Yesterday, I was reminded on LinkedIn that yesterday in 2001, the State Department notified the Russian government that four of its diplomats were considered persona non-grata and immediately jetted from the country (National Counterintelligence and Security Center, 2022). This is an older piece I wrote on Robert Hanssen, in particular.
During the transition period from the Soviet Union into the Russian Federation, an FBI agent, Robert Hanssen was handing over top secret, and code word clearance intelligence to the Russian authorities at the KGB and its successor, the SVR (FBI, 2017).
Much like your own investment portfolio, companies continually must diversify to negate the ebbs and flows of their business segments. Up until 2001, Apple, then still called Apple Computer, was primarily a hardware company. The iPod was released and forever changed how the music industry conducted business. In 2007, Apple then released the iPhone, knowing it would cannibalize it's own iPod dominance in the market Followed by the inclusion of the App Store, then eventually iPads would see the light of day, all while still selling their signature computers to "
Ever since the release of the iPhone in 2007, Apple has designed and fabricated its own chips for its own devices. At the time, "owning the supply chain" or the vertical, was the way of controlling the full stack of hardware down to software of the manufacturing and distribution process. Since then, we have seen the practice known as economies of scale, for Apple to make more revenue on each phone sold.
Back in college we all had access to those often bulky, hard to use research databases, that sometimes worked, but often steered us in the wrong direction. We had to teach ourselves Boolean operators to properly navigate them. There was a reason other than torture for utilizing those; to help us all find primary source materials to write our research papers.
As is often the case, that's about the only time we used academia, raw data and studies to conduct our analysis on any given topic.
Volunteering has always been a part of my personal ethos. I'm reminded of my time as an AmeriCorps VISTA at Engaging Creative Minds, which I spent a year from 2017 until 2018. I wrote this post some years ago, but it is an experience that I hope that all younger folks will take advantage of.
In creating my plans long ago, the thought never came into my mind about actively working for an educational non-profit for a year through the AmeriCorps VISTA program.
As the Intelligence Community (IC) works to rebuild trust between its agencies, it's citizens, and other partner nations, this is a great time to remind us all about the basics of how leadership within the IC and it's ongoing struggle with national oversight through checks and balances. I originally wrote this piece in October of 2018.
Setting the Scene
It is the role of Congress to monitor and create oversight of the intelligence community.
I won't normally write about quarterly earnings reports from companies. You can get that story from many various sources. For the purposes of this article, I want to discuss why Apple's most recent earnings report was remarkable. I am also not recommending buying or selling Apple stock one way or another. Yesterday, Apple released an almost perfect Q1 2021 earnings report to Wall Street. Keep in mind this report ended on December 26, 2020, so these numbers do not reflect the post-holiday bump that most consumer electronics companies receive.
Gone are the days of the threat of nations stockpiling ICMB's to deter one another from catastrophic launches, and the last known war. With the threat of climate change, and the need for natural resource consumption and build up, the Arctic is quickly becoming the most sought-after area for these rich resources and positioning by first world nations. The Arctic is growing in geostrategic importance and potentially becoming yet another zone for strategic competition, as this previously impenetrable territory becomes increasingly accessible to navigation and exploitation.
For years now, businesses have migrated a full cloud solution; if not in the process of adopting a hybrid system at the very least. The continual building out of data centers by the major tech companies coupled with low power consumption chips from the likes of ARM and TSMC have created efficiencies in power on-site, computation, and rendering back to a customer or client's PC. In this case, I will refer to the PC as anything from a desktop, laptop, tablet, phone, or other similarly purposed device.
Over the course of 2020, the global IPO market was on fire. For these purposes, I'd like to focus on the United States market.
The stock market crashed in March when it was evident that COVID would not subside soon; most investors believed that both public, and private, particularly venture capital would dry up. This turned out not to be the case. In fact, quite the opposite occurred.
With traditional listings, direct listing and the adjuration of SPACs on various exchanges, the ease of public issuance and exits of PE firms is now easier than ever.
Note: This piece was originally published at RealClear Defense on January 16, 2018.
During the past year, The Trump Administration and the Kim Jong-Un Regime have been trading consequential barbs regarding nuclear testing and first/second strike capabilities. While rhetoric may seem that war on the Peninsula is unavoidable, there are still ways to engage the Kim Jong-un Regime while keeping the peace among Asian allies.
As recently as October, U.S. Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, stated that the U.
Note: This piece was first published on Divergent Options on April 17, 2017.
National Security Situation: U.S. economic sanctions towards Russia following its aggressive actions in Ukraine.
Date Originally Written: March 1, 2017.
Date Originally Published: April 17, 2017.
Author and / or Article Point of View: This article is written from the standpoint of the U.S. national security community regarding future plans or movement on Russian sanctions.
Background: In February 2014the Olympic winter games had just concluded in Sochi.
Life experiences make up the structure of a person. Choosing to give time and effort takes dedication and sweat equity. Some may choose to give donations over their time. This all depends on what each individual is willing to commit and how dedicated they are to engulfing themselves into the effort.
Estimates from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show that only 24.9% of Americans are engaged in volunteering within their communities, a slow downward trajectory from only five years ago.
The very definition of agile is the ability to move quickly, make changes, and adapt as needed to changing circumstances. Agile is a frequented term in the development of software and startups, but these principles can also be used to improve the quality and outcomes of life. More importantly, it is the incremental improvement of processes and procedures to ensure these desired goals.
Like any good product or business plan, its best to start out with goals.