Change at CIA's venture arm: Gilman Louie out

Updated

Gilman Louie

Gilman Louie, the longtime chief executive of In-Q-Tel, the CIA’s venture arm, has left the firm to start his own private venture capital firm and spend more time with his family (oops, there’s that phrase again), according to a report by the Associated Press.

Sorry, we don’t have a link to the story yet (Update: here’s the link).

The report calls it a “surprise departure,” and paraphrases Louie’s comments about his departure, but does not quote him directly. However, we will refrain from skepticism for now, and assume this is all what the story says it is. After all, Louie will probably make more money working in the private sector than for the government, so it makes perfect sense. And it is true, as the article says, that In-Q-Tel, under Louie, won favorable reviews from inside government and Capitol Hill. The story says he wants to return to California. He will have a sufficient network of contacts out here (see links to our previous stories below for proof of this).

Louie was affectionately known as Q — a reference to the technologist Q in James Bond movies who shows 007 the latest gadgets. (In case you haven’t had your coffee yet, the ”In” and ”Tel” refer to intelligence.) He’d been at his post since…

1999.

The new In-Q-Tel chief will be Amit Yoran, who resigned as the government’s cybersecurity
chief in 2004. Yoran had previously founded a technology startup, Riptech, which Symantec purchased in 2002 for $145 million. Riptech was based in Alexandria, VA, not far from the CIA’s hq.

Yoran said he wants to make the products it develops through investments more broadly available to all U.S. intelligence agencies.

From the article:

Yoran, whose career has focused mostly on protecting computers from hackers, said he wants to expand In-Q-Tel to invest in companies whose technology will help not just the CIA, but all U.S. intelligence agencies.

Many of the tools are classified once they’re adopted by the spy community, but among the hottest in demand: better tools to mine and analyze large amounts of data, “”sensing”
technologies and programs to find relationships among information where they aren’t obvious, Yoran said.

“Technology is one of the biggest threats to our intelligence systems and one of the biggest opportunities,” Yoran said.

Our previous links:

Spying on Start-ups (downloads file)

The CIA has Spied some good Deals (downloads file)

Start-ups help CIA in Terrorism Fight (downloads file)

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