Gus Hunt, former chief technology officer at CIA, will join Artis Ventures’ board of advisors

From his office in Langley, VA, former Central Intelligence Agency chief technology officer Gus Hunt made some of the government’s most important technology decisions. The course he charted for the agency helped pave the way for CIA implementation of commercial technology on a massive scale. He now brings that same forward thinking to San Francisco-based venture capital firm ARTIS Ventures, where he was recently named as an advisor.

“At the CIA, I quickly learned that one of the best ways to identify emerging technologies was to watch the money. VCs are often the leading phalanx of where things are headed and that’s certainly been true of ARTIS Ventures over the last decade,” said Hunt. “Diversity is an important component of the ARTIS portfolio. Because they work across markets they’re consistently identifying efficiencies in one sector that can benefit another. That plurality of thinking is such an important part of effective decision making, and I’m excited to be a part of it.”

In his new role at ARTIS, Hunt will assist in identifying and analyzing new enterprise investment opportunities and work with its portfolio companies, who’ll benefit from his unique experience.

“It goes without saying, but Gus has decades of experience analyzing and making decisions regarding new technologies at the highest levels of government,” said Stuart Peterson, ARTIS’ president and founder. “He also maintains an infectiously insatiable curiosity when it comes to seeking out new technologies. That open-mindedness is core to our investment approach, which focuses on identifying the biggest ideas and secular themes within technology, and those companies best positioned to benefit, something Gus did at the CIA very successfully at the CIA for quite some time.”

Based on Hunt’s recommendation, the CIA made a $600 million, 10-year investment in Amazon’s AWS cloud computing platform in 2013 that set a bold path forward for the agency. It was one of the final projects he oversaw during a 28-year career that began at the CIA in 1985. Prior to joining the agency as an analyst, Gus spent seven years as an aerospace engineer designing advanced manned flight systems and satellite orbital transfer vehicles.

He holds an M.E. in engineering in civil/ structural engineering from Vanderbilt University

Founded in 2002, San Francisco-based ARTIS Ventures supports and partners with entrepreneurs who are driven to positively impact their world through disruptive technological innovation. Notable companies the firm has backed include YouTube, Nimble Storage, Practice Fusion, Aruba Networks, Quid, Omicia and Stem CentRx among many others.