Christopher Whitcomb

It's the Somalia of South Asia. I mean, it's just like, it really sounds like that. So in 2006, I came back from Somalia and I had this buddy at a bookstore on Abikini in Venice. Great place, crazy clubhouse, really fun. And he said, you got to stop being a pussy. I said, what do you mean? He said, you got to stop trying to get 14 year old guys to kill you because you have some death fantasy because you're like Hemingway, right? And I said, well, you got a good point there.

So I said, I need a war that I could manage. So as it turned out, I had two things. One, I had some money that I had made contracting through intelligence agencies was oddly enough hard to spend sometimes because of the nature of how those things pay out.

Okay. And then I had a friend who was an entrepreneur who was a member of another intelligence agency in another country, and we had a conversation in New York, and he had an idea, and it involved this country called East Timor. East Timor is half of an island that's north of Darwin, Australia, and east of Bali. What's the other half of the island? Sri Lanka, Arizona? West Timor.

West Timor? Oikein? En ole koskaan kuullut West Timorista. Tämä on pieni iso iso iso iso iso iso iso iso iso iso iso iso iso iso iso

A staggering number of people. So West Timor is part of Indonesia then? It still is, yeah. Okay. So as a matter of, yes, that's another story. So I said, all right, what's going on in East Timor? They have, it's one of the most remarkable places on earth because they have massive gas reserves, oil and natural gas, including literally pools of oil that look like ponds, but they're just oil bubbling out of the ground. Sounds like some dinosaur shit. It is dinosaur shit. Yeah.

Se on kuin La Brea tarpitsi, mutta se on edelleen aktiivinen. Vaikka voit laittaa sen launamuun. Ja ne ovat luonnonlaajuisia, jotka ovat luonnollisia, mutta ne tulevat maahan. Ja ne lähtevät lämpöön, ja näet näitä järviä, jotka näyttävät isojen barbekiin. Se on todella kiva. Se on todella kiva. Kun se ei toimi mitään.

I always said it's five of the most beautiful places I've ever been in my life because they have red coral beaches. I mean, red coral. Red sand, yeah. No, red coral that takes over that. But they have black sand. Oh, wow. That's really cool. And they had Jumanji jungle. I mean, just the most beautiful primeval jungle with everything that you would find in those jungles. What is it with any place that's that beautiful? It's always a complete shit dangerous. Right, because they're going to hack you up with a machete. Right. They can't just sit and enjoy the sand and the coral and the natural resources. They got to kill everybody. Right.

En halua sanoa mitään huonoa Timoreesista, koska minulla on todella, todella, todella huolta kansainvälisistä ja Timoreesista. Minulla oli mahtavaa aamua siellä, ympäristöpohjaisesti, mutta tullessaan tullessaan tullessaan on yksi asia. Tullessaan tullessaan on yksi asia. Tullessaan tullessaan on yksi asia. Tullessaan on yksi asia.

to major Five Eyes countries, including the United States. Here's a question that's probably just above both of our pay grades potentially, but when that country secedes, Indonesia is like, you're not leaving. Why? Because of the resources, or because it sets a bad precedent to let everybody who wants to leave, leave their country? I think so. I mean, there are, I don't know how many UN studies, and I mean, this is very, very broadly written about documentaries. When I went from Somalia, which was stood up as a country and fell down a very short period of time afterwards, I went to Timor, which at the time was the newest country in the world.

Minä tiedän hieman enemmän ja minulla on hieman enemmän mekanismia. Mutta se on hienosti kaunis paikka. Kun indoneesit tappoivat yhdeksän osan populaatiota, he myös aloittivat maan. He ottoivat huoneet, he pysyivät ruutuja, he pysyivät asioita, he tappoivat jokaisen, joka ei ollut heidän puolestaan, joka oli liian vanha tai liian nuori, jota pitäisi huomioida. Joten se oli kääntynyt.

Joten sieltä tuli Yhdysvaltoja. He sopivat missiin, jota he kutsuivat missioon. Se olisi Yhdysvaltojen missio Timurissa, joka ei ollut olemassa. He pysyivät yhdenlaajuisena eläminenä ja saivat maan takaisin hieman. Kun he pysyivät ulos, sieltä tuli yhdysvalto. Koska kaikki haluavat sitä, mitä on jälkeen. Joten sieltä tuli sotilas, jonka poliisi ja se meni takaisin.

So I went in during the civil war, not during the secession from Indonesia. Gotcha. But when I went in, there were tanks in the streets, the Australians were there, they had an international defense force, which was Portuguese, and it started out as a Portuguese colony. Oh, that was, yeah, okay, that makes sense.

Plus all the guys you see in the blue helmets from the United Nations, they were in there. So anywhere you go, there were tanks and helicopters and guys with machine guns walking up and down the dirt roads that were supposed to be streets. It was wild, absolutely wild. And there was no government per se, really. Why did I get confused and think it was Sri Lanka? Is there another... Did Sri Lanka have a... You might be talking about Myanmar. Myanmar was a big backpacker place until that went down. No, I was thinking about it. For some reason I had it pegged as Sri Lanka because with the Tamil Tigers, the terrorist group was...

Luulen, että ne ovat yleensä siellä, mutta... Mutta se oli toinen isla, minulla oli vain nimi. En tiedä, olin yllättynyt, koska sinä olet oikeassa, se on Indonesiassa, joten se on Aasiaa. Minä en kohdannut sitä. Indonesiassa on haastava maa, koska se on niin iso. Se on maailman suurin muslimipopulaatio. Eikö se ole noin 1000 eri islaa, jotain näin, tai 100 ja 100? Minun mielestäni se on 3600. Oh, joten se on enemmän kuin... Se on tuhansia. Tuhansia, ja tuhansia dialecteja. Timo, esimerkiksi, puhui tetun, paikallisen kielten, paikallisen dialecten. He puhuivat indonesiaan, koska se oli indonesian maa. Se oli osa Indonesiaa.

He spoke English because that's what the United Nations requires. And they spoke all the languages if a United Nations country came in and they wanted to work in the house, they would learn that. So anytime you find these colonized, impoverished, marginalized countries around the world, whatever terminology, third world, a developing nation, whatever terminology.

Olin siellä seitsemän vuotta. Kun näet, kuinka asiat toimivat, se on melko yllättynä maailmasta ja ammattilaisuudesta. Se on toinen tarina. Olin siellä, aloitin tämän yrityksen ja otin esimiehille. Pohjois-ministeriön isä, joka oli huomattavasti hieno. Se oli kolmas yritys, jonka aloitin.

Olen tarkastellut sitä, etten halunnut vain aloittaa armeijan ominaisuuden. Se on se, mitä se tuli olemaan, mutta se ei ollut se, missä aloitin. Heillä ei ollut rahaa, joten he käyttivät Yhdysvaltoja. Yhdysvaltoja tuli Suomeen. Se oli pallottamassa kargoilta. Ystäväni, kitaristarikko ja bändini olivat ANZ Bankin presidenttiä.

He would have 3-7 million dollars at any given time, like on the telecounter, because there was no credit, there was no checks, no credit cards. Everything was cash. Real dollars? Real dollars, but they came from China, so you could just wipe the ink off with your thumb.

Talk about money and cash. We don't use cash anymore. You go to Starbucks, they look at you, you're nuts if you try to give them a five dollar bill. There are places around where I live up in NorCal, and it says cash free. If you show up with cash, you're washing dishes. You're out of luck. Yeah, that's exactly right. When I built that company, I built that company with no safety net at all. And as it grew bigger and bigger, you needed a safety net. Because if you don't make, if billing doesn't match up with receipts at the end of the month, you got all the guys that you hire as henchmen to burn everybody else down, they're coming after you.

Joten he olisivat yli 4000 ihmistä koko maailmassa, ja he tulisivat paikalle. Ja me olisimme menossa pankkiin ja saamme 2,5 miljoonaa 20 000 euroa viikon ajan. Ja sitten me olisimme yli, ja meillä olisi omat tyypit, kuten sisäiset tyypit, jotka olisivat valmiita menemään toisille tyypille. Kaikki voisi tapahtua. Kyllä, koska se näyttää olevan yllättäminen rauhoittaa. Mutta sitten taas, sinä rauhoittat turvallisuuden yrityksen koko maailman, joten ehkä kukaan ei saa rauhoittaa. Kyllä, mutta he ovat myös rauhoittamassa. Se ei ollut helppoa aloittaa tämän yrityksen.