Snapshot · Modern Wisdom
In the U.S. Army's offensive cyber program, generals who failed to spend their entire annual budget faced being fired, incentivizing waste over efficiency.
Where this was said
At 27:48 · chapter starts 25:17
The conversation pivots to DOGE and Elon Musk's government efficiency push. Chris describes his interview with Sam Korkos, the Treasury's CIO, who explained the Frankenstein patchwork of 16 incompatible legacy systems underpinning federal finance. Bill goes further with a firsthand account from his last military posting, advising the general overseeing all U.S. Army offensive cyber development [1] — Bill Thompson "In the U.S. Army's offensive cyber program, generals who didn't spend every dollar of their budget risked being fired. The only metric was …" 27:20 . The budget dysfunction was breathtaking: a general who failed to spend every dollar of his annual allocation risked being fired. By July, if $100 million was still unspent, everyone would scramble to burn through it on arbitrary courses and conferences before September's fiscal year end. The actual mission — meeting the president's National Intelligence Priority Framework requirements — was secondary. As long as the money was spent and the reporting numbers could be fudged to a plausible threshold, it was 'successful.' Bill's view: a general who delivered full mission effects at 70% of budget should be getting promoted, not threatened.
In the U.S. Army's offensive cyber program, generals who didn't spend every dollar of their budget risked being fired. The only metric was execution rate — not outcomes. This is what Bill Thompson watched destroy the efficiency of America's most sensitive national security work.
In the offensive cyber development unit Bill Thompson advised, approximately 85% of staff were civilians rather than military personnel.
Vulnerability research that once took 3 months to a year — dumping a phone, parsing its code, finding exploits — now takes roughly 3 hours with AI. The math behind modern AI was known since the 1970s; what changed was GPU compute and internet-scale training data.
A total of 8 states have filed lawsuits against social media platforms, including an ongoing case in Tennessee, using product liability and public nuisance theories to seek accountability.
France built 56 nuclear plants in the 1970s and now has the cheapest energy in Europe, making it independent of Russian or Middle Eastern energy geopolitics.
Estonia has a single tax form, a law preventing the government from asking citizens for the same information twice, and a flat rate of tax — enabling competitive taxation.
Portugal's Lisbon, once a city with a major heroin problem, legalised drugs and redirected enforcement spending into rehabilitation and housing, dramatically reducing crime.
The first Boland Amendment banning CIA and Defense Department funds for the Contras passed the House unanimously — yet the Reagan administration ignored it.
Over just two years, Saudi Arabia alone donated $32 million to the Contra rebels, giving loosely affiliated factions millions they had no way to spend on arms.
The National Endowment for the Preservation of Liberty raised $6.3 million for the Contras but only $3.3 million reached them — a shockingly low 52% program expense rate.
Richard Secord and Albert Hakim marked up their arms shipments to the Contras by as much as 300%, making enormous personal profits from the covert operation.
Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North, tapped to run the entire covert Contra support operation, had no prior experience in covert operations whatsoever — he was learning as he went.
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