Podcasts about directorate s

"Russia's spies" has been a major news story for almost a decade now. They are here, in our computers, and on the ground. So what's it like to be one? Jack Barsky (not his original name) was a spy for the KGB at the height of the Cold War. He was a member of the elite Directorate S...the illegals. While training in Moscow, he learned how to act like an American, or so he thought. He figured it out though, and lived in the US, pretending to be American, for 15 years until the FBI put it all together. In this DEVIANT Off Script, host Dan Szematowicz sits down with Jack, now a US citizen, to get his incredible story. Get Jack's book: https://a.co/d/jeUx6lW Get Jack's podcast "The Agent" here: https://cumuluspodcastnetwork.com/pods/the-agent/ JOIN OUR PATREON: http://www.deviantpodcast.com Visit DEVIANT's socials: http://www.instagram.com/deviant.podcast http://www.tiktok.com/@deviant.podcast Copyright 2025 Cold Open Media LLC Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

EPISODE #1146 THE CIA EXPOSED: SHADOW GOVERNMENT, SECRETS, AND REFORMS In this eye-opening episode, former CIA officer Kevin Shipp pulls back the curtain on the shadowy operations of America's most secretive intelligence agency. Drawing on his extensive career within the CIA, Shipp reveals how the Agency has deviated from its original mission of delivering honest intelligence to the President, becoming entangled in manipulations of Big Tech, media, and even global corporations. From Project Mockingbird's influence on journalists to the CIA's clandestine alliances with Wall Street and the drug trade, Shipp exposes the hidden levers of control undermining American democracy. He also details the Agency's relentless efforts to silence whistleblowers, including his own harrowing journey as a targeted truth-teller. Tune in for Shipp's bold blueprint to reform the CIA, restore liberty, and safeguard America's future. GUEST: Kevin Shipp is a veteran CIA officer with decades of experience across the Agency's four Directorates. His distinguished career includes assignments as a protective agent for the Director of Central Intelligence, a counterespionage investigator, and a Counter Terrorism Center operations officer. He has served as Chief of Training for the CIA federal police force, a program manager for the State Department's global anti-terrorism efforts, and a polygraph examiner. A recipient of numerous awards, including two CIA Meritorious Unit Citations, Shipp is a fearless whistleblower who has stood up against corruption within the intelligence community. His insights have been featured on The American Heroes Channel, numerous radio shows, and in his previous book, From the Company of Shadows: CIA Operations and the War on Terrorism. A survivor of a life-threatening illness, Shipp draws on his resilience and moral clarity to advocate for transparency and reform in America's intelligence apparatus. BOOKS: Twilight of the Shadow Government: How Transparency Will Kill the Deep State From the Company of Shadows: CIA Operations and the War on Terrorism In from the Cold. CIA Secrecy and Operations. a CIA Officer's True Story Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://strangeplanet.supportingcast.fm/

Guest: Steve Coll is a Pulitzer Prize-winning author and Dean Emeritus of the Columbia Journalism School. Previously he was president of the public policy institute New America,  in Washington, DC.  He is an editor at The Economist in London and the author of several books, including The Bin Ladens, Private Empire, Directorate S, and his latest, The Achilles Trap: Saddam Hussein, the C.I.A., and the Origins of America's Invasion of Iraq.     The post The U.S. & Iraq Before The Wars appeared first on KPFA.

Buy Tickets for the Stand Up PodJam Stand Up is a daily podcast. I book,host,edit, post and promote new episodes with brilliant guests every day. Please subscribe now for as little as 5$ and gain access to a community of over 700 awesome, curious, kind, funny, brilliant, generous souls   Hey Friends!   Here is a special Author Interview I did with Steve Coll whose new book is out today!   The Achilles Trap SADDAM HUSSEIN, THE C.I.A., AND THE ORIGINS OF AMERICA'S INVASION OF IRAQ   Steve Coll is one of the most important and respected journalists of our time and he is out with a new book.   Steve Coll is the author of the Pulitzer Prize–winning Ghost Wars and dean emeritus of the Columbia Journalism School, and from 2007 to 2013 was president of New America, a public policy institute in Washington, DC. He is an editor at The Economist in London, was a staff writer at The New Yorker for nearly two decades, and before that was a writer and editor at The Washington Post, where he received a Pulitzer Prize for explanatory journalism in 1990. He is the author of nine books, including The Bin Ladens, Private Empire, Directorate S, and The Achilles Trap.   “Excellent . . . A more intimate picture of the dictator's thinking about world politics, local power and his relationship to the United States than has been seen before.” —The New York Times “Voluminously researched and compulsively readable.” —Air Mail    From bestselling and Pulitzer Prize–winning author Steve Coll, the definitive story of the decades-long relationship between the United States and Saddam Hussein, and a deeply researched and news-breaking investigation into how human error, cultural miscommunication, and hubris led to one of the costliest geopolitical conflicts of our time When the United States invaded Iraq in 2003, its message was clear: Iraq, under the control of strongman Saddam Hussein, possessed weapons of mass destruction that, if left unchecked, posed grave danger to the world. But when no WMDs were found, the United States and its allies were forced to examine the political and intelligence failures that had led to the invasion and the occupation, and the civil war that followed. One integral question has remained unsolved: Why had Saddam seemingly sacrificed his long reign in power by giving the false impression that he had hidden stocks of dangerous weapons? The Achilles Trap masterfully untangles the people, ploys of power, and geopolitics that led to America's disastrous war with Iraq and, for the first time, details America's fundamental miscalculations during its decades-long relationship with Saddam Hussein. Beginning with Saddam's rise to power in 1979 and the birth of Iraq's secret nuclear weapons program, Steve Coll traces Saddam's motives by way of his inner circle. He brings to life the diplomats, scientists, family members, and generals who had no choice but to defer to their leader—a leader directly responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, as well as the torture or imprisonment of hundreds of thousands more. This was a man whose reasoning was impossible to reduce to a simple explanation, and the CIA and successive presidential administrations failed to grasp critical nuances of his paranoia, resentments, and inconsistencies—even when the stakes were incredibly high. Calling on unpublished and underreported sources, interviews with surviving participants, and Saddam's own transcripts and audio files, Coll pulls together an incredibly comprehensive portrait of a man who was convinced the world was out to get him and acted accordingly. A work of great historical significance, The Achilles Trap is the definitive account of how corruptions of power, lies of diplomacy, and vanity—on both sides—led to avoidable errors of statecraft, ones that would enact immeasurable human suffering and forever change the political landscape as we know it. The Stand Up Community Chat is always active with other Stand Up Subscribers on the Discord Platform.    

For decades, Section 8 of the Clayton Act--which prohibits two competing corporations from sharing a common director--was rarely enforced by the U.S. antitrust agencies, and corporations were for the most part left to regulate themselves. In this episode, Alicia Downey and Sergei Zaslavsky talk to antitrust practitioner Diane Hazel about how the U.S. Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission have recently been focusing a lot more attention on identifying Section 8 violations based on an expansive view of the scope of the statute. Listen to this episode to learn about recent enforcement trends and what companies can do to avoid potentially unlawful interlocking directorates. With special guest: Diane Hazel, Foley & Lardner LLP Related Links: Benjamin R. Dryden, Diane Hazel & Richard L. Flannery, An Analysis of the “Deputization” Theory of Section 8 of the Clayton Act, Antitrust Source (August 31, 2023) Diane Hazel, Richard L. Flannery & Benjamin R. Dryden, How To Assess Interlocking Directorates In Antitrust Ramp-Up, Law 360 (October 25, 2022) ABA Antitrust Law Section, Interlocking Directorates Handbook (2011) Hosted by: Alicia Downey, Downey Law LLC and Sergei Zaslavsky, O'Melveny & Myers LLP

In this episode, Riccardo sits down with two of the voices behind the Digital Twin Fun Club podcast, Henry Fenby-Taylor and Neil Thompson. The trio speaks accuracy versus bias and how technology (digital twins specifically) can help mitigate risk within the complex world of infrastructure.   “I think people generally have the wrong expectation of technology. They think ‘Oh, we're going to be able to predict the future.' Actually the value of these things isn't about being able to predict the future, it's about being able to adapt as quickly as possible to changing circumstances.”  –Neil Thompson Key Takeaways:  Defining a digital twin, the difference between a BIM and digital twinThe true value of technology (spoiler alert: it is not about predicting the future)The transition from sourcing the “cheapest” to “best” solutionMajor programmes as a symphony, an analogy of perspectiveCollaboration through technology for parallel problem solving approach Links Mentioned:  Benedict Evans' PresentationsNoise by Daniel KahnemanBent Flyvbjerg's How Big Things Get Done If you enjoyed this episode, make sure and give us a five star rating and leave us a review on iTunes, Podcast Addict, Podchaser or Castbox. The conversation doesn't stop here—connect and converse with our community: Follow Henry Fenby-Taylor on LinkedInFollow Neil Thompson on LinkedInFollow Digital Twin Fun Club Podcast on LinkedInFollow Riccardo Cosentino on LinkedInNavigating Major Programmes on LinkedIn Transcript:Riccardo Cosentino  00:00If you're listening to navigate the major programs, the podcast that aims to elevate the conversations happening in the infrastructure industry and inspire you to have a more efficient approach within it. I'm your host Riccardo Cosentino I bring over 20 years of major product management experience. Most recently, I graduated from Moxa universities they business group, which shook my belief when it comes to navigating major problems. Now it's time to shake yours. Join me in each episode as a press the industry experts about the complexity of major problem management, emerging digital trends and the critical leadership required to approach these multibillion dollar projects. Let's see where the conversation takes us. Hello, everyone. Welcome to another episode of navigating major programs. Today I'm joined by two guests from the digital twin fun club. Gonna let them introduce themselves. Henry Fenby-Taylor  01:04Hi, I'm Henry Fenby Taylor, host of the digital twin fan club, podcast and editor and coordinator and I also run my own digital transformation and communications consultancy. Hi, Neil Thompson01:18Hi everyone. I'm Neil Thompson. I'm a digital fanclub cleaner owner and co founder, I guess, their day job I work at AtkinsRéalis, and I do things around digital transformation. I also have some other hats around the industry, my chair, the built environment for the Institute of Engineering Technology, also lucky enough to have gained an Honorary Associate Professor of the Bartlett School of sustainable construction, all things. Construction economics related. So I'm really interested to have this conversation because I've, I've been listening to some episodes and really fascinated in this sort of world between digital tools and how we incentivize people to do things is fascinating. So I'm looking forward to the conversation. Riccardo Cosentino  02:08Yeah, me too. Definitely. I'd well if we're comparing hats. I'm also on the construction industry councils. Net Zero climate change panel, and then CIC 2050, board member of a core member of zero construct as well. So I have a very strong interest in net zero in this space as well. Which is a key economic question, isn't it? Really?  Yes. Especially today with the especially in the UK, especially today with a big news from last week? Ya know, um, you know, I'm Riccardo Cosentino I think the listeners know me, and I think today, I'm really keen to explore, you know, how can digital tools, digital twin help us navigate the major programs? I have cheeky and cheesy really trying to make a comparison there. I think digital twin and digital tools today are like the Google Maps of for navigating major problems, while in the old days, we used to just have maps. And so I think it's, it's an important intersection. As project complexity gets bigger and bigger. So to the tool that we need to manage that complexity need to need to be adopted. And, you know, that's, that's my contribution to this podcast. Henry Fenby-Taylor  03:35Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. I think it's a very key issue. So we always start with what is a digital twin, I feel that there is often uncertainty, or lack of clarity around that. And I feel like adding some definitions to that will give us some simplicity. And then people can know what we're talking about. I've got my own definitions, but I'll let you go first, Neil. Neil Thompson04:03Oh, cheeky. I, so I got a, I have two views of digital twins. One is sort of the variation of, you know, we need to represent physical assets in a digital way. And hence the digital twin. And we use a series of technologies to achieve that. My other end of the telescope definition of it is we're connecting critical national infrastructure to the internet at different levels of maturity. So one end of the end of maturity is existing things that work today. There's things that we're planning for the future. And then there's things that we're building in between and all those things have some sort of interface with the internet, which may sound a bit strange saying it that way, but it's it's for me, it's just connecting these things together digitally with Henry Fenby-Taylor  04:59jazz I can't believe I've got to say jazz first and about gas. So my definition of a digital twin is that it is a system where there is a real thing that we are trying to manage or look after. And it could be designed simulate, construct, operate, you know, or it could be at the highest level of strategy, there's a thing that we need to manage. And so many things are complex, obviously, major programs are very complex, organizationally, technically, what they're trying to do, very complex. And so we need a better understanding of that real thing by measuring digitally understanding in a system that can tell us what is really happening with that system. Not only do we have good interfaces, so it's not just about having a nice dashboard. But it's about empowering people to make better decisions on the coalface of their job, right? From the very, most operational on the tools level, all the way up to strategic direction, measuring key performance indicators. And I think it's that connection by Neil says that Internet of infrastructure, it's bringing things together in a way that's not been done before. Because it's quite a complex sector is it's a complex supply chain, the word you could take an aspect of major programs, indeed, infrastructure in general, and probably apply the word complex to it quite safely. So I think, to move us on, I think that's a great definition. We've done our definitions of digital twins. So we know what we're talking about. Riccardo Cosentino  06:50Maybe there are five, yeah, if I may just stick to one. Because I mean, North America, where I'm from in, Canada's specially I think there's still a lack of understanding. And I think since we're defining, I think it'd be helpful and probably going to open a can of worms, since I've listened to your podcast in the past. But what's the difference between a BIM and a digital twin? Henry Fenby-Taylor  07:17Well, good question. Now, I have the true answer. But it's not very simple, which is that digital twins didn't come from the built environment, but didn't come from construction that didn't come from infrastructure, they came from NASA, originally, the original concept for we have a shuttle in space, and we keep building physical mock ups of this thing. So why don't we go to digital one, and then not only can we plan, model it and send up into space, and manage it remotely, we can create a better system for the design for the whole system for design, construction use. And so because it came from that route, it's difficult for the built environment, because we had a thing for that, when the digital twins came to us that design simulate side was an is already being done by them. So, I am not fussy about where you call your digital twin, because it could be your managing your factory line and your system. So you are trying to make maximize efficiency in say, building a building, or in the design. But I am not precious about it. If people want to say, you know, BIM is over here, in the design phase, and digital twin is over there. That's their choice. It is because of its origins, slightly complex, but effectively, a digital twin can cover the whole remit. And be, have been as part of it. Neil Thompson08:57Yeah, and we, at the end of the day, it's better to make a mistake in cyberspace than it is to do it in physical space. So just thinking about the Navigating of major programs, let's not go wrong in real life. It's really hard to fix. It's really hard to see. And unless Yeah, I'm with Henry on that one. It's, you know, let's, let's go and make a Digital Sandbox and work out and make a plan there is build, build the plan and execute that plan. And then and obviously, we in the world of major programs are very complex, involve lots of people and generally go for a really long period of time. So things change, where the environment changes, economic circumstances change. So my frustration with all of this is to is in two parts. One is I think people generally have a wrong expectation of technology. They think, Oh, we're going to be able to predict the future. Actually, the value of these things isn't isn't about being be able to predict the future is about being able to adapt as quickly as possible to change in circumstances. And that's where we need to get people on board is this Henry Fenby-Taylor  10:09is this from the I think you've got me to read Tim Harford's book adapt. That was yes. And that was very influential for my thinking on digital twins, where you are, again, you're trying to empower people through technology, not trying to take decisions away or automate things away. You're trying to give people the ability to react to changing circumstances. And, you know, just things like the teams are making major programs change massively, constantly. So you have a constant onboarding, and off boarding of knowledge and expertise. And it can be really difficult to capture that. So creating systems that mirror they were originally called digital twins, originally called information, model mirrors, that mirror what's happening, just allows people to get up to speed quicker allows people to make better decisions faster. Riccardo Cosentino  11:05I really liked that. It was one of the definition of a major programs, which I absolutely having a spot on the major programs are complex adaptive systems, to only they are complex, but they change. And so you're now dealing with, you know, an I think an equivalent to a complex adaptive system is is a flock of birds 1000s of birds flying to the sky, and somehow they do they unison, but it feels like they're doing Unison but they don't. And so that's, that's an equivalent of a complex adaptive system. Henry Fenby-Taylor  11:40I'm going to ask myself an interesting question on that. Does the does any individual bird know what the flock is doing? Or are they just responding to some fairly simple rules at a quite an immediate, you know, that the flock is created by birds with a similar drive all that with, say, a common goal, you know, they're all going to migrate all reacting to each other using very similar rules. And it is sort of organic emergent system creates, emerges, an emergent system emerges. And I think that's the beauty of major programs is that they work at all? Neil Thompson12:24You've heard no. I've got, let's go on a journey. Right? So probably when I was growing, so what No, just just one point, I used to work for really big, you know, construction companies. And the thing that always used to strike me we've we've all was you can stand still on a building site and look around, and it doesn't look like much is happening. But the job gets done. The how people come together at that scale is really interesting, because sometimes you can't, you can't stand there and physically sit. So there's a thing here and digital systems like this, the only way that you can have visibility of it because people are behind things. They're in the office, they didn't there's so much stuff happening, not one person can stand on a platform and look at everything. So that's that's something I find interesting. So it's back to what you said about the flock of birds. So this is this is something I've always wanted to the types of listen that listeners you have Ricardo and those in the space of finance and designing contracts. This is this is something that I've always the pitch that I've always wanted to make in from a digital perspective, because I feel like we're two worlds that don't communicate that much. There's this sort of capability of technology and those that design contracts and sort of somewhat oblivious of each other, but have a vital role to play. So one is back to your flock of birds. So think about an economics, right, we have we think of the price mechanism. So we infer the quality of something through its price. But I think we've sort of reached a point now where the price mechanism is somewhat defunct, we just because it's expensive doesn't necessarily mean it's the best. And there's a great I don't if you know who Benedict Evans is. Ben is Evans is sort of a commentator on technology trends over time. He gave a presentation in 2021. And if you have show notes, I can provide you a link, he this slides that he created was about sentiment of search on for consumers over time. And it has two lines, it has a line for the sentiment for the best and sentiment for the cheapest and in 2004 Everyone went on the internet and search for the cheapest then up to about 2008 It was the number one sentiment on the internet. And then this line called the best I want to find the best not the cheapest took over and it's just skyrocketed since. So this sort of price mechanism thing our flock of birds and like the internet as a proxy for Okay, people turned up and use it to find the cheapest thing they quickly found. out there, we'll find the cheapest thing actually isn't the best outcome, searching the internet and using the information that we have stored in the internet about products, reviews, quality, consistency, what have you means that instead of searching, give me other no trainers for cheapest. It's given me, what is the best for the use that I need? And modern internet searches. And just think about when you go and buy things. How regularly do you go, I'm just gonna go get the cheapest thing is interesting. So the world of consumer products has changed. And I think we're in we're in that point of 2008. Those that have been designing contracts have kind of the kid themselves to say they've been after quality, but they it by accident, I think I don't think it's through sort of any malicious intent or just the way because of the lack of information, we can only go by the price mechanism. But now with with the systems, they are digital twins and what have you, we can ask better questions of our data. So instead of sort of being rushed for time, the best thing that we can do is just just just give us your best price. And we'll go with that. We're now in the space of well performance, and what is what is best for the outcome. So you can't do that at that technology. So this is back to my analogy of standing there on a building site. Just because you can stand there physically see, it doesn't mean that you've got a true picture of performance, you have to have a digital understanding of the landscape to, to get underneath the surface of how well that's going. Henry Fenby-Taylor  16:23Adding to that I feel the contract. Artifact contracts themselves are legal documents, they do not flex, much over time, but generally, you know, they won't flex at all. So there is a real pressure when you are trying to procure to get the best deal. And to somehow know everything in advance before you start. And I think we all know that with the best will in the world. That can't happen. And the emergence of new paradigms of delivery through software and technology, where things are much more incremental, has challenged at dynamic of, here's your contract, you've got 12 months, here's the money go away, make me the thing, whether it's software, or an apple, and 12 months is definitely not long enough for an apple unless it's a really little one. But that it doesn't work. It fundamentally doesn't work. And you can't design a contract to make it work. You can design a contract to protect and to enforce and to give powers and all these sorts of things. But without that data that Neil's talking about, you are relying on judgment and or good practice goodwill, and then ultimately, litigation and, you know, take people to call. And there are much better mechanisms in between that, that we can introduce now that we can put into contracts that will make them operate better and give the outcomes people are looking for by adding that adding this measurement, this quality, as Neil calls it throughout. Riccardo Cosentino  18:22Yeah, and I think if we think of contracts for major programs, and I think it goes back to adaptability and being able to manage a complex adaptive system, and then the contracts that we have the typical lump sum turnkey, Neil's very familiar with his word, you know, they don't provide the flexibility that you know, you're supposed to give a fixed price today for something that is going to complete a seven, eight years from now, and assume that you can predict everything that is going to happen. I think the digital tools and digital twin will help you manage some of that, but the contract are certainly not set up to allow for adaptability, new contracts or they're not new, but like Alliance type contracting, collaborative contracting can help because they allow a better discussion instead of having an upfront discussion. It allows a discussion throughout the contract. And you're allowed to change some parameters, but it's ultimately it's it needs to we need to have an understanding that major programs adapt, have to adapt to changing circumstances. I mean, I mean, look, I just I just do what's happening now. Right? I mean, that's a perfect example of a contract that needs to be adapted. Henry Fenby-Taylor  19:41Yeah, absolutely. There's so many different factors at play here. It's political, its social. Its cost of living. It's all of these factors that come together. So yeah, I do think that creating these data insights on understanding can create better contracts. But it can also reduce risk and make projects more insurable. I've spoken to a number of insurance providers over the years and how they assess risk and cost risk and choose whether or not to cover a risk is the in this sort of artisanal, it's a skill, it's something you developed. And you have to, you know, you have to use your personal judgment to make those decisions with better data with better insight into what's happening, because you can use great data about what has happened past tense, and that can inform future decisions. But if you can drive those drive those insights all the way into the project, then you can really overcome some risks by understanding what's actually happening. Neil Thompson20:55Either of you read or know about Daniel Kahneman? I think it's his latest book noise. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So I think this is this is interesting, because if if the decision of a judge on its own, is, you know, there's two types of noisiness, there's the noisiness of the decision that you make, and then the noisiness of the process that you use to make that decision. Yes. And I think the same is here for contracts, right? They are inherently noisy, because it's based upon people's best opinion. Even when you get into the world of managing programs of any size, and people putting together Gantt charts and programs in Primavera P6, those are driven, they drive the decisions about how well that project is going. But they're sort of artifacts of people's opinions of where you roughly, it's not, it's not a scientific measure of, of quality progress and where you are, there isn't a device out there that can go and take a picture. To turn that into progress. It is the pm turns up to their team, how we're doing this week, where do you actually think we are against some sort of measure the measures usually is zero, 25% 50% 75%, or 100%. And you just scale that up, then the embedded noise of as you scale those for every layer, you know, the PM, probably gives that to a package manager, the package manager gives that sub project director, that project director is a dope Project Director of one area of maybe five Directorates, and then they come together and when the time it gets to the client, I mean, they're so far away from reality from a data perspective is, it's, it's quite scary. And if we think about the context of the application of AI, so in my, in my view of sort of the digital team world being a platform for this, the issue that we have is a little bit like the problem that we have with generative AI from chat GPT, if you ask it to make you an outline document for something, it's written from a Western or even more specific, more of like a Californian point of view, you'd have a point of view from that particular set of data. Now, if we're going to try and do the same in steering, the, you know, navigating major programs is you're going to set AI loose on a load of data that is just made up, right? How can that provide you any value, all it will say is, okay, instead of me asking the opinion of one P6 user, I can ask the opinion of all P6 users in history, but they're just, they're just artifacts of compound opinions. And we need to we need to break that somehow. So those those plans are built in a way that are relevant to the evidence that we have in datasets are collected from real life, not these intermediate trees in between this sort of management layers Henry Fenby-Taylor  23:5875% Complete. It's thinking about that that noise, analogy, accuracy, you know, you're trying to hit a target. And there is the big target at the end on time on budget, or even under budget under time. And high quality, great feedback. And that's a big target over there. But everybody is no such as hitting these small weekly daily targets that they have to hit. And we need better data. Yes. The data that we have has this bias in it. So if you are aiming for a target and consistently missing it in the same way, so you've got a bullseye in front of you and it's it's always hitting in the bottom right then you know that your your targeting is off. And this is the opportunity but it is the work that needs to be done because we have these targets we've not been computing them. So when you do compute them And you just scale this bias massively. And so, accuracy versus bias, but then you have the issue of of the noise as well, in the fact of, you know, different people act differently under different circumstances. So we need to align how people aim for targets, as well. And that's, that's data is also about not only what you measure, but how you ask for it, how you get it, and what it's for. Neil Thompson25:31It's interesting you say about two people. So my, in my research, in my dissertation, there was a question about risk preferences. And what I found systematically across the I think there's like 110, people that I managed to get the opinion of people systematically had a different risk appetite to their organization. So it's interesting, you ask them questions that sort of sets the risk appetite of the organization that they work for. And you ask a slightly different set of questions that sets the risk appetite of the individual. And there's always a huge, huge gap. It doesn't mean that organizations are less risky than people, it's, it's actually a bit more noisier than that. But it's interesting if organizations are just a collection of people that come together, that gap between the organization being risk averse, and the individual being risky for examples and in interesting thing, because that person's decisions, makes a huge impact on the macro risk appetite of the organization. And this, and this is what took me from your last episode, Ricardo was this the the stuff around behavioral economics. And I think the interesting thing, for me, is, the way that we design incentivization, at the broadest level is sort of is the same sort of difference between macroeconomics and microeconomics, or of macroeconomics. Back in the days before the internet and being able to collect data, they had to make some massive assumptions about how economies work. So they created macroeconomics, they made all these assumptions about how, you know, GDP, and all these sort of government level measurements. And, and then the behavioral economics comes around and said, well, actually, you know, people aren't having a generous, they all behave differently, they all come together in different ways. And there's a gap, and we're in this, we're in this space now, where we've never had the technology to be able to do the human, granular level thing. It's just too difficult to measure. But we're entering that world. Now we're in this, despite where you want to call it through marketing, call it digital twins or whatever. But we are in the world of being a like, the technology is now there. Five years ago, maybe even sooner, the technology wasn't available to us to manage information at this scale.  Riccardo Cosentino  27:54So I, you know, I just wanted you because it's something that I've been listening attentively, potentially. And it sounds to me that the digital twin to BIM call it whatever we want to call it, but and then I, and I think I know this anecdotally that I was really developed, the BIM model, especially with developers, a collaborative tool is a way of bringing, or bringing people with different disciplines in the in the in the building. So you have many contractor and designer, your your architects and bring them all together around one single model, so that they can collaborate and solve problems together rather than have. So I have a parallel problem solving approach rather than a sequence, problem solving approach, which was the old days where, you know, one, one engineer would finish the work, pass it to the next one was the next one. And so you, you end up with a problem at the end, and you got to go back to the beginning to fix it while would be am, I assume you can sit around the table, if everybody's got the technology, if you ever set it up properly, to actually address problems as they arise together. And in Neil Thompson29:05to this established techniques. So in so in Stanford's, they teach virtual designing construction, and they have a whole module on weather called concurrent engineering, which what this is, this is all about, because in order to understand, if you're going to get a load of decision makers together every week, there's coordination that happens, the other side of that, in terms of all the information that you've got to make sure that let's take a building of a bridge, you know, is your design of your bridge in the same part of the world as mine is over all the other coordinates, right? That's the most basic thing, because believe it or not, before that they could be in completely different places that could be in different units. You know, that's why things have went wrong previously, because someone's in the Imperial zones in in metric, and they don't align. So there's all these sort of basic things about concurrent engineering about just pure coordination. Are we all looking at the same thing? As your does your thing, that was my thing. There's the m&e bit with the structure. And all those sorts of things. The the interesting outcome of that, from my perspective, and this is the really, and this is what I, if I had to make any point to this, this group of listeners is technology lowers the barrier of entry, and enables anyone to have a high level of capability, right? So, and the danger of that is, we essentially subsidize a sub optimal design process. So what we shouldn't be doing is design over here, and digital twin over there. And they, they sort of come together eventually. But they are the two of the same thing, let's not create a BIM process over there to check the design, to show that the design doesn't work. All that does is makes designers lazy, and a bit of someone else can worry about the coordination. If it's going to work later. It's making sure that we create these tools within the design process. Because that's where we get into this waterfall issue of finding out the problems later before it's too late to fix it, because we didn't do all the smart stuff. As a first step, we did the smart stuff at the ends check, right? Let's not have the exam at the end of the year, let's have continuous assessment of what we're doing. Henry Fenby-Taylor  31:19I have an interesting analogy. This goes back to an old digital twin Franklin podcast with Neil and Alan Waha, about how is the construction sector, like the music sector when we were talking about digital and now you need a digital first process before you can even move into that space. But I conjured the amusing mental image by writing a post on it recently that actually, what a lot of programs and systems look like now is we ask a group of people to make a symphony together. They make this wonderful symphony and they record it. And they will show it to you though you can listen to it. But that you can't have that you only are allowed the sheet music at the end. So you've gone through this whole process of thinking, and realizing. But because we are bound by certain deliverables and certain processes, that will know that we couldn't possibly give you the recording. Here's the sheet music now you can get somebody else to go play that even though we've already done it made secure proof of my knowledge you nail Neil Thompson32:28that is beautiful, because what will you get on to and this is the internet. And this is the interesting thing about contract design is if you give anybody the sheet music, it will sound differently. If you gave a machine a sheet music, it will sound robotic, it will it will play it precisely to time. The nuance about why a symphony sounds great played live is because it has all these human inaccuracies come together that makes it sound the way it does me can't hear any of us. That's why the London Symphony Orchestra is different to the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra. Right? So the the issue here is is how do we that that sort of that organic stuff that happens between the lines of the contract is finding better ways of incentivizing people beyond that. And it's it's interest because we're in this world of these discussions about buying based on value. So most most of consultancies are in the world of like, selling people per the hour isn't good in terms of growth, because we have to acquire companies all the time and said more and more people. And that's not sustainable, because there's only a finite number of people on Earth. So it's that that growth model comes to an end naturally. So there's this conversation about value. But then when we look at the contracts that we have, yes, the unitary production value is a person in over an hour or whatever. But the other side of it is then also the all that we're competing for, is the essentially been exposed to the risk of getting it wrong. Like that's the thing. That's that is why so people say, oh, you know, some technology firms going to come along and eat up, you know, take over construction or take over engineering design, the reality is, it's probably not going to happen, because they're not willing to take on the risk of getting it wrong. And people like myself, and we're kind of we are like we we bring these systems together to take on that risk. The day that a technology company goes, Yeah, we're going to provide the technology, the service, and we'll take the risk on for getting it wrong, then we are in trouble. But I can't see shareholders, big or small startups, big technology firms. Name name a big name a big design vendor beginning with A or B, that, you know, imagine them turning around to their shareholders and say we're going to design bridges and we're going to take on the the the liability of the design of those bridges. The shareholders are going to sign off on that because they said because they will say no, we buy the shares and sit on your board because you do this business. If I want to take on the risk of building bridges. I'm gonna go and buy shares in engineering firms, not software firms. So that's, that's another dimension. Here's beyond the contract is the incentive of the people that own the mean, own the capital. Right. Henry Fenby-Taylor  35:10It's, it's interesting, because I want to address your earlier points. But I feel like that's quite a western approach. I feel that, you know, I mean, Samsung was effectively government sponsored, is effectively government sponsored, lots of history there. And it doesn't actually make a lot of profit, but it makes a lot of stuff. And it employs a lot of people. And a tradition in Toyota is that the eldest son, and his son, who is adopted, even if he's 50 years old, goes and starts a new business, and they look to diversify. And then they can potentially in some of these things fail, some of these things work. And you would, you would follow this sort of route, if you could own all the risk. And I think that's part of it. The reason that the construction sector is structured the way it is, because a lot of people inside the sector complain, that is the fragmentation. That's what's causes the problem. But the reason it's structured that way is to mitigate risk. Because that allows things to go wrong, that allows certain projects to fail, it allows certain products to fail, without the whole thing coming down. If you try and do it all together, you still can't control of the risks, you still can't control the cost of materials, because then you know, where do you stop? Where would you stop, if you wanted to do an end to end infrastructure company, you would need to own the quarries, you would need to own the logistics companies, you would need a stake in the logistics in the infrastructure, you would you know, and then you need all of the designers. I mean, it would be amazing. But this going all the way back to the symphony analogy, you can't write a major programs Symphony on your own, it is not, you know, a symphony is X number of instruments, you know, it needs that overall vision, and the composer can bring that, and then the conductor can turn that into something magical. But the in our analogy, the the violinist is also part of the composition team, as is that the percussion, you know, everybody has this part to play. So that is where the extra complexity comes in. And you can't just bring all of that stuff together, it needs to be in these disciplines for you know, being able to kind of mitigate this risk. But it's it's there in that we all want a symphony that basically has a handover, and that's when Rockstar architects often continue to get amazing commissions and go huge, they have a budget and over time. But they'll get the work because they there, you will feel the hand of the composer and there's that beauty to it. But if you're dealing with infrastructure services, you know, maybe I do want a pretty station every now and again. But ultimately, we're looking for that service delivery, we're looking for that efficiency. So we aren't going to have one composer that we can work better to ensure that, you know, to go back to this analogy, because I'm just going to keep using it because I really love this analogy. Everybody does their own composing, having been given a brief terms up to a meeting, and everybody plays their music all at once. And it's the first time anybody's heard it. And that's that's the negotiation process. Because that sounds awful. Everybody's you know, might not be in the same tempo might not be in the same key, you know, all these different issues. I'm not a music writer, by the way, I'm just, you know, I love this analogy. And I love going deep on these things. So this view of a symphony, this view of a major programmers, it's an organic, human interaction, by following digital processes, whether we call them digital twins or not, you know, like concurrent engineering, we can listen to the music and we can get together and we can make sure that we are in harmony earlier. Because there's so often that, you know, I've seen this on so many projects where, you know, different disciplines that we're managing will do a certain amount of work to a certain level with no regard to other people. And that means that you create all these problems, and that can be resolved, but it requires a very talented composer to make that happen. So that says, Riccardo Cosentino  39:35Let me let me take on that analogy, because I think is phenomenal. And we've actually done some work with an orchestra coming in and showing us teamwork through the eyes of an orchestra. Henry Fenby-Taylor  39:47So really, yeah, so did not know that's not a plan.  That was fascinating. But you know, ultimately, the way that an orchestra works, they're actually listening to each other live so you know the reader sheet music and Neil, you are musician, but they read a sheet music. But ultimately, there's live feedback that you receive for the other members of the orchestra and you adapt your play, and you also adapt to the to the conductor. And so I think if I, if I take the analogy further, if you have an orchestra of 10,000 people, there is no way that you can do that without the aid of a digital tool or something that helps you manage the volume of people and the volume of feedback that you have in an organization that big. So we now get into a scale of things where the human itself is not like a conductor won't be able to conduct 10,000 people, I can do 5060 you now start having 1000 10,000 You're gonna end multiple conductors, how do they are multiple conductor to to each other, but they're only handing over sheet music? Yes. Neil Thompson40:51So you're, you're, you're onto something that I, here's a thought experiment, okay.  Henry Fenby-Taylor  40:59I'm here for it Neil Thompson41:00building things we've been doing for a very long time. Arguably, there are other professions that are up for the competition of the longer the oldest profession, but building things soldier and coordinating things, we probably build things before we decided to protect them. So I'd go as far to say that coordinating people to build things is probably the, as a human endeavor, we've done the longest than other things apart from you know, childbirth, and all those sorts of things, right? It's one of them. It's probably the top five in the top five things we've been doing since the beginning of time, right? So my thought experiment is is is are we actually the most advanced industry in terms of trying to coordinate ourselves commercially, because we've been through that journey. And the reason the reason why I say that is the thing that fascinates me is how industries sort of consolidate, and diffuse and consolidate and diffuse over time. And what's happening with the digital implementation of the entertainment industry, I think it's an interesting thing, because in the music industry, you've got Spotify, and Apple music, itunes or whatever. There's some other ones, but they're like the two main players, right? Your Pepsi, coke, or those two. And if anything is probably just Spotify, I'd imagine the level of users I don't meet many people that aren't on Spotify. But anyway, so there's there's a high degree of consolidation in that space, which I think's interested in compared to movies and TV, where I'm almost to the point of thinking, there's all these subscriptions out there. You were if you wanted to have access to everything, you've got to subscribe to about 10 different services. And I think that markets on the route of being sort of broken and ripe for consolidation, I think we've, we've got this conundrum of are we going to be the symphony of 10,000 people that needs coordinating? Or is do we need sort of bring it together  breaking apart? Do any coming together? I have failing to get it to work from a digital perspective and how the tools will help us do it is these will break down into sort of larger, larger coordinated integrator units then then where we are right now we are labor is devised through speciality too much it's too fragmented, too. There's too many specific jobs to do. You think about the role of the master building the architects over time and how that's been broken down to just what it is today. Sorry, to the any architecture people listening, but it's, it's reality, the role of the master builder of the architect is, is no more I mean, in the UK, we have the quantity surveyor, and it's a slightly different thing in the States, where the architect does still sort of hold on to that role. But yeah, we've sort of broken up our professions so much and atomize them that they've become impossible to coordinate to the point of probably need to reconsolidate them and that that's comes full circle to how technology enables contracts. Henry Fenby-Taylor  44:02Absolutely, that a specialism it is a it gives you certainty, you know, if you have a chartered architect or a chartered engineer, you are expecting certain levels of capability and responsibility and and they will behave in certain ways. So, you've got that kind of certainty, but then in the actual implementation of that, that's that's when it all kind of falls apart by the wayside, not what apart it does work, you know, these things get built, and the risk is managed, and, and all of these things. So I agree with you, I do think it'd be interesting to see from scratch if we started or what, what roles would we have, and what specialisms would we need? Because I don't think they'd be in the current hierarchy as it stands. But then, as I want to move over to new products and services and finding new ways of doing things because, you know, here are the professional disciplines, it's, you know, what you're gonna get from them, in a sense, because they are chartered, and you know, they are insured, and you know, they have these businesses and you know what you're gonna get. But when you're trying to do new things, or new ways of doing things, these, the digital twin, as Neil said, he knows the platform for change, because now we know what's happening, we can see what's happening. And we can implement new processes, we can implement new measures, and we can know we can really manage that dynamic. But that area is actually quite consolidated. You know, there's a few design tools and these organizations, you know, like Autodesk, and Bentley, are growing through procurement. And they are also doing cloud storage effectively, you know, with some with some amazing bells and whistles, and they are doing these coordination pieces. But how do you get the new tools in there the things that are we have developed this, this tool, this innovative thing that can improve how you do things? How does that get in there, because we have this professional unit on one side and a technology unit on the other, and they're very separate, and they shouldn't be. Neil Thompson46:20So this is the interesting thing that's happened in that sector is, they've, as I said, the technology sector in general is they've gone from selling boxes and CDs of software, they've moved into the clouds. And through application programming, programming interfaces, APIs, have shifted from selling boxes of CDs through to essentially I mean, there's the analogy, but the press of the button of the function that you want to use, essentially, charging on a draw circle, press the circle button, the API call for the circle, and I get micro charged. So instead of paying my two or 3000 pounds a year for my, my Revit license, I then start paying maybe a cent for every button click. And that's sort of the spectrum. And I wonder, I wonder if it's the same thing for us. Ricardo, we are we still selling boxes of software? In this world of these big infrastructure projects? Were actually shouldn't we be looking at more micro contracts, and the micro contracts can't be implemented physically, as in on paper, or between people, it can only be administered with technology? Would we end up in a world where we just have 1000s of tiny contracts that build up into this sort of nexus of an agreement that would build infrastructure versus trying to draw a big circle around it and say, Riccardo Cosentino  47:51I think micro contracts? Yes. I think every time you introduce an interface, you're introducing complexity. So a fasn, or micro contracts is a 1000s of interfaces. Now, you that definitely would not advocate for their big advocate to reduce complexity. That's why I'm also that's also why I'm saying remove private finance from from PFI, don't do PFI remove the private finance because that adds a layer of complexity that major programs struggle to deal with. And that's, that's my previous episode, if you're interested. But just to take it back. You know, we we talked about the the analogy of the, the orchestra. And ultimately, I think we're at an inflection point. And I like your journey through time, you know, what we've been building major programs since the pyramids and even before, so clearly, they can be built without digital tools. However, if you want to build it, without digital tools, you need to accept that you might have some slaves building it for you. And I think that's, that's where we are for major programs. You know, we can continue doing it well, how we've been doing it for the last 100 years, but you know, society is changing. The needs of society is changing the needs of the people working in the major programs are different. So you need to adopt the major programs. And I think the only way you're going to do it, is by adopting new processes and new technologies and you know, digital twin, I think captures most of those. Henry Fenby-Taylor  49:26So, I think the digital approach is very important, but it is not. On our last our last podcast in the digital twin fanclub last podcast, we were discussing that at board level, I mean, I know major programs have boards, there is often a person for this. So if there is a technology aspect, then it's the Chief Technology Officers role to take responsibility for that. Whereas what we actually talking about is achieving our goals and performance. And these are, you know, you would not have a chief pencil officer or a chief paper officer. And for the same reason you shouldn't have at work, you should have a chief technology officer, but they should, they are not the ones who are responsible for if anything vaguely digital comes up, we just pass it over to them. It it is addressing all of these issues. So we have our own technology stacks that we use in the built environment, but we also have these professional disciplines and to not apply them together is to basically take the costs of both and try and smush them together to make benefits, that doesn't work. Neil Thompson50:49So I think Ben Flyvbjerg book has to get big things done. backs up my my theory of big programs are not just big programs to deliver. One of the best books written in forever brilliant. My point here is, these big, these big programs aren't just infrastructure programs that IT programs. And they have to be treated as such. So I don't agree with the OS passing over to the technology person yours. Because what you're technically saying is you shouldn't have a CIO either, because the IT infrastructure just sort itself out this, I think it's it's in our world is this project technology, stuff that we do to get the project done. And then there's IT infrastructure for the enterprise. And those two things are kept at arm's length from each other. And I think the journey that we need to go on is bringing them together. So it's not about not having a Chief Technology Officer, it's about actually understanding that the IT infrastructure is so complex, for major programs that your major program is an IT projects, and they are run, they are ran in slightly different ways. And you require that management structure because a project director that is very good at coordinating a site of builders is a very different skill set to getting IT infrastructure that you can't mix them up, but they require to be in the same room at certain points. So that's, that's that's a challenge. I just, I did want to change one thing about the micro contracts whilst whilst I've got the microphone. So imagine being Paul McCartney, back in the, in the 60s, and you're you're the CEO of Spotify, and you get the you get the opportunity, you go back in time, you get the opportunity to go to Paul McCartney and say, Do you know in the future, we're going to charge everybody per stream, per listen of your song, he'd say the same thing. I said, Well, how someone's going to run around with like a cone and listen out, for when you're listening to it and charge the money. They've got no digital payments, then there's no internet, there's nothing. So they're just thinking, you're someone's gonna go around on a bike and knock on the door. And I heard you listen to The Beatles, I take 50 pay off you. It's not that as it's I think there is an aspect of technology is going to enable us to have those types of, of management. Yes, there's complexity. But technology lowers the risk to be able to absorb the risk of the complexity. So just there's just my challenge on that one. Riccardo Cosentino  53:27I think we're seeing the same thing. I mean, it's it's major programs are getting more and more complex, because not just the complexity of what you're designing and building but also the environment they operate, right. It's political, social, political. So you need to help to manage that complexity. And I think you're right. I mean, it's digital is what is going to help you and we don't even know how it's going to help us today. Because we don't know what tomorrow is bringing. Henry Fenby-Taylor  53:57Yeah, but but similarly to almost to back you up to be the peacemaker, as is my want. You didn't You didn't, Spotify was not built overnight, you know, and you needed that infrastructure. So you need that. And again, I'm gonna use the word digital twin, but that way of measuring progress of measuring quality, you can't, you couldn't do micro contracts, you couldn't slap a micro contract system. Without that, that supporting technology, that measurement, that understanding of how things are actually working. So it certainly feels absolutely right, that there is an IT infrastructure aspect to running these, these these major programs. And if you don't, if you choose not to make those decisions, someone is going to have to make those decisions or those decisions don't get made and for my experience of major programs, you can end up with these huge transaction costs is very basic. What might seem very basic interface isn't going to be Share my costings, I'm going to share my project plan I'm going to share my designs, becomes something that requires a superstar, to solve somebody who is an amazing integrator of systems, and done some of that. So you get very good at working out how different systems work and behave them, connecting them all up and getting the people to connect, and connect up, etc. But without that, underpinning technology, without implementing these tools, making these decisions, knowing that you need to make those decisions, you are just setting yourself up for all sorts of costs of just hours, you know, I have seen projects where to share data would add a day, every every two weeks, to a technicians time, per team. And when you scale that up, it's just it's just a huge amount of waste that you could have avoided by knowing that you needed to make that decision early in the program. And making it might not be the best solution. And that's often a problem, I think, in the built environment, you know, always looking for, what's the perfect solve all answer, what we can get as close as we can to that. And then we need to be pragmatic and move on with our lives. But for all that is holy, in the whole, please don't just not make the decision and let that problem cascade into the supply chain. Because you will end up with lots of bits of paper, and lots of waste. And lots of people are hanging around waiting for other people to do things. Riccardo Cosentino  56:40Yeah, I think I think if you want to use an analogy from NASA, since we talk about digital twin, you know, if you want faster, better, cheaper, you got to figure out and different way of doing things. Because otherwise, if you just do it the way we've been doing it, you're not going to achieve that, as I said, I mean, we innovation has always brought us forward and allowed us to do things better, faster and cheaper throughout the centuries. And I think this is another inflection point where we need to, we need to look at how do we get? Henry Fenby-Taylor  57:11Yeah, and there are some innovative new companies, I'm thinking about the, you know, everybody loves throwing the Toyota example out there, and the Kanban process, etc. And lots of American car companies were invited to Toyota and went and saw how they did things. But they weren't able to implement those processes. And perhaps they're being implemented now. But certainly at the time, there were cultural issues, there were expectations, you know, people's jobs, this is my job, and you're changing my job. And this, this applies to car companies, individual consultancies and construction companies, but also to the disciplines to the engineer to the architect, etc. So there are organizations out there that are delivering new models. And we have to give those a chance, in my view, otherwise, you know, it's not broken enough to fix is the danger. But it is pretty broken. Riccardo Cosentino  58:15On there, we all agree, I think, Neil Thompson58:19yeah, I guess in summary, you know, I know I didn't agree with Henry, but this is me agreeing with Henry about the technology role. I technology leadership is for all of us. Tonight, as your leadership, you know, it, especially in the context of navigating major programs is an awful lot of people do assume that somebody else is going to give them a tour at some point. And as a stereotypical, you know, someone from the IT department is going to install a new toy on my laptop, when I wake up Monday morning, and I'll be inconvenienced by it, and I'm open about it. And then I've got my new toy and I crack on it doesn't, it doesn't work like that you have to you have to engage with what technology is doing and understand it as part of, you know, we're talking to people that design commercial environments. And that's hard enough on its own. And unfortunately, there's another dimension to that, which is technology leadership. And if you want to be a good designer of commercial environments, you do have to do some homework on where technology is at and how does it impact the planning? And yeah, yeah, it's like concluding point for you. Henry Fenby-Taylor  59:33Fantastic concluding point. Really, we're gonna lead exciting to see that there's lots actually happening around the world there is increasing amount of connected decision making taking place. And I'm here for Riccardo Cosentino  59:48So are we are really going to leave Neal with the last point, Henry? Henry Fenby-Taylor  59:52Yeah, well, I just I started talking because I just couldn't possibly let that I think that was just my podcasting impulse is that always To finish it off, so my final point is, I totally agree with him. Does that mean that I got the last word, but you've got the last point. Riccardo Cosentino  1:00:11I want to thank you both. terrific discussion today. I truly enjoyed it. honored to have you on my podcast. And yeah, hopefully this is this is something that we're going to continue. Neil Thompson1:00:23Yeah, absolutely. Thank you. Henry Fenby-Taylor  1:00:25Thanks for having us. Really good. Riccardo Cosentino  1:00:27Thank you. That's it for this episode on navigating major problems. I hope you found today's conversation as informative and thought provoking as I did. If you enjoyed this conversation, please consider subscribing and leaving a review. I would also like to personally invite you to continue the conversation by joining me on my personal LinkedIn at Riccardo Cosentino. Listening to the next episode, we'll we'll continue to explore the latest trends and challenges in major program management. Our next in depth conversation promises to continue to dive into topics such as leadership risk management, and the impact of emerging technology in infrastructure. It's a conversation you're not going to want to miss. Thanks for listening to navigate the major programs and I look forward to keeping the conversation going Music: "A New Tomorrow" by Chordial Music. Licensed through PremiumBeat.DISCLAIMER: The opinions, beliefs, and viewpoints expressed by the hosts and guests on this podcast do not necessarily represent or reflect the official policy, opinions, beliefs, and viewpoints of Disenyo.co LLC and its employees.

Journalist Steve Coll talks with Marcia Franklin about his latest book, Directorate S, a follow-up to his Pulitzer Prize-winning book Ghost Wars. He discusses why he wanted to write the book and what he learned — including about Idahoan Bowe Bergdahl, who was imprisoned by the Taliban. Coll, who is also the dean of the Columbia University School of Journalism, discusses threats to journalism. Don't forget to subscribe, and visit the Dialogue website for more conversations that matter. Originally Aired: 11/16/2018 The interview is part of Dialogue's series “Conversations from the Sun Valley Writers' Conference” and was taped at the 2018 conference. Since 1995, the conference has been bringing together some of the world's most well-known and illuminating authors to discuss literature and life.

In this Sidecar episode, Philadelphia-based private equity partner Stephen Leitzell and Washington-based antitrust partner James Fishkin discuss the U.S. Department of Justice's recent focus on enforcement of Section 8 of the Clayton Act, which prohibits the same person from serving as a director or officer of two competing corporations.

A memoir by the highest-ranking covert warrior to lift the veil of secrecy and offer a glimpse into the shadow wars that America has fought since the Vietnam Era. Enrique Prado found himself in his first firefight at age seven. The son of a middle-class Cuban family caught in the midst of the Castro Revolution, his family fled their war-torn home for the hope of a better life in America. Fifty years later, the Cuban refugee retired from the Central Intelligence Agency as the CIA equivalent of a two-star general. Black Ops is the story of Ric's legendary career that spanned two eras, the Cold War and the Age of Terrorism. Operating in the shadows, Ric and his fellow CIA officers fought a little-seen and virtually unknown war to keep USA safe from those who would do it harm. After duty stations in Central, South America, and the Philippines, Black Ops follows Ric into the highest echelons of the CIA's headquarters at Langley, Virginia. In late 1995, he became Deputy Chief of Station and co-founding member of the Bin Laden Task Force. Three years later, after serving as head of Korean Operations, Ric took on one of the most dangerous missions of his career: to re-establish a once-abandoned CIA station inside a hostile nation long since considered a front line of the fight against Islamic terrorism. He and his team carried out covert operations and developed assets that proved pivotal in the coming War on Terror. A harrowing memoir of life in the shadowy world of assassins, terrorists, spies and revolutionaries, Black Ops is a testament to the courage, creativity and dedication of the Agency's Special Activities Group and its elite shadow warriors. "Ric Prado is an American original, a shadow warrior whose combat and street skills actually live up to Hollywood's spy movie fantasies. Any story of his life and his C.I.A. career will stand out in the genre of such memoirs and biographies, not only because of Ric's outsized experiences, but because his adventurous work included some of the most important covert actions in recent Agency history." -Steve Coll, New York Times bestselling author of GHOST WARS and DIRECTORATE S and winner of the Pulitzer Prize

A memoir by the highest-ranking covert warrior to lift the veil of secrecy and offer a glimpse into the shadow wars that America has fought since the Vietnam Era.Enrique Prado found himself in his first firefight at age seven. The son of a middle-class Cuban family caught in the midst of the Castro Revolution, his family fled their war-torn home for the hope of a better life in America. Fifty years later, the Cuban refugee retired from the Central Intelligence Agency as the CIA equivalent of a two-star general. Black Ops is the story of Ric's legendary career that spanned two eras, the Cold War and the Age of Terrorism. Operating in the shadows, Ric and his fellow CIA officers fought a little-seen and virtually unknown war to keep USA safe from those who would do it harm.After duty stations in Central, South America, and the Philippines, Black Ops follows Ric into the highest echelons of the CIA's headquarters at Langley, Virginia. In late 1995, he became Deputy Chief of Station and co-founding member of the Bin Laden Task Force. Three years later, after serving as head of Korean Operations, Ric took on one of the most dangerous missions of his career: to re-establish a once-abandoned CIA station inside a hostile nation long since considered a front line of the fight against Islamic terrorism. He and his team carried out covert operations and developed assets that proved pivotal in the coming War on Terror.A harrowing memoir of life in the shadowy world of assassins, terrorists, spies and revolutionaries, Black Ops is a testament to the courage, creativity and dedication of the Agency's Special Activities Group and its elite shadow warriors."Ric Prado is an American original, a shadow warrior whose combat and street skills actually live up to Hollywood's spy movie fantasies. Any story of his life and his C.I.A. career will stand out in the genre of such memoirs and biographies, not only because of Ric's outsized experiences, but because his adventurous work included some of the most important covert actions in recent Agency history." -Steve Coll, New York Times bestselling author of GHOST WARS and DIRECTORATE S and winner of the Pulitzer Prize

A memoir by the highest-ranking covert warrior to lift the veil of secrecy and offer a glimpse into the shadow wars that America has fought since the Vietnam Era. Enrique Prado found himself in his first firefight at age seven. The son of a middle-class Cuban family caught in the midst of the Castro Revolution, his family fled their war-torn home for the hope of a better life in America. Fifty years later, the Cuban refugee retired from the Central Intelligence Agency as the CIA equivalent of a two-star general. Black Ops is the story of Ric's legendary career that spanned two eras, the Cold War and the Age of Terrorism. Operating in the shadows, Ric and his fellow CIA officers fought a little-seen and virtually unknown war to keep USA safe from those who would do it harm. After duty stations in Central, South America, and the Philippines, Black Ops follows Ric into the highest echelons of the CIA's headquarters at Langley, Virginia. In late 1995, he became Deputy Chief of Station and co-founding member of the Bin Laden Task Force. Three years later, after serving as head of Korean Operations, Ric took on one of the most dangerous missions of his career: to re-establish a once-abandoned CIA station inside a hostile nation long since considered a front line of the fight against Islamic terrorism. He and his team carried out covert operations and developed assets that proved pivotal in the coming War on Terror. A harrowing memoir of life in the shadowy world of assassins, terrorists, spies and revolutionaries, Black Ops is a testament to the courage, creativity and dedication of the Agency's Special Activities Group and its elite shadow warriors. "Ric Prado is an American original, a shadow warrior whose combat and street skills actually live up to Hollywood's spy movie fantasies. Any story of his life and his C.I.A. career will stand out in the genre of such memoirs and biographies, not only because of Ric's outsized experiences, but because his adventurous work included some of the most important covert actions in recent Agency history." -Steve Coll, New York Times bestselling author of GHOST WARS and DIRECTORATE S and winner of the Pulitzer Prize

A memoir by the highest-ranking covert warrior to lift the veil of secrecy and offer a glimpse into the shadow wars that America has fought since the Vietnam Era. Enrique Prado found himself in his first firefight at age seven. The son of a middle-class Cuban family caught in the midst of the Castro Revolution, his family fled their war-torn home for the hope of a better life in America. Fifty years later, the Cuban refugee retired from the Central Intelligence Agency as the CIA equivalent of a two-star general. Black Ops is the story of Ric's legendary career that spanned two eras, the Cold War and the Age of Terrorism. Operating in the shadows, Ric and his fellow CIA officers fought a little-seen and virtually unknown war to keep USA safe from those who would do it harm. After duty stations in Central, South America, and the Philippines, Black Ops follows Ric into the highest echelons of the CIA's headquarters at Langley, Virginia. In late 1995, he became Deputy Chief of Station and co-founding member of the Bin Laden Task Force. Three years later, after serving as head of Korean Operations, Ric took on one of the most dangerous missions of his career: to re-establish a once-abandoned CIA station inside a hostile nation long since considered a front line of the fight against Islamic terrorism. He and his team carried out covert operations and developed assets that proved pivotal in the coming War on Terror. A harrowing memoir of life in the shadowy world of assassins, terrorists, spies and revolutionaries, Black Ops is a testament to the courage, creativity and dedication of the Agency's Special Activities Group and its elite shadow warriors. "Ric Prado is an American original, a shadow warrior whose combat and street skills actually live up to Hollywood's spy movie fantasies. Any story of his life and his C.I.A. career will stand out in the genre of such memoirs and biographies, not only because of Ric's outsized experiences, but because his adventurous work included some of the most important covert actions in recent Agency history." -Steve Coll, New York Times bestselling author of GHOST WARS and DIRECTORATE S and winner of the Pulitzer Prize

Hoy os traemos una entrevista muy especial, que llevo persiguiendo desde el año pasado. Se trata de una charla con la (nada menos) portavoz de la Comisión Europea para lo competencia. Dicho de otra forma, los que ponen las multas. Como sabéis, Apple está bajo la lupa de la Comisión por sus presuntas prácticas anticompetitivas y una de las opciones que se barajan es obligar a Apple a permitir que se puedan comprar y descargar aplicaciones para sus dispositivos desde tiendas de terceros. Así que pensé que sería muy interesante conocer cómo funciona esta comisión, como planifican el trabajo y cual es el proceso que se sigue para investigar si existen malas prácticas por parte de alguna empresa. Para vuestra información, incluyo un gráfico con las áreas que abarcan y los logros conseguidos. Por supuesto, una vez establecido el marco, nos centramos en los temas de Apple, como la App Store, los libros, etc. Según nos comunicó Arianna en un correo posterior, Apple respondió con sus alegaciones a las objeciones de la Comision sobre la App Store en Septiembre de 2021. Según la propia Arianna, como hacen habitualmente, la Comisión está estudiando detenidamente la respuesta que Apple ha dado. Por si os ayuda, pego aquí debajo la transcripción de la entrevista.   Pido perdón por adelantado por mi inglés de acento ibérico.. al menos ella me entendió. Espero que vosotros me disculpéis. ___ Alf Hi Arianna, you are both the European Commission's Spokeperson for competition and for Eurostat. But I don't think Eurostat makes many news at all, does it?   Arianna Podesta   No, Eurostat produces really a lot of statistics, clearly, and a lot of information. But usually, the information that comes from us feeds into the press releases of my colleagues following specific thematic areas in the Spokesperson's Service of the Commission.    So usually, if you want to have information on employment, that will be the employment spokesperson that deals with that topic, or you have, I don't know, information on hotel occupancy, then it's the spokesperson that deals with tourism and internal market that will usually use those figures in her communication.    So for me, it's really the questions that relate to your stats, working choices how the about statistics are calculated, etc. But indeed, I mean, the vast majority of what I do is competition related. Yes.   Alf   So, as we've spoken on the emails, the main idea is to get a glance of how the Competition Commission works, and how an investigation starts. And then, in the end, I would like to go a bit in detail about the tech competition investigations, specifically about Apple on the App Store and the payments and so on.    Arianna Podesta   Yeah, of course. I mean, I'm very happy to try to answer all of your questions. I hope I have all the all the answers. And indeed, if there's anything I cannot do not know or I cannot say, I will just tell you that I cannot say but I will always try to provide you as much context or process information as I can.   Alf   Okay, because it's not very often that you do these kind of interviews. Is that right? am I the lucky one?   Arianna Podesta   One, Yyou're one of the few lucky ones. Meaning that we are quite restricted in terms of what we can say, especially on ongoing cases.    I think it's understandable because the matters we deal with are so market sensitive.    Of course, what we what we do affects companies. So I talked to a lot of your colleagues, but usually, it's majority of time on background, which means we have a very informal testexchange.    I, you know, explain the context, but you won't quote or you won't use it directly in your articles. Is more to give the context and there, it's a bit easier to pass, you know, messages and to say where we stand oin things.   I have limits, clearly, as far as interviews go. Because whenever we have an important case, or an important decision, or an important piece of legislation, usually we have the Eexecutive Vvice pPresident [Margrethe Vestager] coming to the pressroom herself.    So generally, she answers the questions there and we'll media get the feedback they need. And of course, she also gives several interviews not maybe on one specific topic, but where she will answer with state of play [on policy or on cases]. So generally, the on the record information is given by her and less by me.   Alf   I understand. As I said, there are so many topics that we would like to discuss about what are you doing to foster competitive environments in the European Union,  the EU. But for today, I would like to focus on the tech related ones. But first, let's learn a bit how the Commission works.    Just as a general question, how many people do work in the commission?   Arianna Podesta   So let's start with the first one. In general, the commission is a very big institution, if you look at the number of people working for it.    I believe that it's about 32,000 people working for the Commission. Of course, this includes policy officers, researchers, lawyers, translators, etc.    It looks very big, 32,000 people. But on the other hand, if you think that we, you know, follow 27 Member States, then actually, this number is, relative to the work we carry out, to all the legislative proposals we mtake, and of course, also to the competition decisions we take., and tThe DG competition Directorates, which is the competition specific one, hasit's about 900 to 1,000 people working in it.   Alf   And I suppose there are people from all over the countries, the different countries that you cover, I believe.   Arianna Podesta   Yes, indeed. You're absolutely right.    So first of all, one of the core principles of the Treaty [on the Functioning of the European Union] is not to discriminate on the basis of nationality.    So on the one hand, you need to ensure that there i's no discrimination in terms of the country you come from.    On the other hand, it' is also important for the Ccommission to have a balance between the different nationalities not to have countries, you know, over -represented or under-represented.    So it's always a mix, but you will have officials from the 27 Mmember Sstates working in the various policy areas.   Alf   And is everyone working on the headquarters? Or do you have different offices in different countries?   Arianna Podesta   So, the majority of colleagues will be here in Brussels, the vast majority.    However, there are colleagues in the various Mmember Sstates that to work in the representations of the Ccommission to the various Mmember Sstates; we alsowill have colleagues in delegations.    So, the EU has delegations in third countries, outside our Uunion. And we also have a number of agencies that are part of our framework, and these agencies are located in various Mmember Sstates.    So again, not all here, but the vast majority in Brussels, I would say,   Alf   And in Competition, how many people do work.   Arianna Podesta   As I was mentioning, it should be around 900 to 1,000 people working in DG competition directly., Tthen, of course, that i's the core but also when you work in DG competition, you will work with a number of other colleagues and in other services, for example, the legal service that ensures the legal certainty soundness in the decisions we take and we cooperate a lot with them. And translators as an examples. So of course, it i's it's a collective effort, also for our [comeptition] cases as well.   Alf   And when an issue appears, how is it distribute the work? How do you distribute the work? I mean, you as you said, you need legal, and you need insurance and you need whatever... borders... , how do the teams are assigned to a specific task?   Arianna Podesta   You mean only relating to competition, I imagine?   So we can look into into a moment into how cases come up, but let's say we have a competition case.    Usually it will be assigned to a team working in DG competition. The DG , that competition has a clear structure.    So, there's case teams working on different topics, in different units, according to the different instruments.    So Tto give you an example, we will have merger units dealing with the mergers in the field of transports, then you will have Sstate aid units dealing with they didn'tcases in the field of transport.    And the same for antitrust matters. And the same goes for other topics, such as.    I don't know financial services, media, what else services of general economic interest, etc.    So you will have this variety and there's going to be a case team assigned, which will really look into the matter.    However, even if one service - and in this case, it i's DG competition - is responsible for a specific policy area, the decisions taken by the Commission are Ccollegeial decisions.    So they involve all the Ccollege which is composed of 27 Ccommissioners., Tand they need to go through a process of approval by the other relevant Directorates, or Ccommissioned departments if you want.    I was mentioning, for example, the legal service but of course, there's many, many others. And this process is called interservice consultation.    So before a decision is adopted by the Ccollege, all services will be consulted and involved.   Alf   Just to make sure that I get it right. When you say DG competition, do you mean digital competition?   Arianna Podesta   No. DG means Directorate General. Sorry, the Directorate General, for competition, is the [Commission's] department for competition. We call it DG Ccompetition.    If you were asking about the digital competitiondepartment, we call it DG Connect. We have names for all the various departments basically.   Alf   And how is the competition commission structure? I mean, I believe this, the head is the Commissioner, which is Margaret Vestager. And how it spreads down?   Arianna Podesta   So you will have Eexecutive vvice ppresident with is Vestager, who' Is the ccommissioner responsible for competition. She i's a part of the members of the Ccollege, who isare appointed with a mandate of five years.    And they work together with President [Ursula] von der Leyen.    And, of course, she has a structure behind it, which will be her cabinet.    And then you have the service, which is the Director General for competition, as we were saying., and tThere you will have a structure of officials that work together with the Director General Olivier Guersent.    Below him, you will have three Deputy Director Ggenerals for the different instruments -, so one for antitrust, one for mergers, one for Sstate aids.    And below them, you will have an entire structure of Directorates, and case units that reports to Olivier and to Commissioner Vestager.   Alf   All the way to the 1000 people   Arianna Podesta   All the way to the 1000 people.    Alf   Now getting into matters. How does the competition committee start an investigation? Does it do you need to have someone to present a request or you can start things autonomously?   Arianna Podesta   We have three types of instruments in the competition world.    One is sState aid. And of course, it has its own procedures.  A second one is mergers. So we look at transactions like mergers and acquisitions.  And the third one, which is the one I think you're most interested in, it's antitrust and cartels.    In this instrument, cases can have a number of different origins.  So we can have complaints. A competitor usually will come to us and will signal that he believes that there is an issue in a given market, possibly caused by a specific behavior of a specific company, and it will provide us with evidence to support the claim. We will assess this service information as evidence and we will, you know, decide whether to really open an investigation or, or or not.    And this is one way in which we can start looking into something.   A second way is the whistleblower tool. So it's this is someone who, let's say more informally, contacts us., Oof course, this whistleblower can request anonymity, it's very, very frequent with whistleblowers cases, signaling that there may be an issue in his or her opinion, his or her opinion, in a given market and there we can decide again to give it a closer look or not.    A third way we can decide on our own initiative to look into into a market because we ourselves supported suspect there might be something that is not perfectly working in a given market. And we want to take a closer look.    And another way is a leniency application from a participant to a cartel. So for cartel cases - cartels is where two or more companies collude to get a gain, and usually, you know, to at the expenses of competitors, suppliers, clients, etc. And it is illegal to have these types of arrangements.    One of the participants to the cartel can decide to come to us and apply for leniency. So basically self-denouncing himself and the cartel saying to the Ccommission: I have participated to this cartel and I provide you with information.    The first one who applies for leniency gets the benefit of not having to pay a fine. So the leniency tool is a very useful one to detect cartels, of course.   Alf   Ahá. And when someone complains, do they have to bring some proof of what they are saying, or the just the complain is enough to start an investigation?   Arianna Podesta   Well, I mean, it i's in the interest of the complainant to provide us with as much information as possible for us to look into a case.    When a complaint comes to us, they usually want us to investigate a given market and the more evidence they give us, the easier they make our job and the more likely it is that we will actually have a case leadif indeed, there is an issue.    So yes, generally, complainants substantiate their claims with some degree of evidence. Of course, if we don't consider it sufficient, we can, you know, either ask the complainant for more information, if he has it. Or we can also decide: yes, this merits a closer look. And we can ask the market for more information.   Alf   And once you start an investigation, is it done by your own people? Or do sometimes you require external investigators or lawyers or whatever is needed to conduct the investigation?   Arianna Podesta   Well, usually it's us that carry out the investigations. We have a number of rights that are derived from Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.    In particular, if you want to be very precise, articles one and 101 and 102 of the Ttreaty.    And they giave us the right, as I was saying, to request companies for information, but also - in the context of an inspection -, to enter the premises of a company, to examine records, to talk with managers, etc, etc.    So we have all these powers. And it's us that usually carry out all these processes.    For example, we have also an IT forensic unit who are specialists in IT forensics, as, of course, the world is becoming more and more digital. So it's a unit thatof clearly plays a role in some of our investigations.    They We cooperate sometimes with different authorities to get as much information as possible, for example, prosecutors, police, etc, or those who monitor tenders, to name a few.    Who we cooperate with that is usually the national competition authorities, because, you know, we are the European Commission, and then you have national competition authorities in the Mmember Sstates.    And we cooperate with them, for example, in the context of an investigation or in the context of a case.    And this is regulated through the European Competition network, which is a forum where we ensure that there's an efficient use of resources.    And there is really a flow of information between the authorities, where needed. Sso we will inform each other about the cases that we a're carrying out.    And we will eventually talk about the decisions we will be taking both from our side and the side of the Mmember Sstates.   Alf   And the fines are, how do I say it, established? The fines in proportion of whatever it's being investigated? Or it's something that is decided on a case by case system.   Arianna Podesta   The fines have a maximum. The fines we impose, being the Commission, have a maximum level which is 10% of the annual global turnover of a company.    So this to say is really the maximum possible. However, they will be commensurated to the specific case and conduct.    Alf   Of the global turnover, not European turnover, but global.   Arianna Podesta   10% of the annual growth global turnover that a company generates,. hHowever, they will be proportionate.    So we will evaluate case by case, depending on how serious the breach is, you know, on the duration of the infringement as well and a number of other factors., Aas I was saying, leniency -, if the company has applied for leniency be it for first or for second, etcetera.    If the company has cooperated, we will give a reduction as well, because, you know, if we start going to a company and the company decides, this is (I'm talking about cartels specifically) that it will cooperate and provide us evidence, it saves our time as well, so we will reduce the fine.   In antitrust investigations that are not cartel related, let's say that, at the end of an investigation, there's three possible outcomes.    First type of outcome is that we have really looked into it a. And in the end, we decide that there's no issue. It's a possibility, of course.    Second situation is that the company says, Yes, I see why you believe that there has been an anticompetitive behaviorbehaviour a. And I offer commitments., Sso the companies will offer us commitments to solve our competition concerns.    And there, we will make these commitments binding on the company to make sure that this behavior does not happen again.    And third case is [a] fine. So there again, we can decide to impose a fine on the company up to the 10% threshold, that I was mentioning. Perhaps I can give you some of the highest fines. Just to give you an idea of the total antitrust fines that we gave, could that be of interest for you?   Alf   Yeah, I've seen a graphic that you shared on Twitter. And I see that in 2021, total fines were by 1.7 billion.   Arianna Podesta   Yes, that was 2021. If we look at the 10, or well, I won't tell you the 10 biggest cases, but looking at the biggest cases in terms of fines, the biggest one was the Google Android case from 2018, where the fine was 4.3 billion.    Just to give you a proportion., and tThat's the biggest we had, and then that you know,it proportionately reduces, as I was saying., Iit really depends also on the turnover of the company.    And we have the Google search case, which is the shopping one, we have the Google AdSense on advertising, we have Intel, Qualcomm, and then going down to the others.    Alf   And how do companies pay? Do they make a wire transfer, or they put a check? How these works?   Arianna Podesta   So first of all, whenever we take a decision, companies have a right to appeal. This is very important.    Of course, they can always go to the EU courts, and appeal all of our decisions if they don't agree with the outcomes.    Generally, if it's a commitment decision, they have offered commitments, so hopefully, they will not appeal.    But if it's a finingal decision, that's a possibility, they have a right to do so.    In the EU, we have two courts. So the first level is thea Ggeneral Ccourts. And after that decision is taken [by the General Court], either the company or us can appeal this first decision to the European Court of Justice.    And that's the second level.    wWhile this process is carried out, so we know if there's an appeal ongoing, the companies fined can either make a provisional payment in an account or they can give us financial guarantees.    So we need to make sure that the fines are covered.    Once the decision is final, meaning that there's no more appeal possibility,  either because they haven't appealed from the start or because we have carried out the entire process, then the money flows into the budget of the Ccommission, reducing the contributions from Mmember Sstates.    So, Mmember Sstates have to give a certain amount of money to the Union per year to the commission and these fines that we collect proportionately reduced the contribution of all Mmember Sstates.   Alf   Okay, so that answers the gossip question about where do money go, once it gets into [the EU account]. So the states have to pay less? If yes, if you have a lot of activity and you find a lot of companies...   Arianna Podesta   Yes, meaning it i's to the benefit of the citizens in the end, of course, because the money that Mmembers States did give, you know, comes also from taxes, when. At the end is ait is the  taxing contribution by citizens that is reduced to citizens.    And it compensates the harm that has been suffered in the market because of the distortion of competition created by the company abusing, for example, its dominant position or, you know, entering into agreements that it shouldn't have entered into.    That's the idea, but of course, before we take decisions, we are very sure from a legal perspective, and we take decisions that are very much needed for the level playing field in the market.    And clearly, we have the Ccourts overseeing all of our decisions and activities. So there's a nice balance there.   Alf   Before we move into another topic, is there something that we should know about how the Commission works, how the competitive department works?   Arianna Podesta   In particular,  I find it that having worked there, I find it is a very motivating service, because you really have a sense of how much you're doing to protect the European market and the companies that operate in the European market, and the citizens that are part of our markets.    So you really feel the effects of what you do. And you have a lot of motivation and on why you do it. So I think it's very rewarding to work in this department.,   Alf   You are working for the better good for everyone, here.    Now, we move into the Apple case that it's been going on for quite a long time now.    In the document, it said that the investigation was started because of a complain by Spotify, and from an unknown ebook seller, which I found it curious, because usually it's always on the app or games or even music market.    But it doesn't seem like the book market is something that Apple is relevant, as of now. It's not a very big platform compared with the competition like Amazon or some others, right? Or even Google?   Arianna Podesta   Well, it's two different cases, first of all.   So one is the case on music streaming, as you were rightly mentioning, and that was brought forward by a complaint by Spotify.    And there, it's an investigation we have opened in June 2020.    And tThere we are more advanced, meaning that last year, on 30th of April, we have actually sent to Apple a sStatement of Oobjections.    A Sstatement of Oobjections is a document which that is sent to companies in the context of an ongoing investigation, basically giving our preliminary view on what aspects we believe the company has distorted competition on.    So on the Spotify complaint, we have, you know, really advanced in the investigation., Bbecause we believe there is an issue in the App Store.   And here, in particular, on the way Apple's music streaming [works].    So Apple Music competes with other companies, such as Spotify, and - if you want - we can go in more detail there.    And then indeed, you are right. In June 2020, we have opened a second investigation in the eBook market. Tthere we have received a complaint from another competitor.    Here competitors can decide to remain anonymous, it's a right they have, but it needs to be justified.    For example, Iif you fear (just in general, not in relation to the specific case), but they could feel that there could be retaliation from the company youthey're complaining about.    So if they have reasons to want to maintain the anonymous status, they can do.    And this is why we can say Spotify complaint on one, while and on the other one, we can just say that it was an ebook provider and. Tthere what we are were looking at is I mean, it's quite similar but in different markets.    We're really looking into the way the App Store works. So we are taking issues with the in-app purchase system, how it works., Yyou know, that Apple charges 30% commission's on all subscription fees through this in- app purchase system.    And second issue we're looking into is the restrictions on alternative purchase possibilities.    So Apple does not let these competing apps publicize on the app the possibility of buying the services elsewhere, for example, from their website. And these are the two aspects that we are looking into.   Alfonso Tejedor   Yes, if I recall correctly from the emails we've been exchanging the past months, you were expecting Apple's answer by the end of last year to that document that you sent them in April? Has Apple answered it yet?   Arianna Podesta   I would need to check for that. I have to say the truth is I haven't heard the latest. So there would have to check and I'm happy to get back to you on that.   Alfonso Tejedor   But Apple has a period of time to answer, right?   Arianna Podesta   Yes, I mean, the fact that we send a Sstatement of Oobjections gives Apple the possibility to reply to our observations, to say why it, perhaps, doesn't agree with the competition concerns that we have raised., Iit also gives Appleoes access to the file, so it gives Apple the possibility to really see the evidence collected and the basis for the concerns.    And it also gives Apple the possibility of being heard. So there i's, you know, there' is a hearing organized with the company involved in which they can make their case and explain to us. It's really a dialog phase. Now I would have to check on whether we have received a reply or not.    And then, basically, what happens is, again, we will assess the information, we will eventually revert to the market, etc. And this leads at a certain point to a final decision by the Commission., Aas I was saying before, three types of outcomes are possible.    Perhaps important to note is that in antitrust investigations, we don't have deadlines. So we can really take the time we need to build a strong case, in one way direction or the other, before we adopt the decision.   Alfonso Tejedor   I have, and I believe many people have, a hard time to understand that in the real world, whenever we enter in a big warehouse or any kind of store, we don't see a product having an advertising saying "buy these in another place, which is cheaper".    And I believe the App Store, it's Apple's App Store. So we don't understand why they should allow to advertise on the apps that are sold on the App Store that they can it can be bought or upgraded, or whatever, cheaper in another place. That is something that doesn't happen in the real world.   Arianna Podesta   Well, first of all, let me let me just explain a general concept perhaps that can be of interest:, we don't have an issue with, you know, a company being big, or a company being successful., Tthis is absolutely fine.    What is important for us and is that this size, or power, is not abused, to the detriment of the market and of consumers, ultimately.   In the case of Apple, iPhone and iPad users are very loyal to Apple.    And when they start using their systems, they tend to continue using all of their products that are linked to the system. So there's a high degree of realization risk of clients being locked-in.

Journalist Steve Coll talks with Marcia Franklin about his latest book, Directorate S, a follow-up to his Pulitzer Prize-winning book Ghost Wars. He discusses why he wanted to write the book and what he learned -- including about Idahoan Bowe Bergdahl, who was imprisoned by the Taliban. Coll, who is also the dean of the Columbia University School of Journalism, discusses threats to journalism. Don't forget to subscribe, and visit the Dialogue website for more conversations that matter. Originally Aired: 11/16/2018 The interview is part of Dialogue's series “Conversations from the Sun Valley Writers' Conference” and was taped at the 2018 conference. Since 1995, the conference has been bringing together some of the world's most well-known and illuminating authors to discuss literature and life.

John interviews Steve Coll, a staff writer at The New Yorker, the dean of the Columbia Journalism School, the author of eight books, and a two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize. Between 1989 and 1992, he worked as The Washington Post's South Asia bureau chief. That experience ultimately led him to write two books on Afghanistan and Pakistan (with a third on the way).The first, “Ghost Wars,” won a Pulitzer Prize in 2005. It chronicles the C.I.A.'s secret wars in Afghanistan and how these fueled the founding of Al Qaeda. The second, “Directorate S,” focuses on the Pentagon and C.I.A.'s struggles with the eponymous, secretive branch of the Pakistani intelligence service that supported the Afghan Taliban.John and Steve discuss both books and the intense research they required; the Biden administration's withdrawal from Afghanistan; and Steve's plans for a third book on the subject. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Black Widow included overt references to the MK ultra Monarch program like no other film has. Winter Solider had a similar theme, but it wasn't the main plot as it was with Black Widow. What was also amazing was the references to the Soviet illegals program, Directorate S. Mark and I cover the illegals program and Americans here: https://youtu.be/mcPMhA-EJkU

Nominate yourself or another federal employees for the 2021 Unsung Heroes of Federal Service awards at www.waepa.org/PSRW Carmen is an organizational heretic and all-purpose troublemaker whose only real expertise is asking stupid questions and noticing odd, new things that might amount to something…or maybe not. Carmen spent 32 years at CIA but when you meet her you will hardly notice. The top five skills that people on LinkedIn endorse her for are strategy, analysis, leadership, national security, and government, FWIW. She is the co-author of the new book: Rebels At Work: A Handbook for Leading Change from Within, which was informed by her career as a heretic at the CIA.   She likes to speak in public and will go just about anywhere if you pay her expenses. She is an in-demand expert on critical thinking, diversity of thought, and intrapreneurship, speaking to Fortune 500 companies, major non-profits, and governments. Some of her most recent presentations include speaking at South by Southwest 2019 and TEDxMidAtlantic on Surviving as a Change Agent, at SXSW2018 on avoiding the Mediocrity Trap, and on Critical Thinking at SXSW 2017. Recently she has spoken: to US Treasury officers on Diversity of Thought; to Canadian Federal senior executives about Diversity of Thought and Rebel Thinking, to the California STEM Education conference 2020, at the Business Innovation Factory 2017, and multiple times at GovLoop's NextGen Leadership summit.   If you're interested in more serious career details, read this paragraph. From 2005-2007 Carmen was part of the executive team that led the CIA's Analysis Directorate; in her last assignment before retiring she began the CIA's Lessons Learned program and led the Agency's first effort to address the challenges posed by social networks, digital ubiquity, and the emerging culture of collaboration. She was a leader on diversity issues at the CIA, serving on equity boards at all organizational levels and across Directorates. She was the first CIA executive to conceptualize many IT applications now used by analysts, including online production, collaborative tools, and Intellipedia, a project she personally green-lighted; as a senior executive, she began using in 2005 social networking and blogs to reach her diverse workforce. Upon her retirement from CIA, she received the Distinguished Career Intelligence Medal. From 2011—2015, Carmen was a member of Deloitte Federal Consulting where she served as senior advisor and mentor to Deloitte's flagship innovation program, GovLab, and sponsored research projects on Bitcoin, Millennials, and the impact of the Internet of Things on government.   Carmen describes herself as Puerto Rican by birth and Texan by nationality. She likes to garden and cook things that she has grown. She has an extensive collection of Karaoke songs and you are always in danger of becoming the after-dinner entertainment. You can follow her on Twitter @milouness and visit her two blogs: recoveringfed.com and rebelsatwork.com.

The door to the walk-in cooler slammed shut behind Jack Barsky. This is it, he thought, this is how it all ends – in a restaurant in the Deep South at the hands of a crazy Irish-American eight inches shorter than me. “He said he was taking me through a secret passage to a speakeasy.” But it was not the end that day in Atlanta, 30 years after the Cold War’s end, but a new beginning. The residual fear felt by the former deep-cover KGB illegal soon dissipated and a new friendship was born over drinks. We ended up, “at a very small bar, looking out through a two-way mirror at all the people in the restaurant, what a great place for two old spies to be.” Hear Jack Barsky (https://bit.ly/3rOy0Re) (if you’ve ever watched The Americans he worked for the real-life “Directorate S”!) and former US Navy Counterintelligence Agent, Keith Mahoney (if you’ve ever seen NCIS, he was in its 1980’s equivalent) swap war stories. They grew up on either side of the Cold War divide, drank the ascribed kool-aid, lived parallel lives – and ended up best buds! Enjoy.

Anyone who doesn’t think there are any conspiracies at play in today’s political and economic environment is, well, a coincidence theorist. Yeah sure, chalk everything up to coincidence buddy… I think it is safe to say that one word can shut those people up…Epstein. Now, there certainly are plenty of crazy conspiracy theories out there. It sure is tough to separate the wheat from the chaff in this field. I do NOT have all the answers. And my aim is not to tell you what to believe. I’m more concerned with HOW it’s possible. Because at least with so lower level conspiracies (fraudulent marketing, fraudulent science, bribery, lobbying, etc.) the proof is easily found. So many cases hiding in plain sight. And this little-known phrase “Interlocking Directorate” is one of the key components. In my latest podcast episode I discuss the interlocking directorates of mass media companies and Big Tech. More at https://healthsovereign.com/45 for references and show notes.

Mark returns to discuss the Illegals program and Directorate S now that I completed the FX series. The 6 season show chronicles and illegals family in the US and its (exaggerated) operations towards the end of the Cold War as perestroika approaches. We will discuss the fiction and fact, fantasy and reality, noting how the show strove, for the most part, to attain realism.His site is here: https://espionagehistoryarchive.com

A staff writer for The New Yorker, Steve Coll is the author of The Bin Ladens, a history of the eponymous clan and its most infamous member; the Pulitzer Prize-winning Ghost Wars; and Private Empire, an examination of the notoriously secret machinations of the ExxonMobil Corporation. A former president of the public policy institute of the New America Foundation, Coll was a 20-year writer and editor at The Washington Post, where he also won a Pulitzer Prize for explanatory journalism. He is currently the dean of the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University. Directorate S tells the sprawling story of America's post-9/11 battle against Al Qaeda and the Taliban. Watch the video here. Pinetree Foundation Endowed Lecture (recorded 3/5/2018)

My guest today is the renowned journalist Steve Coll. He is a staff writer at the New Yorker, dean of the Colombia School of Journalism and former president of the New America Foundation think tank.  In 2005 he wont he Pulitzer for his book Ghost Wars, which examines the secret history of the CIA in Afghanistan from the Soviet invasion to right before the September 11 attacks. It is the foundational text that provides the history and context for understanding America's involvement in Afghanistan in the era leading up to the September 11 attacks.  It took DC by storm when it was published and its basically a canonical text.    Needless to say, official Washington and beyond was eagerly anticipating his sequel to Ghost Wars, which was published just a few weeks ago. The book, Directorate S: The CIA and America's Secret Wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan picks up where Ghost Wars leaves off, spanning from the September 11th attacks to the first few months of the Trump administration.    We kick off with an extended discussion of these two books and what went so wrong for the United States in Afghanistan. We then discuss his own life and career as a journalist, including how an accident of assignment lead him to South Asia at a very critical time.    Links:    Ghost Wars   Directorate S    Support the show! 

In his new book, Directorate S, author Steve Coll explains how Pakistan’s premier intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), is partly responsible for the United States’ struggles in neighboring Afghanistan. Coll, a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist, sheds light on Pakistan’s policy of aiding, supplying, and legitimizing the Taliban, a policy President Trump has openly criticized. With an investigator’s precision, Coll also walks readers through the mistakes and misjudgments that have resulted in approximately 140,000 Afghan deaths, along with American casualties in the thousands, and war costs as high as $2 trillion. At the center of the discussion will be the tumultuous U.S.–Pakistan relationship, which continues to define the U.S. war in Afghanistan. Please join us for a lively discussion. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Pulitzer-Prize-winning author and Dean of Columbia University School of Journalism Steve Coll (GHOST WARS) talks about his newest book DIRECTORATE S.

On today's episode, Adam and Jill recap OverDrive's Halloween extravaganza before discussing the books they're reading currently. Then, the main event: Nancy Pearl live and in our offices! Nancy visited Cleveland for some library events and took time out of her busy schedule to talk books with us because she is simply the best. Take a listen!  Books mentioned in this episode The Silent Companions by Laura Purcell   Blood Rose Rebellion by Rosalyn Eves   George & Lizzie by Nancy Pearl   In The Woods by Tana French   Half Magic by Edward Eager   Seven-Day Magic by Edward Eager   Directorate S by Steve Coll   Live from Cairo by Ian Bassingthwaighte   Say Hello! Find OverDrive on Facebook at OverDriveforLibraries and Twitter at @ProBookNerds. Email us directly at professionalbooknerds@overdrive.com  Music Provided royalty free from www.bensound.com  Podcast Overview We're not just book nerds: we're professional book nerds and the staff librarians who work at OverDrive, the leading app for eBooks and audiobooks available through public libraries and schools. Hear about the best books we've read, get personalized recommendations, and learn about the hottest books coming out that we can't wait to dive into. For more great reads, find OverDrive on Facebook and Twitter.

  On this episode of Directorate S we discuss Season 3 episode 12 of The Americans, “I am Abassin Zadran.” Once again the future of That Robot is questioned. Did he overhear Stan’s conversation with Aderholt? Were those agents flirting? Has the toilet paper crisis been resolved?!? Amberlee raises the down with Oliana banner while […]

  Bombs were dropped and stingers were stung this week as we roll on towards the season finale. Join us for this episode of Directorate S, where we talk about all the happenings in Season 3 episode 10 of The Americans, “Stingers.” Stan’s suspicions about Zinaida prove to be true, Nina uses English to get […]

  On this episode of Directorate S we discuss Season 3 episode 9 of The Americans, “Do Mail Robots Dream of Electric Sheep?” Were you worried about Mail Robot, comrades? We sure were! And we are thrilled that he has not been forced into an early retirement just yet. This episode sure brought the sad […]

On this episode of Directorate S we discuss Season 3 episode 6 of The Americans, “Born Again.” This week’s episode is all about rebirth and redefinition. Paige is reborn in the church, much to the chagrin of her parents, and Elizabeth comes out as a civil rights activist. We navigate the murky waters of Foxy Jim […]

  This week on Directorate S, Amberlee and Rachael discuss the bone snappingly good time that was Episode 2 of Season 3 – “Baggage.” Philip and Elizabeth continue to battle it out for Paige’s soul, Gabriel is creepily manipulative, and Stan visits a porn shop, again. It’s business as usual on The Americans. We discuss the […]

This presentation explains the potential benefits and costs of having 'busy' directors who sit on multiple corporate boards. It particularly covers research involving interlocked directors association with a common audit firm. DataBlitz on Corporate Governance was held on 19 July 2013.

AFTERBUZZ TV – The Americans edition, is a weekly “after show” for fans of FX's The Americans. In this episode, hosts Jenifer Golden, Joe Braswell, Joe Sanfelippo, and Lauren Leonelli break down the episode in which while Stan unexpectedly appears to be getting closer to a Directorate S cell, Phillip and Elizabeth take dangerous risks when they are offered important intelligence; but could it be a set-up? It's The American's “The Oath” podcast! Follow us on http://www.Twitter.com/AfterBuzzTV "Like" Us on http://www.Facebook.com/AfterBuzzTV For more of your post-game wrap up shows for your favorite TV shows, visit http://www.AfterBuzzTV.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript -- A well-organised supply chain is fundamental to getting the correct hip implant into the right hands at the right time.

A well-organised supply chain is fundamental to getting the correct hip implant into the right hands at the right time.

Transcript -- A well-organised supply chain is fundamental to getting the correct hip implant into the right hands at the right time.

A well-organised supply chain is fundamental to getting the correct hip implant into the right hands at the right time.