Yahoo TV

Shares of Palantir (PLTR) are rising after it was announced that the company is joining the S&P 500 (^GSPC). Matt Babin, head of energy and natural resources at Palantir, joins Market Domination to discuss the competitive software landscape and the milestone of being added to the S&P 500.

"I'm more focused on what we do than what other people do because building great software takes your entire focus," Babin explains.

He believes that Palantir's competitive advantage boils down to "the depth and time we've put into the ontology": "Let's use the example of BP (BP), that pressure system, that's not just the nouns and the assets that they use. That's all the verbs between them. The actions that you take, the decisions that you make as a company. And so building that flexible framework for a data model for the way your company does business, if you do that part right, then you can layer anything on top."

Babin calls Palantir's addition to the S&P 500 "exciting," and explains that moving forward, there are a few things top of mind. "I think the first one is just keeping it in the energy domain. The energy space is full of standards. There's safety standards, there's construction standards, and the rigor around meeting those standards is pretty high. I think the rigor that the index keeps on getting in is equally high," Babin says.

He continues, "I think the other is, as someone who came out of the government space, who worked on the government side of our business, you don't have to choose between being a mission-oriented company and being a commercially successful company. We haven't sacrificed anything on our mission and our intent on the work we do on that side. As a personal employee, the work I have to do today and tomorrow is the same as it was if the announcement had been different on Friday. So nothing there changes at all."

For more expert insight and the latest market action, click here to watch this full episode of Market Domination.

This post was written by Melanie Riehl