders to exercise control over matters submitted to a vote of our stockholders.
In certain circumstances in the future, the Founders and their affiliates could have voting power that exceeds 49.999999% of the Voting Power.
If the voting power of shares of Class A common stock and Class B common stock held by the Founders or their affiliates that are subject to the Founder Voting Agreement or are Designated Founders’ Excluded Shares collectively equals greater than 49.999999% of the Voting Power with respect to a matter submitted to our stockholders, then the Class F common stock will have zero votes with respect to such matter. In this case, although the shares of our Class F common stock would generally be entitled to zero votes per share on that matter, all of the shares that are then subject to the Founder Voting Agreement would continue to be voted in accordance with the decision of a majority in number of the Founders who are then party to the Founder Voting Agreement.
For example, if the Founders and their affiliates hold shares other than the Class F common stock, such as Class B common stock, that, in the aggregate, have voting power that exceeds 49.999999% of the Voting Power with respect to a matter submitted to our stockholders, then the total voting power of the Founders and their affiliates would exceed 49.999999% of the Voting Power with respect to such matter. Our Founders and their affiliates may acquire additional shares of our Class A common stock or Class B common stock. Shares of our Class B common stock may be transferred (without converting into shares of Class A common stock) to, among others, our Founders or their affiliates, and such transfers to our Founders or their affiliates could increase the total voting power of the Founders and their affiliates above 49.999999% of the Voting Power with respect to such matter. Excluding the voting power of the Class F common stock, our Founders and their affiliates owned shares entitled to approximately 22.9% of the voting power of our outstanding capital stock in the aggregate as of October 28, 2024.
In addition, if one or two Founders withdraw from the Founder Voting Agreement, the total voting power of the Founders and their affiliates in the aggregate could exceed 49.999999% of the Voting Power. For instance, if one Founder has withdrawn from the Founder Voting Agreement and such withdrawing Founder votes his shares in the same manner as the shares of Class F common stock are voted pursuant to the Founder Voting Trust Agreement, then our Founders and their affiliates, in the aggregate, could exercise 49.999999% of the Voting Power of our capital stock plus the voting power of shares held by the withdrawing Founder (which would no longer represent a subset of the 49.999999% of the Voting Power of our capital stock voted by those Founders that remain party to the Founder Voting Agreement).
As a result of future issuances of our common stock or the disposal of shares of our common stock by our Founders and their affiliates, our Founders and their affiliates could have voting power that is substantially greater than, and outsized in comparison to, their economic interests and the percentage of our common stock that they hold.
In certain circumstances, our Founders and their affiliates could have voting power that is substantially greater than, and outsized in comparison to, their economic interests and the percentage of our common stock that they hold. This separation between voting power and economic interests could cause conflicts of interest between our Founders and our other stockholders, which may result in our Founders undertaking, or causing us to undertake, actions that would be desirable for the Founders or their affiliates but would not be desirable for our other stockholders.
In the event that our Founders and their affiliates have less than 49.999999% of the Voting Power prior to giving effect to the voting power of the Class F common stock, the issuance of additional shares by us in the future to stockholders other than our Founders who are then party to the Founder Voting Agreement or their affiliates will dilute the economic interests of our Founders but will generally not result in further dilution of the voting power of such Founders and their affiliates. Because of the voting rights of the Class F common stock, such issuances will instead correspondingly increase the voting power of the Class F common stock. Any future issuances of additional shares of Class A common stock and Class B common stock will not be subject to approval by our stockholders except as required by the listing standards of the NYSE.
In addition, our Founders and their affiliates are free to transfer or otherwise dispose of their shares of Class A common stock and Class B common stock without diminishing their voting power so long as our Founders and certain of their affiliates continue to collectively hold 100,000,000 Corporation Equity Securities (as defined in our amended and restated certificate of incorporation) on the applicable record date (subject to equitable adjustments as provided in our amended and restated certificate of incorporation) (the “Ownership Threshold”). Shares of our Class F common stock will not convert into shares of our Class B common stock, and our multi-class structure will not terminate, solely because our Founders and certain of their affiliates do not satisfy this Ownership Threshold on the applicable record date. Upon the withdrawal, or removal, of one or more of our Founders from the Founder Voting Agreement (including as a result of death or disability), the Ownership Threshold that must be met on the applicable record date will be reduced on a pro rata basis based on the ownership of Corporation Equity Securities (which excludes Designated Founders’ Excluded Shares) of the Founders and certain of their affiliates as of August 10, 2020, which could substantially decrease the Ownership Threshold without reducing the effective voting power of the Class F common stock. Accordingly, our Founders who are then party to the Founder Voting Agreement will be able to achieve substantial liquidity in their holdings, and substantially diminish their economic interest in us, without diminishing their voting power.
Furthermore, meeting the Ownership Threshold on the applicable record date will not ensure that the Founders and their affiliates do not or will not have differing economic interests from the interests of holders of the Class A common stock. For example, the Founder Voting Agreement does not prohibit a Founder from hedging his economic exposure to our common stock; however, we have implemented a policy that will prohibit hedging by our directors, officers and employees, which currently includes the Founders. In addition, the trustee will vote shares of Class F common stock in accordance with the decision of a majority in number of the Founders who are then party to the Founder Voting Agreement, regardless of such Founders’ relative ownership of any class of our common stock.
In August 2020, we granted two of our Founders, Mr. Karp, our Chief Executive Officer and a member of our Board of Directors, and Mr. Cohen, our President and a member of our Board of Directors, options and RSUs for an aggregate of 207.0 million shares of our Class B common stock (collectively, the “Founder Grants”), the substantial majority of which remain subject to vesting, exercise, and/or settlement upon the future satisfaction of service conditions and certain other conditions. These awards are expected to contribute to the Founders’ ability to meet the Ownership Threshold on the applicable record date at least until the sale of such shares by Mr. Karp and Mr. Cohen.
Shares of our common stock designated by one or more of our Founders pursuant to our amended and restated certificate of incorporation may be voted or not voted by such Founders or their affiliates in their discretion and will reduce the voting power exercised in accordance with the decision of a majority in number of the Founders who are then party to the Founder Voting Agreement.
Mr. Thiel has identified a portion of the shares of Class B common stock and Class A common stock beneficially owned by him and his affiliates as Designated Founders’ Excluded Shares, which will not be subject to the Founder Voting Agreement. Such Designated Founders’ Excluded Shares would reduce the total voting power that will be exercised in accordance with the decision of a majority in number of the Founders who are then party to the Founder Voting Agreement. Mr. Thiel or his affiliates would vote or not vote such Designated Founders’ Excluded Shares in their discretion, which may include in a manner different than the voting power exercised in accordance with the decision of a majority in number of the Founders who are then party to the Founder Voting Agreement. Depending on certain circumstances, including the extent to which other holders of Class B common stock convert or sell such shares of Class B common stock, such Designated Founders’ Excluded Shares may have significant voting power and increase Mr. Thiel or his affiliates’ relative voting power compared to the other Founders. The shares identified by Mr. Thiel as Designated Founders’ Excluded Shares represented less than 5% of the voting power of our outstanding capital stock as of October 28, 2024. In the future, Mr. Thiel or our other Founders could designate additional shares as Designated Founders’ Excluded Shares.
The Ownership Threshold that must be met on any applicable record date is a small minority of our outstanding Corporation Equity Securities, and future issuances of Corporation Equity Securities may decrease this percentage.
The Ownership Threshold that must be met on any applicable record date is currently 100,000,000 Corporation Equity Securities, which is a small minority of our outstanding Corporation Equity Securities. While the number of outstanding Corporation Equity Securities may exceed the number of shares of our outstanding capital stock, as a comparison, there were 2,269,808,627 shares of our common stock outstanding as of September 30, 2024. Except for certain equitable adjustments as provided in our amended and restated certificate of incorporation, future issuances of Corporation Equity Securities by us will not increase the Ownership Threshold that must be met on any applicable record date and, accordingly, will decrease the percentage of outstanding Corporation Equity Securities represented by the Ownership Threshold.
Upon the withdrawal, or removal, of one or more of our Founders from the Founder Voting Agreement (including as a result of death or disability), the Ownership Threshold that must be met on the applicable record date will be reduced on a pro rata basis
based on the ownership of Corporation Equity Securities of the Founders and certain of their affiliates as of August 10, 2020. We expect that the Ownership Threshold will be reduced by approximately 57 million Corporation Equity Securities upon the withdrawal or removal from the Founder Voting Agreement of Alexander Karp, approximately 12 million Corporation Equity Securities upon the withdrawal or removal of Stephen Cohen, and approximately 31 million Corporation Equity Securities upon the withdrawal or removal of Peter Thiel if such withdrawals or removals were to happen.
In addition, in the future we could create a new class of equity securities with different economic or voting rights than existing classes. If we were to create a new class of equity security, because of the broad definition of “Corporation Equity Securities,” such security could qualify as Corporation Equity Securities and therefore count towards the Ownership Threshold if held by our Founders who are then party to the Founder Voting Agreement or certain of their affiliates. If such security has lesser or no economic rights, it could have the effect of further increasing the divergence between the economic interests of our Founders who are then party to the Founder Voting Agreement and their affiliates, on the one hand, and the voting power of such Founders and their affiliates, on the other. Further, Corporation Equity Securities includes, among other things, any warrants, calls, options or other right, whether vested or unvested, to acquire from the Company certain voting or equity securities from the Company. Accordingly, the Board of Directors could issue additional equity securities, or additional options, RSUs, warrants or other rights to acquire equity securities (whether vested or unvested), to our Founders or certain of their affiliates, which would increase the number of Corporation Equity Securities they hold and enable them to meet the Ownership Threshold notwithstanding sales of Corporation Equity Securities that they currently hold. As a result, any Founders who are then party to the Founder Voting Agreement or certain of their affiliates could hold a nominal equity interest with little to no voting rights but meet the Ownership Threshold and therefore have voting power that provides effective control of our company.
The multiple class structure of our common stock features certain provisions that are novel or otherwise not common among other corporations with multiple class structures.
A number of provisions relating to the multiple class structure of our common stock are novel or otherwise not common among other corporations with multiple class structures. For instance, our Founders who are then party to the Founder Voting Agreement are free to transfer or otherwise dispose of their shares of Class A common stock and Class B common stock without diminishing their voting control so long as our Founders who are then party to the Founder Voting Agreement and certain of their affiliates meet the Ownership Threshold on the applicable record date. Shares of our Class B common stock, which have ten (10) votes per share, may remain outstanding in perpetuity. Additionally, shares of our Class B common stock may be transferred (without converting into shares of Class A common stock) to, among others, our Founders or their affiliates, which could result in our Founders and their affiliates or other stockholders obtaining additional voting control.
Additionally, certain provisions of our amended and restated certificate of incorporation related to the calculation of the voting power of the Class F common stock may have an adverse effect on our stockholders other than our Founders. Under our amended and restated certificate of incorporation, our Founders have the right to challenge the calculation of the voting power of the Class F common stock. Such a challenge may cause delays in the certification of any vote of our stockholders or in the effectiveness of any action of our stockholders.
The multi-class structure of our common stock, the Founder Voting Trust Agreement and the Founder Voting Agreement by which our Founders exercise effective control over all matters submitted to a vote of our stockholders will exist for the foreseeable future.
Shares of our Class F common stock will convert automatically into shares of our Class B common stock only if the Founder Voting Trust Agreement or the Founder Voting Agreement is terminated. Each of these agreements could remain in place until the death of our last living Founder. As of September 30, 2024, our Founders were 56, 56, and 42 years old. Further, upon a discretionary or compulsory withdrawal of a Founder as a beneficiary of the Founder Voting Trust Agreement, the Trustee will instruct our transfer agent and us to convert the withdrawing Founder’s pro rata portion of the shares of Class F common stock held in the Founder Voting Trust at the time of the withdrawal into shares of Class B common stock in accordance with our amended and restated certificate of incorporation.
Because of the ten-to-one voting ratio between our Class B and Class A common stock, even if the Class F common stock converts to Class B common stock, our Founders will collectively control a significant portion of the voting power of our capital stock based on their current ownership. Future transfers by holders of shares of Class B common stock will generally result in those shares converting to Class A common stock, subject to limited exceptions, such as certain transfers effected for estate planning purposes and transfers between related entities. The conversion of Class B common stock to Class A common stock will have the effect, over time, of increasing the relative voting power of those individual holders of Class B common stock who retain their shares in the long term. If our Founders and their affiliates, individually or collectively, retain a significant portion of their holdings of Class B common stock for an extended period of time, they could, in the future, individually or collectively, continue to control a significant portion of the combined voting power of our Class A common stock and Class B common stock, even without the use of the Class F common stock, and such voting power could enable
holders of Class B common stock to effectively control all matters subject to the stockholder approval. Shares of our Class B common stock may remain outstanding in perpetuity.
Further, if all, or a large portion, of the Founder Grants should be exercised or vest and settle, our Founders will increase their voting power of our Class B common stock. Although the terms of our amended and restated certificate of incorporation only provide for a separate vote of the holders of our Class B common stock on limited matters, under Delaware law, certain actions may require the approval of the holders of the Class B common stock voting as a separate class. For example, if we amend our amended and restated certificate of incorporation to adversely affect the special rights, powers, or preferences of our Class B common stock in a manner that does not so affect the Class A common stock or Class F common stock, Delaware law could require approval of the holders of our Class B common stock voting separately as single class. For any vote of the Class B common stock voting as a separate class, our Founders will significantly influence such vote if all, or a large portion, of the Founder Grants should vest and settle and the Founders retain such shares.
Our governance structure may negatively affect the decision by certain institutional investors to purchase or hold shares of our Class A common stock.
The holding of low-voting stock, such as our Class A common stock, may not be permitted by the investment policies of certain institutional investors or may be less attractive to the portfolio managers of certain institutional investors. In addition, our multi-class governance structure may make us ineligible for inclusion in certain indices, and as a result, mutual funds, exchange-traded funds, and other investment vehicles that attempt to passively track such indices would not invest in our stock. For example, S&P did not allow most newly public companies utilizing dual- or multi-class capital structures to be included in their indices from 2017 until a change in their eligibility requirements for such companies in 2023. Following this change, we joined the S&P 500 index in September 2024. Any such existing or new policies may depress our valuation compared to those of other similar companies that do not have multi-class governance structures.
Future issuances of our Class A common stock will dilute the voting power of our Class A common stockholders but may not result in further dilution of the voting power of our Founders who are then party to the Founder Voting Agreement.
Future issuances of our Class A common stock will dilute the voting power of our Class A common stockholders, and future issuances to stockholders other than our Founders who are then party to the Founder Voting Agreement will dilute the economic interests of our Founders and their affiliates. However, because of the voting rights of the shares of Class F common stock, in the event that our Founders and their affiliates have less than 49.999999% of the Voting Power prior to giving effect to the voting power of the Class F common stock, future issuances of Class A common stock to stockholders other than our Founders and their affiliates will generally not result in dilution of the voting power of our Founders who are then party to the Founder Voting Agreement or their affiliates, but rather, will correspondingly increase the voting power of the Class F common stock. Any future issuances of additional shares of Class A common stock will not be subject to approval by our stockholders except as required by the listing standards of the NYSE.
General Risk Factors
Adverse economic conditions or reduced technology spending may adversely impact our business.
Our business depends on the economic health of our current and prospective customers and overall demand for technology. In addition, the purchase of our platforms and services is often discretionary and typically involves a significant commitment of capital and other resources. Over the past two years, the United States, the EU, and the U.K. have experienced historically high levels of inflation. In response to high levels of inflation and recession fears, the U.S. Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank, and the Bank of England have raised interest rates and implemented fiscal policy interventions in recent periods. These interventions may lower inflation, however, they may also reduce economic growth rates, create a recession, and have other similar effects. A further downturn in macroeconomic conditions, including heightened interest rates; supply chain disruptions; global political and economic uncertainty; geopolitical tensions, such as the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict; a lack of availability of credit; a reduction in business confidence and activity; the curtailment of government or corporate spending; public health concerns or emergencies; financial market volatility; and other factors have in the past, and may in the future, negatively affect the industries to which we sell our platforms and services. Our customers may suffer from reduced operating budgets, which could cause them to defer, reduce, or forego purchases of our platforms or services. Moreover, competitors may respond to market conditions by lowering prices and attempting to lure away our customers, and the increased pace of consolidation in certain industries may result in reduced overall spending on our offerings. Uncertainty about global and regional economic conditions, a downturn in the technology sector or any sectors in which our customers operate, or a reduction in information technology spending even if economic conditions are stable, could adversely impact our business, financial condition, and results of operations in a number of ways, including longer sales cycles, extended or alternative payment terms or delayed payments from our customers, lower prices for our platforms and services, material default rates among our customers, contract terminations or renegotiations by our customers, reduced sales of our platforms or services, difficulty attracting new customers or retaining and expanding relationships with existing customers, and lower or no growth.
For example, some of our early-stage Investee customers filed for bankruptcy or terminated their contracts with us and we may not realize the full value of our commercial contracts with such customers as a result.
We cannot predict the timing, strength, or duration of any crises, economic slowdown or any subsequent recovery generally, or for any industry in particular. Although certain aspects of the effects of a crisis or an economic slowdown may provide potential new opportunities for our business, we cannot guarantee that the net impact of any such events will not be materially negative. Accordingly, if the conditions in the general economy and the markets in which we operate worsen from present levels, our business, financial condition, and results of operations could be adversely affected.
Moreover, to the extent challenging macroeconomic conditions adversely affect our business, financial condition, and results of operations, these events, alone or in combination, may also have the effect of heightening many of the other risks described in this “Risk Factors” section, including but not limited to, those related to maintaining company culture, our ability to increase sales to existing and new customers, continue to perform on existing contracts, develop and deploy new technologies, expand our marketing capabilities and sales organization, and generate sufficient cash flow to service our indebtedness, volatility in the trading price of our Class A common stock, and our ability to comply with the covenants in the agreements that govern our indebtedness.
We may face exposure to foreign currency exchange rate fluctuations.
Our results of operations and cash flows are subject to fluctuations due to changes in foreign currency exchange rates, particularly changes in the Euro, JPY, and GBP. We expect our non-U.S. operations to continue to grow in the near term and we are continually monitoring our foreign currency exposure to determine if we should consider a hedging program. Today, our non-U.S. contracts are denominated in either U.S. dollars or local currency, while our non-U.S. operating expenses are often denominated in local currencies. However, as we expand our non-U.S. operations, a larger portion of our operating expenses may be denominated in local currencies and we may also hold monetary assets and liabilities in currencies other than the respective subsidiaries’ functional currency. Volatility in exchange rates and global financial markets is expected to continue due to political and economic uncertainty globally.
In prior years, the U.S. dollar strengthened compared to other currencies, which increased and has the potential to increase in the future the real cost of our platforms to our customers outside of the United States, which could reduce demand for our platforms and adversely affect our financial condition and results of operations. Continued increases in the value of the U.S. dollar and decreases in the value of foreign currencies could result in the dollar equivalent of our revenues being lower, result in increased expenses for our non-U.S. operations, or otherwise impact our financial condition and results of operations.
Natural disasters, including climate change, and other catastrophic events beyond our control could harm our business.
Natural disasters, including climate change, or other catastrophic events may cause damage or disruption to our operations, non-U.S. commerce and the global economy, and thus could have a negative effect on us. Our business operations have been, and could in the future be, subject to interruption by natural disasters, earthquakes, flooding, fire, power shortages, pandemics (such as COVID-19), terrorism, such as Hamas’ attack against Israel, political unrest, cyberattacks including as may be exacerbated by the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict, geopolitical tensions including those related to the invasion of Ukraine, the effects of climate change such as drought, wildfires, increased storm severity, and sea level rise, telecommunications failure, vandalism, and other events beyond our control. Although we maintain crisis management and disaster response plans, such events could make it difficult or impossible for us to deliver our services to our customers, could decrease demand for our services, could make existing customers unable or unwilling to fulfill their contractual requirements to us, including their payment obligations, and could cause us to incur substantial expense, including expenses or liabilities arising from potential litigation. Our insurance may not be sufficient to cover losses or additional expense that we may sustain. Customer data could be lost, significant recovery time could be required to resume operations and our financial condition and results of operations could be adversely affected in the event of a major natural disaster or catastrophic event.
In addition, the impacts of climate change on the global economy and our industry are rapidly evolving. We have been, and may continue to be, subject to increased regulations, reporting requirements, standards or expectations regarding the environmental impacts of our business. While we seek to mitigate our business risks associated with climate change, there are inherent climate-related risks wherever business is conducted. Any of our primary locations may be vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change. For example, our Colorado headquarters have experienced and may continue to experience, climate-related events and at an increasing frequency, including drought, water scarcity, heat waves, wildfires and resultant air quality impacts and power shutoffs associated with the wildfires. Additionally, while some employees have returned to our offices, it will remain difficult to mitigate the impact of these events on our employees continuing to work remotely. Changing market dynamics, global policy developments and increasing frequency and impact of extreme weather events on critical infrastructure in the United States and elsewhere have the potential to disrupt our business, the business of our partners, suppliers, and customers, and may cause us to experience higher attrition, losses and additional costs to maintain or resume operations.
If we fail to maintain an effective system of internal controls, our ability to produce timely and accurate financial statements or comply with applicable regulations could be impaired.
We are subject to the reporting requirements of the Exchange Act, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, and the rules and regulations of the listing standards of the NYSE. The requirements of these rules and regulations may continue to increase our legal, accounting, and financial compliance costs, make some activities more difficult, time-consuming, and costly, and place significant strain on our personnel, systems, and resources.
The Sarbanes-Oxley Act requires, among other things, that we maintain effective disclosure controls and procedures and internal control over financial reporting. We have developed and refined our financial reporting and other disclosure controls and procedures, and will continue to do so. Our controls are designed to ensure that information required to be disclosed by us in the reports that we will file with the SEC is recorded, processed, summarized, and reported within the time periods specified in SEC rules and forms and that information required to be disclosed in reports under the Exchange Act is accumulated and communicated to our principal executive and financial officers. We are also continuing to improve our internal control over financial reporting as our business continues to grow in size and complexity. We expect to continue to hire and integrate additional accounting and financial staff with appropriate company experience and technical accounting knowledge, as well as implement and integrate new technological systems. In order to maintain and improve the effectiveness of our financial statement and disclosure controls and procedures and internal control over financial reporting, we have expended, and anticipate that we will continue to expend, significant resources, including accounting-related costs and significant management oversight.
Our current controls and any new controls that we develop may become inadequate because of changes in conditions in our business. Further, we have identified in the past, and may identify in the future, deficiencies in our controls. Any failure to develop or maintain effective controls or any difficulties encountered in their implementation or improvement could harm our results of operations or cause us to fail to meet our reporting obligations and may result in a restatement of our financial statements for prior periods. Any failure to implement and maintain effective internal control over financial reporting also could adversely affect the results of periodic management evaluations and annual independent registered public accounting firm attestation reports. Ineffective disclosure controls and procedures and internal control over financial reporting could also cause investors to lose confidence in our reported financial and other information, which could have a negative effect on the trading price of our Class A common stock. In addition, if we are unable to continue to meet these requirements, we may not be able to remain listed on the NYSE. We are required to annually comply with the SEC rules that implement Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and are therefore required to make a formal assessment of the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting for that purpose.
Our independent registered public accounting firm must also formally attest to the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting annually. Any failure to maintain effective disclosure controls and internal control over financial reporting could have an adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations and could cause a decline in the market price of our Class A common stock.
We have incurred and will continue to incur increased costs and demands upon management as a result of complying with the laws and regulations affecting public companies which could adversely affect our business, financial condition, and results of operations.
As a public company, we have incurred and will continue to incur greater legal, accounting, finance, and other expenses than we incurred as a private company. We are subject to the reporting requirements of the Exchange Act, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010, and the rules and regulations of the NYSE. These requirements have increased and will continue to increase our legal, accounting, and financial compliance costs and have made, and will continue to make, some activities more time-consuming and costly. For example, the Exchange Act requires, among other things, that we file annual, quarterly, and current reports with respect to our business and results of operations. As a result of the complexity involved in complying with the rules and regulations applicable to public companies, our management’s attention may be diverted from the day-to-day management of our business, which could harm our business, financial condition, and results of operations. Although we have already hired additional employees to assist us in complying with these requirements, we may need to hire more employees in the future or engage outside consultants, which will increase our operating expenses. Additionally, as a public company subject to additional rules and regulations and oversight, we may not have the same flexibility we had as a private company.
In addition, changing laws, regulations, and standards relating to corporate governance and public disclosure are creating uncertainty for public companies, increasing legal and financial compliance costs, and making some activities more time-consuming. These laws, regulations, and standards are subject to varying interpretations, in many cases due to their lack of specificity, and, as a result, their application in practice may evolve over time as new guidance is provided by regulatory and governing bodies. This could result in continuing uncertainty regarding compliance matters and higher costs necessitated by
ongoing revisions to disclosure and governance practices. We have and intend to continue to invest substantial resources to comply with evolving laws, regulations, and standards, and this investment may result in increased general and administrative expenses and a diversion of management’s time and attention from business operations to compliance activities. If our efforts to comply with new laws, regulations, and standards differ from the activities intended by regulatory or governing bodies due to ambiguities related to their application and practice, regulatory authorities may initiate legal proceedings against us and our business may be harmed.
We also expect these rules and regulations to make it more expensive for us to obtain director and officer liability insurance, and we may be required to accept reduced policy limits and coverage or incur substantially higher costs to maintain the same or similar coverage. As a result, it may be more difficult for us to attract and retain qualified individuals to serve on our Board of Directors or as our executive officers.
As a result of disclosure of information in this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q and other filings required of a public company, our business and financial condition has become more visible, which may result in an increased risk of threatened or actual litigation, including by competitors and other third parties. If such claims are successful, our business, financial condition, and results of operations could be harmed, and even if the claims do not result in litigation or are resolved in our favor, these claims, and the time and resources necessary to resolve them, could divert the resources of our management and harm our business, financial condition, and results of operations.
ITEM 2. UNREGISTERED SALES OF EQUITY SECURITIES AND USE OF PROCEEDS
The following table summarizes stock repurchases during the three months ended September 30, 2024 (in thousands, except share and per share amounts):
Period
Total Number of Shares Purchased
Average Price Paid per Share(1)
Total Number of Shares Purchased under Share Repurchase Program
Approximate Dollar Amount Available for Future Purchases under Share Repurchase Program
July 1, 2024 - July 31, 2024
239,655
$
27.54
239,655
$
966,702
August 1, 2024 - August 31, 2024
213,344
29.53
213,344
960,402
September 1, 2024 - September 30, 2024
172,459
$
34.79
172,459
$
954,402
Total
625,458
625,458
—————
(1) Includes related commissions.
(2) In August 2023, the Company’s Board of Directors authorized a stock repurchase program of up to $1.0 billion of the Company’s outstanding shares of Class A common stock. Our stock repurchase authorization does not have an expiration date and the pace of our repurchase activity will depend on factors such as business and market conditions, corporate and regulatory requirements, and other considerations. Our stock repurchase may be effected from time to time through open market purchases or pursuant to a Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Our stock repurchase program may be accelerated, suspended, delayed, or discontinued at any time.
ITEM 3. DEFAULTS UPON SENIOR SECURITIES
Not applicable.
ITEM 4. MINE SAFETY DISCLOSURES
Not applicable.
ITEM 5. OTHER INFORMATION
Rule 10b5-1 Trading Arrangements
During the quarter ended September 30, 2024, the following directors and officers, as defined in Rule 16a-1(f), adopted or terminated a “Rule 10b5-1 trading arrangement” as defined in Regulation S-K Item 408, as follows:
On August 22, 2024, Alexandra Schiff, a member of our Board of Directors, adopted a Rule 10b5-1 trading arrangement providing for the potential sales of shares of our Class A common stock through various transactions upon the occurrence and satisfaction of certain price and/or other conditions, with 14,776 shares being the total of the maximum number of all shares subject to any condition when summed across all possible conditions. The trading arrangement is intended to satisfy the affirmative defense conditions of Rule 10b5-1(c). The duration of the trading arrangement is until July 7, 2025, or earlier, upon the completion or expiration of all transactions subject to the trading arrangement.
On August 28, 2024, Shyam Sankar, our Chief Technology Officer and Executive Vice President, terminated a Rule 10b5-1 trading arrangement, which was previously adopted on August 31, 2023 and intended to satisfy the affirmative defense of Rule 10b5-1(c). For additional details about the material terms of this arrangement, refer to the description under the heading “Rule 10b5-1 Trading Arrangements” contained in Part II, Item 5. Other Information of our Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended September 30, 2023, which is incorporated herein by reference.
On August 29, 2024, Mr. Sankar adopted a Rule 10b5-1 trading arrangement providing for the potential sales of shares of our Class A common stock through various transactions upon the occurrence and satisfaction of certain price and/or other conditions, with 7,305,000 shares being the total of the maximum number of all shares subject to any condition when summed across all possible conditions, less any shares to be withheld and/or sold to satisfy applicable tax withholdings. The trading arrangement is intended to satisfy the affirmative defense conditions of Rule 10b5-1(c). The duration of the trading arrangement is until March 6, 2026, or earlier, upon the completion or expiration of all transactions subject to the trading arrangement.
On September 5, 2024, Ryan Taylor, our Chief Revenue Officer and Chief Legal Officer, adopted a Rule 10b5-1 trading arrangement providing for the potential sales of shares of our Class A common stock through various transactions upon the occurrence and satisfaction of certain price and/or other conditions, with 867,164 shares being the total of the maximum number of all shares subject to any condition when summed across all possible conditions. The trading arrangement is intended to satisfy the affirmative defense conditions of Rule 10b5-1(c). The duration of the trading arrangement is until June 30, 2025, or earlier, upon the completion or expiration of all transactions subject to the trading arrangement.
On September 11, 2024, Stephen Cohen, our President, Secretary, and a member of our Board of Directors, adopted a Rule 10b5-1 trading arrangement providing for the potential sales of shares of our Class A common stock through various transactions upon the occurrence and satisfaction of certain price and/or other conditions, with 2,339,862 shares being the total of the maximum number of all shares subject to any condition when summed across all possible conditions, less any shares to be withheld and/or sold to satisfy applicable tax withholdings. The trading arrangement is intended to satisfy the affirmative defense conditions of Rule 10b5-1(c). The duration of the trading arrangement is until December 31, 2025, or earlier, upon the completion or expiration of all transactions subject to the trading arrangement.
On September 12, 2024, Mr. Glazer adopted a Rule 10b5-1 trading arrangement providing for the potential sales of shares of our Class A common stock through various transactions upon the occurrence and satisfaction of certain price and/or other conditions, with 945,442 shares being the total of the maximum number of all shares subject to any condition when summed across all possible conditions. The trading arrangement is intended to satisfy the affirmative defense conditions of Rule 10b5-1(c). The duration of the trading arrangement is until June 30, 2025, or earlier, upon the completion or expiration of all transactions subject to the trading arrangement.
On September 12, 2024, Lauren Stat, a member of our Board of Directors, adopted a Rule 10b5-1 trading arrangement providing for the potential sales of shares of our Class A common stock through various transactions upon the occurrence and satisfaction of certain price and/or other conditions, with 3,200 shares being the total of the maximum number of all shares subject to any condition when summed across all possible conditions. The trading arrangement is intended to satisfy the affirmative defense conditions of Rule 10b5-1(c). The duration of the trading arrangement is until December 31, 2025, or earlier, upon the completion or expiration of all transactions subject to the trading arrangement.
During the quarter ended September 30, 2024, no other directors or officers, as defined in Rule 16a-1(f), adopted or terminated a “Rule 10b5-1 trading arrangement” or a “non-Rule 10b5-1 trading arrangement,” each as defined in Regulation S-K Item 408.
Cover Page Interactive Data File (formatted as Inline XBRL and contained in Exhibit 101)
*Filed Herewith
+ Indicates a management contract or compensatory plan or arrangement
†The certifications attached as Exhibit 32.1 that accompany this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q are not deemed filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission and are not to be incorporated by reference into any filing of the Registrant under the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, or the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, whether made before or after the date of this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q, irrespective of any general incorporation language contained in such filing.
Pursuant to the requirements of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, the registrant has duly caused this report to be signed on its behalf by the undersigned thereunto duly authorized.