Excellent Business 2.0 article about SAIC (Science Applications International Corp) is the largest privately-held IT company in the country. 2002 revenues were $6.1 billion. In 1996 it purchased Network Solutions for $4.6 million, and sold it for $3.1 billion. Company is run by q "mild-mannered, slightly eccentric, 78-year-old nuclear physicist named J. Robert 'Bob' Beyster."
About a third of SAIC's business is systems integration for other companies, such as Pfizer (PFE) and BP (BP), but its heart and soul is spy tech. Intelligence agencies don't list or rank their contractors. Intelligence sources, however, say SAIC was the NSA's top supplier last year and in the top five at the CIA. In addition to the high-powered data-mining software that helped nail Mohammed, SAIC makes undersea thermal imaging sensors for tracking submarines. It produces software that spy satellites use to map the earth and feed target data to precision munitions, including those that have been pounding Iraq. It's also a leader in the booming homeland security business: It builds gear that uses gamma rays to peer inside cargo containers and truck trailers.
Adding to SAIC's covert aura, Beyster has hired an unusual number of former spies, law enforcement chiefs, and secret warriors. Some 5,000 employees — roughly one-seventh of the workforce — have security clearances. Beyster himself has one of the highest arrays of top-secret clearances of any civilian in the country. "We are a stealth company," says Keith Nightingale, a former Army special ops officer. "We're everywhere, but almost never seen."
