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You know, when I see the phrase "CIA funding" I expect something like "the CIA put a backdoor in NeXT computers destined for Hungary" or something, not "NeXT ma
by jldugger 27d ago
You know, when I see the phrase "CIA funding" I expect something like "the CIA put a backdoor in NeXT computers destined for Hungary" or something, not "NeXT made computers and the CIA bought and used them."
- starik36 27d agoYep, same expectation, but it's just click bait. I never learn.
- deleted 27d ago[deleted]
- AdmiralAsshat 27d agoDid you know about the CIA's DECADES-LONG FUNDING of Coca-Cola? I have a hot tip from my good friend the soda machine technician that the CIA regularly funnels THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS a month into the pockets of BIG SODA when they restock their office kitchens and vending machines with Coca-Cola products! This insidious relationship goes ALL THE WAY TO THE TOP, my friend!
- AndrewKemendo 27d agoIt’s a good point I’m not sure why we shouldn’t hold other brands accountable for their public relations. I served a long time and if no pizza place would deliver to a military base because they were protesting military action, it would have actually made an impact. To what degree is unknown but I know every dominos in a 20 mile radius from our base was on call to deliver 8000 pizzas from time to time. That aint nothing
- deleted 27d ago[deleted]
- kphorn 27d agoThe Civil Reserve Pizza fleet always amazed me. About once a quarter, the Air Force Academy would get dominoes pizza for all 4000 cadets. every cadet + staff and some visitors gets a medium pizza for dinner. that's about 4000 pizzas stuffed into the back seats of honda civics from around colorado springs arriving in a 2 hour span. I dont know how they did it but boy could they mobilize
- goalieca 27d agoWe used to have pizza day at my elementary school and every kid would get their own personal sized dominos pizza. It's impressive how they can deliver on 600+ pizzas all warm and delivered at the same time.
- deleted 27d ago[deleted]
- blipvert 27d agoNever underestimate the bandwidth of a fully laden Honda Civic
- bell-cot 27d agoGoogle Maps has 16 Dominoes locations around Colorado Springs. 4000 means each location is making about 125 pizza/hour for 2 hours. (For just the Academy.) Google's AI figures that doing pizzas assembly-line style, a pizzeria can make about 30 pizzas per employee per hour. Unless the Academy is hitting them with surprise orders, it doesn't sound too challenging. Anyone here been in this space, to talk specifics?
- krrrh 27d agoIt’s a free country. This sort of boycott would just result in Black Rifle Pizza.
- kennywinker 27d agoBlack Riffle Coffee was founded because Starbucks pledged to hire 10,000 refugees, not because they boycotted the military. The moral of the story as I see it is: not acting because you don't want a backlash is a loosing game - they'll find a reason to backlash anyway.
- BryantD 27d agoWasn’t even that — Black Rifle was founded in 2014 and the Starbucks announcement was in 2017. Note that as of 2025, they only have 500 total employees. Which I think only proves your moral harder. (I don’t have this at my fingertips, I just happen to be driving through Montana and my wife asked me about the Black Rifle Coffee billboards so I literally just read the Wikipedia article a couple of hours ago.)
- kennywinker 27d agoYou’re totally right, my mistake. Founded in 2014, gained popularity in 2017 for pledging to hire 10,000 veterans because starbucks said they’d hire 10,000 refugees. According to wikipedia only ~150 of their ~500 employees are vets. The thing is that both of these are cynical pledges. I’m not like yay starbucks on this - i’m sure they were doing it for the PR and because refugees are easily exploited workers. It’s one of the things I hate about reactionary backlashes - by creating “sides”, i find myself on a side with people i don’t want to be on a side with because the other side is dumber
- somenameforme 27d agoI find it useful to always take a step back and point out that both sides are dumb. Though it often ends up with both sides hating you instead of only one, but ya know.. https://allthatsinteresting.com/august-landmesser https://allthatsinteresting.com/august-landmesser
- refurb 27d agoIf you think government geopolitical policy could be disrupted by a lack of pizza delivery i can assure you it’s not.
- hbn 27d agoThey're putting poison in the sugar water!
- Telemakhos 27d agoMy exgf was adamant that aspartame (in Diet Coke) was a mind control drug. Turns out that Donald Rumsfeld (of Bush administration fame) was CEO of the company that made it, and he was the one who got the FDA to approve it for human consumption. So, there is a conspiracy theory not far from your joke.
- lofaszvanitt 27d agoCoffee and Tea is the mind control drug.
- rl3 27d agoYour satire probably isn't that far off: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinaltrainal_v._Coca-Cola_Co https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinaltrainal_v._Coca-Cola_Co. https://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/fellows/colombia0106/index.html https://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/fellows/colombia0106/inde...
- DANmode 27d agoI was also going to mention this - unfortunate example they chose!
- jimt1234 27d agoWhoa. This is weird. My friend's dad was an FBI agent for over 20 years. I remember him telling us a story about a case he worked in the early-90s where a Coca Cola exec was embezzling millions from the company. The exec was caught, basically red-handed. After working with his lawyer, the exec provided a story about some South American gang that strong-armed him into washing money for them (threatened to kill him and his family; I think he said they even kidnapped his daughter). My friend's dad said his team worked with the exec for several months to corroborate the story about the South American gang. Apparently he was telling the truth. Then, after gathering intel on the gang, they came up with a plan to go after them. However, a few days before they were set to act on their plan, they were told to stand down. Actually, no, before that they were told by their leadership that there would be no capture (of the gang), only kill. Then the plan was cancelled altogether. My friend's dad rarely, if ever, talked about his work. However, he got loose lips after retiring, and if he had a few beers in him.
- leonidasrup 27d agoMore like CIA decades long funding of Crypto AG, Swiss company specialising in communications and information security. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto_AG https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto_AG
- pessimizer 27d agoI don't think this is a good reply to a very funny and appropriate comment, but it's always important to keep mentioning that the CIA probably definitely murdered the founder's son: https://inteltoday.org/2020/02/15/crypto-ag-was-boris-hagelin-jr-murdered-by-the-cia/ https://inteltoday.org/2020/02/15/crypto-ag-was-boris-hageli...
- Duwensatzaj 27d ago> Although there is — yet — no evidence That’s a far cry from “probably definitely”.
- Spooky23 27d agoDefinitely a great candidate for being a intelligence agencies resource, either cooperatively or without their knowledge. They have a ridiculously large network for their vending machines, and a massive global footprint.
- svat 27d agoAs documented in Dr. Strangelove: https://youtu.be/DUAK7t3Lf8s https://youtu.be/DUAK7t3Lf8s
- prolly97 27d agoHaha, "follow the money!"
- jasonvorhe 27d agoI'd trust my own intuitive suspicions more than official claims by the CIA.
- philipallstar 27d agoBut of course. Doesn't mean they're right, but you're right to acknowledge you probably do trust them more.
- sph 27d agoIt is a worthwhile question to ask "why is the foreign intelligence service funding a private company?"
- darig 27d ago[dead]
- seizethecheese 27d agoStrange comment. The comment you're replying to is pointing out that the CIA bought computers for its own use. Am I confused and they also "provided funding" other than buying computers?
- butwaitTheres4 27d agoYou're reading their comment in isolation. The thread starts with "I assumed something completely different." You replied to a "still, good to ask in order to seek clarity" type point. Comment hierarchy is part of the overall context.
- seizethecheese 27d agoAnother strange comment, this time from an account made 15 hours ago. My entire point was contextual and not in isolation!
- bigyabai 27d agoThere's no conspiracy, I think people just disagree with what "funding" can mean. A bulk sale in the realm of ~20,000 units is equivalent to stakeholder funding when you're at NeXT's scale. It doesn't inherently mean that anything nefarious happened, but there was a B2B contract written up with the feds, and Jobs accepted it. The root comment is a perfectly valid question. Since the government wanted to replace the guts with custom Motorola/Intel parts, it's a bit weird that they'd single-out NeXT to sell them an off-the-shelf shell. I'm guessing that Steve's number was in a lot of government Rolodexes after Michael Dell and the others.
- iamnothere 27d agoOr explicit investment, as with the many companies that were partially funded through In-Q-Tel. This is a strange article. All government agencies acquire computers for normal operations.
- bikelang 27d agoFunny you’re the only person mentioning IQT here. The CIA is a huge VC! They funded several of the cybersecurity startups I’ve worked at.
- everdrive 27d agoBut that sort of analysis would prevent you from dropping a wikipedia link about something only somewhat related, and then implying that EVERYTHING is backdoor'd by the government.
- baxtr 27d agoYou NeXT and Krispy Kreme are in the same category?!
- itsamario 27d agoMost never dealt with procurement to realize choosing an operating system for an organization requires everyone agreeing to use vendors that support the os.
- testing22321 27d ago[dead]
- bitwize 27d agoThree-letter agencies often keep on life support the kind of cool niche computers thst don't benefit from economies of scale. There are clandestine government projects that required Lisp machines and Connection Machines years after you or your employer were no longer able to buy one.
- whatsThisBtn4 27d agoGiven Apple's involvement in PRISM while running ads about privacy and security... All tracks.
- iwontberude 27d ago[dead]
- karlgkk 27d agoWhat exactly was their involvement in prism?
- flenserboy 27d agoCIA agents also longed for a decent interface. understandable. relatable.
- walrus01 27d agoIt was a bit more than they bought computers with a purchase order, like the part where it describes how CIA brought in a team of ex-Sun people to help scale manufacturing.
- jandrewrogers 27d agoThe US IC TLAs have a long history of supporting US companies that have interesting (to them) capabilities that may be too early for the public market. To their credit they often have some foresight in this regard. A lot of their support was a “they live ten years into the future” thing. They anticipated problems that may not have been exposed or recognized yet in the market.
- aikinai 27d agoThis is exactly how people on here claim SpaceX is dependent on government handouts.
- oblio 27d agoUmm... How exactly did SpaceX get off the ground - literally - before SpaceX became profitable? "Don't ask me how I made my first million." is as relevant as ever.
- aikinai 21d agoPrivate capital. This is a VC website, and you just naïvely and incorrectly assume startups are government funded? Even if the government had funded it, it would have been a good idea with extremely positive ROI. But no, they didn’t; you just made that up.