In-Q-Tel: The CIA’s Investment Firm | Magnum (@TheSwervePodcast) | Episode 134

Transcript

Damn, son. Where'd you find this? >> Buckle up, buttercups. It's time to get down to business. >> Oh, yeah. >> It's the Totally Legitimate Business Podcast.

Totally legit. >> All right, welcome back, folks. It's another episode of the Totally Legitimate Business Podcast, and today, this one is months in the making. We've been really trying hard to coordinate this one, and the research for it was was equally daunting. But I just want to welcome back to the show the host of my favorite podcast, the Swerve podcast, Magnum.

>> What's up everybody? Happy to be back on the show. Thanks for having me again, James. I'm excited. I didn't know this. We were the favorite podcast of yours.

That's wicked. >> 100%. And and honestly, like even when I look at the episodes that I've done, that DARPA one is still like top three without question. >> Oh, damn. Um and and people seem to resonate with it too.

Just like it was it was a a a really long exploration of that. Uh which kind of brings us to our topic today. You know, we we were talking how do we expand uh where we explored previously and there was like this adjacent thing that I've always been aware of but I've never really committed hours and hours of research to. Uh, we're gonna talk about the CIA's investment arm, >> Intel. >> I think most people probably aren't aware that the CIA even has a venture capital capital firm embedded with it.

I know before we started talking about this offline, I know I was not super aware of this. So, this is going to be an exciting deep dive. I'm really really looking forward to it. Well, I I also just want to say too, uh, as we were talking before, I said I listen to the dead internet theory. I would highly recommend people going and listening to that, too.

It's it's almost like a companion to this. It it there's so many aspects of InQel and the technology that they funded that we all use today in ways that I think everyone is just completely ignorant of. And when you stop to think about it, uh, it it makes a lot of the strange aspects of the internet that people have started to take notice of in the past like 1015 years make a lot of sense. Yes, absolutely. So James, how we're going to do this today, right? I think you'll start with the origins and we'll go through kind of the inception of this INQEL landscape that we find ourselves in and then I'll go into some of the more whacked out provocative dare I say investments that INQEL is a part of.

And then we'll kind of do the overlap of some of the stuff that you found going a little bit deeper into the rabbit hole of what this entire landscape maybe is representative of. I think that's the idea. Hey. Yeah, >> I I love it. Uh it's a good flow and and again for those for those of you who are listening, this one's going to be pretty granular.

It might not make a lot of sense at the beginning, but as the the spiderweb becomes more complex, um we'll we'll have a lot to ruminate. There's like so many thoughts I have about what it means for society, but we'll save those for the end. >> Um >> absolutely. >> Yeah. Okay.

So, let's just jump right into this. So, in the process of of researching inel, I listened to a ton of podcasts. There aren't a bunch out there, but I listened to the ones that I could find. I read a couple really good articles including InQel's Wikipedia page and ultimately that leads me to a kind tangential explanation of like how do we get to the point where there's a company that is essentially working for the Department of Defense that's investing in companies and the overlap of all of those companies being things that we use every day. How did that happen? >> Right? It seems extreme.

Now in our DARPA episode, we covered the fact that the internet itself that came that was ARPANET that was a you know DAR pre-DRPA uh program that now we have. So understanding that the entire infrastructure comes from like the military world isn't super far out there. But there's this thing, especially at the beginning of Google and the tech wave that happened in the early 2000s, the connection to the military is is worth analyzing. So, in that spirit, I've kind of compiled some highlights of things that happened that allowed companies like Google, Amazon, Facebook to essentially reign supreme in their respective areas. and uh also serve a purpose for defense.

>> Yeah. >> So in in um uh in the early8s mid mid to late 80s um there's a couple kind of key players. There's this guy Rick Steinhauser who was who worked for the CIA OD office of research and development or something. um he appears in a lot of DARPA Stanford AI research projects and this becomes important because I think a thing to think about universities is that that's how the great minds are found and they're found pretty early on like if you look into the stories of a lot of these people they get pulled into intelligence or you know advanced government science like when they're in college they're studying [ __ ] and they show promise and >> they start to touch on research and you know um teachers or instructors that are connected are like this is a person you kind of need to tap. Anyways, uh Dr.

Anita K. Jones sits on the board of SIC, SIC and MITER, two of the most defense heavy contractors. SIC people have been talking about that a lot more recently, but that that is a whole rabbit hole. Um and they're they're connected to all aspects of of technology and technological warfare. um spying, all sorts of [ __ ] even the alien stuff.

Um 8089, Richard O'Neal, who's a Navy cryptologist, authors perception management, uh laying the foundation for US information warfare doctrine. Again, this is before internet is exploding. This is before what we have today, >> right? 1993 CIA, NSA and DCI launched the massive digital data systems program MDDS uh which was managed by MITER and uh Sergey Brin's early work at Stanford is funded via this program. Sergey Brin is the creator, one of the creators of Google, >> right? >> Interesting. So, but what they were trying to do was they were trying to develop the internet's existing now.

>> We have access to all this information. What do we do with it? So they were looking to universities to find people who were trying to corral the internet >> but specifically for like defense military stuff and and you know we we'll get into it. It's why we run a ride with it in uh the early 2000s post post 911. uh mid '90s this other important thing happens. The Highlands Forum is established by Richard O'Neal and uh Defense Secretary William Perry.

It was also uh uh this this one is deep. There's so many big players connected to it. Uh Sergey Brin, Larry Page uh begin PhDs at Stanford developing page rank with DARPA, NSF and NASA support. and page rank is the the original search engine like pre Google this is this is what it is >> um 95 sic creates center for information strategy and policy um which was a highlands aligned think tank for the Pentagon and uh in 96 DARPA's intelligent integration of information program uh supports Brin's adviser Jeffrey Olman so again >> interesting >> this this is just very deep. It's unavoidable.

And that Highlands Forum thing, if you look into the players in that, which I I can't remember if they're in the notes or not, but if you look into the players of that, they're it's a hodgepodge. Emerging tech, venture capital, and defense, like big big names in defense. Um, and the Highlands Forum was supposed to act as this way to steer the future of warfare. And there's a number of other forums that exist with like equally sinister backgrounds um that people are probably aware of that are trying to like globally align and steer agendas, but this one was specifically for information technology and defense like military application, >> right? >> So um anyways, late '90s uh prelude to Google and Incel in 97 MDS shifts focus uh toward counterterrorism and intelligence surveillance applications. In 98, Brinn and Paige incorporate Google after years of MDDS DARPA NSF funded work.

And Brinn had briefed the CIA Steinheiser and MITER Thuringham. I'm butchering that person's last name, but >> that's a weird one. I don't even know how you'd say that. Yeah, the Risingham, maybe. >> Maybe.

Maybe. Um, but this is big-time [ __ ] and like we all know what Google is now. Uh but to think that it never was that it was for military application. That's >> Yeah. Right from the get- go.

It's crazy that there's no separation connections there. >> Yeah. Um so in 99el is founded by the CIA and it was founded to invest in startups providing advanced tech for intelligence agencies. Again, emerging technologies that the military could exploit. Inqel was um uh we'll we'll get into the details of like what separates it from any other type of VC firm or any type of firm like that that's connected to the government but uh uh this was the gateway and Inqell and Highlands Forum Highlands forum would set the policy agenda inel would find the companies and invest in them to fulfill that policy agenda >> right >> so that that's kind of the triangle that exists there right so Um Gilman Louie who we'll we'll talk a little bit about appointed the first CEO of InQel.

Uh his early portfolio targets were geospatial imaging, search, data mining and cyber security. Uh then Google receives 25 million VC funding from Sequoia Capital and Kleiner Perkins which are firms that are close with the Pentagon and have very deep ties in defense. Uh now we get to the fun times early 2000s Bush era and post 911. Now here all the groundwork has been laid the past 15 years they've been creating this infrastructure for the future of information in warfare and right >> now is where they're going to deploy it. So 2001 in September 9/11 attacks Bush secretly expands NSA domestic surveillance.

We all know that. Thank you Ed Snowden. We know that now right? 2001 and December the Highlands Forum participants feed strategies into Andrew Marshall's office of net assessment. 2002 DARPA launches total information awareness TIA uh under administrator or admiral maybe yeah John Po Dexter uh who that he's an interesting character too. the point Dexters.

Uh 2003 Inqutell investment keyhole. >> Uh I'm going to skip over this because we're going to go in this in detail. Anyways, they this Highlands Inqutell and the the Silicon Valley build the infrastructure for the war and they have the perfect testing ground. The war, the neverending war, the war that just keeps going on, right? This war is also where we get drones and a lot of the uh technology that was being developed in the 70s is like very refined and and usable. Um that's kind of what happens during the Bush era and we'll just we again we'll we'll save the details for that uh for when we get to the breakouts about the specific companies.

Um but uh uh right so Iraq and Afghanistan war contractor track 2001 to 2008 2001 2002 US invades Afghanistan and SIC Booze Allen Hamilton Rathon uh secure reconstruction and surveillance contracts business as usual right >> uh 2003 in March US invades Iraq Highlands linked networks amplify WMD narratives so the highlands forum again these are people that are connected in with the military. Um, were they working on behalf of the Highlands Forum or was it just their personal opinion and it happened to align? I don't know, but there's a very strong connection there. >> Mhm. >> 2003 to 2004, SIC receives multi-billion dollar contracts in Iraq for intelligence, comms, and reconstruction. Uh, 2004 2005, Highlands affiliates uh expand into cyber security, biometrics, and drone policy.

And then 2006 to 2008 DoD Google collaborations deepen in mapping cloud and data analytics. Um, >> right. >> And again, now those things, we all use those things. In fact, we use Google's version of those things. >> Yeah, it's kind of crazy.

>> So, okay. >> Uh, you know, it it's pretty [ __ ] Anyways, uh, late 2000s. In 2007, uh, Google's Peter Norvig attends the Highlands Forum. 2008, Wikileaks publishes US Army special ops manual influenced by Highland's irregular warfare doctrine. And 2009, Linton Wells confirms NSA's post 911 surveillance architecture will run through 2015.

Uh, and you know, I I don't even know this last little chunk. Yeah, I don't I don't even know if we need to get into any of this stuff, but this this this this creates this lays the picture for what it was before, what they were trying to get to. And Inqell and the Highlands Forum are like >> it was it they were hand in hand like that. This is how they were able to fund a lot of these companies uh that created the infrastructure that we use every day in our digital life and that was for a reason and it's almost too obvious at this point that is surveillance. >> Yeah.

I mean I think when we go through the next section we're going to touch on a lot of the surveillance aspects of things. One thing I wanted to just better understand before we move forward in my research, the Highland Forum, I didn't really come across a lot of that, but it sounds to me like that was extremely important for the direction of things. So, what I just have a question for you because you looked more into the Highlands. >> How how is that related to InQel? Are they separate? Are they >> they Okay, so it's there's a lot of think tanks and these think tanks exist adjacent to the government. They're not officially sanctioned by the government, but they're think tanks.

Council on Foreign Relations, like there's a whole bunch of them that people have been associating with like nefarious [ __ ] but it's because they set policy. They get all the people the major players in whatever respect that they're trying to address and they they sit down and they talk and they meet and then those people go back to their companies or to their position in the government and they influence the policy to to align with that agenda. >> Again, it's not super weird because people getting together because of like mind or shared interest, that's what people do. >> Yes. But when you start to look at the overlap of like a a key component of what the Highlands Forum, it's like the Bilderberg group.

>> Gotcha. >> Right. Conceptually, there's no problem with people getting together to talk about the big problems in the world and like how to address them. >> But it's like why can't we hear about it? >> You know, don't don't we have any involvement in that? Why can't we hear about it? So there's like this immediate idea that it's purely a conspiracy, but I I don't it doesn't necessarily need to be that like interests align and in the government they create these little groups that gather people from again private industry uh VC people with money and you know government nations trying to fulfill an agenda >> 100%. And so they're more like thought leaders coming together to establish ideas or plans and then distributing those thoughts to whatever arms are capable of executing >> their their respective network of people who can facilitate [ __ ] like this.

>> And in terms Go ahead. >> Sorry. I was going to say, but the key point, whoever they represent, it's not necessarily like it's it's military focused, right? That's that's who they're representing, the Highland Forms. >> This one, yeah, for sure. This one this one was spec excuse me, specifically set on aligning industry with the government's idea for surveillance infrastructure in the digital age.

>> Right? So again, like that's not super sinister on the outside, but when you look at what this [ __ ] has become, then it's like, oh, and when when we we'll get into this and we break into some of these companies, when you look into the ethos of some of these companies, >> it's like, oh, oh, we're we're just this this is all an infrastructure just to monitor what we do, predict how we're going to behave. And at least from Google's perspective, they're double dipping because not only do they make the money off of uh the government contracts and the stuff that they're doing for the government, uh they make money off of the data we give them through ads. And it just that's kind of like it's kind of like a tangential idea, but I've always said this about advertising, like advertising was brainwashing before the internet. The internet just really refined it. It can tell us exactly what we want to hear.

It can motivate us to purchase things and behave in certain ways like we're there. >> Yeah. Yeah. It's Yeah. Persuasion definitely.

That's you definitely categorize that as brain washing. Definitely. >> But uh No, that's that's okay. I got you. >> I see how these are >> tied.

And this this is why this context is kind of important because as we start going through some of those companies and again like looking at what these companies do, then it's like, oh [ __ ] this is way darker than I thought it. their mission statements are not necessarily >> uh untethered from the ideas put forth by this entity that you've described >> basically. Yeah. And I mean we'll we'll see that maybe that's a good that's a good segue to lead into this next part. >> It No, exactly.

I was going to say we've kind of we've kind of looked over what Highlands is, what its role in this was. Now if you want to kind of explain to folks what c venture capital is and kind of understand that perspect that portion of the pie. >> Yeah. So I think it's best if you want to understand in hotel I think you first have to briefly just understand what normal venture capital is because it is weird that the CIA I mean not officially inqoutell is not officially under the CIA although they're highly related they have this venture capital firm and the question is is why would they do this and I think if we understand what normal venture capital is doing we can understand why the CIA they would want that in house. >> So basically normal venture capital firms, they're financial intermediaries between the source of funds.

So this could be institutional investors like pension funds, but it could be other things. So they have money, they have capital, and they sit between that and high-risk startups. It's usually entrepreneurial firms, high-tech firms, kind of high-risk startups that venture capital is investing in because these risky startups, they don't have access to funds because they're so risky. So this is where venture capital and it solves that problem. Hey, we'll fund you, but hey, we expect a payout if this does work.

So the goal of venture capital, it's trying to grow a portfolio of companies and it's trying to get to an exit and over multiple years, it's going to hopefully be able to sell out of this company at a price that exceeds the initial investment. So that's their goal. If you're a venture capitalist, you're trying to obviously make a return on your investment. And typically how this works, the fund managers will earn through what's called a 2 and20 structure. They'll get 2% of an annual management fee on their investment.

Plus, if they do get to an exit, they're going to get 20% of the profits from that exit. So, let's say you're in venture capital. You put out a million in a startup that becomes a $10 million company and it does exit. Well, you made 2 million plus your 2% annual fee. So, actually more than that.

But that's the general idea of venture capital. It pays really big when it works. And something interesting I found venture capital, there's studies out there, it's three times more effective at generating innovation based on measurement of patents than a traditional corporate R&D. So, it's it's one of those thing it's needed. If you want innovation, you want cool tech, you kind of need venture capital because no one else wants to take the risks on the startups.

So this is where Inqel comes in. Can we as a government entity, although it's not officially a government entity, but it it is, can we do what VCs are doing? If we want to be at the cutting edge and we want to have access to the latest tech, we can't develop it in house because we're a government. We're full of bioc bureaucracies. I'm butchering that word, but you know what I'm saying. And we can't be efficient and get things done.

So, let's just go to the free market. Let's put on the mask of venture capital and let's fund the things we want. So, that goes into what you were saying in this whole leadup. If the things we want to fund are being decided on by let's say the Highland Forum or internal people of Inqel or the CIA, this is where they're going to deploy capital. So Inqell itself, it's a Virginia based venture capital fund.

It has about 200 employees. But the thing that's different about this entity compared to normal venture capital, it's funded by taxpayers. >> We're paying for it. Yeah. >> Yeah.

American taxpayers. I'm from Canada, so it's not I'm not paying for it. >> You didn't get sucked in. >> Yeah. But they get about a hundred million in annual taxpayer funding.

So in total, this isn't known, it's estimated, but American taxpayers over the many years of InQel's operations have probably funded it by about $1.8 billion. And I think this is important to know because if you're paying for something but it's being probably in some cases definitely used against you, there is this conflict of interest. So like we should just keep that in mind as we're going through things. American taxpayers are paying for this. Now, InQel itself has over 1 billion in assets.

And you know, I actually kind of thought it was going to be more than that when I was looking into this because you you know, even Palunteer, it's like a 360 billion company. >> Sure. Yeah. >> But in CQEL, they only have about 1 billion in assets right now, but compared to other venture capital funds, it's actually pretty high. A normal average VC fund is about 150 million.

So, you know, they're doing pretty well. They have an active portfolio of 460 plus companies and since their inception about 800 total investments over 26 years now. Now, the average VC fund only has about 30 to 60 companies in its portfolio. So, they're they're out there. They're investing things.

They're they're a decently sized venture capital fund. But here's something that's really interesting. If you take away the money from taxpayers, Inqell would have operated at a loss for 12 of the past 13 years. So, so first of all, they're a venture capital firm of the CIA essentially, but like they're not really good at making money. They're good at deploying it into things they want.

They just want the tech. They just want the tech >> 100%. So they might actually be like the worst venture capital firm in Silicon Valley. >> Well, it makes sense because it's government. Like if the government was to run a venture capital firm, it would be not super profitable and really sloppy on paper compared to other successful firms.

That's the government. >> Totally. So if not for that 100 million annual funding, they're actually at a loss. So yeah, again, that's another thing to really drive home. They're trying to be VCs, but they're they're really just about the tech.

Like, will this advance our agenda >> and we'll pay for it even if it's a loss? And it's usually mostly a loss. All right. So, how they operate, this is just a quick little rundown. They usually make about 12 to 15 investments per year. And this can be from about half a million to 3 million per company.

But this is actually increasing as time goes by. When I looked up the latest data in August 2025 alone, they made 21 investments. So, or sorry, as of August 2025 of that year, 21 investments. So, already it seems like there's a significant increase in the amount of investments in companies they're making versus the traditional numbers. Now, they do take an equity stake.

They get about 15 to 20% in the companies they invest in. That goes back to where I was saying the two and 20 rule. So they have like a two and 15 or a two in 20 rule basically. Now what's important about this, they also get on the advisory boards in their portfolio companies and I think that is probably very important. If you're trying to direct the vision and mission of a company, you have to be on the board.

So that's also part of it. we're willing to I think it's I'm just speculating, but I would imagine you're going to invest in a company, you have an agenda, and you want to be able to steer it. Part of that you don't care if it's a loss. You're going to get the tech, but you also get to steer it if you're on the board. >> So, I think that's part of it as well.

>> Now, this is a really important point to emphasize with the whole InQel thing. It's a dual use investment strategy and James did touch on this in the origin story of everything but really what this means is inqel is targeting companies whose technologies can serve both commercial markets so us we get our apps and we can scroll [ __ ] but it also serves intelligence operations simultaneously. So they're looking for tech that people will use and there can be a profit from that but also that can be applied to intelligence or military or defense applications. So just to give listeners an example here, they might invest in a company that's marketing emotion detection software and maybe that's useful for customer service call centers. Maybe that's what you're going to use it for and it's it's helpful to companies to have that information.

But that same technology could be used to analyze voice patterns of intelligence interrogations or identify stress indicators in some kind of intercepted communication and you can get further information from it. So everything is both. It's like you know like Snapchat has all like the the face filters and stuff and it's like okay I don't know if they're funded by InQL or but like you could see the military application of that kind of tech. things like that >> for sure. And I think you know you you you covered it here perfectly.

>> Um it's which came first, right? It's dual use, but which duel which of those two sides do they putting the emphasis on? And like the more you look at it, the more it's like, oh, the commercializ the the commercialization of the thing after the fact that's almost an afterthought >> when it comes to how can we use this to mine data in some >> Oh, I mean absolutely. I mean, most of the investments are failed. So, >> yeah. Right. Exactly.

>> The commercial side doesn't matter. I mean to an extent obviously they they still want to try hit home runs but uh yeah I think that speaks volumes to what the the true intentions are but yeah basically it's a way for inel or CIA to just hide surveillance capabilities in plain sight because you have this commercial cover that you can use and this is a large reason as we've mentioned and this is going to be a general theme probably through the rest of today's show this is why surveillance capable systems are so widespread in our society. Right? So I think it's just important we keep all of that in mind as we start discussing the actual technologies that they're invested in in this next part. Now they like I said it's over 460 companies. So in general, if I'm just going to put a broad brush, the things that they're mainly investing in, it's artificial intelligence, cyber security things, energy, enterprise, hardware, life sciences, quantum, and space technologies.

Now, overall, AI makes up the most that it makes up the largest category of InQel's investments, followed by hardware and cyber security things. And I think that makes sense. AI is just taking over the world. I'm not shocked that most of their investments are in that. I think it's 55 companies, the latest numbers that I found are funded by INQEL.

Now, what I want to do here next, I want to look at the strangest investments. This is not obviously going to be an exhaustive list. We we couldn't do that. There's too many companies. But this is some of the most intriguing and whacked out [ __ ] that I could find.

So let's let's go through this. But here's another thing I want to make a note before we go through some of this stuff. More than 100 investments from InQel, they do remain classified. So the following things that I'm describing, these are just notable things that we have access to and that we know of, but there could be other things that we are not privy to. And I find that interesting.

More than 100 investments are classified, at least based on what I was researching. I don't know. >> Well, well, you got to think about it too, man. Like just in the same way we did the deep dive on DARPA, they're thinking about problems that don't exist yet. So, like with Inqutel, they're investing in companies that are solving problems that don't exist yet, >> right? >> Like there's there's there's this weird like uh which came first, the problem or the solution >> aspect to it.

You know what I mean? Especially when it comes to the surveillance state, >> right? >> Like there did are we creating this problem? Did is I I I don't know. It gets very meta when you start to look at how deeply entrenched uh some of this technology is with what you do on a daily basis. >> Honestly, perfect segue. The first thing I wanted to bring up was common things that everybody uses every day that were funded by Inqel. Now again, this is I don't know Keyhole.

This was an early company that connected and stitched together satellite images and this was funded by Inqell early on and it was later bought by Google and this became Google Earth. So essentially in all of our devices that people carry around every day there's CIA grade satellite intelligence capabilities in billions of consumer devices. That's like one of the biggest ones. apps, all of that. Early InQel funding started that up and you can see the dual use already in that.

That makes that's so advantageous from a defense military perspective, that tech, but it also I can find Walmart in a new city. So, dude, it's it's a hard trade-off. It's a real hard trade-off. like a lot of this stuff, it really does make our life as convenient as it is now, but like what did we sacrifice to get it, you know? >> Yeah, we'll save that for uh our final thoughts probably. But uh another common one is just touchscreen technology.

This came out of various companies that were funded by Inqel. So just the fundamental interface of technology that we use now, smartphones, tablets, interactive displays. This is used again by billions of people around the globe and it did originate from intelligence community investments. Now, this next one sucks, but it's true and it happens to everybody every day. Targeted ads.

>> Damn, they got us good. >> Yeah. >> Damn. >> Companies involved in creating digital profiles that are used for target for targeted personal ads. This was funded by Inqel.

Specifically, one of the companies was called Visible Technologies, and they developed social media monitoring tools that were acquired by a different company called WPPP, which is the world's largest advertising network. So, these CIA funded surveillance technologies, they're now powering digital advertising, targeting, social media marketing analytics, and consumer behavior prediction. >> The phone is listening. Yes, >> the phone is listening. Yeah, 100%.

>> I think 100%. >> Yeah, >> I'm almost certain of that. I don't know. Is that still a conspiracy theory or is that >> Did we sort that one out? >> I I I want to say at some point someone dug through the the user agreement for Facebook or something and like it was like codified legal language like we have while you're using the app, we have the right to listen to the microphone. And then there's the question of like does that ever go off? if the app's running in the background, are they still using the microphone? Are they still hearing what you're saying? And when you look at how uh predictive ad [ __ ] is now, I mean, it it it's hard to argue.

>> It's insane. >> It's hard to argue that it's not pulling information from like I'll talk about some [ __ ] I have no intention of buying and it'll show up like buy this. So, you know, and again, like you just said it, this [ __ ] was developed. This this is CIA grade surveillance technology that advertisers are now using. >> I know it's there's like you kind of go over it in the in the dead internet theory episode.

You covered it great. But like there's this aspect I've been saying this for so long like people will be like, "Well, I'll never give up my information. They'll never get me." It's like, dude, you have a Facebook. You gave it up already. Like you like you you g you made it easier.

And when you realize that there were initiatives to propel that kind of behavior, it becomes hard to think that the ecosystem that we exist in now was built for anything other than our control behavior modification. >> Yeah. I you know Yeah. I mean I see why you were saying earlier when you were researching this you have to step away from it sometimes. I'm starting to get connections in my head even just going through this now together.

Like, [ __ ] >> They got us. Like, they got us real real good. And it was from the beginning like the none of these tools were ever supposed to be for purely civilian use. It was all CIA grade surveillance [ __ ] >> The dual use aspect. >> Yeah.

100%. And and you know the Snapchat thing, that's a funny aside, but I wouldn't be shocked if we start digging into one of the 460 companies that this that Inkyell has invested in and have that technology be traced by six degrees of Kevin Bacon to Snapchat. >> Facial recognition. Are you kidding me? That that wasn't >> that was definitely some military [ __ ] before it was commercialized the way that it is now. And every device that we use Yeah.

Everybody's just putting dog ears on and it's just training CIA facial recognition. >> It it can now it has data that it can pull your face from cameras like it can recognize. It's it knows your profile from every angle with a you know >> a pretty detailed scan. I don't know. This this this we're we're getting a little bit too far down and I don't want to diverge because the next company that you're going to talk about is like in my opinion becoming more and more the crux.

>> Yes. >> Of and there's a couple notes that I have about this company in particular, but like let's hit this one. >> Okay, let's let's hop into this. The next there's two companies we're going to talk about that are probably the most successful InQel funds that I that I was able to come across. First one, Palunteer.

This is a big data analytics company. It's valued at $367 billion. It surpassed traditional defense companies like Northrup uh Grumman, Loheed Martin, and General Dynamics. So, it's it's even more valuable than these traditional companies that you normally would associate with military in Yeah, totally. >> Big boys.

It's founded by founded by Peter Teal and this is an early inqel investment. Now what Palanteer does essentially it's software that pulls together disperate information and data in a way that analysts can monitor something. So they can see data in a novel way and make connections over these disperate pieces of information. So just a quick example so listeners can understand more what I mean by that. Palunteer could uh license their software to an entity, maybe it's a government, maybe it's a law enforcement thing, it could be anything.

And they could use that technology to map, say, weapon distribution networks across some kind of conflict zone. And they would do this by integrating diverse information streams, which in this example could include maybe serial numbers from military equipment, defense contractor records, and militant group facility coordinates. and then you could get some kind of unified analytical framework where you could now understand what's going on in that weapon distribution network. So that's just an example, but it the the thing with Palunteer, its strength is its adaptability. It's not trying to serve a predetermined function.

It's this malleable infrastructure capable of handling really really vast quantities of these interconnected information points so that you can meet unique demands of any agency, government or corporation. That's the idea. And at the end of the day, I don't know, kind of sounds like you could use that to spy on citizens very easily. Well, well, you know, you kind of touch on a couple really good points here. there's like a a simple correlation that I've always looked at Palanteer like this.

So in terms of Google, Sergey Brin, those guys created a way for the intelligence community to sift through internet information, a way for them to to page ranker, for them to query large sets of information. Palunteer is like the evolution of that. And when you look at how popular a company Palunteer is now, it is comparable to the influence of Google in how it's interconnected especially with the government and military. Um, but Palunteer was like the military application of Google, >> right? >> How do we how do we how do we take all this information and not just make it searchable, make it contextual for people in a battlefield or people in a figurative battlefield anywhere? Um, so there's an interesting kind of little tirade and I won't go too too hard on this. Peter Teal is his own rabbit hole and I'm going to share his Wikipedia page.

>> Yeah. >> Really quickly and it's very important that we talk about a couple things about Peter Teal. >> So >> Peter Teal is a legendary ad uh investor. Um, one of his biggest investments was PayPal uh which I'm pretty sure was with Elon Musk. That was like a >> I think he was a co-founder too of that, wasn't he? >> Yeah.

>> Yeah. I I want to say um and uh he was also the first outside investor in Facebook, >> right? >> So big. And again, if we if we just diverge to your um uh your segment about that in your uh uh dead internet theory episode, we'll understand why that is important. So now the the web of connection back to intelligence becomes even stronger with Facebook specifically. >> Maybe Mark Zuckerberg isn't an AI.

I I I don't know about that one. That one's still up for debate. We're going to have to cut him and see if he bleeds. But yeah, this like in terms of >> uh if this is kind of what Peter Teal is trying to develop in the infrastructure of the digital age, um him having influence in Facebook, uh to a lesser extent PayPal, but PayPal kind of paved the way for digital transactions, online money moving. >> Uh >> I mean, yeah, that's important for monitoring as well, right? If you know what transactions are between people, you can understand intention and behavior >> and predict behavior.

And and one of the weirdest things about that in particular is uh um now that we're talking about US bank digital currencies, >> crypto as a whole just being like an acceptable form of currency. The I mean blockchain is good for surveillance because every transaction is logged. >> Absolutely. Yeah. without proper privacy, >> dude.

They were Yeah. Right. Without Without the proper protocols, I mean, like deep crypto uh security, um you know, it all that activity can easily be traced back to you. There's Coffeezilla is a great creator. He's always tracking the shitty behavior of scammers like >> a very bad op.

Yeah. All he does is analyze the chain because he can see the transactions. But anyways, back to Peter Teal. He uh he's a big player. And now in terms of defense, like Peter, people think Elon Musk is entrenched in the government.

He ain't got [ __ ] on Peter Teal. Peter Teal is way deeper. The stuff that Palanteer has made is way more entrenched than SpaceX or Elon Musk could ever be in the government. And one of the interesting things about Peter Teal, and I can't remember where I saw this, but it was like a so at the beginning of Google, the motto was don't be evil. >> Right.

>> Right. That was that was their ethos is don't be evil. It was their whole corpus slogan. They've since changed that to something a little more nefarious. But what I find interesting about that is in that era of Google, Peter Teal's mentality was I want to be the anti- Google.

>> So when you talk about surveilling American citizens, that's definitely Google's already doing that and their motto is don't be evil. So, what do you think his motto is if it's I want to be anti- Google? >> I don't even know >> what what level what level of of law bending do you think Peter Teal would just be okay with in in the you know the futurist sense like well this is the I'm creating the future so I you know of course we have to step on some nicks along the way. I don't know. >> Yeah. Who knows it there's so much to go in to that.

I I don't know. You know what I will say though, I'm gonna not that I I want to back Peter Teal. He has got some good [ __ ] when it comes to entrepreneurship. If you listen to some of his stuff online, he's got some stuff. >> He's very successful.

He's very good at what he does. He's a very intelligent person. >> But when when we talk when we look at this very strange scenario of a future where the government almost is taking second seat to the tech billionaires, it becomes important that we understand their psyche. And there's enough information about what these people think out there. And if you start understanding what their general sentiment is, their visions for the future, it's 1984.

That's >> it's not like rainbows and daisies. It's 1984 and we are the people who are subjected to it. >> The pearls. >> Yeah. >> Damn it.

>> So anyways, >> that we're I'm done with that uh uh tangential tirade. Now we get into I love this company. I have been watching so many interviews with like the owner. >> He just seems like a a kooky little guy. I I just I love watching what antics he gets into.

But yeah, this one is is equally serious. And in terms of like defense contractors, it is now being spoken on with the same level of respect that Palunteer has had for the past decade or two. So >> yes. Okay. So this next one, this is Anderil.

This is an autonomous weapons maker. They combine artificial intelligence, m machine learning, autonomous systems to develop unmanned aerial and marine systems as well as portable autonomous surveillance systems using this special software they have called lattis or sorry lattis software. Okay, here you go. You pulled it up. It's really crazy what these guys are doing.

They are anyways they're valued at $30 billion now. So this is kind of a win for an inqel investment. It's founded by the infamous Palmer Lucky. I'm so glad you've seen interviews with this guy because they're actually hilarious. This guy is fantastic to listen on interviews because he's just he's got like a Hawaiian shirt on, this whacked out haircut, and he's smart and he says a lot of [ __ ] and he just speaks his mind.

And he's also the guy who made the Oculus Rift headset. Yeah, this guy this guy's hilarious. But he he runs this. Well, we'll see. We'll see what this is.

Uh anyways, this company now has 3,500 employees and it's named after the fictional sword of Aragorn from the Lord of the Rings. And you can see right this guy, you can tell he's a Lord of the Rings type guy. >> The haircut for sure. Yeah. >> Yeah.

Yeah. Here's side tangent quick before we go. Did you know he has like a Game Boy company >> that tracks? >> Yeah, he like makes >> totally tracks. >> Like gameboys you could like run over with a vehicle. >> Probably from his own experience.

>> Probably. Yeah. >> You know, he dropped his Game Boy and one of his autonomous drones just like ran over with its track wheels and he's like, I got to fix this problem. >> I just find that funny. >> That is hilarious.

What this company does, they have a ton of weapon systems with really imposing names. So, I just want to mention a few of them. They have this technology called the Anvil, which is a drone that counters drones. They have the Ghost Shark, which is an autonomous submarine. They have Fury, which is this stealth drone that's used for surveillance.

Ghost is an autonomous drone that actually fits in a backpack. And apparently based on what I was reading, it can be fit with laser weapons. >> Jesus Christ. >> And I don't even know what that means. That's just what I read.

>> Hang on. I'm going to so people can see >> that you can put a laser on that. I'm assuming >> apparently that's crazy. >> Yeah. And this, we should mention this is autonomous.

This is not necessarily controlled by humans, although it could be. These are fully capable of seeking and destroying apparently. Very interesting. They also have another just to finish my imposing names here, the Barracuda. It's just cruise missiles basically.

But very, very interesting. And quite literally what this company is doing, it's creating autonomous slaughter bots. That's what's happening here, >> dude. 100%. And it's like the the that game Ghost Recon, the newest Ghost Recon.

>> Yeah, it's I don't know. So, that's an InQel funded company and uh it's pretty interesting. It's pretty interesting. Now, I want to segue. So, we talked Palunteer and Anderil, which are kind of horrifying if you think about the two together, what they would be capable of doing and probably are capable of doing.

But, let's talk. It's called the Terminator scenario. What they would what they're building is the Terminator scenario. I've seen this movie. >> Yeah.

[ __ ] >> Well, okay. Let's go into this next AI. There's so many things that InQel is invested in from uh an AI perspective. So, I just want to go through a few of them just so we can highlight. I don't know just some interesting ones.

One of them is called Behavioral Signals. This is an AI company that utilizes vocal analysis to decipher emotions and intentions in any communication. So, it's designed to predict intentions. Specifically, you could see like do harm or do no harm. So, you could identify threat levels.

And it also could be used to detect fraud, but this is an InQel investment. Another one is Fiddler AI. This is a company that uses predictive AI models to power autonomous vehicles such as aerial drones and unmanned water vehicles. And it analyzes imagery to predict threats and navigate as well as improve its target precision. So again, you can kind of see the general sense is we want to predict behavior.

We want to power autonomous vehicles. These are these are kind of things that are being invested in by inqel. Now, this last one called Black Shark AI, it's a company that aims to detect any object on the surface of the Earth. So, not only is it Google Earth where you know you can see satellite imagery, they're like, if we pick anything, we want to know exactly what it is using this technology. So, they have a product called Orca Hunter, which is able to precisely identify objects on the surface of the Earth from satellite imagery.

So again alto together you kind of get the sense this is you know we want to better monitor we better we want to better understand data and we want to power autonomous vehicles. These are kind of the things the directions that I see things being invested in as far as an AI perspective. Now, yes, this next one I'm going to go into is probably the craziest one I was able to find because it's just it's just so bizarre. We're going to step out of AI. We're actually going to go into some biology here.

We're going to talk about living computers made from human brain cells. So, this is like this is DARPA [ __ ] >> This is DARPA [ __ ] Like there what what problem is this solving? is a problem that we're going to have in the future is what it is. >> Yes. Hey, when we get through this, I think we'll see probably what the aim is here. But there's this company called Cortical Labs.

It's pretty new. It's founded in 2019. And what they do is they grow actual human brain cells on laboratory dishes and then connect them to computer chips, creating what they call their Dishbrain systems. That's their product. It's called Dishbrain.

That's incredible. >> I know. Now, what this is, there's these biological neural networks that can supposedly outperform traditional AI by using living neurons as the processing units. Apparently, biology is just better at energy um efficiency. So using the neurons instead of like these virtual neural networks that you know are on on and off.

It's like no let's use a living one and see if that helps us. Apparently there's some kind of energy saving benefit to that and that's why they're trying to do it. >> Well cuz can't can't like uh couldn't they technically use brain matter to like in the brain I'm pretty sure a syninnapse will find the it will figure out the shortest route to take. So that could be a thing that they're they're they're >> they're trying to develop a more efficient power delivery system or I I see where that yeah >> you'll see in a second here that's that that's pretty that's part of the training of it too which I'll talk about briefly here in a second. >> Basically what they're doing the scientists at this company they're using humaninduced pur potent stem cells.

So they're taking stem cells that are human and then they're embedding them on a high density multi-eler electrode array. And this is basically used to create a synthetic biological intelligence. Now, it's nothing crazy yet. I'll talk about it in a second here, but basically using this multi-elerode array, you can both read electrical signals that are coming from the living neurons and stimulate them with electrical pulses. So, it's like a two-way communication.

That's how the living neurons and the electrode array are able to communicate with one another. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Now, dishbrain is actually considered to be sentient if you go by the formal definition, which is responsive to sensory impressions through adaptive internal processes. So, this is a sentient creation in a dish.

It's literally, I guess, a dish brain. It makes sense. But here's where things get crazy and maybe we can pull this up. Discbrain was able to teach itself how to play pong. >> Second, let me get that.

>> We'll pull this up. Basically, in this paper that we're going to pull up, uh, there's a video. It's just a one paddle pong and the electrode neuron interface. You'll have to scroll down probably. I think it's video S2 actually.

Maybe go up for a second. Let's point this out to listeners. That photo that's what it looks like. So those little squares in what is that? I don't even know what figure 2 F or something. >> Yeah.

>> Yeah. Those little squares are the electrodes on this array. And what you're seeing on top of it, those are the neurons connecting with one one another and aligning on those arrays. >> Wow. >> Yes.

Kind of crazy. Now, if we go down to Is it this one? Is that S2? >> S2. Yep. >> Yeah. Let's play this.

Yeah. So, that's the multi- electrode array with different Yeah. Okay. It'll it'll tell us here. And those will be where the neurons kind of align.

And then this is Yeah. the pong. You can see how different parts are like stimulated. And you can imagine where the neurons in different places can align to have goal directed behavior and like solve this pong thing. >> Yeah, >> it's so crazy.

I mean, it's not very good, but >> it's figure it out. >> It's literally figuring it out. We're watching it figure it out. >> And I'll explain what's happening in a second once this video play. I just think it's so incredible.

Okay. Like we have a a sentient being. >> Yeah. And once it once it figures out how to play it, there's less activity. Like there's a spike of activity as it's trying to figure out how it works.

But then as soon as it figures it out, like >> that's crazy. >> It's so crazy. Now, basically, this is what I could glean from looking at what they're trying to do. The position of the pong ball is communicated to the neurons by electrical stimulation. So via that electrical interface the neurons are embodied in a virtual pong game by getting the stimulation.

Now on the chip there are two motor regions and one of them is going to move the paddle up when it's stimulated and the other one's going to move it down when stimulated. So the question then becomes well how does this system know when it's hitting the ball? And this is how the learning occurs. This is pretty interesting. When there's a hit, when the paddle hits the ball, the system will deliver predictable synchronized stimulation on all the electrodes. So, you're getting this predictable, I guess, from a neurons perspective, pleasant patterns of electrical stimulation, but when it misses, the whole system will deliver this unpredictable chaotic stimulation at random locations.

So, from a neurons perspective, it's just like, what the [ __ ] is going on? And the neurons will align ins. But when it hits and you get this nice pattern of stimulation, they kind of align like, "Okay, this is good." So doing that over time, you can train it to play pong. >> Yep. Just like a dog. >> It's crazy.

This is literally the creation of an in vitro cyborg basically. >> Yeah, 100%. >> The early stages. Um maybe we can pull up this link. This is they have these biological computers that they're selling.

This is their product. >> And uh I guess it kind of looks like a computer, but there's like an incubation chamber >> for the neurons because obviously you have to keep them, you know, at like body heat temperature. >> Yeah. >> So this is like the device that they're selling. I don't know who's buying it or what they're using it for, but this is what's going on.

It's pretty wild. Now, I kind of like to think about this technology as a reverse neural link approach >> instead of implanting electrodes in a human brain like Neurolink is doing. I could see this technology stack evolving into just growing brains around electrodes. >> Yeah, sure. Yeah.

And hey, there's no ethical considerations with the the latter approach, right? >> Well, because there's no like it hasn't been done before, so there's no rules outlined like and that's we found that so much with so many of the technologies that DARPA was putting together. >> Like there's no they could do it because nobody said you couldn't do it because they were thinking about [ __ ] that people weren't thinking about yet. >> It's so insane. So this is just an early look, right? It's they got it to play Pong and I think that was 2022 that paper dropped. So, it's been >> Yeah.

a couple years already. >> Who I don't know what else is the latest advances on that, but >> well, and you you bring up a good point, too. The reverse neural link thing. There's nothing saying Yeah. Neuralink is like something happens after you're born and they need to put this thing in you.

But >> y >> this could easily and shockingly very fast become a scenario where it's like, "Oh, we recognize that there's a problem with this baby. let us implant this chip that will whatever stimulate the appropriate things to help the baby survive or I I that that to me is like what from what they're explaining here that to me is not too crazy of a stretch. >> Yeah. So that's I don't know to me it's that's one of the more horrifying ones. I I don't know.

There's just something weird about it that just irks me. But the next stuff we're going to go through is just some other cool stuff that Inqel has invested in. Now, I found these like real Star Wars like holograms. There's this company called Looking Glass Factory. They received 2.54 million from Inqell in 2021 to develop these holographic displays that create this 3D image floating in midair without the need for glasses.

So, it really does look like Star Wars or something. some kind of hologram. >> I'm pulling it up right now, too. >> Yeah. Let's show everybody what this looks like.

>> Wow. >> Yeah. So, this is just some guy's Twitter post and this is just this 3D I don't know im. It's kind of cool. It probably looks a lot cooler in person cuz right now, even looking at it through this screen, it kind of just looks 2D.

>> Yeah. >> But, uh, >> it's like in the If you were looking at it here, it would be in the center of this box. I love how they have the Xbox camera here, too. >> Oh [ __ ] old school Xbox. It probably isn't, but it looks exactly like the Xbox camera.

>> Now, the thing is this is right now like uh again this goes to the dual use aspect. It's it's an entertainment device on the commercial side, but the CIA and this has been spoken about wants to eventually use holographic tech for 3D battle field visualization and psychological operations. So you can imagine this is just one company in the hologram stack. But the goal would be eventually can we create convincing enough holograms to fundamentally alter you know information warfare or interrogation techniques incite fear on the battlefield. I don't know.

So what I find fun about this one because it's holograms, right? >> I'm sure you're familiar with the whole project blue beam conspiracy theory. >> Yeah. So it's like you come across things like this and you're like was Sergeman that far off, you know, like maybe maybe he's on to something a little bit ahead of time. I don't know. But the idea that holographic technology could be developed to incite fear in anything whether it's Battlefield or not is pretty interesting to me from like a SCOP perspective.

again like if we're hearing about it now, if we're this is what we're seeing, it's not crazy to assume that what they actually have and are using is well beyond it. And the idea that there could be like >> with all the stuff we have in space and all of what we know about lasers and plasma and the ionosphere, >> I don't know that that argument becomes stronger every day that we could have a way to just like you get fooled when you go to see the holograms at Disney World, do that on some kind of large scale, people would freak the [ __ ] out. >> Yeah. >> Like it would it would 100%, you know, curtail behavior. I I don't know that.

>> Yeah, I agree. And it's for maybe listeners who aren't as conspira conspiracy theoryminded, it's it's not outside the realm of the CIA scope. I you are you familiar with when the CIA used like fake vampires to >> what's what's his name? Um >> I forget his name, but it was in the Philippines. >> Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. And they had this fake vampire scop which they used to basically win a war. So if you're willing to do that, fake vampires, it's not outside the realm of possibility that if you could fake >> Edward Lansdale. >> Lansdale, that's the [ __ ] >> Edward Lansdale. And he he he this that was interesting.

This was at like the very beginning of the idea of using psychological operations like this in the battlefield. But he used the local folklore of the Swang, which was this vampiric entity from from Philippine folklore >> with great success. So again, like >> the Okay, that's a story. They didn't like create well they they killed a couple guys and made it look like vampires did it, but they still killed him, right? Yeah. I if we had the technology to create some kind of like large scale holographic thing in the sky, people would fall for that.

>> Oh wow. >> What do you mean by like where we don't stand a chance? Most people are going to lose their [ __ ] >> Absolutely. I'm just waiting for the day I see like some kind of like god projected in the sky cuz I'm just going to be like, "Oh, this is just I'm just going to continue making my coffee." Like, "Oh, government's doing shit." Uh uh hun I I often think about that too like how in in the plot the project blue beam scenario like a staged alien invasion I always imagine myself being that [ __ ] guy who's like no government did it >> everyone's freaking out trying to evacuate like >> I see it it's in the sky not real I mean I could explain it to you but I'm sure you wouldn't care so >> anyways let's uh let's continue through this uh I wanted to include some jeans James Bond like technology that I was able to come across. It's actually funny we didn't mention this. The Q in Inq.

>> Oh yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. >> The Q is uh a James Bond character. He's the guy who invents Bond's crazy gadgets.

>> Gadgets. Yep. >> So basically what they did, they put the the Q in between the word intel obviously for intelligence. So you get inel. So it's kind of you know the CIA is kind of fun I guess.

Yeah, they have to they have to have some fun sometimes, you know. >> Yeah, I mean, yeah, actually they do have a lot of crazy acronyms for a lot of things, so maybe it's not that surprising, but anyways, this this company, it's called Sonatus Medical. This was an InQel funded hearing aid company. Again, this is going back to the dual youth stuff. They were a hearing aid company, but they turned the device into a two-way radio that you can put in your teeth.

So, the sound waves from this device, >> the bone conductivity. >> Yeah. They can conduct through the bones of the skull. So, you can have this, you can have wireless sound being received literally without the need for ears. You can just bone conducting hear things.

It's pretty interesting. Um, I was watching a demonstration of this and the guy had like no headphones or earplugs needed and he had like a firet truck in the background and he could hear the signal coming through because he had his tooth spy device. It's pretty interesting. >> What? >> Yeah. Very, very wild.

So, >> that is super strange. >> So, that's an InQel. Probably the most Bond thing I could find. This other one is decently interesting. It's like a large rubber ball.

It's by a company called Bounce Imaging. And it's about the size of a softball. It's a rubber ball with these cameras positioned on it. And basically, you can throw it into a room and it'll capture everything in real time omniirectional video and it'll send that to a device and compile it. So, you get the entire layout of whatever room you threw it into.

So, you just like bounce it in a room or, you know, down a hallway or something and it'll just 3D reconstruct the entire thing. Obviously, you can see the military application of that or even police application. >> Yeah, for sure. >> Pretty interesting. What I also find interesting that I want to make a note on when you when I first went into the InQel rabbit hole, I thought I'd come across a lot of things like that, but really there's not a lot of like gadget stuff that's overt, which I found interesting.

I thought there'd be a lot more things. >> Well, okay. So here this is this is where that trifecta of people DARPA uh the Highlands Forum Incutel Inqel would see someone doing something that could be applied anywhere and they would snatch it up and then what they would do is they would give it to one of the other companies that had a connection >> to figure out like okay there's this cool thing how do we use it? It's it's very similar in in how we do defense contracting. It's very it's that it is the ecosystem for that but again it's for problems that don't exist emerging technologies aerospace we kind of have down in a lot of ways right there's a lot of like just tradition that it aderes to because it requires certain con certain things for flight >> but this stuff is for problems that don't exist this is for emerging technologies that we didn't have last year in inqil their purpose is to just snatch the company and they they they're not I don't even think in many ways they're thinking about how do we use this? They snatch it so that they can go around to companies like Palunteer or Anderil or the the huge list of other defense contractors and be like we have this thing. How do how can you fold it in? And again like the company that develops a thing that the government can use is the one that gets the contract or the the presents the most promising idea for what they can do with this.

Um so we wouldn't hear we wouldn't hear about this [ __ ] This would be this. That's why most of these are like this became this, >> right? >> It it would get purchased by Inqutel and then handed to a DARPA program. >> We're not going to hear about we're not going to hear about the thing that they made with it unless it becomes as ubiquitous as something like Google Earth. >> Yeah, that's a good point. >> So, >> yeah.

No, I was just put off. I was like interesting. like there's a tooth hearing device and a bouncy ball and that's really like all you can >> they're going to give that they're going to whatever patents or technology related to that they'll give it to Rathon >> they'll give it to Loheed Martin they'll give it to whoever and be like figure something out present us an idea and whichever company gives us the best idea you get the contract >> that makes sense yeah that's a good point so maybe I shouldn't be as surprised but anyways this next space that I want to talk about that inqutel invest and we've we know this is the case. We've talked about this a lot already, but just the idea of social media data mining or just basically spying inel has invested in many companies that specialize in harvesting data or our data and some of the following I just want to go through a few of them. So some of them >> are the following one's called data miner.

It detects trends and emerging threats via Twitter via Twitter data or X whatever. Geoedia collects geotagged social media messages to monitor events in real time. Apparently, this has also been used by law enforcement agencies to track activist protests, which I find already kind of out of bounds because like I don't know, you should be able to protest. I think >> not anymore. >> Yeah.

I don't know. That's just isn't that part of a democracy is, you know, freedom of speech and just the fact that it's already being used to monitor that is questionable to me. >> Patriot Act, >> the that's why that early 2000s portion of this is so important. Patriot Act, >> right? >> They passed these they opened this [ __ ] up and look what happened right after they opened it up, >> you know, and it's turned into what it's turned into now. Continue on.

Continue on. Now, uh, this guy Lee Guthman, I guess he's an executive at the company, he said that the company could predict violent incident incidents at protests using location data and tweet sentiment data. So, again, going into the idea of just behavioral prediction, which is I just every time I come across that, it's just it hits me a certain way. I think it's because of Minority Report or something. >> Just the idea of predicting things pre Yeah.

Yeah. totally. Uh this other company, Pathar, they're used by the FBI to mine Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook posts to determine networks of association. So this is a way to determine key influencers on whatever topic you want, detect signs of radicalization in people. So again, just pinpointing people who have dissenting views perhaps and being able to identify who they are, >> categorize them.

Yeah, >> absolutely. This other company, Transvoyant, they analyze social media to try determine insights and predict global events. This was actually founded by a former Loheed Martin vice president. So, actually, we haven't really talked about that. There's like this whole incestuous revolving door aspect with a lot of this.

I even think inel uh part one of the co-founders or someone who least >> one of the founding Yes, that's right. One of the founding members was a guy named Norman Augustine. Norm former former CEO of Loheed Martin. >> And then he he helps create InQel and it's like probably Inqel is funding Loheed Martin associated programs. I would bet I don't know I don't have that data on me but you can see >> well again they would buy an emerging tech and then Norm Augustine would go to Lockheed and be like what can we do with this? >> How can we fold this into the ecosystem of war systems that we have? like what benefit could this add? Figure it out.

>> Totally. >> That's why there's that incestuous relationship and that's why so many of the people that serve on the board of InQel are either deeply connected into some kind of advanced scientific research or one of the defense contractors. That's they're they're going to develop it into something that can get used on the battlefield. >> Totally. Now basically the the point I want to make here it's clear that monitoring social media appears to be an essential capability that the CIA desires >> and you can imagine combining different capabilities from different companies with different special with different specialties is going to yield extremely precise intelligence.

Now in fact even when I was looking into this inqel they funded a special laboratory in Silicon Valley called lab 41 and the whole point of lab 41 is to connect dots between large data sets. So it's actually very similar to what Palunteer does but maybe just a different stack >> of technology >> hyperfocused in some some particular way. Yeah. So I who I don't know now we talked about social media mining but what about biological data mining? Now this next company funded by inqel. They're called skin central sciences and they're a skincare company that could collect DNA.

I guess the company uses a skinincare product that it removes a thin layer of skin on the face for cosmetic purposes. It's just like a a special detergent wash. And you would never expect this, but the CIA is like, "Yeah, let's invest in that. I want that. I want that detergent." And the reason is again, it goes to dual use.

There's a cosmetic angle, but then it's also a novel way to gather >> biological data >> from someone, >> right? So, it's just it's just so interesting. This is one of those weird ones that you just wouldn't expect. And interestingly, InQel is partners with a another company called Bio Nems or NEMS. And this company uses DNA for human identification purposes. They're also invested with Biio Matrika, which is a company with expertise in prepping bio samples for DNA tests.

You can see those two companies in combination with the skin essential sciences, which can get that outer layer. you might be able to be, okay, if you combine these, we could literally harvest faces for DNA. >> Yeah, >> it's just really weird. >> Yeah, it is weird. But well, I mean, you know, again, you think about it like in terms of CIA, like you have a bunch of world leaders in a hotel.

You put this product in their bathroom at the hotel and now you have like some kind of DNA profile of them. It makes total sense. It's why Putin's bodyguards collect his piss and [ __ ] wherever he goes. They don't want people to have access to his DNA and tell like what what are his weak points, like what what diseases might he have, etc., etc. >> That's so interesting.

I didn't even consider that, but that makes so much sense. You just tap into some like shitty hotel shampoo with this and you have the drain being fivear. You'll never suspect it. These world leaders are staying at these hotels, but the CIA was in there a month ago putting this [ __ ] soap in every bathroom. You know what I mean? Like that's what they do.

This is this is the kind of >> god. But these these are t like I it makes total sense why they would want something like that for sure. >> Interesting that I somehow I didn't connect that context until now. That's so funny. Jesus.

Okay, this the last piece I I just found some uh notable 2025 investments. This is just some more modern things of today. And I just found these funny. There's one company. It's called Dreadnode and it's a company that uses Yeah, I know.

That's exactly it's a company that uses AI for in an offensive capacity so that they can red team security basically >> find weak points. >> Totally 100%. That's that's the idea of red teaming. Just testing your your capabilities and security using like a a team that's not an actual threat, but they're they're acting as an actual threat. And I just find it funny.

It's called Dread Node. And then this next one is called Insane Cyber. This is a cyber security company specializing in protection of hardware and software systems that can monitor and control physical equipment assets and processes in industrial environments. And I just find it funny cuz the names it's like if you want to get funded by INQL in 2025, you might as well be like slaughter bots are awesome. >> Exactly.

Crazy. Some crazy ass name. Yeah, >> you'll get funded. So any any tech CEOs listening to this, think about changing your name to something crazy and uh you might get funded. So that's basically my entire investment stack that I wanted to go through uh for now.

Do we want to go into this uh geospatial mapping stuff? >> Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. So for for sure uh first of all, that was amazing. you. I just love how we didn't really even coordinate it, but we covered two.

Like I didn't cover any of that. Like there's a couple overlaps with like the biggest names, but there's so many that you had reached that I didn't get to and there all of them were [ __ ] hurting my brain. >> Yes. >> Um so for sure, let me let me just go over a few that I found and and we can kind of explore this this other weird angle that I found discovering some of these. So, uh, as you said before, uh, I've got, well, I've got like a quick little synopsis of how these Inqutel investments tie back to DARPA and Highlands, uh, at the beginning of the conversation.

So, we already talked about that relationship being pretty thick and established. Um, but there are a few like kind of runaway examples that stood out to me. Uh, first is obviously Keyhole, as we talked, which became Google Earth. The tide of Google there is that it was acquired by Google and becomes Google Earth. the tide of DARPA and Highlands is that it was used by the NGA and DoD in Iraq and Afghanistan and it was presented as a Highland success story.

So that and again that drives Google Maps now, right? And Google Earth is all the uses that people have for that. >> Um to think that there is no connection there or that Google is in some way like you know sequestering your data from government data is silly. that that is that that is exactly what that was for. It was to track movements of people. Um >> Metacarta, Terrago, Geo Peddf, and Endica.

Uh they tied to Google as competitors or compliments to Google Maps. Um they tie to DARPA because they were part of DARPA's NGA's broader or DARPA/ NGA's broader geospatial intelligence push. And they tie back to Highlands because mapping and geospatial situational awareness were that was a key component of uh Highland's vision for information security. >> That makes sense. >> Um we'll hit data mining and big data analytics.

Of course, we did Palunteer. The connections we had previously discussed the tie to Google there is that it was founded uh uh with Google and PayPal and um positioned as the anti- Google for intelligence. Right? So that's going back to what I was saying. Their whole mindset from the beginning of Palunteer was let's be the opposite of Google. And at the time Google's logo was don't be evil.

>> Yeah. >> So what does that tell you? So uh the tieback to DARPA is that DARPA's totalformational awareness initiative that we talked about before was a precursor to Palunteer's model. Palunteer is the company that stepped in to fulfill that role. Uh >> again why in inqel invested in them. Uh, and the tide of highlands is the the uh a lot of Highlands sessions around that time focused on integrating commercial data and analics analytics into warfare which is where we're at now.

Uh, recorded future digital reasoning intensity and insight in NX GT. The tie to Google there is that it's they had a similar mission to Google search analytics but it was optimized for intelligence. Uh the tie to DARPA is that it echoed DARPA's MDDS and I3 programs uh funding Sergey Brin and um it ties to Highlands in that many Highlands discussions revolved around data fusion and predictive analytics. So again, we'll see another scenario where Inqutel will invest in all these companies and like Google's a runaway success. Palanteer is a runaway success, but then there's like a handful of other companies that were purchased and folded in again like Inqel's whole thing was I don't know how we're going to use that, but we're buying it, >> right? >> I don't know how I don't know how this is going to be used yet, but we're buying it so we own it.

and then one of the the connected companies will figure out a way to integrate it. Um for cyber security there's fire eye, arsite, basis technology, three three different companies. The uh tie to Google there is that Google security team cooperated with fire eye on uh malware threats. Um and I this is probably like red teaming stuff. I actually had one of my buddies, Joe Vanlon, used to work at a bunch of big companies and he that was part of his daily process was red >> and they would like come up with all these insane scenarios like somebody cuts in the roof and repels down and does this and that and this and that.

How would we combat that from a cyber security perspective? >> Oh my god, that's so crazy. And again, he worked at Google, he's worked at Apple, he's he's like this is what these companies are thinking and this is why because it's directly tied. They they just purchased the company that their whole thing was red teaming companies like Google. >> Um the tie to DARPA is that DARPA funded early intrusion detection and anomaly detection research. And the tie to Highlands there is that cyber warfare was a consistent Highlands theme from 2001 onward.

uh again post post uh 911 um natural language and translation >> language weaver and lingo tech the tie to Google there is that they preceded Google translate and uh were developed via DARPA NIST funded research this is what becomes Google translate um the tide of DARPA there is that DARPA longfunded machine translation for signals intelligence obvious military use there >> uh and then the TIDA highlands is translation linguistics uh is critical to counterterrorism operations. Uh you know, at that time it was the Middle East, but anywhere like if you could have the ability to in the field translate the local dialect so that you could understand it, that that obviously >> there's a a serious advantage there. Um two other companies were Basis Technology and Call Minor. uh they tie to Google in that there's parallels to Google's voice and speech recognition and multilingual NLP. Uh the tie to DARPA there is that NLP c was central to DARPA's information and exploitation programs.

>> Is NLP neural linguistic programming? >> Yes. Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Yo. >> Yeah.

>> And so that's I've talked about that on a bunch of episodes. There's like a there's like a a whole other conversation we could have about hypnosis and NLP, but yeah, 100% neural linguistic programming, behavior modification, >> right? >> Okay. Um, and then the tie to Highlands there is it fits the P perception management. >> I love that. That's such a very polite way of saying behavior control.

Uh, perception management and in intel exploitation tracks. Um, collaboration and social tools. Huddle Innocentive and Traction Software. Their tie to Google there is analogous to Google Docs apps and Google's internal DARPA modeled grand challenge culture. I'm not totally sure what that means, but >> uh the tie to that was just an initiative that they had.

Uh tie to DARPA is that it reflects DARPA's tradition of prize-driven innovation challenges. And then the tie to Highlands there is the collaboration was baked into Highland's design mixing government, industry, and academia. And what makes that easier than like Google Docs? Like what are we using right now? We're using it right now to do this. And this [ __ ] was it was made for military application. Like we just got it downstream.

>> Uh okay. So here's Dude. Okay. This this I'm so happy that you didn't pick to go down this rabbit hole because this one really surprised me and it like it [ __ ] me up for days. I still don't know what I think about or understand about it, but >> I think I'm ready.

>> We're we're going to go into this and there there will be a few tangents along the way. >> Uh simulation immersive tech and robotics. >> All right. There's two companies, Fort Terra and Zespace >> that tie to Google uh as they had parallels with Google VR, AR and robotics. Um and then uh there's a Boston Dynamics acquisition in 2013.

And Boston Dynamics, you might be familiar, they are the company that make those autonomous robots that can walk on four legs or two legs and will eventually be killing us in the future. Yeah, they're going to be destroying us. So uh the tie to DARPA there is that DARPA was heavily is heavily invested in immersive simulation and robotics. Um and then the tie to Highlands there is that obviously drones, robotics and simulation were discussed at Highlands forums and are now like a crucial component of modern warfare debatably the most crucial component. um two other company or three other companies Stoke space Jetcool and Typhoon Typhoon uh they tie to Google as they align with Google's later X/Alphabet moonshots which was AI space advanced uh cooling for data centers >> right >> and tied and there's a the data center thing you know AI is kind of the companion we want AI and society's demand for AI is great.

The government's demand for AI is greater. We're going to need millions of data centers, huge data centers, insane infrastructure, >> and then, you know, nuclear power to power that, which that's a whole other thing. But >> like these companies, they they were thinking about what they're doing now in 2025. They were thinking about it as early as the early 2000s. and it just took them this long to to get to where we're at now.

Um, >> that's wild. >> It's it's nuts. Um, the tie to DARPA there is the advanced infrastructure echoes DARPA's role in moonshot uh research and development. And then the tie to Highlands is that future warfare, war fighting tech, and infrastructure resilience were also forum staples. That was just stuff they talked about all the time.

Mhm. >> Okay. So, while we're here, simulation, immersive tech, and robotics. So, what I think a lot of people don't realize is that so much of the military, especially when it comes to like advanced warfare uh capabilities and tools that we have, you have to go through serious training. They're not going to give some random [ __ ] the steering wheel for a $20 million drone without having passed some kind of literacy some kind of baseline intelligence of how this thing operates and how do I operate it.

>> So one thing that Inqel knew early on was that they had to invest in the companies that were making games and AR and VR and visuallyass assisted training utilities. Okay. >> Okay. >> So, I'm going to pull up a couple links here. And this for me, this is where it gets super [ __ ] weird.

>> I have >> for my entire adult life felt that at least a portion of the violent games that we play, especially warfare themed games, it always struck me as like, wouldn't this be a great training ground for soldiers of the future? Like what if you could bring generations of people up who are used to interfacing with technology in these warfighting scenarios and then let's say some of those people joined the military or were forcibly enlisted into the military >> and were really good at you know playing an Xbox game. Well, you know >> yeah they they fly drones with Xbox controllers. I don't I don't know if you've seen like some of the lower tech military applications of drones. I've heard about this. It's they're in a trailer and that trailer has a secured link to a drone and they've got an Xbox controller.

It's not all of them, but I've definitely seen pictures and there's plenty of like uh uh legitimate reporting uh uh talking about how like to them it's just a game. >> There's like they're playing a game. Okay, so this is where it gets [ __ ] so weird. Okay, so we're we're going to talk we're going to talk about Gilman Louie for a second. >> So Gilman Louie was Inqel's first CEO.

Gilman Louie >> is an interesting guy. >> Oh [ __ ] >> So he is an American technology venture capitalist who started as a video game designer and then co-founded and ran the CIA venture capital fund inel. Okay. Now, the company, let me see if I can find the All right. With his company, Nexa Corporation, he designed and developed multiple computer games such as F6 F-16 Fighting Falcon Flight Simulator.

Um, and these at least in some layer of this, people were looking at this as like a useful military thing. >> That makes perfect sense. If we can get people before we put them in a hund00 million jet, if we can put them in a very detailed simulator, we can reduce the likelihood that they're going to [ __ ] not know what they're doing when they're in there. Yeah, it makes total sense. >> Um, but this guy, this guy is deep.

>> And let me see if I can go to a list. >> Let me see if I can find the the specific other games. uh it might be irrelevant, but uh one of the other companies that he sits on the board of too is Wicker. Um and this is kind of an interesting company in the sense that uh this is like deeply within the InQel lore, but it was an American software company based in New York City. It's known for instant messaging application of the same name, Wicker.

The Wicker messaging service allows an organization's users to exchange end-to-end encrypted and content expiring messages. Where do you think this [ __ ] came from? >> Like if if if your if any app that you have encrypted messaging app has uh uh any of those features, it's a high likelihood that it's an evolution of whatever this tech was, right? >> Yeah. >> But the video game thing gets weirder, right? So, the first CEO of Inqutell being uh a video game designer who focused on making like military style uh uh simulation games. I stumbled across one of these other companies, Destiner. >> Okay.

>> Destinier was an American umbrella company covering a holding company, a video game publisher, and a video game developer based in Minnetonka, Minnesota. Okay. The company was founded by Peter Tampy, former executive vice president of Bungie in 2001. Look at the timeline. 2001.

Okay. And Incel invested in this company. >> This company was responsible for making games like Age of Empires 2, Age of Empires 3. Uh there's a Full Metal Alchemist series in here. Unreal Tournament.

Uh World War II aces, which was a a fighting game. I've played a lot of these games. >> Okay. >> And now it turns out that the CIA funded them >> now in in Why would they do that? Why would they do that? When when you look at these games, why the [ __ ] would they do that? Well, what is Age of Empires? Military Strategy. Yo, it's a that's a training tool.

This game was developed as a military strategy training tool and it just became marketable. The same thing with Unreal Tournament, a game where you hunt down opponents and murder them. Like, how comfortable can we make people with sitting behind a controller and operating a a robot, let's say? >> Yeah. or or some kind of destructive device and seeking out an enemy and destroying it. There are so many games now that Yeah, exactly.

There are so many games now too that have like a drone capability. Like I was talking about that that game Ghost Recon. And in Ghost Recon, just as a a simple summary here, Ghost Recon, uh the newest one, there's like this island where they're developing all this very intense um military tools, but then the one of the military guys like co-ops all of them for his own personal use. And like this becomes like this war. This island becomes factions of people who are corporate people who are trying to resist the military take over and the military using these tools to hunt them down and all this [ __ ] >> Okay.

>> Uh but it the the whole reason I bring that up is that it's it's Peter Teal. Like they're making the the guy that they're making fun of is like a Peter Teal or an Elon Musk. They're making fun of the idea that we we're giving these specific individuals this like untapped power and like full control over the ecosystem that's going to power the future of of military and warfare. What's to say at some point in the future they don't break away? >> Yeah. you know, like they have they're so deeply entrenched and so many of these tools are things that we use every day.

Like what happens when >> and if because they're human, they start to use it for their own personal gain or or they they go they they hit the dead man switch and now they're in control of the military's arsenal. But the the video game thing, I just I couldn't get over. They they also made Starship Troopers, which is hilarious to me. Um, but it it had me looking at like these this was training. This is training of some kind.

They they invested in these companies because they saw in the early 2000s the benefit of using video games to train people to perform military tasks. And now as if you go into the military and you're going to be flying drones, you're going to go through a really long period of time where you're just playing fake drone flying games >> based on the infrastructure of some of this [ __ ] You know what I mean? Even flight simulators, >> that's it's flight simulator. >> Mhm. >> That's that's what they do. It's it's just the game flight simulator.

And it's you're sitting in a box and and once you get to a certain level, then you get into a box that's running an old PC with flight simulator that moves around. So you can feel like you're going to feel on the plane and then you might get to the point where you're actually flying the plane. >> That's an those are interesting connections. That's pretty wild. >> Super weird.

Super weird. So when we talk about the diversity of the companies that Incutel has invested in, it's it's literally every part of modern technological society. Every single part was in influenced if not directly steered by some of this [ __ ] Um and you know it's I I'm I'm not going to hit it. I think we we covered the other ones. Um you you hit them when you were going through them.

So I I guess here might be the good spot for like reflections. >> Oh yeah. Where do you even start? >> Like what what does this like I know you necess weren't necessarily super deep on this before. Like what are your thoughts having >> gone gone down the rabbit holes you did and then just kind of hearing this like what are your thoughts? Well, it's clear that there is strong agendas that are hyper strategically thought through and you know we've only really just touched the surface on this entire landscape and the things that we've even seen you you can kind of deduce how things would work together and I find that really interesting and that's something that I haven't really thought a lot about in my day-to-day you know, a little bit. You know, everybody always jokes.

It's like, "Oh, my phone's listening." And blah, blah, blah. And it's like, no, no, no. This is an entire hypers sophisticated apparatus that is strategically funded and developed uh decades in advance trying to predict where things will be. So, it's really hard to wrap your mind around that, honestly. It it really is.

Um, yeah. I don't know. Especially the gamer stuff you just brought up. >> It's It's definitely interesting to see that as also a tangent >> that you wouldn't really expect like Age of Empires. It's like, >> "Oh, actually, you can >> I love those games.

I love those games. I played those games with my friends for a very long time. I love those games." And finding out that it was a CIA funded situation, I was like, "God damn it." >> Yeah. >> They got me in the one place I thought I was clear of them, you know? >> Right. Yeah.

The tendrils are just all-encompassing. It's That's really hard to uh honestly I'm still trying to piece piece this entire episode together that we just talked about. >> It It's I'm I'm feeling the same way with a lot cuz like I didn't necessarily get into the more sinister stuff. You you really dug up some [ __ ] [ __ ] And and for me it's like I go back to what we were saying before. Or is it like is the problem because does the problem exist because we're creating a solution to it before it exists or is the problem always going to exist and we're creating answers to problems that we don't necessarily know or at least we're creating options as answers to problems in a number of different scenarios that could play out.

I can't I like are we in the [ __ ] up place because in the early 2000s it was decided we're going to go to this [ __ ] up place or was that [ __ ] up place inevitable and this is the best attempt to try and make some sense of it or like get a grip on it? >> I see what you're saying. That's a good question. I don't I don't know what one it would be. Part of me leans towards uh the more I guess like direct trae tra trajectory in the sense that maybe this it does kind of seem like this is orchest at least >> to the most you possibly could orchestrated and developed rather than like a set of different outcomes and we just happen to be in you know in number four of five possible outcomes. does seem more the case that this is deliberately being set up from my perspective based on what I know right now.

That's what I would lean towards because it does seem the entire whole big data thing where we have these digital identities that are used for targeting ads, right? the whole dual dual use thing, but then it's also those are probably also used to make, you know, threat scores or again like we were saying identify people of influence. So it does seem definitely the potential for like a totalitarian hellscape kind of thing is paved. So I would kind of lean towards that. It kind of seems like it was a more deliberate thing, doesn't it? >> I I would I would agree with you. It it's since looking into all this [ __ ] it has become virtually impossible for me to look at it and not think that um I can't help there's so much overlap.

There's also for me it's it's what are the motivations here and there's a point that I think is worth noting especially about inutel that separates it in the sense that the people who work for inel even though it's a nonforprofit they share in the profit like that's what that's a unique thing about that that company is that the people who are in charge of it >> are personally invested in it And what that means is the the people who are shaping the future have a financial incentive for it to go the way that they want them to, which means they're going to try even harder to make it go that way. And when you start to listen to like the thoughts what these people think about the future or society as a whole, that's for me when it becomes weird cuz it's like these people don't want rainbow and rainbows and sunshine. >> Yeah. Yeah, they they want they want complete control over the population. That's they they are explicit in how they say that and have always said that.

>> On that thought, it seems like we're kind of getting into like a philosophical landscape. And I feel like really really cuz to answer your question, I think this is really what we can if we boil it down to as far as we can this abstract idea, let's let's talk about, you know, Nichze's will to power. really what it kind of seems like all of what we see this technological total totalitarian hellscape is it not simply the manifestation of the will to power in an increasingly technological society is that really that's because we're like okay who's doing this why are they doing this is it not simply that but we have access to data we have access to Twitter analytics and it's just people putting things together to satisfy this abstract notion of the will to power per se really like isn't that technically what we're seeing and why we would be seeing it. >> Yeah. I mean it's a very it's a very sober uh analysis of that for sure.

uh the the the correlation there is is like hard to ignore and you know I I I just I I don't know for me it's like what's the cost like what what is the [ __ ] cost? I I have been able to sense my entire life watching technology just get folded more into society. What is the cost? And how long before nobody remembers what life was like before this? And like who's to stop if like the the core the core purpose of all of these things is military domination or or commercial success. I just >> which is just will to power >> 100%. Yeah. 100%.

I don't trust humans, especially the humans that would want to be in control of those respective organizations or companies. I expect them to be more motivated for whatever profits the most. And does free speech profit the most? No. The government having a surveillance state on its citizens, that's going to profit them the most. >> Like, you know, even >> the analysis of the the finances of Incutel doesn't matter if they lose money.

They've got government money. They're guaranteed money. >> Yeah. Siphoning the pearls for their economic energy and putting it towards well again the totalitarian hellscape. >> We're paying for it.

Like like you see what I mean? Like the the [ __ ] loop there for me is like but we're paying for it and I don't want to pay for it. >> But I don't necessarily have any any choice in it. Yeah, >> it's just going to happen and you know, we're building it for our own security, but at some point this [ __ ] is going to get used against us, even more than it already is. I mean, we talked about a few examples. Uh the protesting thing that's that's not even a a theory anymore.

That has been outed a million times at this point. Yeah, they use this kind of technology to track you at the and like once you get on that list, now you're on somebody's radar and they're going to have access to all your information and all your communications. than if you know the precog thing. I remember watching Minority Report and people were like that'll never happen >> and you talked about a few examples where like predictive >> like literally predictive military action, predictive, you know, societal action like that is not only a conversation that's being had now. It was being had 20 years ago.

They've had 20 years to work on this [ __ ] >> It's Yeah. No, it's it's one of these topics that um it is introspective and I don't know if there is great answers to to exactly what happens but it does seem like the dominoes have been set in a sense like the only way the if we were trying to be u less uh doomer here I I would say I would say encrypted technology is like an asymmetric defense that individuals have and have had and have to wield against these larger uh apparatuses that we're kind of outside of. So, for instance, you know, like PGP encryption when you're doing targeted messaging that's encrypted, there's no way to decrypt that. You can have the entire Chinese government military apparatus can't solve that issue. like if I were to communicate with you in that way, our communication is completely protected based on the current tech we have right now that we're aware of.

Same thing with uh what I think is is really interesting, not to make this into a [ __ ] like whole Bitcoin rant, but I like the idea of this encrypted energy that is like an abstraction for our time and energy, which we just call money in our society. And the fact that no one, not even the entire American intelligence apparatus or China or whatever you want to put, can take that from who take that from you if that's something you have. And I think those asymmetric defenses, maybe they're they're few and sparse right now, but people are always developing those things. And that's that's what's really important about them. They're asymmetric.

the the benefit to the individual is extremely high versus whatever outside force is trying to thwart you or direct you in a certain way. So I don't know maybe there is ways of getting around this in some situation. I don't know. That's my hope. That's my hope at least.

>> Yeah. Well and that is a good point because I definitely don't I don't I hate being a doomsayer. I'm just so good at it, you know. Uh but but uh but I I I think it is like something that we should all be contemplating and we should all be contemplating it uh when we look at how much we use our devices and all this technology. Um this is anecdotal but I think kind of ties into what you were just talking about.

So there was a terrorist attack in California. There's like a shooting. Um it was a a husband and wife. I think they shot into a crowd. Anyways, they recover their iPhones and the FBI goes in this tirade and they're like, "Apple, you need to work with us and give us backdoor access.

Like, we need to codify this in law so that you can get backdoor access. We can get back door access to these devices and thwart future terror attacks, >> right?" >> Apple's like, "Fuck no, we're not going to do that. It's going to it's completely against like we can't we we built our whole thing on like user security. we're not going to abandon that so you can patriot act us. FBI comes out a few weeks later and says, "Well, we didn't need your approval.

We can already do it." So, what they were trying the FBI what the FBI was trying to do was they were trying to get Apple to coalesce into codifying it as part of their company's or like some legal codifying it into law that a company like that has to give the government access. But Apple stood their ground and >> it doesn't matter because they can already do it. And if they can already do it, they're already doing it. Even with like the encryption stuff, dude, who made those apps? Like where did the technology from a lot of these apps come from? And a lot of them kind of trace pretty close back to Inqutel or some of the technologies around it. So it's like >> that's that's true as well.

to me that that's more of like a backdoor threat because there are a ton of people who uh just from like the ground up can make a PGP system. Uh even Bitcoin is like you don't need apps or anything to use these types of things. >> You can literally like just set it up yourself and like barring some kind of like compromised hardware you have which is I guess totally possible. There are still ways to to get around uh the the boot of the state, we could say. >> And people do it.

People do it. >> Yeah. >> In many countries, like in in Canada and America, you know, we're pretty lucky. There's a lot of places where, you know, we're talking a totalitarian hellscape, but there actually is like it's way worse. and people they they manage to find privacy and and uh build and and live and and try push back.

It's crazy. So I think that's my hope I guess at the end is is maybe we have other technologies that uh are more towards the individual and have some kind of asymmetric capacity. >> Um there's I've I've got two things here. One is have you seen they're they're starting to become popular amongst people who are interested in these topics, but it's like these little devices that you can send texts over radio waves over short distances. >> Oh, I haven't seen this.

>> Have you seen these? I've got a buddy who's who's gotten super into it and I've since watched a bunch of videos about it, but there's like this whole network developing around the globe of people who are using like the Earth's natural radio wave spectrums to to send text messages. And the idea is it's a bunch of civilians who are trying to make a nuke proof or EMP proof or blackout power blackout proof communication. >> That's so wicked, >> right? And it works. It's like you don't need the only thing you need is the power on this small device which you can charge with a solar panel like a small personal solar panel and you can send text messages. It's not >> at the point the network of people doing this [ __ ] is not large enough for you to be able to send a message >> very fast all the way across the world >> but with the networks of people you could be like I need it's like telegram but like a digital telegram I need this message to get here so it has to go to this somebody in this city >> has to go through no right yeah >> so that that's kind of to your point like what are people doing to to kind of create an infrastructure outside of the existing infrastructure that is being offered to us and it's stuff like that which to me is [ __ ] sick.

I think that's cool. It has to you need parallel systems always because systems are not incorruptible and they become corrupt and exactly like you're saying >> now we have tech mole where it's like okay we're kind of trusting why why trust like absolute power corrupts absolutely so at some point the incentives are going to be towards whatever their personal agenda is and yeah that's what you need parallel systems uh even with nation states like nation states you need some way to step outside and exist in some kind of parallel societal aspect. So the thing you bring up that makes a lot of sense. That's really cool. Reminds me of like old school ham radio operators.

>> It that's it is like the digital component and they they even like that community of people refers to it like that. It's like we're we're we're make we know this works and if there's some future scenario where the traditional lines of communication are cut, can we still communicate? Is this still a thing we can do? And again, it's like a growing network of people across the globe that are experimenting. I can't remember what it's called, but it's super [ __ ] cool. >> Um, the other thing is too, I I can't remember if you've done an episode about Bitcoin, but like Satoshi Nakamoto, like who is he? >> He was one of these people, one of the tech billionaires or somebody connected to intelligence. And you know, >> I mean, it's possible.

It's I really want to do a whole topic on that. I think it'd be so fun to try track down the best possible evidence and make different cases for who it is cuz there's a ton of different options, but no one really knows. >> There's a ton of lore. The lore is incredible. Like the lore is amazing.

>> The lore is deep, dude. >> It's so sick. But uh I think case cuz we just kind of went hopeful for a second, but I'm going to go doomer again because even even exactly what we just said. Let's say everything goes perfect and there's these new emerging technologies that enable this parallel society that can withstand the totalitarian threats of this tech empire. The problem still is going to be the autonomous weapon systems.

Like >> there's nothing. That's my one of my biggest issues. It's not really an issue. It's just like the the potential for that becoming corrupt is insane. And there's no emotions with these things.

There's no rationalizing. It's just like pure destruction. And it's arms race mentality. So there's really no stopping the train of autonomous weapons. And once we start putting AI into it, >> we have to start trusting the AI.

>> Yeah. >> And it's like, okay, do you want would you rather trust AI or would you rather trust Peter Teal? Well, like would who do you want to trust? And it's really hard to navigate that. I don't even think it's possible to navigate that with the the knowledge and we have now. I it's just like it's pure speculation. It's an experiment.

And I don't really know where that goes. Like how do you how do how is there any defense against something like that if it becomes corrupt and co-opted? Whether it's by a person or some artificial sentience that we've created. It's like I don't know. >> Yeah. You know, I the the Terminator scenario becomes realer and realer.

You know, again, not to be a negative Nancy here, we're just looking at this pragmatically here, like this. Where do we go from here? Or like an alien scenario where we do away with government and the only form of government or the the competing factions of global corporations that own or dominate an aspect of of our lives experience. It's >> like cyberpunk style. Yeah. >> Yeah.

you know, it's it those are on the table. People said that [ __ ] would never happen and here we are and those things are on the table. So, I think uh that's why I think it's important to like, you know, think or ponder about these things because like we're watching it happen and and we're we're kind of so convinced that life will always be a certain way when in reality it could change at the turn of a dime. And I I just generally I don't trust people, especially me megalomaniacal people, >> people that want to be in Yeah. the people that want to be in those positions, they're not well.

Like they share they share a psycholog psychological profiles with serial killers. Like what does that tell you? You know, like what we're going to let that be the the guiding uh idea of of humanity or or or you know, affect every level of human life? Um >> you know, and you know, Go ahead. >> Oh, no. Finish your thought cuz I I'm going to open up another can here. >> [ __ ] yes.

Okay. You know, I mean, really, it's it's just along the lines of like I don't if you listen to how the tech billionaires or even like the the the DARPA level military folks talk, they don't it's not sunshine and roses. It's not rainbows and daisies. It's a a scenario where they know everything about you. They have complete access to everything you have.

You don't own anything. you're just leasing it from them. You can be cut off >> in a number of different ways at any point >> and then like matrix scenario becomes a thing. Then it's like all right well you don't have to work. We have robots autonomous robots doing all that for you.

So what do you do? Well you ex you escape into this virtual world that we created for you where you're not confined by the the shitty existence that you live in real life. You just you exist in this world and oh you don't move around a lot. Well, that's convenient cuz we made this bed and you just plug your bed into it and we'll introvenous you food and keep you alive as an organism. But just like with every tech company, they're siphoning out data or something from you. You know, they're using they're using your brain patterns to map some kind of product that they're going to use.

And then it's just where it's the matrix, you know? >> People said this [ __ ] would never happen and here we are. We're we're watching it happen and and we're kind of just stumbling directly into it. I I just, you know, like it's the connections like this. This is somewhat tangential, but I swear I'll have a point here in a second. There's this company called Applied Data Systems, and I originally came across this company when I was doing um the uh the Long Island thing with the Antarctica whistleblower guy.

>> Um hang on. Applied digital, right? Yeah, there we go. So this company, this isn't necessarily directed to like connected directly to InQel, but like this is a company that focuses on computing infrastructure, server infrastructure, but like big scale [ __ ] Like if Amazon needed a warehouse of servers built, they're coming to this company for the assistance and the logistics behind building something like that. The infrastructure They also focus on AI integrations, and that's using AI to sift through insane amounts of data in the data centers. This is a big military contractor that I didn't know anything about until I started doing that Long Island video.

But one of the guys who founded this company was that another guy who I mentioned in that video, his name is William Katakasinos, and he was a major force. He worked at Brook Haven National Labs, and he was like the assistant director. He was high ranking there and he was also a major figure trying to sell nuclear energy to Long Island and they wanted to build like a ton of nuclear small scale nuclear reactors >> and have everything run off nuclear. >> Okay, >> the reason I'm bringing this up is because with the conversation of AI, nuclear energy is now becoming a thing. There's a bunch of companies that are already building their own private nuclear >> Yeah.

It's crazy >> facilities to to to to support the the power demands from all this computing. >> And uh uh again, the guy the guy who founded this company was entrenched at multiple levels of the thing. He's working at B&L, working around nuclear stuff. He's trying to make a bunch of money off nuclear. He actually built one of the only privatelyowned nuclear facilities called Shore Nuclear Facility.

It's still there in uh Long Island, but it apparently is not operating. It's never been in operation. Um, and the point that I'm trying to make here is that the the infrastructure that exists, it's dirty everywhere. Every layer is dirty. It's people who stand to make a personal private gain on whatever that move is.

And it's clear that they're only they're not worried about the safety of what they're doing 10 years from now. They're worried about making a lot of money right now. >> Like that's the goal. It's always been the goal. >> And so when I look at the stuff that >> again, InQel has put money into they they are they're thinking about the warfare of the future, but I don't think any of them are giving serious thought to like what does this mean for humanity? If all of humanity no longer has its own thought and we're just being patrolled like what separates us from the automatons? We are the automatons.

We're just we're an organic >> the organic analogy to all the other tech that they're developing. Uh um I don't know. It's just like this weird. It's like a snake eating its own tail. Like I just there's so many aspects of this.

It's just like are we we're paying for this? It's like we're feeding into this, but >> it can't it can't be good because it's just getting us further and further away from >> human like the humanity of of human life. And none of those people any of those big tech billionaires I wouldn't necessarily say they're humanitarians. Like you listen to them talk and you're like, "Oh man, you're a psychopath, aren't you?" >> Yeah. It's it is really interesting. Um, you know, basically it's what you're saying.

It comes down to different time preferences different people have. So if if if one is more shortterm thinking or they have a high time preference, >> they are they really just care about their own lifetime. Let's put it that way. Keep it simple. Whereas if you have a a more low time preference and you you're thinking more generationally and and future orientated, you're thinking more about preserving and and how can this benefit future generations.

But if your future generation is just like, hey, we're just going to grow brains and have a surrounded by electrodes and we just control them with autonomous weapons. Like that's your next 30-year plan. Well, you're not thinking for the future. So therefore, you don't care about preserving anything from that stance because you're like, well, that doesn't matter because this is what it is. >> That's what's that's what it's going to be.

Yeah. >> Yeah. So, so I don't know how you combat any of that to be honest because it comes down to the individuals and the power they wield. But maybe I can dovetail to that can I was going to open because we were talking autonomous weapons, >> how it's horrifying and and all of this. Maybe one way to to again bring some hope to the conversation.

I you could envision because you're talking matrix and like it's just this overall corruption. These systems right now no one's wielding them except nation states and like with with large funding. But you could imagine at some point as technology progresses, uh, the cost of things come down and you can whip things up yourself, maybe with 3D printing, uh, if that becomes more ubiquitous in society, which which I bet you it will be. >> Yeah, I would agree. >> You could, yeah, you could imagine a situation where the individual again has powers like powers of violence that they never had in the past.

And perhaps that is not necessarily a bad thing because then you can resist the totalitarian digital landscape in some way. Maybe you could imagine a situation where I'm kind of rambling here for a second, but >> no go. >> Nation states basically they have a monopoly on violence and that's why they're a nation state because they're protecting their citizens. They have established borders, but backing all of that is the monopoly on violence. Well, if you break the monopoly on violence and that's more evenly distributed, you could imagine uh instead of these large nation states wielding nuclear weapons pointed at each other, maybe you have like city states start emerging with their own autonomous systems that can defend their own micro borders and they have their own ideology and then people with different ideologies instead of living in a place where you're like, "Fuck, I don't want to live here cuz I think different than 50% of the people." You just find the places you want to live in this micro system of citystates and you align with that and because of the autonomous weapons systems being more ubiquitous maybe you actually have a good thing from that because you have less power becomes fractured and maybe decentralized that's the word I'm looking for it's like a decentralized power a decentralized instead of a monopoly on violence it's decentralized and maybe That's actually a good thing.

Maybe that's like some kind of hope in all of this. >> Well, I mean, in terms of America, they built that into the Constitution. That's like that's like one of the first couple things they say. It's like, well, we got to be wary of, you know, people being becoming corrupted and abusing their power. And, you know, the autonomous drone things is just a modern extension of that.

But that's that's why they built it in there because it's like the people there always needs to be some shared fear. People can't only fear the government. The government has to kind of fear the people too for it to be anywhere close to like balanced or >> totally. Yeah. >> A reasonable society.

>> Yes. Yes. So, I don't know. Like maybe maybe there is some hope and maybe the you know I I don't know. I guess we'll see.

But it's also possible all of that will just be like it'll be a technocracy where it's it's like an AI overloaded and it's just you know I don't know. Who knows? We're so speculative right now. Well, a and again like I I there's so many aspects of it like look at all the cool stuff that we have and like look at the convenience of our existence and you know are we are we generally more in danger? I you know I don't necessarily I understand that all of my data is being filtered through but do I care? Like I'm not trying to organize a terrorist attack, >> right? >> That's not something I'm going to do. So, if you want to read my [ __ ] emails about working with people on a record, you know, remotely or like, you know, scheduling a podcast, >> I I just don't really care. I know you're doing it anyway, and there's nothing I can do about it.

>> I I don't know. There's like a level of >> an apathy that emerges. >> Almost apathy, but also like at this is just the future. This is the future. This is the the people.

We are not coming up with this idea. They were science fiction writers 70 to 100 years ago, even before that, who envisioned this understanding like this is where this [ __ ] leads. And it's like, you know, we can extend the average lifespan, but you have to give up all the the freedoms or, you know, like all all the privacy things that used to be a core component of human society. I wonder I wonder because I I still think at the end of the day I think privacy is required for free speech. I don't think you can have free speech without privacy.

Just think about when you're in different social settings. Like you'll talk one way with one group of friends versus a work setting versus another. Um if you don't have like a private way to escape and actually think and express yourself, you don't really have freedom of speech. If you don't have freedom of speech, I don't think you can build a democracy or anything reminiscent of that. >> So the idea that if we just acquies and this apathy emerges, I still I I think that's going to lead to a downfall of society in my opinion.

At least that's what I predict. >> Kind of this is my point. Like we're it's it is h we're we're beyond in the early 2000s we could have said like won't it be crazy if that happens now that is what's happening like dude look at the discourse look at everyone's inability to communicate on just fundamental human level that we had no problem doing for thousands of years up until this point and the past 20 years with internet social media all of things which we now know were influenced specifically with the intent of controlling behavior um or or funded by people who specifically wanted to use them for the influence of behavior. I don't know. It just becomes harder for me to to to say that we're we are we are there.

We we're watching it happen. And again, like I don't I guess what I mean to say is like I don't it doesn't scare me. I accept that that is an inevitability of the technological future >> that we're we're in and and gonna go further into. >> Uh it's kind of to dovetail what you're saying. I don't want people to lose too much sleep over this, right? Because you could you could I could see how this might send somebody down a terrible terrible rabbit hole, >> but it it doesn't need to be that way.

>> You can look at these things. For me, when I look at these things, any of these fringe topics, they actually bring me peace because it's like, "Oh, okay. So, I'm not so crazy for thinking that now that I now that I look at all of the information, that actually vibes very well with the weird feelings that I feel." And that that make somewhat makes this [ __ ] a little bit easier to understand. And more so, it's like to your point, like what if you've never thought about how are you protecting your data? How are you going to know to protect your data? >> Yeah. How are you how are you going to know to like it to to even that those options exist for you to insulate yourself as much as you can unless you're thinking about these things and there's measures that I take to to kind of you know set perimeters around my information online.

I'm sure you do the same. Many people in our generation do. So >> um >> you know I and again I'm also not organizing a terrorist attack, >> right? It's not like I don't it just it's one of those things where it's like this is kind of a whole other thing in itself but it's like you know this is the we want to live in a a society where we cannot have worries existential crisises like that. Well that means we have to give up freedom like we don't get that anymore. They they and the people that control all of these things they don't want their supremacy disrupted.

So incentivizing understanding what's going on out there and to try and fight off any threat to, you know, uh continuity of government, make sure things continue the way that they are. I don't know. I It's just one of those things, man. It's like I can't necessarily It's not a good thing, but I also I don't It doesn't [ __ ] my life up, >> right? I'm not going to go I'm not going to give it any more attention than it needs or like any more attention than relevant to me because I also want to live my life and have fun and not be having an existential crisis about every communication that I have being compromised in some way. Does that make sense? Oh, >> I I totally understand what you're saying.

I I Yeah, I get what you're saying. Like there's a piece in understanding the the the apparatus in front of you. Um but also yeah going down like even just this the conversation we're having now it's like yeah I can even feel existential dread in myself just thinking about the future but at the same time you can only interact and affect your immediate surroundings. So like even in this conversation we're having now it's not like we're going to stop this entire thing. So just chill basically.

Well, and and and two, like you and I, we have podcasts. We we we are we're feeding into it, right? And like, you know, there's there's elements of like the >> uh >> you know, if we were totally against those things, we wouldn't contribute, >> but we're contributing like we're we're we're in in influencing it in our own little way. Um, so I, you know, I I I don't know. To me, like I don't And even just technology as a whole, like I wouldn't, dude, recording music. I wouldn't want to go back to how it used to be done at all.

>> Yeah. >> I [ __ ] that. Like the technology allows me all of these cool things. I just have to reconcile with the fact that some of that technology was developed for military purposes and I'm just giving it down. And there's like a >> especially audio is funny.

Like the first wave of recorded music, it was recorded with literally militaryra communications technology. >> Stuff that that they couldn't use anymore that the companies were still trying to find another use for Alt Lansing, RCA, >> big big companies. They made radio [ __ ] for the military >> and radio starts to become a thing and people wanting to hear music that's been recorded becomes a more thing a more uh uh prominent thing. All of that [ __ ] was former military grade communications technology and from that we got the music industry. So I it's just it's so for me it's just understanding the levels of integration.

That's what it always is. And it's like it's not necessarily meant to >> to dissuade anyone from participating in a digital society or or a technological society. It's just understanding where the [ __ ] came from. When you when you understand where it comes from, a lot of the behavior in society that doesn't make sense starts to make a lot of sense. And like, dude, you're I would highly recommend this.

I've already recommended it a million times. If you haven't listened to Magnum's episode about the uh dead internet, like you have to go you have to go listen to it because it it fills in other gaps in the story that we just discussed. Like we didn't even get into the really into the Facebook, but the Facebook is one degree of Kevin Bacon. Yeah. >> Like that is it's 100% tied into this [ __ ] and um you know the the the just general idea that right around 2016 2017 bots become a more prominent thing.

Well, there are a number of like serious investigations into all the major powers using bots to influence sentiment in other countries. >> Yeah. >> So like the dead internet theory based on all the [ __ ] that we just went over that becomes even more believable. >> Yeah. And it makes for me it makes why does this internet seem like a fake place that's infiltrated with bots? >> Because it is.

>> It is. Yeah. >> It's it is and it's infiltrated with bots because the whole thing >> social media the internet as it it relates to general public is for behavior control. So, you know, and we we all participate in it. And and you know, sometimes we're getting controlled, sometimes we're aiding in the controlling, but >> um does that mean, you know, you should move into the out into the woods and never interact with technology or cut off communication with your friends? For some people, for some people, sure, maybe that makes sense.

But for me, that definitely doesn't make sense. And >> yeah, >> you know, in any other time of strife, the rebellious population used the same technology or like lower forms of that technology to organize and and combat against it. This the struggle the struggle is different, but it's kind of the same. Does that make sense? Like the >> Oh, it's absolutely. Yeah, absolutely makes sense.

History repeating itself, it rhymes. It's it's rhyming pretty good. So, >> yeah, >> you know, I don't know. I I for me again like I don't want anyone to think of any any of what we're saying is like a reason to have an existential spiral but it does make a lot of the strange behavior of people over the past 15 to 20 years make a lot of sense. And for me it's hard to look at it and think that it's not it's just a big ship that's getting steered.

And we like to think that it's like somehow our own or like we're navigating it differently. No, there's a profile on you and it probably knows you better than you know yourself and that's okay. You're up against computers, dude. We don't stand a chance. >> You know, like look at the infrastructure here.

We don't stand a chance. >> Yeah, I I totally get what you're saying. >> Yeah, I agree. I think that's probably a good a good point to just emphasize. Yeah, just we maybe just go for a walk after listening to this.

>> Touch some ground. >> That's probably what I'm going to do. Yeah, exactly. >> But it it's really cool going into all this stuff and going through it. I think this was a good episode.

I think uh like I said, I'm I'm almost certain most people have no idea that there was a venture capital firm associated with the CIA. I 100% majority of people no idea. >> Totally. >> And this is a pretty comprehensive episode. I would say out of most things that I've found on the internet as far as, you know, independent coverage of this, I think we probably did a very top job of it.

So, this is going to be good. >> Yeah. I I mean, I would I would completely agree. It's it's why I was kind of like saving I could have done this at any point, but I was really saving it because I knew you would bring the [ __ ] heat. There's so dude there like as soon as we get done with this I'm going to have to like go on some terrible tangent rabbit holes like looking into more detail about some of the stuff you brought up but like >> you know I I would agree in terms of the stuff that exists out there >> there this story is like really complex and I feel like we've done a good job of kind of like chronologically laying it out um in a way that's ingestable um and and yeah you know again I just don't please don't listen to this and and think I'm saying like give up hope, you know, or, you know, move out into the to the wilderness and subsist in the trees, >> make friends with Bigfoot.

>> Um, it's just something to be aware of and it's it's the the the the connections just continue to emerge. This one's a weird one. I, you know, I I don't know. I don't I don't know what we do for the next one, but this in my mind, this was a beautiful evolution from what we did with DARPA. No kidding.

>> The overlap was just it's very sweet. And for those who haven't seen that, I'll link that episode in the descriptions. I'll also link your uh >> dead internet theory as well as the the page and socials and stuff. But I want to kind of give you the floor to kind of sell the things that you want to sell here. And uh again, this is my you you create my favorite podcast.

I'm so I feel super >> dude. I feel super fortunate that you have just been always down to kind of like pick a subject, not on top of all the good research that you do for every one of your episodes, but that you're willing to like kind of dumb it down to my level and come on here and go on like these >> Oh, don't sell yourself short, dude. You You know what you're talking about with a lot of stuff. Like you blow my mind when I when you piece together stuff that I didn't even see. It's kind of crazy.

You know what you're doing. >> You know what you're doing. But see, and that's that's that's kind of like I'm that's that's why I'm happy to team up with you because like there's big picture stuff that I can see from my perspective just having been looking into these things for a long time. But there's details that you talked about I'd never even heard of, >> you know, like I I have been aware of InQel since at least the early 2000s. I remember watching like firstwave conspiracy videos on YouTube about it.

Um, but like you you brought up stuff I never even heard about that is almost certainly in some layer in an app on my phone. >> Yeah. >> So, it's it's super cool. But yeah, I just want to I want to give you the floor to kind of just again like sell the show, tell people why they should check it out and beyond what I have kind of glazed over the show about. Um, and tell people where to check you out.

>> Yeah. I mean, the Swerve podcast, I do deep dives on just whacked out [ __ ] like we talked about today. That's kind of what I like doing, finding these fringe ideas. I like exploring and spending time on the fringe, but really deep diving as far as I possibly can on whatever topic is completely whacked. And I think being on the fringe is that's where all the innovation is.

So like you know a lot of these topics that we'll cover and stuff it's you know a lot of stuff you can probably debunk and you know whatever but you do find these nuggets like this inqel thing. This is all real [ __ ] and we went through it and this is a fringe topic I would say to most people but there's so much meat there. So that's why I like spending the time there and that's what I do on the podcast. So if you liked what you heard today just check out the Swerve podcast. It's on every podcast platform.

So, yeah, that's what I'm all about. >> The uh research is topnotch. The production, I've been loving the sound design elements that you've been adding to episodes now. Uh it's just top tier. It's one of the only shows I give a [ __ ] about anymore.

>> Um and it's it's it's I look forward. It's certainly the only show that I'm like really excited when there's a new episode. Um yeah, I cannot re recommend it enough. Again, the links will be in the description below. Um, you know, or if you wanna leave a comment, what what do you think we should do next time? We'll have to think on that.

We'll see if people weigh in. But we'll we'll have to think about I'm sure there's some other, you know, some tangential thing within what we've been poking into that we could easily episode. >> We got like some kind of series going on here because I will say, I didn't mention this at the top. I was going to, but I asked my audience. I put out a poll uh whether like I should do a collaboration with your podcast again and it was like 93% said yes.

>> Damn, that's amazing. >> People really enjoyed this the DARPA episode that we did and I'm sure they're going to enjoy this one and uh yeah, I'm 100% down and we want to keep digging in this rabbit hole of technological crazy [ __ ] I'm sure we could do it. Well, and that's funny that you say that, too, because it's definitely one of my most viewed episodes, one of my most interacted with episodes. And in terms of like what an episode that holds people attention, the retention is super high. >> Oh, interesting.

>> So, yeah, dude. I I am 100% in to continue this uh in into whatever rabbit hole we want to get into. I feel like um again, like how we come we were we for people's understanding, we didn't plan this at all. We were very bad about like how we're how we were going to coordinate researching, but I just knew that you were going to research >> [ __ ] that was going to be different and like it really I'm really pleased how very little coordination it over overlapped and and we we covered all the bases. So again, Madd, thank you for coming on the show.

Um, >> thanks for having me. I really appreciate it. You talk too kindly. It was just I really really appreciate it, >> dude. Of course.

you know, again, like I I've been in full support since I discovered you guys and and just getting to share share your perspective on a lot of these things um is something I value. So again, thank you for your time and and I I look I already look forward to the next one. >> Excellent. >> Uh but this has been folks, this has been the Totally Legitimate Business Podcast. Thank you for listening.

Make sure to like and subscribe if you haven't already. Check the links to the swerve. Uh make sure you like and subscribe their page as well. And uh we'll catch you on the next one. Y'all, >> this has been the Totally Legitimate Business Podcast, The Edge, >> with your host, James Oliva, who >> executive producers Clint G and James Oliva.

>> That's obnoxious. >> Sound design myths and master by James Oliva. Literally, no one cares. >> For more Totally Legitimate Business, subscribe to our YouTube channel at Totally Legitimate Business or add us on Tik Tok at TLB Pod. What will this say? >> Thank you for listening.

Now get back to work. Move it along, buddy.