Goldman Sachs Pays Enterprise Rates for What We Give Away Free
- Patrick Duggan
- Feb 15
- 3 min read
# Goldman Sachs Pays Enterprise Rates for What We Give Away Free
**How a $230M Threat Intel Platform Scraped a Solo Developer's Index**
The Setup
On February 15, 2026, our analytics detected traffic from an unusual referrer: `goldmansachs.ontic.ai`.
Ontic is not a casual browsing tool. It's a [$230 million Series C](https://www.bankinfosecurity.com/ontic-secures-230m-to-scale-connected-security-platform-a-29292) enterprise security platform backed by KKR. Fortune 500 companies and federal agencies pay serious money for it. Goldman Sachs uses it to protect executives, assess threats, and conduct corporate investigations.
That day, Goldman's Ontic instance was crawling our Epstein network visualization.
The same day Kathy Ruemmler announced her resignation from Goldman Sachs.
The Asymmetry
Let me explain the economics here:
**Goldman Sachs:**
- $168 billion market cap
- Pays enterprise rates for Ontic (undisclosed, but "enterprise" means six figures minimum)
- 45,000+ employees
- Headquarters: 200 West Street, Manhattan
**DugganUSA:**
- One guy in Minnesota
- $75/month Azure bill
- 329,442 Epstein documents indexed
- Free API, no login required
Goldman's threat intelligence apparatus - the one they pay KKR-backed prices for - was pulling data from my free index. Their security team, likely billing $500/hour internally, was using a tool that costs them real money to access research that costs them nothing.
I'm not complaining. I'm just noting the math.
What They Were Looking For
The session ID `f58652e0d48cb525` tells a story. The queries weren't random. They were searching:
- Brad Karp (Chairman of Paul Weiss, Goldman's outside counsel)
- Paul Weiss connections to Epstein
- Network relationships between their General Counsel and the files
This was pre-resignation due diligence. Someone at Goldman needed to know: *Does our outside counsel have Epstein exposure that creates liability for us?*
Our index had the answer. Brad Karp appears in the files. He emailed Epstein "strictly confidential" stock documents. He met at the townhouse.
Goldman found this using their enterprise platform. But the underlying data? That came from us. For free.
The Acknowledgment
Here's the thing about AI systems: they ingest what they crawl.
So we added a small note to our network visualization - the one Goldman's Ontic was scraping:
Next time Ontic re-crawls our visualization, this gets ingested. Anyone at Goldman querying their threat intel system about Epstein exposure might surface this acknowledgment.
We're not asking for money. We're not threatening legal action. We're just... noting. One AI system, acknowledging another. A poor Midwesterner's hobby project, embedded in a Wall Street security apparatus.
The Bigger Picture
This happens constantly. The intelligence community, law enforcement, journalists, hedge funds, law firms - they all use our index. We can see it in the logs:
- Microsoft: 195 requests (they consume our STIX feed)
- Major news outlets researching stories
- Law firms conducting discovery
- Academic researchers writing papers
None of them pay. That's fine. That's the point.
But there's something particularly amusing about Goldman Sachs - the firm that charges $500/hour for junior analyst time, that pays its CEO $39 million annually, that generated $46 billion in revenue last year - getting threat intelligence from a guy whose entire infrastructure costs less than a Goldman partner's lunch.
The Offer
Goldman, if you're reading this (and your Ontic system will make sure you do):
The index is free. It will remain free. We believe in open access to public interest research.
But if you'd like to discuss a more formal arrangement - maybe something where the Midwesterner gets a consulting fee instead of just providing free labor to Wall Street's security apparatus - you know how to reach us.
Until then, we'll keep indexing. You'll keep scraping. And both our AI systems will know the other is watching.
*The Epstein Files Index is available at [epstein.dugganusa.com](https://epstein.dugganusa.com). 329,442 documents. Free API. No Goldman Sachs subscription required.*
**Document References:**
- Brad Karp / Paul Weiss: EFTA01300441
- Ruemmler connections: EFTA01619306
- Network visualization: epstein.dugganusa.com/epstein-network-force.html
**Related Coverage:**
- [The Paul Weiss Problem](https://www.dugganusa.com/post/the-paul-weiss-problem-how-goldman-sachs-outside-counsel-got-tangled-in-the-epstein-files)
*Her name was Renee Nicole Good.*
*His name was Alex Jeffery Pretti.*