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CIA Labs

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Re: CIA Labs

#101

Post by bumby »

iffyspectrum wrote: post #4

More information: "Officers who develop new technologies at CIA Labs will be allowed to patent, license, and profit from their work, making 15% of the total income from the new invention with a cap of $150,000 per year. That could double most agency salaries and make the work more competitive with Silicon Valley." : https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/09/21/1008654/cias-new...

What many people discount is how many people would want to do this work for intangibles not quantified in pay. I remember reading a quote by somebody who asked why someone with great credentials would want to work in intelligence. They said it’s for the same reasons people would join the Marines when they have easier avenues to traditional “success”

Re: CIA Labs

#102

Post by bumby »

jdm2212 wrote: post #58
daniel-cussen wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> The federal government pays a comfortable six figures Nope, it doesn't. Cracking 100k in the civil service requires being very very senior (equivalent of at least a colonel in the military). It is a cool opportunity, but it does not pay well. Even the civil service salary PLUS the maximum $150k patent royalties is less than what a 27 year old at a FAANG earns.

Contrary to the comment below, you don’t need to be in an expensive area to make that amount. I know quite a few making that amount without graduate education and in areas where the average cost-of-living is a small fraction of Silicon Valley

Re: CIA Labs

#103

Post by csb6 »

ciarannolan wrote: post #75
jonathanstrange wrote: post #5

Probably a better workplace than their illegal torture camps, though only marginally.

Can you please do comments like this on Reddit or Twitter instead?

“Can you please limit reminders of human rights abuses and other unpleasant things to other platforms instead?”

Re: CIA Labs

#105

Post by throwaway0a5e »

balls187 wrote: post #44
AWildC182 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I remember in orientation for my first internship the HR lady disparaging Chinese Communist party and the phrase "happy ending" may have made an appearance during that part of the presentation. It was absolutely perfect for the demographics of the audience (a bunch of college kids) but man did it ruin every BigCo orientation since. I think she missed he calling as a comedian or some sort of entertainment professional.

Re: CIA Labs

#107

Post by tomasreimers »

I'm interested in what's changed. Per the webpage: "As a federal laboratory, CIA Labs seeks collaboration with other federal labs and academia and is interested in outreach from such partners"

My understanding is that the CIA has and does pursue those arrangements via In-Q-Tel (their venture capital arm), DARPA grants (technically DoD, but I have to assume they collaborate), and one-off relationships with labs (e.g. the Lincoln Lab, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIT_Lincoln_Laboratory). Is the new thing just that they're soliciting applications? Why and from who?

There are only so many academic institutions and I imagine they are easy enough to one-off approach (unless they're trying to target individual researchers...), startups should be well covered by VC, big tech cos have never seemed to have a problem pursuing govt contracts (see all the recent news about MSFT, Amzn, and Google doing business with them), so what's materially different? That anyone can apply? The nature of the arrangements?

Re: CIA Labs

#108

Post by HillRat »

thebean11 wrote: post #6
iffyspectrum wrote: post #4

More information: "Officers who develop new technologies at CIA Labs will be allowed to patent, license, and profit from their work, making 15% of the total income from the new invention with a cap of $150,000 per year. That could double most agency salaries and make the work more competitive with Silicon Valley." : https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/09/21/1008654/cias-new...

Seems like a strange proposition, I take all the risk of creating a new technology that will likely fail, and then if I beat the odds and succeed I'm capped at 150k? Also, if I'm not allowed to monetize my technology or patents, do I really own them? Is this just a bad startup incubator?

You also receive the resources of the United States intelligence community (and probably DoD) to design, experiment, and operationalize your ideas, which ain’t nothin’. And, in general, no one sticks it out in the IC to get rich — these are folks who really are dedicated to mission over money (they could make a hell of a lot more decamping for the private sector, or even doing the contractor two-step with their existing jobs).

Re: CIA Labs

#109

Post by m0zg »

thebean11 wrote: post #6
iffyspectrum wrote: post #4

More information: "Officers who develop new technologies at CIA Labs will be allowed to patent, license, and profit from their work, making 15% of the total income from the new invention with a cap of $150,000 per year. That could double most agency salaries and make the work more competitive with Silicon Valley." : https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/09/21/1008654/cias-new...

Seems like a strange proposition, I take all the risk of creating a new technology that will likely fail, and then if I beat the odds and succeed I'm capped at 150k? Also, if I'm not allowed to monetize my technology or patents, do I really own them? Is this just a bad startup incubator?

If you're an employee at e.g. Google or Microsoft, the best you're gonna get for your patent is a one-time bonus of a few thousand dollars, and not a dime more. This reads as though these are _CIA officers_ (i.e. employees) already. This is a ridiculously generous offer by the industry standards when it comes to employees, and one that's very likely to spur real innovation. If this is also $150K _per invention_, really creative people could invent themselves beachfront mansions in Maui pretty easily.

Re: CIA Labs

#110

Post by balls187 »

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #105
balls187 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I remember in orientation for my first internship the HR lady disparaging Chinese Communist party and the phrase "happy ending" may have made an appearance during that part of the presentation. It was absolutely perfect for the demographics of the audience (a bunch of college kids) but man did it ruin every BigCo orientation since. I think she missed he calling as a comedian or some sort of entertainment professional…

I had one orientation where the presenter showed images of the men and women who had jumped out of the WTC during 9/11

Then he cut to slides with several enemy combatants, followed by a massive explosion, followed by a large smoldering crater, and said "Pay back is a real bitch."

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