In-Q-Tel: The CIA Gets Into Venture Capital | STUFF THEY DON'T WANT YOU TO KNOW

Transcript

from UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies history is riddled with unexplained events you can turn back now or learn the stuff they don't want you to know a production of iHeartRadio [Music] hello and welcome back to the show my name is Matt my name is Noel they call me Ben we're joined as always with our super producer Paul Mission Control deck and most importantly you are you you are here and that makes this the stuff they don't want you to know folks you may have heard the uh the old saying give a man a gun and he can rob a bank give a man a bank and he can rob the world there there's so many versions of this phrase uh that the etymology of it or the origin can be a little bit tough to trace uh I think many of us in the audience have heard some version of that idea before maybe a Mr Robot it comes up in that show uh and it's a neat quote it's a little oversimplified sure but there's there's no getting around it really money makes the world go round and whether you love or hate the world's Financial system you know that banks are necessary so it makes sense to wonder how much power this gives people running Banks or running investment arms that's really what we're talking about today you know what what kind of power do you wield when you are in charge of investment and venture capital and Venture Capital yeah what kind of power do uh people like CEOs board members or oddly enough the CIA have when they get in the world of venture capital that's yeah this is a CIA episode for everyone who didn't didn't see the title this is one that freaked us out I mean before we get started I think um maybe be helpful for us to to give a little foreshadowing we talked about the CIA and venture capital a while ago a number of years back when we learned just how many pies they had their fingers in do you guys remember that I do it's been a while is that around the time we hit air America and some of those other uh Venture Capital situations no like front companies yeah front companies I think that's what we were talking about I don't know it all kind of runs together sometimes yeah we talked in in a previous episode about the often unexamined relationship between intelligence agencies and private technology companies right especially during the.com boom especially as the tech Giants came to be and now uh now we're diving into the nuts and bolts of how this happens what the fans of today's topic will say it's the best way to cut past the loopholes of traditional private contractors but the opponents of this practice would say you're crazy this is this has potential to be terrible for a number of reasons and we'll explore those reasons too but let's start at the beginning here are the facts the CIA they don't really have a bank but they do have an investment arm and just one person's opinion here its name is terrible in qutel yeah Antiquated kind of telephone company or like it's trying to sound futuristic but it doesn't quite know what that means it's definitely rings of communication and Technology yeah sure in qutel but a lot of people know it as iqt you may you may have heard of it in that way I cutie yes yes IQD uh which it's almost it's one of those um accent exercises it almost sounds like you're saying hey QT yeah in a different accent IQD so so uh there is a reason this name came about uh the investment arm was originally called peleus and the iqt name is at least partially inspired by Q from the James Bond uh universe so they have this idea their Tech Focus they want to uh they want to be a real life Q or you know that's the like that's the fun part of the brainstorming meeting they said oh we love James Bonds uh this is pretty recent it was founded in 1999 with 28 million dollars in starting capital from the CIA which honestly in the world of venture capitalism is not a huge amount right no not at all but in the early 2000s rocking 28 million dollars to get a few companies off the ground that then become your base right that then expand out maybe acquire other companies it's you can see why that's really all you need and it's interesting stuff too the people that have been in charge of iqt or inquitel um or the people who end up on the Board of Trustees and and other high positions in the company are fascinating because they are names that you likely have heard of before and some names that you probably have never heard of before like Norm Augustine you ever heard of Norm Augustine Norman perhaps um he was he was the CEO of Lockheed Martin at one time okay and you know this guy ran the show at in qutel at least early on and then over time people have come through from all different parts of the government including the heads of CIA the former heads of CIA so it's it's classified as a bank correct and does that mean that it finances other CIA initiatives or is it exclusively for Lending like in for financing you know Venture Capital startups yeah it's well technically it's it's purely a venture capital firm and it is unlike a lot of other Venture Capital firms uh it's not it's not really concerned with a lot of stuff that other businesses would would think about it exists entirely because of a guy named Ruth a David back in the 90s he ran the cia's directorate of Science and Technology and he was um he was Evangelical he was championing the importance of Cutting Edge tech for the CIA especially Information Technology cryptography uh things like that and think about it Ben you needed you needed to have that Evangelical figure right to because somebody had to see essentially the future in that this all these various emerging Technologies were going to hold they were going to be the advantage that someone was going to have over everyone else right and we're talking the 90s so that's back that's like what what are Cutting Edge well I don't even know what the cia's Cutting Edge technology in the 90s was jinkos those are the two Cutting Edge Technologies of the 1990s yes but but you can see how maybe a large government entity wouldn't necessarily want to be able to Pivot really quickly and to you know take in new technologies and and incorporate them into their systems because it would be difficult uh but you needed my only all this is to say you needed somebody that Evangelical about it to really push forward no it makes perfect sense no I I mean and so we've always talk about how the technology that we as consumers or as civilians are aware of lags far behind of the technology that's actually available so you got to wonder if like some of this was maybe to get a leg up on some of that secret Tech you know because I mean we'll get into it but some of these deals are not for like public consumption right this isn't all just them being benevolent donor or benevolent you know uh angel investor I mean this is stuff that's meant to benefit the cia's mission of like protecting you know National Security right absolutely yeah they needed a profit a profit was uh came in the form of David and I want to go back to a point we just raised earlier which is uh the strangely connected world of high-level execs this is something that people don't talk about all the time but the the guy you mentioned Matt Norm Augustine he was recruited by George Tennant uh and you said something really interesting when he talked about the various people associated with this organization over the years after a certain threshold of success in the corporate world it starts to feel like everybody knows each other you know and and there are it's almost um well it's normalized it's considered a standard strategy for a CEO to make a name for themselves going from company to company right so there's nothing unusual about it but it might but it might seem strange to uh the majority of people hearing this episode today because for a lot of us growing up you know you're taught the dream is to have one single career right that's that's the American dream that's not how it actually works at the top that's it's very rare for that to happen anyway so there are people with all these different interests and um Noel with your question you're hitting on some of the things that make this company unique uh they focus on three areas of research they don't care about having a super diverse portfolio they want to learn more about software infrastructure and Material Sciences three very very broad things and they have been pumping money into some of silicon Valley's most Innovative Cutting Edge companies ever since the 90s they're doing it now as we record they're at work too and they're and their their work is just um I don't know I don't think it's weirder than ours maybe a little more dangerous uh yeah and if you want to follow along as Ben said they exist right now head on over to iqt.org while you're listening to this episode and just scroll around and you'll see some of the stuff we're going to mention later on in this episode and you'll see some stuff we we won't have time to mention as well there's a lot yeah let's talk about what makes them unique technically they are a not-for-profit venture capital firm which means it's okay if they don't make money but if you're concerned don't worry I promise they are fine financially they are doing well uh and they because they focus solely on Tech that could be useful in the realm of National Security very broadly defined uh their they're not concerned with diversity they don't have a bunch of investors that they're on the hook with when it's time for like the annual shareholder meeting and they're also openly active like it might surprise people who know what the average American knows about the CIA it might surprise you to one of the world's most famous slash Infamous intelligence agencies is pretty open about this operation like Matt said uh the kudos to them for the transparency on their website they also are successful as we record this they have a track record of bringing in like significantly more cash than your garden variety Venture Capital firm for every for every single dollar the CIA gives or funnels through iqt in qutel that company delivers another 11 to 15 dollars in value which is nuts that's like that kind of return is is pretty impressive uh but we don't know many more details about it because they don't tell you how much they invest uh there was one Washington Post story back in 2005 that said their typical investment in a company is somewhere between 500 Grand to 2 million but how many companies are they talking to how are they growing how did Silicon Valley handle this it's an interesting story oh it's really interesting and when you think about those lower numbers think about it this way if you were going to make an investment in a company that is already fairly large that is already fairly well known you know that kind of investment is going to have to be big but if you're investing in an individual that has some promising you know algorithm going on a small group of people that are working on a piece of software or you know something in the materials science or like Hardware side I mean you would only need a little bit of money to push forward whatever whatever's occurring in on that Innovative stage that they're playing in it just you can think about it that way and especially if you think about in 2005 those numbers like how that changes yeah that's a really good point you know originally Silicon Valley was a little bit skeptical about this uh but they changed their tune quickly when civilian firms and startups realize that iqt is is different from the other folks they've been dealing with these Angel Investors have a direct line to the halls of power and they have the keys to a massive budget if they like you know if they like what you're spitting they can they can buy whatever beat you want and and they get a lot of pitches like a crazy amount of pitches once people figured out they were legit and they were paying you wouldn't real cash they were clamoring at the door uh one former CEO of iqt a guy named Gilman Louie said the company hears from a a wide gamut of ideas and inventors and he noted he he noted something that I I didn't really think about he said yeah you know people pitch is pretty powerful Technologies he had some pretty off-the-wall Technologies and those are our favorite those are the ones that go deep into the lower depths of our building in Arlington Virginia yeah oh yeah and iqt is registered in Virginia obviously we should point that out they have allegedly in office in this large building that also has a Primrose School I think I think that's what it was uh and it's right across right across the river there from Washington DC but do they have a Subway take that Pentagon still got it I actually think the Pentagon closed their Subway which is a shame I never made it never made it there anyway Louis has something interesting to say when he's talking about Off the Wall Technologies and this again this is a real life quote from him uh just to get you a set give you a sense of the weird stuff they hear every week Louis says that two percent of our submissions fall into the second category uh we got a lot of Perpetual Motion submissions yeah or at the end for sure I can see that or the ability to talk to anyone in the world with zero latency um we keep them in a best of collection whenever things are going bad we call them up from the internet for a laugh before we go back to work um so endearing it is yeah you remember that perpetual motion machine you remember that water powered vehicle idea oh just remember cold fusion am I right yay I like it it's like I I could picture a sitcom Vibe almost you know it's like hey Blah Blah's really depressed you know the divorce has been hard on him or her I think somebody needs to get some quality time with the best of collection a million percent is this funny we all all three of us you know hear pitches for podcast every now and then I'm sure each one of us could list like the R3 versions of these three things for like pitches for the CIA uh Venture Capital startup funds um mine is always like a a celebrity driven um music uh like what's you what's your favorite song podcast you know like you know insert celebrity name here or non-celebrity uh but everyone always thinks they're the first one to come up with that idea it's tough yeah it can it can be tough to be uh first to the plate with an idea right of any sort and and you're right that that is not an unfair comparison the differences uh when we hear a podcast pitch it's usually not directly affecting National Security it's so weird that I have to say it's usually not occasionally occasionally yeah Ben I want to go back to Louie and I want you to please do we have a quote from him about anything really weird that they heard like describing a perpetual motion machine or something oh uh well that's the thing they can be a little bit squirrely or cagey about the specific details but he does he does in an interview relate the story of the goofiest pitch she ever heard his words I'll take that okay he said somebody called claiming he had the ability to put any idea into anyone's mind but it was so secret he was afraid to say over the telephone what it was so we said why don't you just beam it into our brains we never heard back so I I think that's I like I think it's important for us to talk about this because you know we do have this sort of evil empire stereotype of the CIA and all the things associated with it and I would argue that stereotype is very much based in truth but these folks are these folks are a different kind of professional you know and they're and they're having they're having the Shark Tank moment which is cool and that's a funny anecdote and it gives us a sense of just how weird things can get at iqt but not many people see it as a laughing matter because again we're talking a huge amount of cash and immensely powerful possibly dangerous technology right because those the the crackpot ideas or what Louis seems to believe are the crackpot ideas only comprise about two percent of all the pitches they get it's the other 98 you need to be concerned about and that's why so many people in the U.S and around the world are asking what is the CIA actually doing through inqutel we'll tell you afterward from our sponsor and we're back now before we continue on I want you to do something if you're not driving and you can do this head on over to YouTube and search for iqt we're in qtel it's got dashes in between so in dash Q dash tell find their YouTube channel uh look up look it up then know that on that channel there's an unlisted video titled iqt celebrates 20 years of innovation and you can find it through their website check out that video watch it before we we go into this because it's just gonna it's gonna give you a corporate speak version of like what we're about to tell you in their own words it's it's worth it can we play a clip from it maybe I guess so yeah I mean I I just think it's worth it to get a sense because we were talking about it off air and it's like I think Matt and uh Matt and Paul and I have all worked in corporate video editing stuff in the past and I just remember editing together videos like this for various organizations or you know brands or whatever and it all uses the same like there was this period when Apple put out Final Cut Pro and it came with this like multi-disc set of like free use music and you hear it all the time you hear it in local TV commercials it's like people still have these discs laying around and this rings of that for sure to me yeah sure and if we're gonna play a clip let's play a quick statement from both Chris Darby who's the president and CEO he'll hear him first and then Steve bowsher who's managing General partner at least as of 2020. I think Inky tells the only vehicle that sits at the intersection set of government venture capital in the startup Community sitting at the intersection of these two worlds that don't talk to each other and don't really understand each other and being trusted by both of them that's really the secret sauce of Inky tell so those statements sound fine you know shiny utopian intersection secret sauce all the good ones but it doesn't answer the question from before the break so to reiterate what is the CIA actually doing through in qtel here's where it gets crazy you might not have heard of inqutel before today and that's fine you know it's not a top secret thing but it is sort of obscure unless you live in one of these uh Venture Capital Tech startup worlds but whether or not you've heard of them it is highly likely that if you have used some of the tech that they have funded you might already be familiar with their mapping technology iqt back in the day invested in something called Keyhole Incorporated Keyhole this what you remember this yeah yeah yeah it was it was later acquired Keyhole that is by Google by Big G itself in 2004 and today you know iqt's investment as Google Earth that's the one I remember this from my days producing Jonathan Strickland's show Tech stuff uh and he talked about Keyhole and that whole kind of um development into what we now know is Google Earth that's why I rang a bell do you guys remember what Keyhole actually refers to the satellite system the the spy satellite system yeah and that's and with that that is true folks Matt is correct and what's fascinating about the keyhole satellite uh operations is I'm still I'm still so surprised and I have to admit objectively impressed by how that worked they were using satellites to take photographs from space of places where they couldn't you know get a human spy or have a traditional aircraft flyover but the technology of the time when Keyhole and Corona were in play the technology of the time was not super Advanced they couldn't just remotely send or electronically send these images they had cameras on the satellites the cameras used film like actual rules of film for anybody of a certain age who might remember those and then they would just they would drop the canisters from space who who is the hapless incredibly intelligent person who had to go out and figure find those film canisters yeah like how how Sensei how accurate were they able to be was it was it like okay Beyond third and 70 second at 4 P.M and just hold your hand up to the sky or is it like somewhere in Utah what are you doing this weekend we think it's somewhere in on the left side of Utah and then they say do you mean the western side and they go I don't know it's 4 30 man it's a Friday just let's get it but you're right you're right so Keels Google Earth that's only one example can we just jump to a quick little more information on that just because it is so fascinating and it's a great it's a great entry point for you if you're interested in learning more about this like go down the keyhole inquitel Google uh rabbit hole and you can really start there and start to see other things um there's a guardian article titled Google's Earth how the tech giant is helping the state spy on us it was written in 2018. and if you look through there it describes the I think it was the investment was finalized in 2003 according to this article and it was made in partnership with the National geospatial Intelligence Agency uh that is one of the intelligence agencies or the apparatus that the United States has and their job was to deliver satellite-based intelligence to the CIA and the Pentagon and essentially they Incorporated this new company keyhole in the software they were creating this version of Earth this virtual Earth and we're able to use it for their needs and then of course Google comes along and makes it public-facing uh and there's a whole other story we could get into there about data collection and why Google may want to have something like that but we don't have to go into that now well we're already a part of that everybody listening is already part of it even if you've never touched Google somehow wow I'm sorry really quickly is the implication here that like Keyhole was meant for something greater and then ultimately kind of got co-opted into something that has ultimately become kind of an Internet parlor trick like I mean I know there's there's uses for Google Earth but at the end of the day people more use it for doing scavenger hunts and marking it up for blogs and things like that or sharing it doesn't seem like what's its intent initially was using these high-tech satellites it's now become a bit of a almost a gimmick I'll tell you what it was used for in the early 2000s around 2003 because what happened around 2003 we invaded Iraq it was used as an Intel an extra set of intelligence to monitor the movements around certain bases in Iraq around you know certain strategic points in Iraq they were using Keyhole to do that or the you know the thing that was Keyhole again this is only one example we could do as a matter of fact I was thinking about it few years ago doing just like a a mini series a limited podcast where we just go Episode by episode weird companies and they're government ties and how frequently it happens and how seldom it is publicized or admitted right I and maybe maybe I would always I'd love to do a stuff that wants you know limited series on something Cryptids yeah I don't know we're we're interested let us let us know because we have tons of free time sorry sorry to distract you guys let's jump back in here and it is true you could make a series about just this because they're you know Google Earth is one one successful example of some of a process that occurs often and that I believe will accelerate in the future in the very near future by the way but now if in the year like from the early 2000s to the current day you will find no shortage of rumors about iqt investment and one of the most popular claims is that iqt and therefore the CIA had a big Hidden Hand in the creation of Facebook at least the expansion of it right right this is this is pretty interesting uh but the claim itself unfortunately the claim itself gets a little bit tenuous when you dig into it walk through this really quickly so the CIA has in qtel inkytel tries to you know throw money at Tech startups incutel has a board of directors made up of people who have experience in this field its first CEO that we mentioned earlier Gilman Louie used to Once Upon a Time serve on the board of a place called The National Venture Capital Association while he was on that board there was another guy on the board named James Breyer and he ran a capital firm called Excel partners and they invested in a lot of stuff one of the companies they invested in was Facebook so that's kind of like a Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon Association you know what I mean yeah it is it is but the one thing we do know and then we're going to get into a little later here is that in qtel is attempting to invest in anything that is cutting edge especially when it comes to data collection and Analysis oh yeah like early 2000s there would be there was significant investment in Imaging Technologies uh we'll and we'll we'll get into that that led to some criticism for them as well uh which is kind of valid but but you're absolutely right man and it's weird because if we were if if the five of us on the show today you've listened at home Matt and Old Mission Control knife we were like a little startup and we were working on something interesting related to this like we found a faster way to encrypt or decrypt things like that um or you know several years ago and we invented blockchain then according to the Washington Post we would get a call from inqutel they would cold call us their fingers are in a ton of figurative pies The Washington Post says that quote virtually any U.S entrepreneur inventor or research scientist working on ways to analyze data has probably received a phone call from incutel or has at least been Googled by its staff of Technology Watchers first off that sounds like a cool job you just watch technology you know you just find out what's new we do a bit of that which makes me think of uh and I forget what the exact name of the law is but you know how the government can basically take your patent away from you if it's something that's threatening to National Security is this sort of in that zone is this not like we'll take your patent away but you got to do this thing for us is that well it's press you you're touching on something we do need to explore which would be the criticisms so there's no it should be no surprise to anyone that the CIA and iqt have their fair share of critics uh we can we can walk through some of this uh and we'll get to the the law you mentioned here so iqts explanation of their organizational setup and their partnership with the CIA this seems contradictory to some people because they it's almost a sugar daddy situation because they say you know I iqt officials employees say okay yes the CIA pays US money we have an annual contract with them we know what they like they know what we like but we are independent despite the fact that we run virtually all our investment Decisions by Uncle Sam first for approval and despite the fact that we intentionally look for the stuff that they want and do what they tell us to do we are independent yeah we're independent but you heard you heard the you've heard the words from those folks whose sections I mean it's very odd if you go to their website okay that we keep talking about I'm just going to read you if you're if you can't get there for any reason I'm going to read you what it says at the top it says Innovation on a mission Visionary startups experienced VCS Venture capitalists dedicated government professionals incutel leads from the center of this Matrix what they lead from the center of the Matrix connecting Cutting Edge technology strategic Investments and purpose to enhance and Advance National Security for the US and its allies so it clearly has a mission that is government-facing right and it doesn't mean it's necessarily an arm of the government in that way the way you would think of the CIA is but it is I don't know it's a finger yeah that's the thing so it's a valid question to ask is this just is it a private not-for-profit entity and it's it has one customer right which would be the CIA or is it more should we think of it more like a quasi uh quasi-governmental organization similar to the FED I think that's what we're talking about because you do have people that run the show there like Michael Crowe who's chairman he's a board chairman of the Board of Trustees um who feels a little more independent the Steve bowsher Boucher that we mentioned earlier and Chris Darby but then also Sitting On The Board of Trustees the guy that Ben mentioned much early on who used to be the director of the CIA George Tenet he is currently one of the boy he's on the Board of Trustees so like we know that government officials jump to the private sector and private sector people generally don't jump to the government in that way and you know unless they're an elected official but it's uh it's in you know it's an interesting thing to see that direct connective tissue to the guy that kind of started or one of the people that began the show over there at in Quito yeah and that leads to a question I think a lot of us always wonder about a little bit how many business decisions are made unofficially you know how how many agreements happen while someone is at the same fundraiser or you know charity event or a private club yes or at the barbecue you know what I mean at the Country Club drinking the she-crab soup and then you know by the time you leave you have made some important decisions that will go on to impact millions of people but nothing official ever happened you're just friends of friends talking to folks who accidentally run into it's beautiful it's terrifying but it's a beautiful system in the way it's laid out you got to respect it this is just the beginning of the concerns in fact I I propose we pause for word from our sponsors and dive into the other concerns which escalate by the way as we continue we're back all right Second National Security concerns so here's the deal it's a criticism that surprised me personally but you'll find Scholars who say the the that iqt is problematic because uh it is a it itself is a security risk here's what they're talking about some of the companies and startups that iqt messes with are international in scope so this means that the CIA could run the risk of potentially unnecessarily allowing enemy forces to get an inner glimpse of the agency's methods priorities and current capabilities a number of areas like here hypothetically let's see we're for an intelligence agency we got out of the invention business but now we're now we're somehow a forward intelligence agency and Noel you work at our Ford intelligence agency and you have because you're a very good spy gotten a hold of iqt's wish list of Technologies to watch their see they refuse to say publicly to anyone what they use technology for but you can look at this list of their wish list and think huh somebody really wants a fast way to translate handwritten Arabic right like do you think do you think you as this hypothetical agent could just look at a list and kind of from there figure out some priorities yeah I would certainly think so Ben I mean especially being the big wig government venture capital Guru that I most certainly am so yeah you can see that that concern is valid the question is how serious is this potential risk and the problem is that it's nearly impossible to estimate any potential danger here because we don't know enough about iqt's inner workings but you know we do know about what's that you can head on over to these are two places to go the first one is iqt dot org slash emerge ah yes learn about that first which is the Innovation pipeline it'll come up yeah it'll come up next this one's most important iqt.org slash Labs I believe let me make sure that's correct yes uh iqt.org iqt Dash Labs if you go there you can get a list of the labs projects that they currently have going and this is exactly we were talking about then you can get a glimpse of some of the things you're not going to get all the information you can get a glimpse of a lot of the things that are being worked on and a wish list of sorts as you said and you can uh well while you're on that website go ahead and head over to their portfolio section yeah so you can see where you can see a number of the companies they've invested in these are still these are still not the biggest concerns no the third concern pretty obvious I mean like at this point it's almost funny because it has to come up in these conversations all the time and I'm sure the iqt folks have to deal with it on a daily basis but it's just simply this the CIA has a ton of historical baggage and by nature of their close relationship iqt gets associated with that baggage whether or not it deserves it I mean you're uh imagine you're one of these startups it's fair to assume at least a few of the startups have had second thoughts about partnering with a group that is funded by the same organization that has provably orchestrated coups committed illegal experiments on human beings and in fact grown so comfortable with assassination that they literally wrote manuals about the right way to do it you know what I mean like you I'm not saying mean it is fair for iqt to get associated with those horrific Acts but on the other hand you can't really blame people for thinking about that you know yeah like oh mko the people who did MK Ultra are funding us on our neat app to help you know where all your shoes are [Laughter] a shoe tracking system very elaborate but you know they really are working on guys uh you they're working on this thing called infodemic which is an automated matching of fact-checked claims about covid-19 it's kind of interesting right here's here's another one a teachable camera that can detect objects of interest in the field using AI Hardware guys I'm sorry I have to kind of repose the question I said earlier this all sounds like stuff that they thought maybe would have some sort of Intel use and then sort of you know bombed and then they ended up releasing into the public as some sort of like cute novelty item like shoe tracking yeah well weirdly enough those things aren't mutually exclusive like I would be the opposite of surprised if it turned out that there is a there is a non-public version of Google Earth Technology that is much more robust has way cooler layers and we're kind of getting the kitty version you know what I mean yeah I think that's I I mean I think you're absolutely right like you wouldn't release something super robust and dangerous into the wild because if the public can get it The public's a big demographic it's literally everybody else on Earth no it's not the CIA well I imagine it this way Google Earth started early in the 2000s you can still pull up Google Earth right now and check it out and it's it's Advanced significantly from a public-facing side from what it used to be right but imagine how far the you know all of that satellite imagery how how high res some of that satellite imagery could be compared to what we are allowed to see as you know a member of the public a citizen of whatever country using Google Earth I would argue just as Ben said there is a version of Google Earth or you know Keyhole or whatever that Tech was that is you could pick out you know a quarter in somebody's hand standing on the ground or is it a secret Facebook right and we all have profiles on it and the thing is our profiles which are not accessible by us uh have more information about us than we have about ourselves you know what I mean we're also like running that version of a Google Earth or kill you're talking about would require so much more processing power than an average consumer computer would have or massive massive amounts of like on-site uh server capacity you know so yeah we think it's pretty dope we can say it's my roof but you're right you could probably and those aren't real time necessarily right right whereas the maybe the version that exists in secret is real time and can like zoom in through Windows you know I mean I don't know I I mean listen I'm I'm making a jump here but even the name Keyhole to me implies we can get you we can get it or you where you are yeah I'm I'm taking with both of these ideas I still I really want to if you're if you're a high level government operative and you're tuned into the show thanks for listening Dean also let me know if there's a secret Facebook and what's on it I don't know why that just is I'm I'm so into that it is possible there is another elephant in the room we do have to address it the national invention secrecy Act of 1951. there it is yeah we discussed this before in past episodes but here's the gist you're an inventor with a technology that might have an impact on National Security defined in a cartoonishly broad way the U.S government can and will just take your patent they'll pay you a little bit for it uh they have it's weird I learned this after we talked about they have us like they literally do have a pay scale based on how much or how little they believe your invention could impact National Security sure it's like paying FBI informants or something like that right it's probably tied to the quality of the Intel they're getting yeah yeah that's a good comparison it really is and here's the thing if you let's say you are that inventor guess what getting paid sucker I think it's also a good uh analogy because FBI informants are often done forced to be that under duress where like they are you know like arm Twisted because oh you're gonna go to prison unless you cooperate but they also get paid a little stipend it's the same with these inventors you don't really have a choice but we're gonna take the sting out a little bit by giving you a few you know ducats yeah but you gotta keep it tight keep it uh you can't talk to anybody about it now Merit is the code yeah that's that's the thing uh we don't know how these inventors feel about this process we know that there are some alive right now maybe even listening to this show uh who have been subjected to it but we will never know their reactions because they are subject to a incredibly powerful gag order friends you from discussing this in public from publishing work related to this for talking about it pretty much for the rest of your life or until that order is rescinded and this means taking it back to iqt this means that if you are a startup or an inventor you might feel there is an implied threat in an offer from iqt you may feel it's an offer you can't really refuse because you're dealing with the people who enforce the rules like enforce the law so they can also and they all you know the CIA also has a track history of ignoring the law when it becomes inconvenient so whether or not there is a real threat here it's understandable that people might freak out when they imagine all the consequences of a conversation going sideways so that's that's one of the big concerns but the you know the ultimately the biggest concern with this I would say is iqt secrecy like Matt said you can learn a lot about the about the organization through their official website uh and once you get past some of the corporate speak you will see substantive details on companies they work with areas of Technology etc etc but when you ask how much money they give when you ask some of those financial details the conversation cuts off and specifically when you ask hey so what do you guys want this for like I'm also really excited about the intersection and the Synergy and the Secret Sauce this is so wheelhouse bro but what is under that kimono after all oh God with someone about that one earlier but yeah when you ask what what are you using it for uh you get past the corporate bus terms they're just not going to tell you it's yeah it's their policy and that means that it makes everybody kind of like that hypothetical foreign foreign intelligence agent you're left at conjecture read some tea leaves speculate and then worry oh I'm gonna do that later right before we end this episode I'm gonna give you a heavy dose of that yes that's correct yeah so in their in their defense multiple individuals from all sides private startups former Executives CIA officials Scholars etc etc they've spoken pretty openly about iqt and how it works so what they like about it the problem is in this situation again because of CIA baggage anything less than full transparency will inevitably keep the conspiracy fires burning that Praise by the way the reason all the former employees have such a good attitude about it is very understandable because I didn't know this but for a long time if you were employed there you had to put 10 percent of your pay into a fund that invested in all the stuff in qtel was investing in and that meant that you got a piece of the pie those were those became your bonuses those payouts it's probably better than a 401k and there there's no detail right now about how much money That Shook out to per employee but they they were not strapped for cash you know when Christmas came around or anything like that the experiments and it did started as an experiment is a success so much so the Army the Navy other agencies have or are planning their own Venture Capital efforts based on this model and the future is scary iqt is evolving just this year they announced a program briefly mentioned called iqt emerge this oh man do you guys remember this uh the old toy sets spy Tech yeah the sideways or the the mirror yeah yeah all kinds of stuff lazy I know I mean the most popular ones are the mirrored Shades I think which were very awkward looking they were very elongated right the laser one and um uh like invisible ink various invisible ink type situations that's right I forgot about the invisible ink well we might not be the only people who really dug spy Tech Toys because iqt emerge is kind of doing a grown-up version of spy Tech they want to take the stuff that they have developed or funded and make it commercially available probably in you know a a safer version than whatever they're actually using so their idea is that they can make another income stream and they can also brace yourself for the corporate terms here they can also spur Innovation and encourage public in private sector collaboration yeah man that's pretty cool so the just this concept that they're going to take stuff developed you know through all these connections them being at the center of the Matrix there because you know they are and being able to make just tons of money because they are Venture Capital after all and they're not for profit and it's interesting because again it doesn't matter how much money they do or don't make that's so interesting I I think of the terms venture capital and not-for-profit being like the two most unrelated Concepts that could be uh but I guess they can co-exist huh yeah and what I love about not for profit it's such a Goldilocks thing it's like we have to make money but we won't get in trouble if we do that's exactly what I've always wondered like it's not a prerequisite for being a non-prof well maybe it is for certain ones but because of tax purposes right but like is it required that you make no money that you just break even and just pay everybody or like I don't understand I've always wondered about that aspect of non-profit work oh yeah non-profits uh this quick tangent but not non-profits have uh certain rules about how they allocate funds that they receive you know through donations or if they generate something through fundraiser so when non-profits get accused of being crooked the primary way that occurs is through the the salaries of someone who's at the top of the company and you know they're making a lot of money uh that money could have been going to the cause that they see these supports things like that like always be careful when you hear a portion of the proceeds go to a portion is anywhere from 99 to less than one percent still a portion great Point yeah I mean it's an unfortunate point it's true this all this iqt emerge is interesting especially when we consider the CIA also just in September 2020 announced the creation of their first ever Federal lab for in-house r d reverse of creativity this is called CIA Labs but here's what it does it allows CIA officers to get patents and licenses for things that they make so this opens the door for someone at us maybe there's a startup that is not totally on board with this so opens the door for a member of that startup to split to get hired by the CIA just cut out the middleman dude yeah completely and and just to take this really to connect it back to the iqt labs uh which is something we talked about before you probably have heard of Google Labs I think that's what they called it for a long time um where it was you know brand new brand new tech that could be incorporated into Chrome or Google or you know other just Venture Capital being pushed into new new technologies and new firms but being Incorporated back into Google it's basically Google trying to get new things and putting a bunch of throwing a bunch of money at people to get new things new ideas well iqt's labs does the exact same thing and I'm going to read you I swear this is my last quote that I'm gonna read from that uh that one YouTube video I mentioned this is from George Tennant himself in qtel only has one Venture company making more Investments every year only one that's Google Ventures so essentially Google Labs the the arm of Google that does the same thing that they're doing the experiment has been a wild success beyond anything I we could have thought of because in absolute terms the country's a lot safer but just that making the point there that it's basically Google and inqutel that are that are funneling money into new tech ideas but it's not just them but they're big players and then again another point we have to bring up here is if it wasn't them it would be someone else that's just true uh but as we close the episode today we hope we've given you a decent introduction to inqutel uh the odd little duck of a venture firm that it is and we've outlined some of the concerns some of the reasons it's around some of the allegations or possibility for conspiracy and Corruption but let's let's end on something juicy this is something Matt that um we had all been talking about off air uh you ran into pretty fascinating video just before we recorded oh yes I did I'd like to turn your attention to another website it's called B the letter B next n-e-x-t dot org this is another thing that's mentioned on iqt's website iqt.org uh this is a brand new thing that they started back in the late 20 teens and it's it it's a good idea I would say it's a noble idea uh it is a bit strange and you can see how this kind of thing could lead people to think in a certain way if we if we go back to what Ben was talking about the absence of major details causing people to make cognitive jumps sometimes right from one thing to the next um because this thing be next it's a biotechnology arm of inqutel and it's a well actually you know what let's just listen to a part of this video that's posted on iqt Labs Vimeo site the mission of being next is to raise awareness of the bio Revolution and construct a technology architecture to protect the nation against large lethal epidemics this architecture will describe existing and emerging Technologies essential to fighting infectious disease be next will help us answer questions such as can we rapidly detect and quench disease outbreaks can we dynamically adapt to new information and minimize the toll of big epidemics can we design and manufacture new vaccines when and where we need them the digital Revolution changed the world the bio Revolution will transform it yes there you go now here's the important thing to note that video was posted in February specifically February 14th of 2018. a uh a year a year and change before the novel coronavirus of 2019 was identified now here's where the leap is a problem that doesn't mean incutel or B next is doing anything nefarious when it comes to you know epidemics and pandemics like the one we just experienced and are in the middle of still but you could see how anyone who is skeptical or feel or fearful of the CIA and other government entities would think oh they were working on that stuff right before it happened and it could make you feel uneasy as I have to admit personally it does make me feel uneasy a bit but it doesn't mean it's true or they had they were doing anything nefarious or are doing anything nefarious it's just that little coincidental thing that can happen I don't know what do you guys think so I think it's interesting uh I my head automatically categorizes this with other what I call covid coincidence conspiracies like uh you know the paperback Thriller that appeared to outline the spread of something like kovid uh and then it later turned out that that book had been updated after the fact so it wasn't really you know from the 80s or whatever and predicting this the idea of a so-called pandemic because of the different scenarios that ngos and governments were running to try to game out how an epidemic would spread yeah I just keep going back to it man I hear you we don't know enough we don't know enough to definitively say there's not something sketchy afoot well yeah well the white house right now is still they're pushing hard to get more information on that lab in Wuhan China where perhaps a virus escaped whether through accidental or nefarious purposes and you know it doesn't mean that's true it means the White House and the United States government is interested in that possibility right well let yeah let me and I'm really glad you brought that up because we do need to point out the difference here so what they're pushing to do could best be understood as a kind of due diligence with the Hope being that through understanding the J the origin and the Genesis of covid-19 uh the world and the US in particular will be better able to prevent the spread of the next pandemic and there will be another one it's statistically on the way so don't feel too bad if you hoarded a bunch of toilet paper it might come in handy the next time the scores run out but that's a great point and and it should be known that this pandemic that we're going through right now was it was it wasn't known that this one would happen but like you said Ben it was known that one was going to be coming right sometime in the future that's why you could say in qutel and the CIA and all these people were aware that something like that was on the horizon they didn't know when it would occur it is it does feel strange that they got the biggest Pest of this new you know thing be next within a year's time of them starting it yeah yeah that's I mean that's true but just to be clear this new investigation is based on on some valid stuff like it is true that in the past I believe with um with SARS maybe there were lab workers in Singapore who contracted it uh just through human error and through accident so there there is a reasonable basis for this and it's not I don't believe it's meant to be some kind of like finger-pointing you know what I mean I don't think they're trying to find someone else to blame for the way the U.S handled the pandemic or dropped the ball on the pandemic which the US did so hopefully this will better prepare us but then also again no matter how many cool chord per videos we see within qutel we like much of the public no full well that the CIA gets up to dastardly stuff so what are they gonna like you can play this game with yourself go to the website look at the innocuous technology and then imagine what like in your mind what is there a crazy uh thing that it could be used for right what what kind of stuff could the CIA do with these pieces of tech that may seem innocuous all I know is that the digital Revolution changed the world but the bio Revolution is gonna transform it and what's the difference between change and transform it's like that old joke you know like I have a I have an Abridged thesaurus I hate it not only is it terrible it's also terrible I didn't write that be careful with that joke it's an antique but let us know what you think folks is this is inqutel a smart way to avoid the pitfalls of traditional you know Government Contracting to the benefits outweigh the potential risk what is going on this is going to continue obviously I'm so excited there's a real life spy Tech back in the works I loved those toys uh but I don't know I don't know what uh consequences come attached to them if they make new Fleer like cameras that would be cool so we can just you know maybe they maybe they can make high-end audio video gear that would be cool so like the ink utel and whatever this becomes it's just the new Sennheiser or you know the new Shore and then we can get crazy cool mics to podcast with I'm all for crazy cool mics you know that yeah let's do it we want to hear your thoughts on this uh have you had experience with startup culture or have you had experience with nqutel can you tell us about it uh whether or not you can we'd love to hear from you we try to be easy to find online that's right you can find us on Facebook and Twitter where we're conspiracy stuff you can also join our Facebook group here's where it gets crazy you can also find us on Instagram where we're conspiracy stuff show uh you can also find this as individual human people I'm just about only on Instagram I am at how now Noel Brown and if you want to go to YouTube and watch videos older videos even though one on the CIA and front companies or just front companies in general but we mentioned the CIA head on over to youtube.com conspiracy stuff you can also watch videos of these conversations they get put up every week we hope you enjoy them we know they're a little different than the older videos that we used to make but have no fear there's all kinds of stuff happening in in the background that you cannot see yet we have our very own STD wytk labs and uh there will be there will be new things to you is that your Instagram handle Matt no that whole conversation is his Instagram got it that whole sentence but you can find it at STD Labs I think nope nope that's wrong that's a different lab STD Labs is different lab we're they're doing good work but it's not us doing that uh and yeah we have to be a little in cutel right now about some things on the horizon but hopefully they're all good news stay tuned if you want to get a behind the scenes peek of uh my various Misadventures uh or weird myopic research then uh then find me app and bull and hsw on Twitter or at Ben Boland b-o-w-l-i-n on Instagram guys you're saying I listened to your social media and Big Data episodes why are you still why I'm not a social media person you're saying to yourself but I have to contact you I have something very important to tell you well you are in luck fellow conspiracy realist if you don't sip on the social mede you can still contact us directly we have a phone number that's right our number is one eight three three STD w-y-t-k find your favorite Google Voice number oh there's Google again or you know any kind of phone number obscuring app and give us a call or just use your regular one that's fine but know that we can call you back if you call us so when you do call if you choose to call please tell us what you'd like for us to refer to you as when we play your message let us know that we can play your message then leave your message you have three minutes you can do whatever you want with them we do recommend that you only call one time and leave a message and do keep it as brief as you possibly can that'll help us to as we go through them and then it'll increase your chances to get it on the air if you'd like it to be and please don't call multiple times back to back to back if just because it's difficult for us to go through all of that if you've got a longer message please send us a good old-fashioned email we are conspiracy iheartradio.com thank you [Music] [Music] stuff they don't want you to know is a production of I heart radio for more podcasts from iHeartRadio visit the iHeartRadio app Apple podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows