In April 2022, the CIA decided to swipe right on Nand Mulchandani, appointing him as its first ever Chief Technology Officer. This is a good look for the CIA. Mulchandani, who previously served as CTO and acting director of the Defense Department's Joint Artificial Intelligence Center, is a rare breed in Washington. Before becoming a government employee, he founded and became CEO of a string of Bay Area outfits with almost laughable Silicon Valley names: Oblix, Determina, OpenDNS, and ScaleXtreme, each of which was acquired by a tech titan (Oracle, VMWare, Cisco, and Citrix, respectively).
Mulchandani will soon be surrounded by fellow founders and technologists as the Trump Administration steps into Washington with powerful advisers like Elon Musk.
We recently spoke with Mulchandani about that change and its possible effects – and whether he hopes to be a part of it. It's a lingering question given that Mulchandani was not the president's pick and his boss, CIA Director William Burns, is stepping down, to be replaced by John Ratcliffe, a former congressman from Texas who became President-elect Trump. who was director of national intelligence in Trump's first term.
The following has been edited for length.
What conversations are happening now before the Trump administration comes in?
The big picture is that no one thinks there is a big change coming in terms of technology and China. When Director Burns joined, his focus and redirection and emphasis for this agency was basically on great power competition. The way we like to talk about it is obviously, kinetic wars [i.e. conventional combat] and things happen in the world all the time. But the next generation of competition is an economic competition and at its heart is a technological competition. So the way he sets the strategic priorities for the agency is basically focused on China and, again, this pivot toward technology. So launching [two new mission centers in 2021, one focused on China and another dedicated to transnational and technological threats] and then the creation of the CTO role was the major organizational changes he made. And in all honesty … those will likely remain a priority for whatever administration comes in….
Obviously, we hear a lot about DOGE and Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy's plans to shrink – or at least offer their suggestions on how to shrink – the size of government. Has anyone from Musk's camp talked to anyone at the CIA? Jared Birchall, the head of Musk's family office, is reported to be talking, for example, to State Department candidates.
I can't speak about specific presidential transitions happening across the government. What I can talk about – although this is not a comment on DOGE itself but one of the main themes we are pushing – is the technology enablement of government and government processes. . . and using AI and other pieces to bring precision and scale to our activities. So I can't comment specifically on what they are trying to achieve. Does it cost? Is it deploying tech at scale? Our focus is kind of all of the above. . . . I mean, it's crazy not to actually focus on that in a big way, and we're focusing on that as well.
With any transition, you have people coming in trying to assess what they should prioritize. At the CIA, what would you say these priorities should be?
There are evergreen problems that are there forever. One is our focus on data insights, and I know this sounds like buzzword bingo, but specifically AI – the deployment of that [the right way should be a priority]. If we had a whiteboard, what I would draw for you is the funnel of data that is out there in the world and growing. As an intelligence agency, we are very hungry for data, be it human intelligence collection, electronic, geo . . . That is the core of an intelligence service. The problem is that the funnel and the scope and size and scale of the data there is growing every day, and you'll always find more data to vacuum up and take away – some good, some rubbish. As that funnel continues to grow, we need to constantly retool our infrastructure and systems and applications . . .
Number two [ties to] the growing defense tech sector and the idea of disruptive Silicon Valley companies that now lean into military technology and lean into national security and bring us products and services. That trend is an important one for us to continue to support.
Another big one [related] The initiatives we are running and scaling up are: how do we dramatically lower the bar on onboarding commercial tech? That's what we call the inbound arc. The other side of it is, how do we project our requirements? So as a spy agency, as an intelligence agency, we're not culturally focused on talking externally about our problems and problem sets and initiatives and strategic things; traditionally we are very quiet or very cagey about this kind of stuff. Obviously we have to keep our work classified, but we have another initiative that we're going to start in the next month or so where we're going to have direct conversations with investors, VCs and startups. [about these needs] . . . as opposed to a tactical focus on just acquisition or capture or other pieces.
Speaking of VCs, what do you think on a personal level about people like Marc Andreessen advising President-elect Trump taking over? Obviously, he is a very talented person, but sometimes skill sets are not transferable to other industries.
I'd say that's out of my pay grade. I mean, I know a lot of these people, and they're obviously very smart. I'll give you my personal experience – and obviously I can't directly advise the President on non-technology matters. But what happens is as a former CEO, as an entrepreneur, the thing that I often talk about in the agency at our leadership level is business models. My CS degree hopefully qualifies me to speak [technology]. The other area of experience that I bring to the table is running these businesses and making business decisions, and I feel like that experience and that perspective is incredibly valuable in Washington. I feel sometimes that in government, we don't often talk about business models and how to actually run things efficiently, how to scale them, how technology is disrupting business models , how it can enable new business models. Many of the projects I've brought in or been involved in, I'm always trying to open up: how is our business model changing at the CIA? As a human intelligence organization in the world of tech, in the world of AI, in the world of great power competition, in the world of hard-to-target areas for us to continue to operate our business, what does the business model look like of the CIA five, 10, 20 years from now, and how is it changing?
You are not a political appointee. Would you want to stay if that was an option or are you ready to move back to Silicon Valley? I know you've been traveling between coasts for the past five years.
That's the discussion I have with my wife and kids almost every day. I'm actually in the East Bay [of San Francisco] now, where we live. My husband got his career. Our children are fine. We have close relatives. So almost every week I commute to Washington or some other place where the agency, and the DOD [before this]sent me or needed me And I have to be honest with you, the mileage is showing now. . .
The broader issue that I think is still a concern is that there aren't enough people in the Valley in DC, and that's something I'm personally concerned about. When I look around in DC, I can literally count on one hand the number of people in positions like mine, meaning [they have] deep roots in the Valley. This is a big commitment, especially for people with children and families.
Do you see a day when the CIA creates a second hub on the West Coast?
Right now, we're well-settled in our headquarters [in Langley, Virginia]. But if they really bring some fresh thinking to this administration, and they want more tech people involved, who knows?
