Trae (Trey) Stephens

You could imagine all the permutations of that.

And when you're dealing with intelligence reporting, the writer is effectively choosing how to spell these names, just transliterated.

And someone had to go out and figure out how to merge these records to identify the individuals that were crossing

all of the reporting that was being collected.

And that was my job.

I was the guy that was going in and trying to make sure that this Muhammad Atta was the same as this Muhammad Atta was the same as this Muhammad Atta, so that when we pass those reports down to you guys in the field in Afghanistan or Iraq, that you had reliable intelligence that you could act on when you're kicking down doors.

Interesting.

I only lasted about two and a half years.

It was a short battle with bureaucracy, and I was defeated.

Got to you.

Got to you.

And how did Palantir pop onto your radar?

So I'm not sure.

Are you familiar with In-Q-Tel, the CIA's venture capital firm?

I am now.

Yeah.

It's kind of an under-the-radar thing.

But under George Tenet, the CIA set up essentially a venture fund called In-Q-Tel.

And their job was to scout for technology that would be useful to the mission of the intelligence community.

And now they serve a bunch of different customers.