Will The CIA Kill In-Q-Tel?

from the will-they-tell-us-if-they-do? dept

In-Q-Tel, the VC firm that is more famous for being spun out of the CIA then for its investments is now being reviewed by Congress to see if it's worth it to keep it running. It was originally created because the CIA couldn't attract enough techies - who were going to startups instead. This way, they figured, they might get a "first shot" at some hot new technologies that could be useful in... well... their line of work. I always wondered what sort of "background checks" they did on various founders - and was a bit surprised to find out that the investment they made in SafeWeb came after one of the investors struck up a conversation with a SafeWeb exec in a bar.