I was at UChicago getting my PhD in religious studies when 9/11 happened. I then became a professor and had to teach mostly American student that Islam was a religion like any other and that it was practiced by a billion people who had different interpretations of what words like jihad meant. Appreciate hearing Yaya’s view. I also have a finance background and worked in dotcoms back in the 90s. I now write crime fiction focusing on heist, cons, and money laundering. Please have Yaya back to talk about bitcoin and his podcast Designated. Excellent interview. Thanks Glenn.
Glenn, a colleague of mine named Charlie is a top notch programmer, and he started mining bitcoin around the year 2014. He got in while bitcoin was cheap, and Charlie turned a small investment into tens of millions.
I didn't follow his lead, but I invested in Fidelity's Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund early this year when they opened it up to individual investors, and I've gotten a nice return although it's not comparable to Charlie's ROI. It's pretty easy for retirees with decent savings to live comfortably on a fraction of their earnings while continuing to accumulate more.
First, I want to thank you for this interview. Mr. Fanusie and I are not exactly compatriots; my time as an intel analyst working with/for the CIA (as a contractor -- I also worked for ONI, and the USAF, DIA and other agencies) spanned 1984 to late 2002, and I mainly worked in threat assessment/projection, IW/IO and China (after about 1990). It was an "interesting time" (in the sense of the semi-apocryphal Chinese saying) to be an intel analyst working across a broad range of areas. It's especially interesting to me because he and I bookend the Iraq WMD issue -- he came in just after (2005) while I left in 2002,* having been present (and minorly involved) for the whole situation. (And oh how I'd love to have him over for dinner and chat with him about that!)
I also noted with interest that Mr. Fanusie has created a audio spy thriller; around 1990, I started work on a counter-terrorism/human trafficking thriller that eventually became a sci-fi series in 2013. I don't know how common this is for us former spooks to engage in, but regardless, it's nice to know I'm in some good company.
Thanks again for providing this perspective. Looking forward to you have him back on!
PS: I thought I'd add note regarding the difference between what Mr. Fanusie describes as the job of an analyst and what I as a contractor did (and he's spot on, of course). While he describes the task of tracking issues of more immediate interest, I and my team were tasked with issues that were long term, which we worked on for a year or 18 months and the product was a report that could run over a 100 pages; maybe 200 or more in some cases. (What I think of as my "magnum opus" I would estimate at ~100,000 words.) These included a summary of maybe a dozen pages or less, and key findings section that was maybe 2 pages, that went to higher-level managers and (on very rare occasions in my case) might find its way into the PDB.
Some of our products were for the agency itself, to support their own analyses, but many were written on behalf of the agency and released to the community under the agency's seal as their official position, including some NIEs we produced. So our efforts dovetailed with and were complimentary to agency analysts' tasking. Things seem to have changed a lot after I left (and especially after 2008), so I can't speak to the current situation.
I'll ask your indulgence for being prolix, but perhaps that might add a bit of additional context to what Mr. Fanusie is saying.
I was at UChicago getting my PhD in religious studies when 9/11 happened. I then became a professor and had to teach mostly American student that Islam was a religion like any other and that it was practiced by a billion people who had different interpretations of what words like jihad meant. Appreciate hearing Yaya’s view. I also have a finance background and worked in dotcoms back in the 90s. I now write crime fiction focusing on heist, cons, and money laundering. Please have Yaya back to talk about bitcoin and his podcast Designated. Excellent interview. Thanks Glenn.
From religious studies PhD to crime novelist. I'm intrigued. Where can we read your work?
I'm querying agents for my novels. Some short pieces here. https://www.tkschuberth.com/
Brilliance.
Glenn, a colleague of mine named Charlie is a top notch programmer, and he started mining bitcoin around the year 2014. He got in while bitcoin was cheap, and Charlie turned a small investment into tens of millions.
I didn't follow his lead, but I invested in Fidelity's Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund early this year when they opened it up to individual investors, and I've gotten a nice return although it's not comparable to Charlie's ROI. It's pretty easy for retirees with decent savings to live comfortably on a fraction of their earnings while continuing to accumulate more.
Hi Glenn,
First, I want to thank you for this interview. Mr. Fanusie and I are not exactly compatriots; my time as an intel analyst working with/for the CIA (as a contractor -- I also worked for ONI, and the USAF, DIA and other agencies) spanned 1984 to late 2002, and I mainly worked in threat assessment/projection, IW/IO and China (after about 1990). It was an "interesting time" (in the sense of the semi-apocryphal Chinese saying) to be an intel analyst working across a broad range of areas. It's especially interesting to me because he and I bookend the Iraq WMD issue -- he came in just after (2005) while I left in 2002,* having been present (and minorly involved) for the whole situation. (And oh how I'd love to have him over for dinner and chat with him about that!)
I also noted with interest that Mr. Fanusie has created a audio spy thriller; around 1990, I started work on a counter-terrorism/human trafficking thriller that eventually became a sci-fi series in 2013. I don't know how common this is for us former spooks to engage in, but regardless, it's nice to know I'm in some good company.
Thanks again for providing this perspective. Looking forward to you have him back on!
PS: I thought I'd add note regarding the difference between what Mr. Fanusie describes as the job of an analyst and what I as a contractor did (and he's spot on, of course). While he describes the task of tracking issues of more immediate interest, I and my team were tasked with issues that were long term, which we worked on for a year or 18 months and the product was a report that could run over a 100 pages; maybe 200 or more in some cases. (What I think of as my "magnum opus" I would estimate at ~100,000 words.) These included a summary of maybe a dozen pages or less, and key findings section that was maybe 2 pages, that went to higher-level managers and (on very rare occasions in my case) might find its way into the PDB.
Some of our products were for the agency itself, to support their own analyses, but many were written on behalf of the agency and released to the community under the agency's seal as their official position, including some NIEs we produced. So our efforts dovetailed with and were complimentary to agency analysts' tasking. Things seem to have changed a lot after I left (and especially after 2008), so I can't speak to the current situation.
I'll ask your indulgence for being prolix, but perhaps that might add a bit of additional context to what Mr. Fanusie is saying.
* Edited to correct date (my bad).
To both you gentlemen: thank you for the likes. They are much appreciated and most humbling.
You're welcome. So what's the 2013 sci/fi series? Is it in book for or did it become a TV show?
Thanks for asking. It's the Loralynn Kennakris series (7 novels in 5 volumes) over on Amazon. Oh, for it to become a TV show someday... the dream.