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Michelle Flournoy

Managing Partner, WestExec Advisors · 1 appearance on the record.

computed by AI from the episodes · how this works → · full disclaimer →

founderexecutivepoliticiananalyst@micheleflournoy ↗westexec.com ↗Wikipedia ↗

She served as U.S. Under Secretary of Defense for Policy from 2009 to 2012 under President Barack Obama. She also co-founded CNAS and WestExec Advisors, and serves on the boards of Booz Allen Hamilton and the Council on Foreign Relations.

13statements → 6claims → 3claims resolved → 33%fully supported → 3.77/5average certainty → 2.62/5average debate potential →

1 supported 2 partly supported 0 contradicted 3 not checkable as stated how the 6 claims stand · each chip opens the sources

2 predictions · 4 assertions · 3 opinions · 4 insights · every statement was checked. The predictions and assertions are the 6 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 3 are resolved, and 3 name no date, number or outcome precise enough to check. Everything else (opinions, insights, what ifs, disclosures) can never be settled by the record, so it carries no assessment.

The record, in short

What the tape says about how Michelle argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.

Their most notable supported claim

Assertion Supported
Flournoy: US intelligence community agrees Russia directed WikiLeaks releases
“It's pretty accepted now from the intelligence community community that these leaks were directed by Russia.”
Michelle Flournoy Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 5:27 a16z Podcast | What's Next for Technology and National Security?

Expressed certainty vs assessment result

none yet certainty 1
none yet certainty 2
100% certainty 3
50% certainty 4
none yet certainty 5

weighted support: a fully supported claim counts one, a partly supported claim counts half. Each filled bar is clickable and opens exactly those claims; "none yet" means nothing said at that certainty level has resolved yet

How they sound: speaking style how? →

216 words/min while actually speaking · 6.3 um and uh per 1k words

No argument clarity score for Michelle Flournoy: no usable question→answer exchanges on raw tape (a fair score needs 8+). We do not score a sample that small. Roundtable and news formats yield far fewer direct exchanges than interviews.

Measured by listening to the audio itself: 2,529 words across 1 episode of raw-level tape, transcribed verbatim with every um and uh kept, each one attributed only where the alignment onto our timed stream is unambiguous. These are measurements of speaking style. We do not rank them: across this corpus, fluency and argument quality are nearly uncorrelated (ρ≈0.2), and smooth talking does not signal clear thinking. How it's measured →

Everything Michelle Flournoy said on the a16z Podcast that made the record, most notable first. Filter by type, assessment or year in the ledger →

Assertion Supported
Flournoy: US intelligence community agrees Russia directed WikiLeaks releases
“It's pretty accepted now from the intelligence community community that these leaks were directed by Russia.”
Michelle Flournoy Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 5:27 a16z Podcast | What's Next for Technology and National Security?
Insight
Flournoy: Policymakers misapply nuclear deterrence models to cyber threats
“Most of the policy makers don't fully understand The technology in detail, and so they can, they're tempted to apply previous frameworks in a way that doesn't really fit, like they'll, so they'll hearken back to the nuclear domain and, you know, concepts of es…”
Michelle Flournoy Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 6:58 a16z Podcast | What's Next for Technology and National Security?
Assertion Partly supported
Flournoy: South Korea pays over half of US troop stationing costs
“Korea pays more than 50% of the cost of our troops there.”
Michelle Flournoy Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 14:19 a16z Podcast | What's Next for Technology and National Security?
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Flournoy: US ethical debates on AI military tech will be bypassed by adversaries
“I also think in this country, we are likely to have important ethical debates about things like fully autonomous military systems, or The use of genetic modification to create sort of superhuman capabilities and soldiers or what have you in a way that may be t…”
Michelle Flournoy Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 19:02 a16z Podcast | What's Next for Technology and National Security?
Opinion
Flournoy: A four-year defense budget deal is Congress's top security imperative
“I've come to believe that the most important thing the next Congress could do for U.S. National security is Is negotiate with the new administration at least a four-year budget deal that would create a predictable top line, that would end the threat of sequest…”
Michelle Flournoy Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 25:36 a16z Podcast | What's Next for Technology and National Security?
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Flournoy: U.S. risks losing military technological superiority within 10 to 15 years
“If we continue on that road, we will not Keep our military technological edge. The next 10 to 15 years is the critical period that will determine whether the US maintains that as an unbelievably valuable asset or whether we lose it in some areas.”
Michelle Flournoy Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 26:08 a16z Podcast | What's Next for Technology and National Security?
Assertion Partly supported
Flournoy: Stationing US troops in South Korea costs less than domestic housing
“It would be more expensive to bring them home and house them in the United States.”
Michelle Flournoy Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 14:23 a16z Podcast | What's Next for Technology and National Security?
Opinion
Flournoy: China is currently its own worst enemy in Asia
“I think China right now is its own worst enemy.”
Michelle Flournoy Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 14:49 a16z Podcast | What's Next for Technology and National Security?
Insight
Flournoy: Procuring IT like fighter jets guarantees technical obsolescence before deployment
“We cannot try to procure IT-driven solutions the way we procure aircraft carriers or fifth-generation fighter jets. It just doesn't work. It's a recipe for being obsolete before you even fully feel the capability.”
Michelle Flournoy Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 24:12 a16z Podcast | What's Next for Technology and National Security?
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Flournoy: Every US president since WWII faced a crisis in year one
“And if you look historically, every single presidency since World War II, something, some major policy crisis has happened in the first Six to 12 months of administration, usually unpredicted, not the thing you expected.”
Michelle Flournoy Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 4:23 a16z Podcast | What's Next for Technology and National Security?
Insight
Flournoy: Policy frameworks have lagged far behind cyber technology
“In my view, the policy and concept development side of the conversation has not kept pace with the technology and what we're actually experiencing in terms of cyber activity, and so we really don't have a conceptual frame for thinking about how to respond.”
Michelle Flournoy Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 6:39 a16z Podcast | What's Next for Technology and National Security?
Opinion
Flournoy: U.S. military edge requires partnership with the tech industry
“To me, this is probably one of the most important challenges we're going to have to deal with, and you can't do it Without some kind of partnership with the tech world.”
Michelle Flournoy Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 12:52 a16z Podcast | What's Next for Technology and National Security?
Insight
Flournoy: Military operators share a deep cultural affinity with tech entrepreneurs
“When you get to know operators, they're incredible entrepreneurs that have been trained up, But thrown into battlefield situations where it's like my training didn't tell me about that, and they are constantly problem solving and creating new things and using …”
Michelle Flournoy Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 28:45 a16z Podcast | What's Next for Technology and National Security?

Appearances (1)

EpisodeDateSpeaking time
a16z Podcast | What's Next for Technology and National Security? Jan 2, 2019 14m
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