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CIA Labs

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Re: CIA Labs

#41

Post by heimatau »

jonwachob91 wrote: post #24
heimatau wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if the buyer of the technology is the US govt? Will those Officers have to give it to them for free?

No. The US Government is not "1" organization, it is a grouping of many different teams. Each team has their own budget and has to pay for the resources they consume, even if that resource is another thing in another US Government team.

> Each team has their own budget and has to pay for the resources they consume, even if that resource is another thing in another US Government team.

What ensures this? No one.

Last I checked the Pentagon 'lost' billions. Various agencies aren't rigorous with the taxpayer's money, also their time horizons seem skewed (very little R&D to reduce various costs internally).

Nor are they a fair actor. How could a single inventor petition the govt to pay up? Don't say a lawsuit because 'national security' supersedes any petition.

Nonetheless, my main point is none of the above. My main point is why would a worker/inventor have any right over a technology? Their job is funded by taxpayers. In business, the same is true. 'Work for hire' is the concept/term. I get that they are trying to modify this to returning some money to the people but...if 150k is the limit, will this be a new minimum wage? Or does this limit account for inflation? Honestly, highly skilled workers (mostly) know their value to the market. I think it's a poor use of taxpayers money to give a % of an invention. Fire the bosses, be more nimble, there are plenty of alternatives to this degradation entering the equation.

Re: CIA Labs

#42

Post by thelean12 »

animationwill wrote: post #22
xxpor wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You still take a risk because if your project fails for whatever reason, you're stuck on a CIA salary, rather than a SV salary where you'd probably be making twice as much even if your project fails there too.

Are we talking about founders or FAANG developers? Last I’ve read on HN, most founders are not making “SV salary” because they’re expecting the golden ticket. Here, it appears you get an equivalent salary + job security with a capped upside.

You say "equivalent salary" but compared to what? You mentioned FAANG above so I assume that? Unless you're ignoring total compensation, that's not right. You're going to have a much lower base compensation at CIA labs than FAANG. The $150k extra might only match FAANG, and would probably take years of effort to get it at the CIA.

I imagine if you're talented enough to work at CIA labs you could land a much more lucrative and guaranteed FAANG compensation package instead.

Re: CIA Labs

#43

Post by frozenport »

xxpor wrote: post #20
dalbasal wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. The point is that you don't take the risk. You have a job. You get a salary. This usually means that you have no risk and no upside. The idea here is that you have some upside, but still take no risk. IDK if this works in practice, but the principle is that.

You still take a risk because if your project fails for whatever reason, you're stuck on a CIA salary, rather than a SV salary where you'd probably be making twice as much even if your project fails there too.

Yeah but you don't live in the valley

Re: CIA Labs

#44

Post by balls187 »

AWildC182 wrote: post #32
thoughtstheseus wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Clearance for one.

If you think that's a perk you don't belong doing that work. It's not the james bond life you think it is and the people who think of it that way are insufferable. Try living in a windowless box for 8 hours a day and having no resume.

Every once in a while you do collect some fun stories.

I remember vividly one training session where they explained to us that if an attractive woman approached us, it wasn't because we were particularly interesting. And if that happened we should notify the security group immediately.

Re: CIA Labs

#46

Post by ruffrey »

SamuelAdams wrote: post #29
balls187 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ...with all the defense sector benefits, some very exclusive. Could you elaborate on that?

Not affiliated with them, this is just what I found on Google, but here are their benefits [1]. They don't seem that great honestly. New hires need to work for 3 years before they can get more than 13 days of PTO, and you only get 20+ days after working there for 15 YEARS. For comparison I work at a university and we get 20 days PTO on day 1. Plus very long holidays (2 weeks in december / january when the semester is…

The referenced page seems say you get an additional 13 days of sick time per year, carried over in an unlimited amount. So that would be 26 days per year from the start.

Re: CIA Labs

#47

Post by daniel-cussen »

balls187 wrote: post #14
daniel-cussen wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You absolutely don't take all the risk of creating a new technology. You get paid an excellent defense sector salary unconditionally, with all the defense sector benefits, some very exclusive. Plus you get tons of resources and the inside track to talk to "the client", you're not working out of your garage.

> ...with all the defense sector benefits, some very exclusive. Could you elaborate on that?

The federal government pays a comfortable six figures (if I were offered this kind of job without being told the salary, I would value that opportunity estimating the salary to be $150,000). Plus you retire really early (I'm not certain whether CIA lets you retire after 20 years, but many fed roles do, with full salary), plus you have access to really hard to find information (valuable from the point of view of sheer curiosity). Not to mention, if in the course of your research you make enemies out of say hackers in Russia (totally plausible if you're researching computer security) they'll think twice before messing with you because you're part of the team (some liken it to being a "made man").

And you get paid that salary and those benefits even if for reasons outside of your control you don't come up with anything. I would speculate there's a limit to how much you can keep trying and failing, but at that limit you get moved to a different role where you don't need as much luck, but I know this is a smooth process.

It's a far cry from an entrepreneur with no backing, or even VC backing. VC's generally don't take technical risk, only market risk: they won't pay for you to come up with a 10x better product, instead their contribution is backing an working 10x better product and helping it debut in the market (product-market fit, or final stages of development, but no research). And if for reasons outside your control your research fails in the market, venture capital practices "venture capitalism", you had a shot, you tried an adventure, it was an incredible journey, but they can't afford patience and faith like the federal government can, so they pull the proverbial plug.

Re: CIA Labs

#48

Post by JackFr »

AWildC182 wrote: post #32
thoughtstheseus wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Clearance for one.

If you think that's a perk you don't belong doing that work. It's not the james bond life you think it is and the people who think of it that way are insufferable. Try living in a windowless box for 8 hours a day and having no resume.

And on top of that you can't read HN at work from your air-gapped locked-down PC!

Re: CIA Labs

#49

Post by kube-system »

heimatau wrote: post #41
jonwachob91 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. The US Government is not "1" organization, it is a grouping of many different teams. Each team has their own budget and has to pay for the resources they consume, even if that resource is another thing in another US Government team.

> Each team has their own budget and has to pay for the resources they consume, even if that resource is another thing in another US Government team. What ensures this? No one. Last I checked the Pentagon 'lost' billions. Various agencies aren't rigorous with the taxpayer's money, also their time horizons seem skewed (very little R&D to reduce various costs internally). Nor are they a fair actor. How could a single i…

People who work for the government still get the benefits of basic labor law, in fact, in many cases, labor law for public sector employees is stronger than for those in the private sector.

Re: CIA Labs

#50

Post by JackFr »

thelean12 wrote: post #42
animationwill wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are we talking about founders or FAANG developers? Last I’ve read on HN, most founders are not making “SV salary” because they’re expecting the golden ticket. Here, it appears you get an equivalent salary + job security with a capped upside.

You say "equivalent salary" but compared to what? You mentioned FAANG above so I assume that? Unless you're ignoring total compensation, that's not right. You're going to have a much lower base compensation at CIA labs than FAANG. The $150k extra might only match FAANG, and would probably take years of effort to get it at the CIA. I imagine if you're talented enough to work at CIA labs you could land a much more lucr…

I assume they're gonna scoop up all the Palantir guys after the IPO.
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