One of the first investors of Facebook was In-Q-Tel, the VC arm of the CIA. Let that sink in for a moment. For me the hardest thing about this is getting over the shock that the CIA has a VC investment division.
It's sad that so many of The Onion's attempts at over-the-top parody have turned out to be prescient.
A VC arm that's part of the government seems like a monstrous hybrid of private and public. What is the profit for? For the same reason that it gives one pause regarding what the CIA is doing investing in social media. If it's totally OK, why not have the government invest in private prison companies?
Let alone how SV was in large part funded and formed by Military Contracts