Ready for Battle

Moving up the corporate ladder can be just as challenging. Briggs likes to rotate employees to increase accountability, but he doesn't promote anybody without subjecting that person to a grueling interrogation — usually in his office, where commemorative battle plaques decorate the walls and military books like Sun Tzu's The Art of War crowd the bookshelves. Loosely modeled on a military promotion hearing, AIT's staff reviews can also be intimidating. A three-officer panel (Briggs and two others) grills the candidate for as long as two hours on a range of questions, from the difference between a leader and a manager to the employee's current reading list. Challenged to defend themselves for major screw-ups, employees tend to sound like grunts on the spot in basic training, delivering succinct, no-nonsense replies like: "Approximately six hours after I performed said action, we were able to reverse it and mitigate downtime."

In many respects, of course, AIT isn't much different from countless other companies trying to weather the bursting of the tech bubble. The small collection of abstract modern art that adorns the lobby could have come straight from any corporate decorator's catalog. Most of the day-to-day conversations would sound more at home in the computer lab than an Army barracks. And like any serious start-up, the company focuses primarily on growth, not combat. AIT is looking into the possibility of providing security consulting services and vulnerability assessments to other companies as well as to the government. Who better to protect Uncle Sam, after all, than Clarence Briggs' battle-tested soldiers?