I found out yesterday that I work for the CIA.
It’s a bit annoying actually, because it turns out I’ve been a spook now for a few years, and I still haven’t received my free rubber face and invisible car. I’m just hoping that the next time I’m mugged in a park my muscle memory will kick in with all the martial arts. I’m looking forward to dismantling a gun whilst thumping someone in the belly.
So, here’s how it is:
1. When I began using Facebook, I liked it and wanted some more of my friends to join. So I encouraged (or recruited) them to sign up, thus exposing their information to the Facebook API.
2. Thus, I was recruiting for Facebook, which was part-funded by Accel, a venture capitalist firm.
3. Accel’s manager, James Breyer was former Chair of the National Venture Capitalist Association (NVCA).
4. Breyer served on the NVCA board with Gilman Louie, the CEO of In-Q-Tel.
5. In-Q-Tel is a venture capitalist firm that was established by THE CIA in 1999.
I know all this because it’s on a youTube video, so it MUST be true.
Hopefully, you will have realised considerably quicker than I did that this is just an elaboration of the Six Degrees of Separation theory. Steps 2-5 are outlined in that paranoid video, while you’ll recognise step one as my own argument ad absurdum. The idea is that you can link anyone to anyone else in six steps through friends and acquaintances.
I’m almost certain you can link ANYONE to the CIA in six steps or less, so the notion that Facebook is somehow a conduit for their nefarious ends is somewhat ludicrous.
With that in mind, I suggest my own game. It’s called Double-Oh Kevin. The person who can link Kevin Bacon to the CIA in the fewest steps wins my love and kudos. If you can do it by way of an evil venture capitalist, you get extra kudos from my evil Langley paymasters.
