5 ms·

The story is supposed to be about a crazy visitor experience at the CIA HQ (and the author does a great job of writing it), but reading through it I couldn't he

by paxys 3y ago

The story is supposed to be about a crazy visitor experience at the CIA HQ (and the author does a great job of writing it), but reading through it I couldn't help but think the whole time that if you replaced "CIA" with "generic big corporation" all of it would still make perfect sense. Random employee social group organizing a talk, no budget for speaking fee, "must be escorted at all times", full parking lots, confused officials/security people, getting multiple visitor badges, impossible to find conference rooms, employee gift shop, complex rules about what employees can publish on their own time, long-tenured employee who has no idea how many people work at the company...yep you are at Google.

harry8 3y ago
What’s the current status if the “conspiracy theory” that Google is largely run by cia “alumn” influencing in favor of current factions in charge of the cia? Crazy talk?
- kevindamm 3y ago
  How does one go about identifying the CIA operatives attempting to hide in your interview pool?
  - krapp 3y ago
    One doesn't.
  - ganoushoreilly 3y ago
    Unless one has rollback and wishes to share they worked there, you won’t know. That said, having worked for “agencies myself”, if people knew home many former 3 letter peeps were running around in high levels and influential positions they would be surprised. Most of them know each other on the tech side (some of us even have get togethers anually) and many of us have relationships with people high up in media and banking…. Crap now I sound conspiratorial. Truth is most are just employees that did a job and have moved on.
- bordercases 3y ago
  Eric Schmidt and Condoleeza Rees?
- astrange 3y ago
  In my opinion, Google is run in favor of the shareholders with the majority of voting rights.
- aspenmayer 3y ago
  There was the early investment in Google by In-Q-Tel, but I’m not sure what that entails or might mean now. And another In-Q-Tel company was later purchased by Google, Keyhole.
mywacaday 3y ago
Exactly this, in big pharma you can't walk around a non home site unaccompanied even if you are an employee but this is due to health and safety rules.
redthrowaway2 3y ago
Very true to life article. Very accurately written. You are absolutely right on. Once any organization gets big, it gets stratified. Nobody has perfect communication and it is impossible for large organizations to perfectly share information across them; so you end up with these left-hand/right-hand disconnects. To make things even more interesting, at Intelligence Agencies very few people stay in the same job for very long as rotation is encouraged for staffers and contractors slide around across contracts and at this organization offices are even more walled off from one another in ways that might be similar to how Apple segments their teams. I suspect what the author here encountered was one of the many volunteer employee groups/clubs that exist on the inside. There's dozens upon dozens of them like at any big generic corporation. There's a writing club, a new mothers club, a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu club, LGBTQIA+, sport Karate, Asian Pacific Islander advocacy, Yoga, etc. What makes these compelling is that you don't have to answer awkward questions about where you work during socializing as everybody in your "club" is "in the club". But it's also why there wasn't a speaking fee. Everybody who works for this organization that wants to publish something outside of it really does have to send it in for review. There's a dedicated office full of people who read everybody's memoirs, news editorials, sci-fi novelettes, and so on and try to make sure nothing sensitive ends up in the public sphere. The description of the parking lot, the feel of the building, and the gift shop is perfect. It's a shame the author also didn't get to see the library, which is very modern, well resourced, and well stocked. here are some pictures https://www.cia.gov/legacy/headquarters/cia-library/ https://www.cia.gov/legacy/headquarters/cia-library/ One thing that this organization does very well I think compared to many other Federal Agencies is put real effort into cataloging and making available to people who work there information about the history of the organization. There's mini museums all over their facilities stocked with artifacts and little descriptive plates, paintings of key events, documentaries, periodicals, and all kinds of internal media and information. The good, bad, and ugly are explored and learned from and many problems, mistakes, and other issues are constantly presented so that the people who work there have some sense of the history of the place (the why this is here), and what they're trying to accomplish, and importantly a continuous dialog of where they've screwed up. A recent review of a major failure that's been in the news 6 or 7 years was recently internally published and more or less names names and embarrassingly called out and shamed an entire directorate. Another review of technology advancements raked a technology provided by a major technology company through the literary coals. The push for diversity is also extremely real; both geocultural as well as alt-culture. One of the biggest lessons learned after 9/11 was that the Intelligence Community was mostly made of old, white, men who couldn't fathom or reason about how young angry Arabs might be thinking or feeling. Outside of the Presidential appointed senior leadership which still falls largely into the old mold, the generations since 9/11 are as diverse as just about anywhere you can find and maintaining that culture is seen as a critical capability.

by paxys 3y ago

harry8 3y ago

What’s the current status if the “conspiracy theory” that Google is largely run by cia “alumn” influencing in favor of current factions in charge of the cia? Crazy talk?

kevindamm 3y ago
How does one go about identifying the CIA operatives attempting to hide in your interview pool?
- krapp 3y ago
  One doesn't.
- ganoushoreilly 3y ago
  Unless one has rollback and wishes to share they worked there, you won’t know. That said, having worked for “agencies myself”, if people knew home many former 3 letter peeps were running around in high levels and influential positions they would be surprised. Most of them know each other on the tech side (some of us even have get togethers anually) and many of us have relationships with people high up in media and banking…. Crap now I sound conspiratorial. Truth is most are just employees that did a job and have moved on.
bordercases 3y ago
Eric Schmidt and Condoleeza Rees?
astrange 3y ago
In my opinion, Google is run in favor of the shareholders with the majority of voting rights.
aspenmayer 3y ago
There was the early investment in Google by In-Q-Tel, but I’m not sure what that entails or might mean now. And another In-Q-Tel company was later purchased by Google, Keyhole.

mywacaday 3y ago

Exactly this, in big pharma you can't walk around a non home site unaccompanied even if you are an employee but this is due to health and safety rules.

redthrowaway2 3y ago

Very true to life article. Very accurately written. You are absolutely right on. Once any organization gets big, it gets stratified. Nobody has perfect communication and it is impossible for large organizations to perfectly share information across them; so you end up with these left-hand/right-hand disconnects. To make things even more interesting, at Intelligence Agencies very few people stay in the same job for very long as rotation is encouraged for staffers and contractors slide around across contracts and at this organization offices are even more walled off from one another in ways that might be similar to how Apple segments their teams. I suspect what the author here encountered was one of the many volunteer employee groups/clubs that exist on the inside. There's dozens upon dozens of them like at any big generic corporation. There's a writing club, a new mothers club, a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu club, LGBTQIA+, sport Karate, Asian Pacific Islander advocacy, Yoga, etc. What makes these compelling is that you don't have to answer awkward questions about where you work during socializing as everybody in your "club" is "in the club". But it's also why there wasn't a speaking fee. Everybody who works for this organization that wants to publish something outside of it really does have to send it in for review. There's a dedicated office full of people who read everybody's memoirs, news editorials, sci-fi novelettes, and so on and try to make sure nothing sensitive ends up in the public sphere. The description of the parking lot, the feel of the building, and the gift shop is perfect. It's a shame the author also didn't get to see the library, which is very modern, well resourced, and well stocked. here are some pictures https://www.cia.gov/legacy/headquarters/cia-library/ https://www.cia.gov/legacy/headquarters/cia-library/ One thing that this organization does very well I think compared to many other Federal Agencies is put real effort into cataloging and making available to people who work there information about the history of the organization. There's mini museums all over their facilities stocked with artifacts and little descriptive plates, paintings of key events, documentaries, periodicals, and all kinds of internal media and information. The good, bad, and ugly are explored and learned from and many problems, mistakes, and other issues are constantly presented so that the people who work there have some sense of the history of the place (the why this is here), and what they're trying to accomplish, and importantly a continuous dialog of where they've screwed up. A recent review of a major failure that's been in the news 6 or 7 years was recently internally published and more or less names names and embarrassingly called out and shamed an entire directorate. Another review of technology advancements raked a technology provided by a major technology company through the literary coals. The push for diversity is also extremely real; both geocultural as well as alt-culture. One of the biggest lessons learned after 9/11 was that the Intelligence Community was mostly made of old, white, men who couldn't fathom or reason about how young angry Arabs might be thinking or feeling. Outside of the Presidential appointed senior leadership which still falls largely into the old mold, the generations since 9/11 are as diverse as just about anywhere you can find and maintaining that culture is seen as a critical capability.