There are already a few 'Should I work at company X or Y?' sort of questions, but I think my circumstance is a bit different and unique, and the answers to this question would be valuable, so I just list my options as a new question here.

So I recently got offers from both Palantir Technologies and Rocket Fuel Inc. They are both quite promising companies, but are working on different directions.

Rocket Fuel Inc. is an ad-targeting company, they have very large scale systems (which I have interest on), and AI problems. I imagine there are many work related to 1) scaling the system 2) building tools for analyzing data and automation 3) AI-related algorithms and developments.

Palantir Technologies on the other hand is working on something really unique that few are working on but have great value and potential. I would imagine it deals with many new technology challenges that is completely new and few have seen or heard before. The company is super famous, and hires super talented engineers.

I heard a theory that computers can empower human in 2 ways (Automation and Augmentation), I see Rocket Fuel is doing really good on automation, while Palantir is working on Augmentation. They both create great value, and are both very appealing to me, but I have a thought that the consumer web sector is bit outdated now.

So I am having headache on which company to choose. What I look for is: 1) a place where I can apply my CS skill on, an opportunity to join a team to create great value 2) work that helps me improve, and lead me to my next goal (possibly join smaller start-up, or build my own start-up) 3) network and make friends with great engineers, designs, product managers, etc. so that I could be more exposed to startup opportunities.