"I Saved Steve Jobs" Inside His Secret DARPA Contract | Sharon Weinberger

Link to full episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJqsMBTAOXQ Get Sharon's newest book, Valley of Death: https://link.amazon/B01yk0SeF Get paid to clip the podcast. Free training, no experience needed. Join the Discord: https://discord.com/invite/dannyjones Steve Jobs had been pushed out of Apple and was trying to build a new computer company when government buyers became a crucial part of the business. Sharon Weinberger traces a story that began with a former DARPA director telling her about buying NeXT computers. His account suggested that a much larger intelligence contract had helped the struggling company survive. Following that lead took her from an obscure online post to people who had worked directly on the deal, including a former CIA official. Weinberger explains how a purchase initially described to her as an NSA contract led to the CIA's satellite program. She says interviews with people at NeXT and in the intelligence community helped establish the contract's importance. The business gained time, Jobs gained credibility as an entrepreneur, and the operating system he developed eventually became part of modern Apple products. She also describes why Jobs received a top-secret security clearance and how he came to give lectures at the CIA. The account complicates the familiar image of a counterculture founder working outside the government establishment. Danny Jones and Weinberger use that history to examine Silicon Valley's growing role in defense. Their conversation moves to Palantir and Alex Karp, including the political positions he has taken and the difference between building weapons for a government and pursuing a company's own political influence. Weinberger argues that private control of powerful technologies becomes more troubling when it combines with ambitions for political power. The Jobs story gives that debate a longer history: ties between the technology industry and national security agencies were already shaping major companies well before today's wave of defense startups. Subscribe to this channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQ_piSR8gm-TfHZcDWOJciA?sub_confirmation=1