> in-q-tel (I'm sure HNers and the VC scene know that name well) I'd bet dollars to donuts that most people, including HN, don't know that. Ditto for ARPA/DA

> in-q-tel (I'm sure HNers and the VC scene know that name well) I'd bet dollars to donuts that most people, including HN, don't know that. Ditto for ARPA/DARPA. In-q is the CIA's DARPA (formerly ARPA). They're all essentially startup incubators -- In-q sounds a lot like incu -- for technology that the government thinks would be useful. DARPA, as the name implies, is for Defense (military) projects, while In-q is more concerned with things the CIA cares about (whatever that is). They don't incubate startups in the YC sense, but find people doing research that they're interested in and give them money -- with strings attached, of course. Sometimes these are professors, or maybe small businesses, sometimes it's reaching out to big blue chip companies or defense contractors.