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    Company Rules: Or Everything I Know About Business I Learned from the CIA
    Company Rules: Or Everything I Know About Business I Learned from the CIA
    Company Rules: Or Everything I Know About Business I Learned from the CIA
    Ebook66 pages56 minutes

    Company Rules: Or Everything I Know About Business I Learned from the CIA

    By Mike Baker

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    About this ebook

    How do the principles of global espionage apply to building and growing a business? In Company Rules, Or Everything I Know About Business I Learned From the CIA, Mike Baker shares the nine make-or-break tactics that he mastered during his tenure with the Central Intelligence Agency and details how he used them to succeed in the private sector. These exclusive rules, once only accessible to the intelligence community, are laid out step-by-step and can be put into practice on your own terms.

    Leaving behind a life of international intrigue, Baker took on a new venture when he met a “pipe-smoking British fraud investigator” by the name of Mike Comer who was launching an ambitious startup, Maxima, in London’s West End. While Baker didn’t know the first thing about fraud investigation at the time, he realized that he could use what he learned in his CIA training to help bring the startup to prominence. While at Maxima, Baker recognized that success in business is dependent upon information-gathering, and as he notes, “Whoever has the best intelligence…wins.” From the Company Rules like Know Your Risk Appetite and Immediately Admit Your Mistakes, to Define Your Mission and Identify and Resolve Threats, Baker demonstrates that the business world isn't as unlike the spy world as one might think.

    Baker lays out the nine Company Rules clearly and precisely, intermixing them with accounts of riveting adventures from his time in the private sector. The tactical rules can be applied to any start-up, growing, or established business. Company Rules, Or Everything I Know About Business I Learned from the CIA is full of valuable insight for entrepreneurs and managers alike who are seeking a structured method to build a foundation for success.

    Editor's Note

    Insightful and humorous…

    A former CIA operative lays out nine rules he learned while working for America’s human intelligence agency that helped him successfully launch his own business in this Scribd Original. “Company Rules” provides practical advice for entrepreneurs (spy skills not required but can come in handy) alongside insightful and humorous stories of Baker’s transition from the public to the private sector.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherEverand Originals
    Release dateJan 18, 2023
    ISBN9781094453941
    Author

    Mike Baker

    During a career spanning nearly two decades as an operations officer for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Mike Baker specialized in counterterrorism, counternarcotics, and counterinsurgency operations. He engaged in, organized, and supervised operations around the globe, working in Asia, the Middle East, Latin America, Africa, Europe, the former Soviet Union, and elsewhere. He was recognized professionally for outstanding performance and for operational achievements in hostile environments. After leaving government service, Baker cofounded Diligence LLC, a global intelligence, investigations, risk management, and security firm that grew during the following decade and a half into one of the acknowledged industry leaders. As a principal partner, he led the company as it expanded around the world, opening offices in London, New York, Washington, DC, Moscow, São Paulo, Brussels, and Geneva. Along with other senior partners, Baker established the company’s security operations in Iraq, building a team of over 300 expat and local personnel involved in security and information collection. Following a successful management buyout in late 2020 of the Diligence USA LLC business, Baker merged the company’s operations into the crisis communications and policy firm Portman Square Group (PSG.) While the name has changed, the company boasts the same outstanding staff and commitment to providing the best in investigative support, due diligence, strategic intelligence collection, and risk mitigation services. PSG maintains offices in New York City, Washington, DC, Chicago, Boise, Phoenix, Monterrey, Mexico, and London. PSG provides support to a wide range of Fortune 50 companies, financial institutions, leading law firms, and high-net-wealth individuals around the globe. Baker’s investors and advisers over the years have included William H. Webster, the former director of both the CIA and the FBI; Haley Barbour, the former governor of Mississippi and former head of the Republican National Committee; and Edward Mathias, senior adviser to the Carlyle Group. Baker is a regular contributor to the national and international media on intelligence, security, counterterrorist issues, geopolitical affairs, and cybersecurity, appearing regularly on networks including CNN, Fox News, Sky, and the BBC, as well as appearing frequently on Joe Rogan’s podcast. In addition, Baker is the host of the Discovery’s popular television series Black Files Declassified, now entering its third season.

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    Reviews for Company Rules

    4.5/5

    14 ratings2 reviews

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    • 5/5
      I'm only half way through and my mind is already racing with ideas on how to apply to my own business--which is my personal mark of a great book. I'm looking for this in print so I can take notes, underline, and scribble ideas...
    • 4/5
      the book is a good read and the information that Mike shares is very relevant and offers real life examples. This was particularly useful. the information was organized well, clear, and easy to follow.

      one particular phrase that he used towards the end of the book is that, ' information is perishable ' this is very true not only in business, but in all aspects of life.

      1 person found this helpful

    Book preview

    Company Rules - Mike Baker

    Introduction

    The very first day of my training with the CIA directorate of operations was spent inside a windowless classroom in a nondescript office building located in a completely forgettable suburban office park.

    Needless to say, this was a letdown.

    It wasn’t even a flashy, high-tech classroom — no array of monitors with real-time feeds from around the world, no wall maps with blinking lights indicating major crises or operational hot spots, not even the random spy gadget or two sitting on a bookshelf.

    I was expecting a secret lair. Instead, I got what reminded me of my old high school classroom: metal tables, uncomfortable chairs, stale air, and stern-faced individuals wearing comfortable shoes silently distributing handouts.

    While I hadn’t confirmed my expectations with anyone in the Agency, I had arrived that morning fairly certain that my first day on the job would involve blowing something up, possibly followed by a lesson in seducing attractive, slightly mysterious foreign women.

    As it turns out, I was somewhat mistaken.

    My training program classmates and I spent the next several weeks in the classroom learning the basics of how the CIA was created, the structure of the organization, and its purpose in life — a great deal of book learning and absolutely no explosions.

    While I didn’t realize it at the time, particularly given my lack of appreciation for wiring diagrams and academic pursuits in general, this classroom experience was playing a critical role in our early development as CIA operations officers.

    The class itself was an interesting mix of characters: mostly young recent college graduates with a few former military veterans and a handful of older types in their late twenties who brought a modicum of real-life experience to the table. Almost all of us had spent significant portions of our lives overseas, spoke a variety of languages and, in our minds, were above average in intelligence, athleticism, and wit. Looking back on it now, we must have been an incredibly irritating and pompous group.

    Regardless of how clever we thought we were upon arrival, those first several weeks in the classroom served to show us just how little we knew about our new employer and what was expected of us as the future intelligence officers on the front lines around the globe.

    The first job of our patient and dedicated instructors was to make sure that each of us clearly understood the CIA’s mission. All the other training could wait.

    Section Break

    The Central Intelligence Agency is also known throughout the spy community as the Company. Born out of World War II and its predecessor, the Office of Strategic Services, the Company carries out vital intelligence-gathering activities and covert operations across the globe, often in difficult and hostile environments.

    The Company relies on a variety of resources to carry out its mission, none more important than the clandestine case officers, spies in the classic sense. This small army of intelligence officers uses sophisticated and creative tradecraft and technology to protect and advance American national security interests.

    The training program for case officers is the most advanced in the world. It’s an exhaustive and demanding curriculum covering the recruitment of human sources, covert communications, surveillance and countersurveillance, operating in alias, and a variety of other skills necessary to perform the job effectively, safely, and securely. The skills we learned during that lengthy training program were critical to our future success.

    But just as critical were some of the principles that we were taught. While I suspect that every person who has had the honor of working for the Agency would likely compile their own unique key takeaways from life within the CIA, these are mine. These are what I view as the most important of the many lessons learned. These are the company rules that I believe are instilled in CIA personnel from the outset and reinforced throughout an officer’s career. These rules help to guide an officer’s decision making, which helps them adapt to changing environments, assess and evaluate risk, and maximize efficiency, as well as survive and thrive in difficult and often hostile situations.

    And as I found out when I finally left the Agency, these rules aren’t just for the Company. I was surprised to discover that they are transferable and just as valuable, applicable, and beneficial in the outside commercial world — and in daily life — as they are in the world of espionage.

    The rules essential to running a successful spy operation are the same principles and guidelines that I’ve used in building a successful global intelligence and risk mitigation business over the past two decades. Because at the end of the day, the two worlds — the spy world and the business world —

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