YouSaid · the spoken record

Andrew Bustamante

lines on the record: 255
first: 2022-08-08
most recent: 2022-08-08
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Close, more like we immediately judge each other because we're all untrained. So he looked at me and he was like brown dude with crazy hair. And I was wearing, dude, I was dressed like a total ass. I was dressed in like a clubbing shirt. I don't know why I thought it would be a good idea to go to a CI interview in like a clubbing shirt with my buttons on button down to here And he was like, yeah, you were really after we got in. He was like, yeah, dude, you were always really cool to talk to. But I was like, there's no way that idiot's getting in. And I remember looking at him and being like, dude, you were just another white guy in a black suit. They're not looking for you, but here you are.”
2022-08-08 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #310 – Andrew Bustamante: CIA Spy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Sitting in waiting rooms with other groups of people who are at the same phase of interview with you, which were some of the coolest experiences that I remember still. One of my best friends to this day, who I don't get to talk to because he's still undercover, is a guy I met during those interview processes. And I was like, oh, we met. I saw what he was wearing. He saw what I was wearing. I was brown.”
2022-08-08 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #310 – Andrew Bustamante: CIA Spy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Write an essay about three parts of the world that you think will be most impacted in the next three to five years or prioritize the top three strategic priorities for the United States and put it into 250 words or 2,500 words and whatever else double spaced in this font, yada yada yada. Like super specific stuff, it's kind of stressful. But it's just like going back to college again. So you go through all of those acts and then you submit this stuff to some PO box that doesn't have anybody's ever going to respond to you and then you hope you just send it into the ether and you hope that you hope that you sent it right. You hope that you wrote well enough. You hope that your assessment was right, whatever else it might be, and then eventually get another phone call that says, hey, we received your package. You've been moved to the next level of interview. And now we need you to go to this other nondescript building and this other nondescript city. And then you start meeting, you start.”
2022-08-08 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #310 – Andrew Bustamante: CIA Spy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It was very rigorous. That was where it became difficult. Everything up to the first interview was easy, but there's three interviews. And some people are lucky enough to have four or five interviews if something goes wrong or something goes awry with the first few interviews. And again, this might be dated from what I went through. But during the interview process is when they start, they do your psychological evaluations, they do personality assessments, they do skills assessments. They'll start sending you back to your wherever you're living with assignments, not intel assignments, but actually like homework assignments.”
2022-08-08 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #310 – Andrew Bustamante: CIA Spy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And it's easy. There's no work involved. Somebody else is doing all the work, telling me where to be and when. It's a lot like basic training in the military. Anybody who's ever been through basic training will tell you they hated the first few days and then by the end it was really comforting because you just did what you were told. They told you when to eat. They made the decision of what to eat. Then you just, you marched when they told you to march, shined your shoes when they told you to shine your shoes. Human beings love being told what to do.”
2022-08-08 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #310 – Andrew Bustamante: CIA Spy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“How cool is this? Or maybe this is all make believe and this is totally fake. So either way, it doesn't hurt me at all to say yes. They already have my phone number. So, yes, yes, yes. And then I remember thinking there's no way that happened, and this isn't real. And then a day later, I got FedEx or an overnight delivery of an airplane ticket and a hotel reservation and a rental car reservation. And then I just kept doing the next thing, which I found out later on is a form of control. You just do the next thing that they tell you to do. And then before I knew it, I was interviewing in a nondescript building with a person who only told me their first name for a position with the National Clandestine Service.”
2022-08-08 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #310 – Andrew Bustamante: CIA Spy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That gives us a chance to reach out to you. So again, 27 year old dipshit, I was like, sure. I'll put myself on hold. If I might qualify for other government opportunities. And then about a day later, I got a phone call from an almost unlisted number. It just said 703, which was very strange to see on my flip phone at the time, just one 703 area code. And I picked it up and it was a person from Northern Virginia asking me if I would be telling me that I was qualified for a position in national security and if I would be interested, they'll pay for my ticket and fly me up to Langley, Virginia. They didn't say CIA. They said Langley. I put one-on-one together and I was like, maybe this is CIA.”
2022-08-08 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #310 – Andrew Bustamante: CIA Spy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, but I was like, I just wanted to be anything other than a military officer. So I was actually in the process of applying to the Peace Corps through this thing called the internet, which was still fairly rudimentary in 2007. I had a computer lab that we went to and it had 10 computers in it. You had to log in and log out and slow internet and everything else. But anyways, I was filling out an online application to go work in the US Peace Corps. I wanted to grow my hair out. I wanted to stop wearing shoes that were shiny. I wanted to meet a hippie chick and have hippie babies in the wild teaching Nigerian children how to read. So that was the path I was going down. And as I filled in all of my details, there came this page that popped up and it was this blinking red page and it said stop here. You may qualify for other government positions. If you're willing to put your application on hold for 72 hours,”
2022-08-08 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #310 – Andrew Bustamante: CIA Spy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“As I was leaving the Air Force, All that was on my mind. I don't know what you were like at 27, but I was a total dipshit at 27. I'm not much better now at 42, but”
2022-08-08 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #310 – Andrew Bustamante: CIA Spy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I would go a step farther, and I would say that taking the connection away, punishing, penalizing people by removing the connection is a powerful tool. And that's what we see. That's why we send people to jail. That's why we put economic sanctions on countries. That's why we ground our children and send them to their rooms. We are penalizing them. Whether we know it or not, we're using punitive damage by taking away that basic human connection, that longing for community.”
2022-08-08 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #310 – Andrew Bustamante: CIA Spy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's there. They've hardened themselves in their search. And who knows what dark place their brain is in, their heart is in, but that longing is still there. Even if it's an ember, it's there. It's the reason why in World War I and World War II, enemy combatants still shared cigarettes on the front lines during periods of holidays or bad weather or whatever else because that human connection, man, it triumphs overall.”
2022-08-08 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #310 – Andrew Bustamante: CIA Spy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And togetherness feels good even if you're together with someone you know isn't the right person. It still feels better than being alone.”
2022-08-08 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #310 – Andrew Bustamante: CIA Spy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And that's really surprising because we all want to pretend like we're strong, we all want to pretend like we're independent. We all want to pretend like we are the masters of our destiny. But what's truly consistent in all people is this longing to commune with others like us. My more practical answer about what I've learned to be the truth is that people, human nature is predictable and that predictability is what gives people an incredible advantage over other people. But that's not the surprising piece. I mean, even when CIA taught me that human nature is predictable, it just made sense. I was like, oh yeah, that makes sense. But what I never ever anticipated was no matter where I've been in the world, no matter who I've talked to, no matter what socioeconomic bracket is that longing, man, it hurts. Loneliness sucks.”
2022-08-08 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #310 – Andrew Bustamante: CIA Spy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, one thing is extremely surprising about human nature, which is funny because that's not the answer I would have said. So I'm glad that you clarified this specific question. The thing that's surprising about human nature is that human beings Like in their soul, there's like a painful longing to be with other people.”
2022-08-08 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #310 – Andrew Bustamante: CIA Spy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's a bit of both. I would say that all good art, art is taught from a foundation of skills. And those skills are played, are taught in a very structured manner. And then the way that you Use the skills after that. That's more of the artistic grace. So I've always called espionage an art, spying as an art, being able to hack human beings is an art, but it's all based in a foundation of science. You still have to learn how to mix the color palette and use certain brushes.”
2022-08-08 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #310 – Andrew Bustamante: CIA Spy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The majority of your eye movement is to the right Your right, my left Which is usually someone who's, if you ask micro expressionists, Someone who's referencing fact Not necessarily what's happening for you because you're pulling concepts out of the air. So it's also a place that you reference something other than fact. It's a place for you to find creativity. So, if I just thought that you were lying because you look up into the right, I would be wrong.”
2022-08-08 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #310 – Andrew Bustamante: CIA Spy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I'm saying is that through a conversation you develop a baseline, right? Like even just in the last The first part of our conversation I've been able to create some baseline elements about you. You've been able to create baseline elements about me. Maybe they're just not a friend of mind. From those baselines, now we can push through more intentional questions to test. Test whether or not the person is being truthful because they're operating within their baseline, or if you are triggering sensitivities outside of their baseline, and then you can start to see their tells.”
2022-08-08 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #310 – Andrew Bustamante: CIA Spy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You're exactly right. Guess where this conversation goes? Anywhere you choose to take it because you're the one asking questions every time I answer a question, I am creating a pattern of obedience to you, which subliminally, subconsciously makes me that much more apt to answer your questions.”
2022-08-08 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #310 – Andrew Bustamante: CIA Spy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, in an interrogation, there's a clear pattern of dominance. There's no equality. Also, there's no escape. You are there until the interrogator is done with you, right? Anybody who's ever been reprimanded by mom and dad knows what an interrogation feels like. Anybody who's ever been called into the principal's office or the boss's office, that's what interrogation feels like. You don't leave until the boss says you can leave. And you're there to say, to answer questions, the boss asks questions. An interview is an equal exchange of ideas. You are in control of this interview for sure. But if we were having coffee, I could take control if I wanted to take control. If I wanted to ask you personal questions, I would. If I wanted to talk to you about your background, I could.”
2022-08-08 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #310 – Andrew Bustamante: CIA Spy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Concepts correct. Because an interrogation, an interrogation is something very different than an interview. In the world of professionals, an interrogation is very different.”
2022-08-08 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #310 – Andrew Bustamante: CIA Spy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That individual, then you actually don't know. And an individual's baseline is based on education, culture, life experience, you name it, right? So it's huge. But when you combine facial expressions with body movements, body language, nonverbal cues, and you add on top of that effective elicitation techniques that you are in control of, now you have a more robust platform to tell if someone's lying.”
2022-08-08 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #310 – Andrew Bustamante: CIA Spy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That gets to be more into the trained skill side of things. There's body cues, there's micro expressions. I'm not a big fan of, I don't believe that micro expressions alone do anything. I also don't believe that microexpressions without an effective baseline do anything. So don't for a second think that all the people out there pitching that you can tell if someone's lying to you just by looking at their face, it's all baloney. In my world, that's baloney.”
2022-08-08 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #310 – Andrew Bustamante: CIA Spy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Spy. They might think you're an idiot. They might think you might think you're trailer trash. They might think that you're a migrant worker, but they never think you're a spy. And that's what that lesson in everyday life. Is immensely powerful. If you're trying to take your boss's job, as long as you don't ever look like the employee who's trying to take the boss's job, the boss is focused on all the employees who are trying to take his job. Everybody's prioritizing whether they know it or not. The goal is to just not be the one that they're targeting, target them without them knowing you're targeting them.”
2022-08-08 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #310 – Andrew Bustamante: CIA Spy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I would say that once you understand the system, it's not that hard. It makes a lot of sense. But I would also say that to your exact point, you are right that people smell bullshit. People smell bullshit. But here's the thing. If you come in smelling like goat shit, Still smell like shit, but you don't smell like bullshit, so they don't count you out right away. And if you come in smelling like rotten tomatoes, or if you come in smelling like lavender, or if you come in smelling like vanilla, or if you come in without any smell at all, all that matters is that you don't smell like bullshit. Here's the thing that's one of the secret sauces of CIA. When you look and act like a spy, people think you're a spy. If you look and act in any other way, you know what they never ever think you are?”
2022-08-08 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #310 – Andrew Bustamante: CIA Spy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Manipulation is a core behavioral trait of all the human species because we all understand to some level how powerful feelings are. But feelings are not the same thing as logical rational thought. They're two different sides of the brain. What CIA teaches us how to do is systematically tap into the right side, emotional side of the brain so that we can quickly get past all of the stuff you were just saying, all of the, well, don't you have to be convincing and don't you have to really know your story and don't you have to be able to defend it don't you have to have authenticity and don't you have to have genuine feelings yes all of those things are true if you're having a genuine relationship but in an artificial relationship there's ways to bypass all of that and get right to the heart of making someone feel comfortable and safe”
2022-08-08 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #310 – Andrew Bustamante: CIA Spy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“What all people feel becomes their point of view on what reality is. So when you understand and you learn how to manipulate what people feel, then you can essentially direct them to feel any way you want them to feel. So if you want them to feel like they can trust you, you can make them feel that way. If you want them to feel like you're a good guy or a bad guy, if you want them to feel like they should give you secrets even though their government tells them not to, you can do that. There are men who make women feel like they love them and just so that the woman will sleep with them. There are women who make men feel like they love them just so the men will give them their money.”
2022-08-08 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #310 – Andrew Bustamante: CIA Spy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, one of the flaws in your argument is that you keep referring to how you feel. I feel this. I feel that. I feel like this. I feel like that. That feeling is a predictable character trait of all human beings. It's a pink matter. We call it pink matter. It's a cognitive trait. You are not alone in trusting your feelings. All people trust their feelings. But because what CIA teaches us is how to systematically create artificial relationships. We're the one in control of the source that is giving us intelligence. And the core element to being able to control a relationship is understanding the pink matter truth of feelings.”
2022-08-08 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #310 – Andrew Bustamante: CIA Spy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Makes them mentally unstable over long periods of time. It's part of what feeds their depression, their anxiety, their personal issues, because they lose sight of who they really are. Field officers don't get that luxury. We have to always, always remember, we are a covert CIA intelligence officer collecting secrets in the field. We have to remember that. So we're taught a very specific skill to compartmentalize our true self. Separately, but make that true self The true identity. So then we can still live and act and effect. Without ever losing sight, without ever losing that compass true north of who we actually are. And then we can compartmentalize and secure all the information that we need, retain it, remember it, but then return to our true self when we get back to a position of safety.”
2022-08-08 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #310 – Andrew Bustamante: CIA Spy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, yes, disguise has to do with physical character traits. That's what a disguise is. What you're talking about is known as a cover legend when you go undercover, what you claim to be who you claim to be. That's called your legend, your cover legend. Every disguise would theoretically have its own cover legend. Even if it's just to describe why you're wearing what you're wearing, it's all a cover. The method acting, this is a fantastic point that I don't get to make very often, so I'm glad you asked. The difference between CIA officers in the field and method actors is that method actors try to become the character. They try to shed all vestiges of who they really are and become the character. And that's part of what makes them so amazing. But it's also part of what like.”
2022-08-08 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #310 – Andrew Bustamante: CIA Spy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“If you have teeth pulled, if you gain 20 pounds, really gain 20 pounds or lose 15 pounds, whatever you might do, all of that's considered level two. It's designed for a long-term mission so that people believe you are who you say you are in that disguise.”
2022-08-08 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #310 – Andrew Bustamante: CIA Spy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“very damning if you are caught with a prosthetic. If you're caught wearing a sudden, wearing a baseball hat and sunglasses, nobody's going to say you're a spy. But when you're caught with a custom made, you know, nose prosthetic that changes the way your face looks or when someone pops out a fake jaw and they see that your top teeth don't look like they did in this prosthetic, then all of a sudden you've got some very difficult questions to ask or to answer. So level three is extremely dangerous. Level one is not dangerous. Level two is long-term disguise. Level two is all the things that you can do to permanently change the way you look for a long period of time so that whether you're aggressed in the street or whether someone breaks into your hotel room or whatever, it's real. So maybe that maybe you get a tattoo. Maybe you cut your hair short. Maybe you grow your hair long. Maybe you go bald. Maybe you start wearing glasses. Well, glasses are technically a prosthetic, but.”
2022-08-08 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #310 – Andrew Bustamante: CIA Spy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There's three levels of disguise by and large. Level one is what we also know, what we also call light disguise. So that's essentially, you put on sunglasses and a ball cap, and that's a disguise. You look different than you normally look. So it's just different enough that someone who's never seen you before, someone who literally has to see you just from a picture on the internet, they may not recognize you. That's why you see celebrities walk around with ball caps and oversized jackets and baseball hats because they just need to not look like they look in the tabloid or not look like they look in TV. That's level one. Let me jump from level one to level three. Level three is all of your prosthetics, all the stuff you see in mission impossible, your fake ears, your fake faces, your fat suits, your stilts inside your feet, all that's level three. Whenever they make any kind of prosthetic disguise, that's a level three disguise because prosthetics are”
2022-08-08 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #310 – Andrew Bustamante: CIA Spy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So I discovered I had messy hair and CIA because I used to go muges, we called it Moog. I used to go Moojah Hadeen style big burly beard and crazy wacky hair. Because an ambiguously brown guy with a big beard and long hair can go anywhere in the world without anyone even noticing him. They either think that he's a janitor or they think that he's like some forgotten part of history, but nobody ever thinks that that guy is a spy. So it was the perfect for me. It was one of my favorite disguises. It's what's known as a level two disguise. One of my favorite disguises to Don was just dilapidated brown guy.”
2022-08-08 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #310 – Andrew Bustamante: CIA Spy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So I was leaving the United States Air Force in 2007. I was a lieutenant getting ready to pin on captain. My five years was up. And I was a very bad fit for the U.S. Air Force. I was an Air Force Academy graduate, not by choice, but by lack of opportunity, lack of options otherwise. So I forced myself through the academy, barely graduated with a 2.4 GPA, and then went on the Air Force taught me how to fly. And then the Air Force taught me about nuclear weapons. And I ended up as a nuclear missile commander in Montana. And I chose to leave the Air Force because I didn't like shaving my face. I didn't like having shorthair and I most definitely didn't like shining my shoes. And I did not want to be one of the people in charge of nuclear weapons. So when I found myself as a person in charge of 200 nuclear weapons, I knew that I was going down the wrong road.”
2022-08-08 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #310 – Andrew Bustamante: CIA Spy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Exactly. But for me, I've always been the person that likes operating. And you know what, you still get to do when you leave CIA? You still get to operate. Operating is just working with people. It's understanding how people think, predicting their actions, driving their direction of their thoughts, persuading them, winning negotiations. You still get to do that. You do that every day.”
2022-08-08 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #310 – Andrew Bustamante: CIA Spy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That went out that we couldn't fact check with a click of a few buttons. And she misses that because she loved that kind of.”
2022-08-08 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #310 – Andrew Bustamante: CIA Spy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We both miss it. We miss it for different reasons. We miss it for similar reasons, I guess, but we miss it in different ways. The people, the people at CIA are just amazing. They're people that they're everyday people like the guy in the gal next door, but so smart and so dedicated and so courageous about what they do and how they do it. I mean, the sacrifices they make are massive. More massive than the sacrifices I made. So I was always inspired and impressed by the people around me. Both my wife and I absolutely miss the people. My wife misses the work because you know everything. When you're inside, it's all, I mean, we had top secret. We had TSSCI clearances at the time. I had a Cat6 Cat 12, which makes me nuclear cleared. My wife had other privy clearances that allowed her to look into, you know, areas that were specialized. But there was not, there wasn't a headline.”
2022-08-08 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #310 – Andrew Bustamante: CIA Spy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Prioritize parenthood as part of our overall experience. That's when we knew that they never would. And what good is it to commit yourself to a career if the career is always going to challenge the thing that you value most? And that was the calculation that we made to leave CIA. Not everybody makes that calculation. And a big part of why I am so vocal about my time at CIA is because I am immensely appreciative of the men and women who to this day have failed marriages and poor relationships with their children because they chose national security. They chose protecting America over their own family. And they've done it even though it's made them abuse alcohol and abuse substances and they've gotten themselves. They've got permanent diseases and issues from living and working abroad.”
2022-08-08 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #310 – Andrew Bustamante: CIA Spy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“What do we do next? Because we're not the type of people to want to just sit around and Domestic. What do we do next? But keep in mind, we have a child now. So here's some of our suggestions. We could do this and we can do that. Let us get our child to a place where we can put him into an international school or we can get him into some sort of program where we have, we can both operate together again during the day. But CIA just had no patience for that conversation. There was no. Family is not their priority. So the fact that we were a tandem couple, two officers, two operators trying to have a baby was irrelevant to them. So when they didn't play with us, when they did nothing to help us.”
2022-08-08 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #310 – Andrew Bustamante: CIA Spy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I mean, for me, the calculation is very clear it's family. I left CIA because I chose my family. And when my son was born, my wife and I found out that we were pregnant while we were still on mission. We were a tandem couple. My wife is also a former CIA officer undercover like me. We were operating together overseas. We got the positive pregnancy test like so many people do. And she cried. My wife was a badass. I was just I was like the accidental spy, but my wife was really good at what she does. And she cried and she was like, what do we do now? It's what we've always wanted, a child, but we're in this thing right now. There's no space for a child. So long story short, we had our baby. CIA brought us back to have the baby. And when we started having the conversations about, hey, what.”
2022-08-08 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #310 – Andrew Bustamante: CIA Spy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The same man, the same man who just taught me a lesson about letting a myth live, that same guy was willing to be so authentic about this personal mistake.”
2022-08-08 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #310 – Andrew Bustamante: CIA Spy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Almost all of those because he was fighting a war that we forgot and we gave up on 20 years later, right? He's so honest about that. And it was really inspiring to me to be told not to ask that question. And when I broke that guidance, he didn't reprimand me. He just was authentic. And it was absolutely one of the big decisions that helped me leave CIA on my own in 2014.”
2022-08-08 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #310 – Andrew Bustamante: CIA Spy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I'm a family guy. So as soon as I met General Petraeus, one of the first things I asked him was, hey, what was it like raising a family and being... Commander of forces in the Middle East. Like you weren't with your family very much. And the thing I love about the guy, he didn't bite off my head. He didn't snap at me. He didn't do anything. He openly admitted that he regretted some of the decisions that he made because he had to sacrifice his family to get there. Relationships with his children, absentee father, missing birthdays, missing, we all say, we all say how sad it is to miss birthdays and miss anniversaries, yada, yada, yada. Everybody knows what that feels like. Even business people know what that feels like. The actual pain that we're talking about is when you're not there to handle your 13-year-old's questions when a boy breaks up with her or when you're not there to handle the bloody lip that your nine-year-old comes back with from their first encounter with a bully. Those are the truly heartbreaking moments that a parent lives and dies by. He missed.”
2022-08-08 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #310 – Andrew Bustamante: CIA Spy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's what CIA does well to go back to your first question What does CIA do? They don't answer any questions. They don't say anything. And wherever the myth goes, the myth goes, whether it's that they sold drugs or used child prostitutes or whatever else. Wherever the myth goes, they let it go. Because at the end of the day, everybody sits back and says, wow, I really just don't know. Now, the second thing that I learned from Petraeus, and I really am a big fan of Petraeus. I know he made personal mistakes. You don't get to be that powerful without making personal mistakes. But when I worked out with him, the one thing that my commanding officer told me not to ask about, he was like, never ask the general about his family.”
2022-08-08 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #310 – Andrew Bustamante: CIA Spy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I let it run. If it starts getting destructive or damaging, then I have my leadership team step in to fix it. But when it comes to the mythos, the myth of him being superpowered soldier, that's what he wants every soldier to be. So he lets it run. And he was so enlightening when he told me, when there's a myth that benefits you, you just let it go. You let it happen because it gets you further without you doing any work. It costs no investment for someone.”
2022-08-08 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #310 – Andrew Bustamante: CIA Spy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Two things right away. And one of them I was going to share with you anyway, so I'm glad that you asked the question. So the first is that on our runs, and he runs fast, and we would go for six mile runs through Bangkok. And he talked openly about, I asked him. How do you keep this mystery, this epic mythology about your fitness and your strength? How do you keep all of this alive with the troops? And he had this amazing answer and he was like, I don't talk about it. Myths are born, not from somebody orchestrating the myth, but from the source of the myth simply being secretive. So he's like, I don't talk about it. I've never talked about it. I've never exacerbated it. I just do what I do and I let the troops talk. And he's like, when it's in favor, when it goes in favor of discipline and loyalty and commitment.”
2022-08-08 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #310 – Andrew Bustamante: CIA Spy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Partner in my workout partner right about this. So I loved and hated those workouts with Petraeus because he is a physical beast. He's a strong fit at the time 60-something year old man.”
2022-08-08 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #310 – Andrew Bustamante: CIA Spy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Do amazing things. There is no, they spare no expense because it's a demonstration to their own people. Again, going back to the whole idea of influence, every intelligence operation that sees the light of day. Has two purposes. The first purpose is the intelligence operation. But if it was just the intelligence operation, it would stay secret forever. The second purpose of every successful intelligence operation, when they become public, is to send a signal to the world. If you work against us, we will do this to you. If you work for us, we will take care of you in this way. It's a massive information campaign.”
2022-08-08 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #310 – Andrew Bustamante: CIA Spy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The reasons that you're willing to cross them. There's the CIA will let an American stay in jail in Russia, unlawfully, and seek a diplomatic solution. I mean, the United States has let people, there are two gentlemen from the 1950s who were imprisoned in China for 20 years waiting for diplomatic solutions to their release. So we do not kill. Save a citizen, but Mass will.”
2022-08-08 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #310 – Andrew Bustamante: CIA Spy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, tech alone, meaning corporate espionage, economic espionage, nothing beats, nothing beats DGSE in France. They're the top. They've got a massive budget. Dennimos goes exclusively to stealing foreign secrets. They're the biggest threat to the United States, even above Russia and above China. DGSE in France is a massively powerful intelligence organization, but they are so exclusively focused on a handful of types of intelligence collection that nobody even really thinks that they exist. And then in terms of just terrifying violence, you have Masad. Masad will do anything. Masad has no qualms doing what it takes to ensure the survival of every Israeli citizen around the world. Most other countries will stop at some point, but Masad doesn't do that.”
2022-08-08 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #310 – Andrew Bustamante: CIA Spy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source