Palantir and other tech companies are stocking offices with tobacco products

https://fortune.com/2026/03/04/palantir-tech-companies-offices-vending-machines-tobacco-worker-productivity/

by donutshop • 5 months ago

84 114 5 months ago

fortune.com

nancyminusone• 5 months ago

What the fuck

still-learning• 5 months ago

When is my corporate sponsored adderall IV drip coming in?

giraffe_lady5• 5 months ago

I mean what do you think that big push of vc funded online adhd medication services a few years ago was about.

red-iron-pine4• 5 months ago

greed?

leetrout• 5 months ago

I always assumed that was one of the benefits of FAANG offering onsite company doctors.

jdross• 5 months ago

“While the pouches are considered a tobacco product, they don’t contain any tobacco, and are instead made from the plant fiber cellulose”

It’s just Zyn, which doesn’t seem that dramatically different than coffee. But maybe that’s because I don’t drink coffee or use nicotine

cush2• 5 months ago

Coffee doesn’t give you mouth cancer

stackedinserter2• 5 months ago

Do nicotine pouches give you mouth cancer?

chasebank• 5 months ago

Does nicotine?

SpicyLemonZest3• 5 months ago

These kind of synthetic nicotine products aren't carcinogenic. They were originally developed as a safer replacement for the traditional Swedish practice of stuffing a bag of tobacco in your mouth, although after acquisition by Phillip Morris they've become common among people who never used tobacco in the first place. (As the article gestures towards, they are "tobacco products" under US law because of their nicotine content, even though they contain no tobacco leaf.)

steve_adams_864• 5 months ago

According to several reputable sources (cancer societies around the world), it isn't known if this is a risk yet. What are you being this on?

I'm not encouraging anyone to use these things, but we should only make claims that are based on evidence.

Georgelemental2• 5 months ago

Nicotine is addictive, much more so than coffee

stringfood2• 5 months ago

it's like 25x more addicting than coffee, not sure how OP misses that

sph2• 5 months ago

Utter nonsense. I have replaced my ADHD prescription with nicotine patches, and in my experience I have had worse withdrawals, and greater desire to consume caffeine than either dermal nicotine or dexamfetamine. And I’m only a cup a day kinda guy, and I used to be a heavy smoker for years, so I know how dangerous the stuff can be.

If we’re talking about smoking or vaping, or nicotine pouches, sure, but mode of administration and how quickly it peaks in your bloodstream cannot be hand-waved away like that.

Spivak2• 5 months ago

Nicotine is depending on how you measure the 3rd or 4th most addictive substance on the planet. It's up there with Heroine, Fentanyl, Cocaine, and Meth.

If you consider heroine a "not even once" type of drug then nicotine should give you pause.

D-Machine10• 5 months ago

It is really not so clear at all this is the case for pure nicotine products. See https://gwern.net/nicotine#habit-formation, and https://gwern.net/nicotine#dependence for a starter / some brief counter-evidence.

gethly2• 5 months ago

bullshit. i've been smoking cigars for 5 years now. sometimes 2 or 3 a day and have zero issues stopping or going without a smoke for months. i was surprised as i was never smoker, but it is what it is. nicotine addiction is not nicotine addiction but cigarette addiction. cigars are pure tobacco. nothing else. cigarettes have over thousand ingredients in them. cigars also have higher nicotine dose than cigarettes and as i have said, zero issues.

know thy enemy.

SpicyLemonZest3• 5 months ago

From personal experience, this isn't even a top-down push. I know people who have defended in detail why it's a good idea for them to develop a nicotine addiction. Bizarre behavior.

CuriouslyC• 5 months ago

Nicotine has been demonstrated to help people with schizophrenia and certain mental illnesses quite a bit. It's considered a medicine by indigenous cultures for a reason.

cush2• 5 months ago

The opening line - “puff puff pass the spreadsheets” - was written by someone with absolutely no idea what that means

hirvi74• 5 months ago

Hey, that is the kind of corporate lingo I can get behind.

boringg• 5 months ago

you mean AI?

jihadjihad3• 5 months ago

"How do you do, fellow coworkers?"

jihadjihad3• 5 months ago

Username checks out?

Jamesbeam• 5 months ago

Bob from marketing used half a million tokens on that, you monster. He is now crying and talking to his ChatGPT therapist / boyfriend.

stackedinserter2• 5 months ago

Back in 2003: tech companies are stocking offices with coffee machines to boost employees productivity.

alfon• 5 months ago

Not much different than a fully stocked fridge with alcoholic beverages. Consume responsibly, we're all adults.

nickmonad2• 5 months ago

I agree to a point. Although, alcohol (when consumed responsibly) has a social element to it, so companies having a "beers on Friday after 4pm" just feels different than "here's nicotine so you can be more productive and make us more money." They are serving different functions.

dmix• 5 months ago

just feels different than "here's nicotine so you can be more productive and make us more money."

More likely these companies just offered to give them some free vending machines and some office manager said sure why not. Not everything is a careful corporate strategy.

diacritical3• 5 months ago

Beers on Friday after 4pm is rarely done because management really cares about the employees. It's a type of team building, improves employee morale and humanizes management. All lead to improved productivity in the long term.

If my boss gives me a stimulant to be more productive, especially a relatively harmless one like nicotine, I would gladly take it, as I like stimulants and am an adult capable of making decisions for myself. If I didn't, I would just refuse, just how I might refuse the free coffee by boss offers me.

I doubt anyone is forcing the employees to take the stimulants. That would be bad, indeed.

graybeardhacker• 5 months ago

One could pretty easily argue that free coffee, tea, energy drinks and energy bar snacks are all productivity driven perks.

bkummel2• 5 months ago

A fully stocked fridge with alcoholic beverages also doesn't belong in a work place.

julianeon• 5 months ago

Tech companies are less receptive to alcohol than they used to be. There was a post (can't find it now) from a VC firm saying something like, "We encourage our companies to throw no alcohol parties; there's less risk of all kinds, and overall it's less messy."

bradlys• 5 months ago

After MeToo it was all gone. A lot of the incidents that were problematic from that era almost all had some alcohol involved.

flowerbreeze• 5 months ago

I'll take one addiction and a possible oral cancer for the company, thank you so much. No, I understand it's not guaranteed, but I am seriously flabbergasted by the careless actions of some companies...

awakeasleep• 5 months ago

Now there is a perk that is going to get expensive, and boy it is going to suck when theres a downturn or new facilities manager who decides to cut back and stop offering them.

aduffy• 5 months ago

It's even funnier actually. Yes, Palantir does have free Zyn vending machines in every office, but the Zyn is only for visiting customers. Employees are explicitly prohibited from using the machines.

Just vice signaling all the way down.

general_reveal• 5 months ago

Big tobacco won. They realized the lobby was saying cigarettes were bad for the lungs, so they … fixed that with a vape product. Still addictive as shit. Hah! Oh, and now the Zyn.

Which industry has the most to gain from these products? We’re living in some weird time period where value systems are regressing.

karmakurtisaani• 5 months ago

In this time and age going against proven scientific knowledge or even basic decency signals toughness and manliness. It works particularly well on deeply insecure men who need to prove their masculinity, and boy is there an endless supply of those in the US.

adhoc_slime• 5 months ago

The pouches are available for free in Palantir’s offices for employees and guests over the age of 21, a Palantir spokesperson told the Wall Street Journal. Palantir, which did not respond to requests for comment, pays to stock the products.

Is the article wrong in this statement?

hilliardfarmer• 5 months ago

Yes, palantir is lying to the press, suprise suprise!

duxup• 5 months ago

Why are these guys so fucking weird?

Like being a selfish prick of a CEO is whatever, wrong but money I get it. But this other stuff like signaling with tobacco? What social media rabbit hole makes tobacco seem like something to spend money on??? Are all these guys actively “twitter poisoned”, like they’re really into this weird shit like excessively worrying about other people’s genitalia or anti christ shit?

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/11/opinion/trump-musk-kanye-...

0x4e• 5 months ago

This reads like an ad.

red-iron-pine4• 5 months ago

it is. but boy howdy wait until you read the rest of the comments.

that said, this is a site run by venture capitalists -- flogging product is a given

paxys• 5 months ago

Soldiers have always been given cocaine and meth to stay awake and alert during battles. Guess their tech backup will have to do with nicotine.

marcosdumay• 5 months ago

During battles the calculations around health are completely different.

Are the Palantir headquarters inside an active war zone?

red-iron-pine4• 5 months ago

lord knows they're trying to be

poplarsol• 5 months ago

They're "tobacco products" in the same sense that Diet Coke is a "cocaine product".

y-curious2• 5 months ago

Ok, nicotine products. Still addictive junk, way harder to quit than any other nicotine product.

giraffe_lady5• 5 months ago

Or more literally in the sense that cocaine is a narcotic. This is the legal category, not the medical one.

D-Machine10• 5 months ago

Seems a good time to link to Gwern's well-researched notes on why nicotine, when consumed in purer forms (e.g. patches, gum), may be pretty useful and not really as harmful nor as addictive as one might think.

https://gwern.net/nicotine

Teever• 5 months ago

Its been a while since I read this post and I don’t have time to reread it but from my experience while it is a useful drug it definitely has addiction and health issues even in more pure forms.

D-Machine10• 5 months ago

Correct. My TL:DR summary would be:

- when quantifying for gum and patches, it is really hard to conclude that these pure forms of nicotine are any different from caffeine in harms / addictiveness

- cigarettes, or even pure tobacco smoked is definitely addictive and bad due to other compounds in play

- chewing tobacco products are likely a lot less worse than smoking, but still probably worse than pure nicotine gum or patches

- data is very unclear on vaping

IMO experience suggests vaping can clearly be highly addictive (see: young adults and teens), and I know personally there is even some minimal research on vaping e.g. THC that shows that vaping might be worse than just smoking cannabis, so vaping definitely warrants caution in general [though vaping THC requires much higher temps and different solvents, and involves different terpenes and other compounds].

padjo• 5 months ago

Habitually taking vasoconstrictors is almost certainly a bad idea.

dfxm12• 5 months ago

The article specifically mentions Lucy & Sesh. A quick Google search confirmed some suspicions:

Sesh (2025): Max Cunningham is the Founder & CEO of Sesh, a nicotine pouch startup. In September 2025, Sesh raised $40 million in funding from investors including 8VC, a firm co-founded by Peter Thiel.

David Renteln is the ceo of Lucy. I couldn't find a direct link between Thiel and Lucy, but it looks like Thiel has been friends with Renteln for a while and invested in Renteln's Soylent.

cm20122• 5 months ago

Nicotine is highly addictive but also relatively harmless. I would appreciate it provided by an employer though even though I wouldn't normally use it.

BoredPositron• 5 months ago

You would appreciate it? Why?

cm20122• 5 months ago

My own risk estimation is that its harmless enough for me and id want to try and see how it made me feel. Chemicals are cool.

When i worked in an office with free zoke zero I drank 3 cans per day.

butterbomb2• 5 months ago

Funny. At least since Covid, I’ve noticed a number of employers, often at municipalities or other governments, but sometimes at private companies, are adding terms that employees cannot use any nicotine products whatsoever. What’s even stranger is the always go out of their way to explicitly note that non tobacco cessation aids are not allowed either. Seems like pure virtue signaling, though at least one person has suggested to me that the companies engaging in this are serious and go as far as blood testing.

JohnFen• 5 months ago

This is almost always because the company gets a break on health insurance premiums for enacting such a policy.

butterbomb2• 5 months ago

Ah that makes sense. Was something changed recently to enable this? I’ve certainly seen employer health insurance discounts for not smoking for years, but the complete ban, listed in a job application, and explicitly including cessation aids feels like something I’ve only seen in recent years.

OutOfHere2• 5 months ago

I strongly urge against consuming any tobacco or nicotine product. At the very least, it's very bad for your heart in pretty much every form, whether pure or impure, smoked or absorbed. Besides being directly bad for the heart, nicotine also metabolizes to carcinogens.

If you need a boost beyond caffeine, consider a square of 95% or 100% dark chocolate. It works. It too stresses the heart mildly, and can aggravate reflux a lot, but overall it's significantly safer than any tobacco product. You can also eat more of it if as needed.

The only sane time to take pure nicotine might be if someone is dying from Covid, their lungs are collapsing, and one desperately needs a daytime breathing boost.

nobodyandproud3• 5 months ago

Any brand or store recommendations?

OutOfHere2• 5 months ago

"Montezuma Absolute Black 100% Cocoa With Orange And Coco Nibs" is what I ultimately went with. It is available on Amazon.

I have paused it for the time being due to reflux, but not everyone has reflux. Note that its strength can build up over days, so do not exceed the amount taken by more than 1 square a week. Overall, do not exceed 1 square per day per 50 lbs of body weight. Overuse can risk a high heart rate and insomnia.

api• 5 months ago

I've been wondering how long it would take for tobacco to make a comeback given that we seem to be in a weird era where it's some kind of flex to embrace idiotic ideas.

Nicotine (without tobacco e.g. Zyn or gum) does seem to have some nootropic-ish properties but it's vastly inferior to a lot of other things and has major addiction/tolerance problems. It's not a great performance enhancer for anything but very sporadic use.

m4ck_• 5 months ago

If companies are going to start giving us free drugs to boost productivity, they should at least give out the good stuff. Give me a modafinil (/provigil) vending machine, forget nicotine.

jesse_dot_id• 5 months ago

History has taught me to wait on the science of newer products that are consumed.

giraffe_lady5• 5 months ago

Seriously. How many times in your life have you seen "ok ok, yah that thing was bad, sorry everyone. but this new one isn't :)"

nobodyandproud3• 5 months ago

I’m taking a low dose (and spread out beyond 1 week) of mounjaro.

I realize the risk as GLP long term use is untested, but in my case it’s that; or deal with inevitable health problems from high BP and being only moderately overweight.

I don’t see a good reason for nicotine products.

jihadjihad3• 5 months ago

Palantir’s move is just one of the ways biohacking has taken the Silicon Valley tech space by storm.

It's not a new phenomenon, either. I remember biohacking being mentioned in the late aughts, if not earlier, and it's referenced as being part of SV culture in the 2012 novel Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore [0].

0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._Penumbra%27s_24-Hour_Books...

Pwntastic• 5 months ago

https://archive.ph/Upeo5

bkummel2• 5 months ago

I used to envy people that work in Silicon Valley, right where all the action is. But with all the recent developments, I don't anymore. I'm happy that I live in Europe, where we are still acting more or less normal these days.

dariosalvi78• 5 months ago

biohacking? it's snus and it's dangerous: https://www.fhi.no/en/publ/2019/health-risks-from-snus-use2/

ac29• 5 months ago

snus is tobacco, these nicotine pouches have no tobacco (its just nicotine and wood fiber)

Palantir and other tech companies are stocking offices with tobacco products

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