Fireside Chat w/Eoin Hinchy, Founder @ Tines

[00:00:00] Hello and welcome to our weekly fireside chat. [00:00:06] This is the replay and you got here right on time. [00:00:10] So thanks for joining and thanks for being a member of our community. [00:00:15] Hope you enjoy the rest of the show. [00:00:18] Hey, hey, if you're just joining us, we will get started in a few minutes. [00:00:48] Oh, here we go. Let's get you up on stage. [00:01:09] Hey, quick microphone check for you. [00:01:14] If you're trying to figure it out, there's a little microphone icon on the bottom right hand side of your screen. [00:01:24] Should be able to click that and unmute yourself. [00:01:35] Good evening, Jeff. Thanks for joining us. [00:01:37] We'll get started in a minute. We'll just get the room set up. [00:01:42] We'll get started shortly. [00:01:52] What is it I'm looking forward to that? [00:01:55] Here we go topics. [00:01:57] All right. [00:02:14] Thanks for joining. We'll get started in a few minutes. [00:02:17] Hope everybody's having a good week so far. [00:02:23] What is this? [00:02:40] What is this? [00:02:45] What is this? [00:02:49] I need a microphone check for you. [00:03:06] I feel like I'm going to butcher your first name. [00:03:10] Is it Ewing? [00:03:11] Ewing? [00:03:13] Just need a microphone check from you. [00:03:15] So if you're having trouble with your microphone, [00:03:17] there's a little icon on your app on the bottom right-hand side of your screen. [00:03:23] You should be able to press that, and it will allow you to unmute yourself. [00:03:31] Okay, sounds good. [00:03:33] I will give you a second. [00:03:39] So while we wait for folks, let me just finish doing some logistics. [00:03:44] I will be right back. [00:03:47] All right. [00:03:53] Hey, Tomas, can you hear me? [00:04:13] Hey, there you go. [00:04:14] Loud and clear. [00:04:15] Loud and clear. [00:04:16] Hey, man, it's Owen. [00:04:17] How are you? [00:04:18] Owen, there we go. [00:04:19] I feel like I was butchering your name, man. [00:04:22] And my apologies. [00:04:23] You would not be the first and you certainly won't be the last. [00:04:27] All right. [00:04:28] Thanks for joining us this evening. [00:04:31] And it's good to see your icon and hear your voice. [00:04:36] I know you're joining us from, are you in Ireland or you're on the stateside? [00:04:41] Correct. [00:04:42] Yeah, I'm here in Dublin in Ireland. [00:04:44] And we've had insane thunderstorms and lightning strikes all day. [00:04:50] So it's at that kind of like point of the day where things have just started to calm down a little bit. [00:04:57] Things are still. [00:04:58] It's true calmness after the storm. [00:05:00] Well, look, I know it's 1 a.m. for you over there in Dublin. [00:05:04] So I absolutely appreciate you taking the time to spend with us, you know, 1 o'clock in the morning, your time. [00:05:14] So I know it's not time friendly, but your journey and what you're doing is important for our audience. [00:05:22] So thank you. [00:05:24] Thank you for spending your time with us. [00:05:27] I'm just going to do some quick logistics and then we will get started. [00:05:31] While I do that, I'll let some of the moderators get themselves situated. [00:05:35] So this is our weekly fireside chat. [00:05:38] I do see some, a couple of new folks in the audience. [00:05:41] You got the little celebration hat, a little party hat. [00:05:43] That means you just joined Clubhouse within the past week. [00:05:45] So welcome to Clubhouse. [00:05:48] This is our, as I said, this is our weekly fireside chat. [00:05:52] I'm just trying to mute you on real quick because I'm getting a bit of feedback. [00:05:58] Look, this is middle of the week. [00:05:59] We do this every single Wednesday for about an hour and a half or so. [00:06:03] We will ask our guests questions for about 30 to 45 minutes of that hour and a half. [00:06:07] And then we'll open up for the audience to raise your hand and we'll bring you up on stage and you can interact with our guests and add to the conversation. [00:06:14] We do appreciate everybody joining in on the conversation. [00:06:18] So feel free to not be shy. [00:06:20] If you do want to put something in the chat, feel free to put it in the chat. [00:06:23] And if you can't come up and speak and we will read off the question or the comment that you have to make. [00:06:28] Our comments, for the most part, are our own and do not represent our current or prior employer for at least the majority of us. [00:06:35] So please keep that in mind as you look to either quotas or, you know, playback what we may have said on our conversation this evening. [00:06:46] Just keep that in mind. [00:06:48] The other thing I will say is let's have a good time. [00:06:50] It is the middle of the week. [00:06:52] Octavia, I'm just going to mute you real quick. [00:06:54] Just getting some feedback. [00:06:55] Okay, there we go. [00:06:57] It is the middle of the week. [00:06:58] So let's have a good time. [00:06:58] This is really a time period for us to let our hair down, if you will. [00:07:03] I'm losing some of mine, so I need to not let too much of it down. [00:07:08] But it is that sort of opportunity for us to really get to know our guests. [00:07:13] So if you are a vendor in the audience and you do want to jump up on stage and sell us on your product, you know the disclaimer if you've been here before. [00:07:19] Please don't do that today. [00:07:21] Really, let's use this opportunity to get to know Owen a little bit better, get to know him, his journey, what got him to where he is today, what inspired him, what motivated him, and all that jazz in between. [00:07:31] So let's really use that as an opportunity to really get to know him as a person because I think we grow more once we know a little bit more about the individual and we start to appreciate their challenges and their struggles. [00:07:43] So with that said, I'm just going to go around the room, Owen. [00:07:47] I'll leave you for last. [00:07:48] I'm Tomas Maldonado. [00:07:49] I'm the CISO at the NFL. [00:07:51] Katie, over to you. [00:07:53] Hi, good evening. [00:07:54] It's nice to meet you and see everybody today. [00:07:59] My name is Katie Hanahan. [00:08:00] I am a VP of Cybersecurity Strategy for a boutique SI out of Chicago. [00:08:05] I'm also, I lead our VCISO program, so serve as a CISO myself. [00:08:10] Octavia, over to you. [00:08:14] Thanks, Katie. [00:08:14] I'm Octavia Howell. [00:08:16] I am the CISO for Equifax. [00:08:18] Hey, Octavia. [00:08:19] Maybe it's just me, but your voice is sounding kind of faint. [00:08:27] Can you hear me now? [00:08:30] It sounds very low, Octavia. [00:08:32] All right. [00:08:35] Vijay, why don't you introduce yourself and we'll give Octavia a minute to maybe adjust [00:08:41] to mic. [00:08:42] All right. [00:08:42] Hey. [00:08:44] Good afternoon. [00:08:45] Good evening, everybody. [00:08:46] Vijay Balak here. [00:08:47] CISO of the Asset Management Division at Global Tax. [00:08:51] Over to you, Tomas. [00:08:51] Right. [00:08:52] Right. [00:08:53] We'll give Octavia a minute to rejoin. [00:08:55] And I did see Anil pop in. [00:08:57] I think I saw Anil pop in. [00:08:59] So I'm sure they'll rejoin after having some microphone issues. [00:09:04] But Owen, we're, you know, I will. [00:09:06] Why am I struggling this morning this evening? [00:09:10] I don't know why. [00:09:10] It's not morning for me, Owen. [00:09:12] It's 1 a.m. for you. [00:09:13] But there's Octavia. [00:09:15] Octavia, a quick microphone check for you. [00:09:19] Oh, no. [00:09:20] You sound like you're, like, really, really far away. [00:09:27] All right. [00:09:31] All right. [00:09:31] All right, we'll come back to you, Octavia. [00:09:39] Hopefully, we'll get it sorted out. [00:09:43] But for those who don't know, Octavia Howell is the CISO of Equifax Canada, and her opinions [00:09:53] and comments are not representative of her employer. [00:09:56] So please keep that in mind, as stated in the early opening caveats. [00:10:01] So, Owen, why don't you take a moment and introduce yourself to us, to our guests and to the moderators [00:10:09] on stage. [00:10:10] And while you're going through your introduction, feel free to take as much time as you want [00:10:13] as you go through your introduction. [00:10:15] Why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself and your origin story? [00:10:20] Yeah, absolutely, of course. [00:10:21] And no need to apologize for having me on this call at 1 a.m. local time. [00:10:27] I tend to do crazy hours. [00:10:29] I start late and I work late. [00:10:33] So this is kind of like a relatively normal time for me to be on the phone. [00:10:38] So my name is Owen Hinchy. [00:10:40] I am the founder and CEO of a cybersecurity startup called Tynes. [00:10:45] We're about four years old. [00:10:46] I founded the company in February 2018. [00:10:49] I listened to a bunch of your previous sessions over the course of the last 48 hours or so. [00:10:56] And unlike a lot of the entrepreneurs that have featured on the show, I don't have that [00:11:03] typical entrepreneurial journey where I had lemonade stands and mowed people's lawns and [00:11:09] so on. [00:11:09] I actually spent about 15 years before founding Tynes as a cybersecurity practitioner. [00:11:15] So my college by electrical engineering and software engineering. [00:11:20] And then I did a master's degree in security and forensics computers. [00:11:25] So learning everything from like low level network protocols, Diffie-Hellman, asymmetric and symmetric [00:11:33] encryption, application security from a very academic sense and reading white papers like [00:11:38] smashing the stack for fun and profit. [00:11:40] If you guys are familiar with those type of papers. [00:11:43] I also did an MBA then in Imperial College in London. [00:11:46] But my career is primarily in fairly technical roles. [00:11:52] It's like incident response, security operations, threat hunting, threat management, app sec, bull [00:11:58] management, those type of roles at companies like eBay, PayPal and DocuSign. [00:12:05] In about 2017, I was helping to run cybersecurity at DocuSign. [00:12:13] And I had a fairly large team of people. [00:12:17] And I was responsible for things like our security engineering program, our fraud and misuse teams, [00:12:25] our threat intelligence folks and so on. [00:12:29] And my team were incredibly talented people, well motivated, well compensated and knew their [00:12:35] jobs inside out. [00:12:36] And as that company was growing and frankly as my team's ability to get better at detecting malicious [00:12:45] behavior across our environments where deployment of the latest and greatest technologies or just, [00:12:52] you know, just turning on more logging sources. [00:12:55] The amount of ops work on my team's plate was also increasing really, really quickly. [00:12:59] And by ops work, I mean those classic cybersecurity operational tasks like running down reported [00:13:08] phishing emails and responding to EDR alerts and updating trouble tickets and getting machines [00:13:14] re-imaged and making sure that infrastructure we were spinning up in our DevOps environments [00:13:19] and so on was in compliance. [00:13:20] And we just marked it. [00:13:22] We found that about 80% of my team's time was spent doing something that they'd already [00:13:28] done that day. [00:13:29] So we had deployed probably about 50 different security tools, everything from SIM to firewalls [00:13:36] to email gateways and so on and so forth. [00:13:39] And so when these alerts would come in, my team would spend a bunch of time investigating [00:13:43] them, hopping between tools until eventually being able to say, you know, this alert is a false [00:13:48] positive, this one is threat and we need to perform some sort of remediation. [00:13:53] And as you guys know, having a team that's just completely overwhelmed with alerts and manual [00:14:01] work is just not a fun place to be. [00:14:04] My team was getting burned out. [00:14:06] We were introducing human error into our operations. [00:14:09] People were unhappy and we just really couldn't scale. [00:14:13] This, you know, this whole problem of repetitive manual tasks is also frankly the reason we [00:14:17] invented computers, right? [00:14:19] And we invented computers so people could offload the mundane, monotonous, but important work and [00:14:27] allow them to focus on harder, more creative, more interesting challenges. [00:14:32] And so my challenge was that my team were cybersecurity practitioners and not software engineers. [00:14:39] You know, they, one or two of them probably could have written a bit of Python or a bit of [00:14:43] bash here or there to glue a few tools together, but we didn't want what amounted to essentially [00:14:50] the company's most mission critical processes hanging off these scripts that were hard to [00:14:56] manage, couldn't scale, weren't secured, were deployed in ad hoc ways, weren't doing dependency [00:15:01] management correctly. [00:15:02] And frankly, were written by amateurs. [00:15:04] And so in 2017, we started, we started looking for tools that we could buy commercial tools [00:15:12] off the shelf that would allow my team automate the repetitive manual tasks without having to [00:15:18] write code, without having to be software engineers. [00:15:21] And over the course of about six months, we baked off about a dozen different platforms, [00:15:27] everything from, you know, products that were going to cost us six figures from big box [00:15:32] shops, right through to consumer products, like, like if this, then that, and Zapier and those [00:15:38] type of products. [00:15:40] And long story short, we hated every single one of them, right? [00:15:44] None of them came close to meeting our requirements. [00:15:47] They were all great in ways, but they didn't come close to meeting our requirements. [00:15:51] What we wanted was a product that would allow our team automate any workflow, regardless of [00:15:56] the complexity, would be agnostic to our stack, and that we could fundamentally rely on for [00:16:03] these critical processes. [00:16:05] And so having looked at all these products and not seeing what we required, I got really, [00:16:11] really frustrated. [00:16:12] And I said, you know what, I just, I'm just going to go do this myself. [00:16:15] I'm just going to go build the product that I wished had been available for my cybersecurity [00:16:19] team. [00:16:20] And so in 2018, I left my job as senior director of security operations at DocuSign and founded [00:16:26] Tynes as a first time entrepreneur who never had any grand ambitions of starting a company. [00:16:33] But we, or I, I should say, really just set about solving my own problems, those problems [00:16:39] that I had experienced as a security practitioner and building a product to solve them in what I [00:16:46] hoped would be a unique way. [00:16:47] And that was, that's about four and a half years ago now. [00:16:51] Skip forward to where we are today. [00:16:53] We're about 160 people worldwide. [00:16:56] We've got offices here in Dublin, Boston, San Francisco, and we just opened an office in [00:17:01] Sydney, in APAC. [00:17:03] We have customers, everything from Fortune 5s to public and private SaaS companies to tiny, [00:17:12] tiny 50 people startups and everything in between. [00:17:14] And we also have had about 10,000 or so companies use the free version of our product to automate [00:17:22] their workflows. [00:17:24] But I like to think that we've still maintained that initial practitioner's approach to these [00:17:32] problems. [00:17:32] We're still trying to solve the problems of too much work and not enough staff in a very cybersecurity [00:17:40] practitioner type of way. [00:17:42] So sorry, I rambled a little bit there, but hopefully that gives you a little bit of a picture [00:17:45] of me and the company. [00:17:46] It gives us a picture. [00:17:52] I'll pass it over to Katie to continue the conversation. [00:17:55] Katie Robbert Yeah, you know, I love that. [00:17:58] I love that. [00:17:58] You know, we hear a lot about, you know, we're almost, I would say inundated. [00:18:04] Sometimes it's a great thing though. [00:18:05] Inundated with amazing technology and solutions to solve for a number of the challenges that [00:18:12] we have as cybersecurity practitioners. [00:18:15] I love that you were a practitioner for a significant amount of time before and that you did the [00:18:21] bake-off process. [00:18:22] I think that's great. [00:18:23] And then you're just like, you know what, I'm going to go build it myself. [00:18:26] I think that, you know, that, you know, partnering with the fact that you're actually trying to [00:18:31] solve for something that we talk about all the time, I find that really compelling. [00:18:34] I'm always interested though, if somebody, because there are a lot of people that might [00:18:37] do a bake-off and then go back to their executive team and say, hey, listen, the market [00:18:41] does, there's nothing out there to solve for this problem. [00:18:43] This is how we're going to have to do it. [00:18:45] We're going to write these scripts. [00:18:46] We're going to do it this way, you know, and hope for the best. [00:18:49] I love that you said you're going to go build it yourself. [00:18:51] You did it. [00:18:52] Tell us a little bit more about maybe where that comes from for you. [00:18:56] What is it in your, you know, in your background that made you have the confidence to go off [00:19:02] and do that? [00:19:04] Oh, that's a really, really wonderful question. [00:19:07] And so I think that the key word there is confidence. [00:19:10] And I honestly didn't have a whole lot of confidence. [00:19:13] I knew that this was a real problem and I had a high degree of confidence, I guess, that [00:19:22] nobody was solving the problem in a way that I thought lacked for want of a better term. [00:19:28] And so it wasn't like we did this bake-off. [00:19:32] I hated all the products or didn't feel that the products met our requirements. [00:19:36] And then the next day I left my job. [00:19:38] You know, it was a bit of an arduous process that probably lasted six months, I would say, [00:19:44] from when I started to have this idea to when eventually I plucked up the courage to talk to my boss, [00:19:50] who was the CISO at DocuSign and a mentor and a great friend. [00:19:56] And I plucked up the courage and I said, hey, Vanessa, I've got this idea. [00:20:01] I really think I can go and solve it. [00:20:03] And she was incredibly supportive, probably a bit too supportive, Katie, if you know what I mean. [00:20:07] I probably should have read through the lines a little bit. [00:20:10] But no, she was really supportive and said, listen, you've clearly got that entrepreneurial spark, [00:20:16] despite the fact that you've never been an entrepreneur and you've never run a company. [00:20:19] But you love to build innovative products and you love to kind of like talk about and talk to vendors [00:20:26] and understand how they're working at these things. [00:20:29] And so, you know, as a security practitioner, I kind of weighed the risks and the reward of, [00:20:37] OK, well, if I leave this job, what's the worst that can happen? [00:20:40] I'll give it a year. [00:20:41] And if it doesn't work out, I'll come back and I'll get another job in security. [00:20:45] Right. Like it wasn't the case of I'm going to be throwing away my entire career here to found times. [00:20:51] And if it doesn't work out, I'm going to be destitute. [00:20:53] It was more a case of I really, really need to scratch this itch. [00:20:58] I'm going to give myself a year to see how it goes. [00:21:01] And if there's no traction whatsoever or I misread the signals in the market, [00:21:06] then I can just go and go back in security team, which I absolutely love doing anyway. [00:21:11] So it came down to a risk based decision. [00:21:15] And ultimately, I felt, look, the risk isn't that high here. [00:21:19] And I spoke to my family. [00:21:21] I spoke to my wife. [00:21:22] We had a six month old at the time. [00:21:24] Myself, my wife had our first kid. [00:21:26] And she was just like, listen, go for it. [00:21:27] You're never going to know unless you actually take the leap. [00:21:32] And she was extremely supportive. [00:21:35] And looking back now, it's probably one of the best decisions that I ever made. [00:21:41] Yeah, there was a lot there that I find so interesting, too. [00:21:46] You know, that's awesome that you have such great support and were able to take that risk [00:21:51] and that you were able to make that decision. [00:21:53] I also love that, you know, you went to somebody who's a mentor to you [00:21:56] and they recognized a skill set in you that you, it sounds like you were kind, [00:22:02] you knew it was there, but that you, you know, needed a little nudge. [00:22:05] And I love that because in our industry, I think there are a lot of people with really fabulous ideas [00:22:10] that don't necessarily have that, have that moment where somebody gives them that nudge. [00:22:17] So I just want to kind of shout that out and just think that that's, that's a great thing. [00:22:22] So with that, though, I mean, you gave us a lot of nuggets to keep going forward. [00:22:25] I know Vijay has, has with us for less time today. [00:22:28] So I want to pass it over to Vijay. [00:22:30] Thank you for that, that answer. [00:22:35] Over to you, Vijay, if you're available. [00:22:38] Hey, thank you so much, Katie. [00:22:40] You know, fascinating journey. [00:22:42] Been looking into your LinkedIn journey, you know, your professional career at HP, KPMG, previous founder. [00:22:52] You know, my question is, I'm going to take it a little differently today. [00:22:55] My first question, we want to get to know you a little bit more, right? [00:23:00] You've got such a unique name. [00:23:02] What's the etymology behind that? [00:23:04] Oh, yeah, Owen. [00:23:06] So Owen is actually a fairly common name in Ireland. [00:23:11] So it's the Irish way of spelling Owen, O-W-E-N. [00:23:15] So it's, it's Irish for John, essentially. [00:23:19] But I spent most of my career, as you, as you saw, Vijay, like working for US companies. [00:23:24] And so I'm, you know, very understandably. [00:23:28] I don't have any misgivings for people who like mispronounce my name. [00:23:31] But I remember one funny story. [00:23:34] I was on a call with a vendor. [00:23:37] As a security practitioner, I was on a call with a vendor who was like pitching me their product. [00:23:42] And everybody always gets my name wrong, right? [00:23:45] They just, they just do. [00:23:46] And I don't take any offense from it. [00:23:48] And so this vendor is like, hey, is it pronounced Owen? [00:23:52] And I was like, yes, it is. [00:23:54] That's amazing. [00:23:54] Nobody ever gets it right. [00:23:56] And so we, like, he's off onto a great start. [00:23:58] And we have a really good demo. [00:24:00] Their product wasn't for us, but it was still a really good call. [00:24:03] And at the end of the call, the vendor is like, okay, Ian, thank you so much for your time now. [00:24:08] I'll see you later. [00:24:09] And I was like, oh, man, you almost had it. [00:24:11] You were so close. [00:24:13] But yeah, so it's Owen. [00:24:14] It's actually a relatively common name here in Ireland. [00:24:18] Awesome. [00:24:18] Thanks for that. [00:24:19] My follow-up question is, share with us how is the cybersecurity industry in Dublin? [00:24:27] Like in Ireland in general. [00:24:29] Like, you know, like, are there a lot of cybersecurity schools? [00:24:33] Like, I believe, I mean, Tomas, you correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe you're the first speaker joining us from Ireland. [00:24:40] So we want to know more about the local industry there. [00:24:43] First and foremost, it's an honor, but also a shame that I'm the very first person from Ireland to be on the call. [00:24:51] So Ireland has changed a lot over the last couple of decades. [00:24:56] So I think this image of Ireland as, like, rolling green hills and drunks fighting each other and having, like, families with dozens of kids. [00:25:06] It's a bit of a stereotype that's kind of, like, has long since changed over time. [00:25:15] And so today we're an extremely tech-enabled workforce. [00:25:21] 19 of the 20 leading tech companies in the world have their European headquarters in Dublin. [00:25:27] The only one that's missing is Apple, and they're in another city in Ireland in the south called Cork. [00:25:33] And so for the last kind of, like, 20 or so years, it's really been a hotbed for, like, for technology talent in general. [00:25:42] And so Facebook, Google, Amazon have all opened huge engineering offices here. [00:25:49] And so that's led to a huge amount of I've involved in technology who didn't previously, [00:25:56] but also a lot of other Europeans coming to Ireland to work for these large technology companies. [00:26:05] We're now the only English-speaking country in the EU, with the UK leading through Brexit. [00:26:13] We're also the only English-speaking country in the Eurozone. [00:26:18] And we are the closest kind of European country to the US. [00:26:23] And so it's a very accommodating and friendly place for US companies. [00:26:28] I think initially how security came onto the map was these US, large US technology companies like Intel and Apple and Facebook and Google and Amazon and so on, [00:26:42] were establishing kind of, like, engineering presences in Dublin and in Ireland. [00:26:46] And with those engineering practices, all those kind of, like, downstream dependent teams came online. [00:26:54] And so you would have, like, network teams being established and Knox being opened. [00:26:59] And then eventually, like, security teams opened in Ireland and so on. [00:27:02] And so companies like eBay and PayPal and DocuSign and Facebook and Google all established kind of, like, cyber security hubs here, [00:27:11] Symantec being another huge one. [00:27:13] And as a result, there's this very concentrated amount of cybersecurity for a country that's really quite small. [00:27:22] You know, we're only 5 million people in population in total on the island. [00:27:26] But there's this huge amount of expertise in cybersecurity. [00:27:31] And then, you know, that, as a result, that established things like engineering courses or security engineering courses and security engineering master degrees and a number of PhDs and so on. [00:27:44] So although we're a relatively small country, I would say above our weight in terms of just, like, prowess in cybersecurity. [00:27:52] Oh, and thank you for that. [00:27:57] You know, my wife works at Stryker, the medical company based in Corb. [00:28:00] Yeah. [00:28:01] So, you know, all I see is the wonderful castles and the landscape. [00:28:06] So this is good to hear and know. [00:28:09] Thank you. [00:28:10] Yeah. [00:28:10] Okay. [00:28:11] My sister-in-law actually works in Stryker. [00:28:14] I have no idea what she does, but she talks about it very fondly. [00:28:17] Nice. [00:28:18] Nice. [00:28:19] Octavia, you there? [00:28:22] I hope so. [00:28:22] Can you hear me? [00:28:25] It's still kind of, yeah, I mean, if Owen can, go ahead. [00:28:29] Yeah, and I can repeat your question, Octavia, as well. [00:28:32] Yeah, I don't know what's going on with my phone, so I apologize. [00:28:36] So thanks, Tomas, for introducing me. [00:28:38] So, you know, no adult that is in cybersecurity now thought that they would be in cybersecurity when they were younger, right? [00:28:48] So I'm really wondering, when you were a kid, what would your, like, what, if you look back at when you were a kid, what are those things that you're doing now? [00:28:57] You said you had, you know, you built something because, you know, nothing that you saw out in the industry actually matched what you needed. [00:29:04] And so you kind of went and you just said you're going to build it yourself. [00:29:08] Like, what, what, what was it about your childhood and how you grew up that landed you into wanting to be a security engineer and that practitioner? [00:29:18] That's the first part of my question. [00:29:20] And then the second part is, like, what would you tell someone who saw something, you know, saw that they needed, they had needed something solved and it could not be solved with other, other technologies? [00:29:33] And so what would you tell someone who had the skills to build something themselves but maybe a little afraid to do so? [00:29:41] Oh, phenomenal question. [00:29:43] So just in case folks weren't able to quite hear, I'll tell you there. [00:29:47] The first question is, what were the, and I'm paraphrasing, what were the kind of characteristics of my youth, I guess, [00:29:53] that I think contributed to me starting a company or, like, going on this entrepreneurial journey? [00:30:00] And then the second part is, what advice would I give other people who may see gaps in the market and may be considering taking the leap? [00:30:08] So, sorry, Octavia, that's not exactly what you asked. [00:30:11] But, so I think my, my background is, I grew up in a relatively rural part of Ireland, about two hours west of Dublin, called Carrick and Shannon. [00:30:23] And that's a small little kind of like picture-ex tourist town on, on the largest river in Ireland called the Shannon. [00:30:29] And my, both my parents are from Dublin and we moved as kids to the west of Ireland to kind of have like less of a, of a city life. [00:30:38] And my father was a graphic designer. [00:30:43] He ran his own graphic design company. [00:30:45] And so from a very early age, I was exposed to like this whole idea of like creative thinking. [00:30:52] But also, I guess, kind of like running companies and the, how much work was involved in like, just keeping the lights on in a, in a, in a business. [00:31:02] And, but, you know, from the age of like 13 through to 18, every summer I would spend my days helping out in my dad's graphic design studio, in my dad's graphic design studio. [00:31:15] So whether that was like from fixing computers or networking or whatever. [00:31:20] Now, as, as anybody who works in Tynes, whether they're designers or engineers will tell you, I did not inherit a jot of graphical design talent. [00:31:29] Like I have absolutely zero ability. [00:31:33] And if you go back and look at like the, the early times logos, which I designed, you'll quickly realize that that is extremely true. [00:31:39] But what I did love was I absolutely love playing with the computers. [00:31:44] Like absolutely love like understanding how all these graphic design software worked. [00:31:49] Understanding like how the early internet was coming on online and being exposed to things like IRC and the internet community and so on. [00:31:58] And so despite the fact that I was working in this very niche graphic design area, I was always drawn towards like computers and software and networking and so on. [00:32:10] And so I think, you know, as, as, as all you guys know, like having, having kind of grown up around the internet, there was just like security was always this really kind of like interesting thing. [00:32:20] Because it didn't really exist. [00:32:22] And it was so easy to exploit systems or, you know, run viruses or learn about things like symmetric encryption and password cracking and so on. [00:32:34] And so I was, despite the fact that I didn't get my first job in security until kind of like the mid 2000s, I, I was still involved and interested in things like hacking, white hat, or white hat, of course. [00:32:47] But also like just understanding how these systems work and how I could break them and so on. [00:32:51] So it, although I wasn't, you know, I wasn't a security engineer, I was still being exposed to those, like those technologies and I'm very passionate and drawn to them. [00:33:00] And the second part of the question then of like, what advice would I give other people who are, who are in my shoes, who saw a gap in the market and so on, and maybe considering starting a business. [00:33:12] And I think one of the things that I've learned over the course of the last four years, and again, I've only been an entrepreneur for the last kind of like four years or so, is that the worst thing that you can do as a founder is start a company to do what you love. [00:33:28] And what I mean by that is, if your favorite thing to do is, actually, let's take a step back and use an analogy, right? [00:33:38] If you're a mechanic, and your favorite thing in the world to do is to work on cars, the worst thing that you can do is like start a garage, right? [00:33:47] Because you're not going to spend any time working on cars. [00:33:50] If you're successful, you're going to be dealing with clients and ordering parts and advertising and trying to grow your business and working on accounts and doing [00:33:58] tax returns and so on. [00:34:00] So you're not going to get any time to spend actually working on cars and doing what you truly love, and you'll probably end up miserable. [00:34:07] So if you genuinely see a gap or you want to start a business, I think the best reason for starting a business is because you genuinely see a way that the world can work better. [00:34:24] And it doesn't need to be something completely incredible and grandiose. [00:34:28] It could be something small like, hey, I think that we can fix cars in a more affordable way for people. [00:34:33] And then you should start a garage, right? [00:34:36] Because it doesn't matter what you're doing in the garage, whether it's doing your tax returns or hiring and firing mechanics or ordering parts. [00:34:44] It's always in that service of the larger vision and mission, which is kind of like to improve the way that you can repair cars. [00:34:53] And so taking that and applying it to me, my favorite thing in the world to do is work with other smart security teams and riff on hard security problems and come up with innovative solutions to hard security problems. [00:35:09] Now, that's what I did in times when it was just me. [00:35:13] When it was just a one-person company, all I did was talk to other security teams and build product and help innovate and solve these solutions. [00:35:21] Now, I don't spend that much time doing that, even though it's my favorite thing to do. [00:35:26] However, I absolutely love my job, despite the fact that I don't get to do the thing that I love the most, because it's in service of this larger vision. [00:35:37] So now when I'm interviewing candidates or talking to VCs or doing board meetings, I still absolutely love my job because it's, again, in service of that larger mission, which is to help security teams work in a more effective, healthier, efficient way. [00:35:55] I don't know if that answers your questions. [00:35:58] No, it absolutely answered my question, and I appreciate that. [00:36:01] I love that you are kind of looking at it from the larger vision, and I think that's very, very aspiring. [00:36:10] I'm going to pass it back over to Katie. [00:36:14] Yeah, and you actually teed me up. [00:36:16] I was going to dig into a question, something that actually came up today and something I think a lot about, and I think you'll have a lot to share with us about. [00:36:23] I actually was just talking to somebody today, a technology partner of mine who started at a new company, and I was kind of just getting the background of why he did that. [00:36:32] And he was outlining a little bit about why the last couple of companies just weren't the right fit for him from a corporate culture perspective. [00:36:40] And he's an amazing person, really great at his job. [00:36:44] I've known him for years. [00:36:46] And so I can't say that it was anything that he would have been doing wrong. [00:36:50] So when you had the opportunity four and a half years ago to go off and start a business, having spent so much time in so many different organizations, just curious as you were doing that and creating a company culture, how did you approach that initially? [00:37:07] Were you very, very deliberate about what your mission statement was and then creating that culture? [00:37:12] And then how is it that you've been able to find the right people to bring into your company to continue to carry out that mission and create the company culture that you're seeking? [00:37:23] Oh, that is such a great question. [00:37:27] You know, I think culture is such a nebulous concept, right? [00:37:31] If you think about culture or like Google culture definitions, you'll find so many different varieties, right? [00:37:39] I think the one thing that's definitely true is that culture isn't beanbags or free beer in the office or, you know, innovation and execution and these other things. [00:37:51] They're parts of it for sure. [00:37:52] But for me, when I founded Times, I wanted to build a company ultimately that would allow passionate people do their best work. [00:38:05] And that was kind of like what I really, really wanted to do. [00:38:07] We didn't have a mission statement. [00:38:10] We didn't have a vision statement. [00:38:12] We didn't have core values for like a long, long time. [00:38:18] And the reason for that, and, you know, the definition for me that makes the most sense about culture is culture is a framework for making decisions, right? [00:38:27] So that to me is when I think about culture, that was the definition that really clicked for me. [00:38:32] So when you think about culture at a small company and you think about it in the context of it's a framework for making decisions, as the founder, you can be involved in literally every single decision that's being made up until the company is about 20 people, right? [00:38:49] You can be literally be involved in every single decision from what the color of the logo is going to be to what events you're attending to who you hire to what product features are built. [00:38:59] You can have the final say in every single decision. [00:39:02] And as a result, if culture is a framework for making decisions, it's not that important because, again, the founders can be involved in every single decision. [00:39:12] After 20 people, it's literally the only thing that's important. [00:39:17] Literally the only thing. [00:39:18] Because every decision is being made outside of your purview. [00:39:23] You're no longer involved in every hiring decision. [00:39:25] You're no longer involved in like setting quotas for salespeople. [00:39:28] You're no longer involved on for what events you're attending or what your sales team are pitching in cold calls to security practitioners. [00:39:38] And so culture becomes the most important facet of your organization because it essentially decides what decisions are being made. [00:39:49] And so when we were sitting down to like, okay, well, how are we going to like, how are we going to set a culture for this company to ensure that the decisions are being made are ones that we're comfortable with? [00:40:01] And so we kind of work backwards from that, right? [00:40:04] And we sort of said like, well, listen, we want people to do the right thing fundamentally, right? [00:40:10] And so the decisions that people are making should be the right thing for the customer and should be the right thing for the employees and times as well. [00:40:17] So that's really important to us. [00:40:19] And the other thing that's really important to us is that we want these decisions that are being made to be made really, really quickly, right? [00:40:26] Like speed is absolutely important and of the essence for this organization. [00:40:30] So we want people to make quick decisions. [00:40:32] And the second thing is that we want people to, or the third thing is that we want people to keep things really simple. [00:40:38] So if you're faced with a decision and it's a question of like, hey, we can do this complicated thing or we can keep it really, really simple. [00:40:45] We want people to make simple decisions. [00:40:47] And so out of that overarching framework for how we wanted people in the company to make decisions, our core values of speed, simplicity and soundness evolved. [00:41:00] And so that is kind of how we came about, like on our kind of cultural framework within the organization. [00:41:08] Now, in terms of how we ensure that we hire the right people who are strong culture carriers and so on. [00:41:15] And I'd love to say that I'm the person responsible for that. [00:41:20] But we've got a really, really talented recruitment team and people team who kind of like do things like interview training with all our people managers and make sure that interview loops are set up and ask hard questions around like, sure, this person looks brilliant and they're really qualified, but they're a bit of an asshole, right? [00:41:41] Like maybe we shouldn't hire this person. [00:41:43] And so really being intellectually honest with our core values, which trickle down to decisions that were being made. [00:41:51] It helps us like in a fairly binary way, identify people that are right for the company and wrong for the people, wrong for the company. [00:41:59] And now that's not to say that we get it right every single time. [00:42:02] We absolutely don't. [00:42:03] And we've made some mistakes. [00:42:04] But when we do make these mistakes, the core values that we've established give us a pretty clear framework to identify, okay, well, this person is moving insanely slow or they're making things unnecessarily complicated or they're not doing the right thing by their fellow teammates or their customers. [00:42:25] And it helps us like find those people and have a hard conversation and potentially move them on to a company that they're more suitable for. [00:42:32] That, you know, honestly, that maybe moves a little bit slower or is more kind of like process driven or whatever. [00:42:40] I love that. [00:42:41] I love that. [00:42:42] You know, I think it's so important that it isn't, it's an art and a science and creating that culture, but that you do have those metrics and have developed those, you know, those questions that can weed out, as you say, the assholes. [00:42:55] Because nobody wants to work with an asshole, right? [00:42:59] Yeah. [00:42:59] Yeah, I laughed out loud. [00:43:00] I'm like, all right. [00:43:02] Yes, that's true. [00:43:03] Got my attention. [00:43:05] No, I think that's really wonderful. [00:43:06] And I think that, you know, as we're all in, you know, executive leadership or at different parts in our career, we're even just creating, you know, the culture of our team. [00:43:15] It's just, that was really great advice and I appreciate that. [00:43:18] So thank you. [00:43:19] Thank you. [00:43:19] I will pass the mic then over to Tomas. [00:43:24] Thank you, Katie. [00:43:26] And thanks for the great conversation so far. [00:43:28] So I just want to do a very, very quick room reset. [00:43:31] This is our weekly fireside chat. [00:43:33] So we do appreciate you joining us. [00:43:35] And if you do have a question for one and you want to raise your hand and we'll bring you up on stage and you can ask you a question, please feel free to do so. [00:43:44] Now is the time. [00:43:46] If you want to, if you can't talk and you need, and you want to put it in the chat, you can do that as well. [00:43:50] Feel free to use the chat and we will read off your question. [00:43:53] With that said, oh, actually one other point on the top left hand of your screen. [00:44:00] Again, for those new folks, right next to where it says fireside chat, there's a little green monopoly house. [00:44:05] If you click that, if you click that little green house, you can join our fireside chat club and be alerted to when we do this. [00:44:12] But as I mentioned, we do this every single Wednesday. [00:44:14] So with that said, Owen, I do want to ask you another question and I'll switch a bit and ask you about what are you reading? [00:44:24] I like to add to my reading list and I like asking entrepreneurs and CEOs and other sort of individuals who have come on our show. [00:44:34] What's on their reading list? [00:44:35] So what's on your reading list? [00:44:37] Oh, that's a fun question. [00:44:39] So I read an absolute ton, always have. [00:44:43] At the minute, funnily enough, earlier on today, my latest book, which was like a book called The Ink Black Heart. [00:44:54] It was like a kind of crime fiction novel written by Robert Gilbraith, which is a pen name for J.K. Rowling, who wrote the Harry Potter books. [00:45:04] And so she about I don't know how many years ago now, but about seven years ago or so, she started writing these kind of like crime who done it books and has released something like six of them now. [00:45:17] And this is like the latest the latest iteration. [00:45:20] And it was a thousand pages long, which for a novel is just absolutely bonkers. [00:45:27] And I wasn't like, unfortunately, it wasn't the best book I've read or far from it. [00:45:32] So I wouldn't recommend it. And before that, I had finished reading an amazing book called Running with Kenyans. [00:45:38] And I one of my kind of like passions outside of work is is running. [00:45:42] So I do a bunch of like kind of like athletics and I've done several marathons and I try to read on that on that topic quite a bit. [00:45:52] And so Running with Kenyans is about this English guy, I think. [00:45:57] And he's a writer for like Runner's World. [00:46:00] And he was a he was a really successful or I should say like a more like a moderately successful cross-country runner in his youth. [00:46:08] And kind of like fell out of love with the sport as he like as he moved through adulthood. [00:46:14] But as he started like getting into writing about running for a living in magazines and so on, he started to think about this is this is a true story. [00:46:24] This is nonfiction. He started to think about what he could like. [00:46:29] How much of an advantage do Kenyans or East African athletes actually have? [00:46:35] Right. Is it a natural ability that they're born at and the fact that they live at altitude and so on? [00:46:43] Or is it just that they train harder than everybody else? [00:46:46] So it's kind of this nature versus nurture thing. [00:46:49] And as we all know, like if you look at the Olympics, you know, the 10,000, the marathon, it's absolutely dominated by these East African runners. [00:46:56] And so he was very interested in understanding like, OK, like if I, you know, who was a fairly middle of the road athlete went and trained in Kenya for like a couple of years, would I then be like a world beater, world beating athlete as well? [00:47:15] And so the whole book is about his experience of training with Kenyans in like Itan and all these kind of like famous running communities and the personalities who are there. [00:47:27] And it all builds up to the New York marathon and where he's going to be running and trying to set a PB, having run with all these like extraordinarily competent and elite marathon runners. [00:47:45] And it was just like it was a real page turner, the way it was written. [00:47:48] And the whole thing is kind of like sure that the main plot is about the this guy trying to like beat his PB, but it's really all about the personalities and the idea that, hey, you need to have the best shoes to be an amazing runner or you need to like invest a ton in diet and so on and so forth. [00:48:08] Versus like actually you just need to work really, really hard. [00:48:11] You need to get up at 6 a.m. and run 20 miles. [00:48:15] Then you need to go back to bed and sleep for eight hours. [00:48:17] And then you need to get up again and like do weight training and go for another 10 mile run. [00:48:22] So it kind of like dispels this whole concept of like actually it's not so much about like the nature of these folks. [00:48:30] It's just that they work incredibly, incredibly hard every single day. [00:48:35] So it's a great book, Running with Kenyans. [00:48:38] Awesome. [00:48:39] Thanks. [00:48:39] Thanks for that. [00:48:40] That's awesome. [00:48:41] So there is a question in the chat and I will read it off to you. [00:48:47] So question from Jenny, who joins our fireside chats on a periodic, on a weekly basis, actually. [00:48:54] She comes a lot. [00:48:55] She's a great member of our community. [00:48:57] What personal or business skill are you most proud of having developed since? [00:49:03] I should probably read that again. [00:49:04] What personal or business skill are you most proud of having developed since the beginning of your career? [00:49:09] Oh, Jenny, that's a really, really, really, really thought provoking question that I'm most proud of. [00:49:17] I think developing people is something I'm extremely proud of and that I've worked really hard at. [00:49:25] When I started my career as an individual contributor, I was laser focused on my own work. [00:49:32] I'm really kind of building my own career and staying heads down, wearing blinkers and just getting my projects done and delivered and so on. [00:49:43] And what I learned over time is that no individual has really ever done anything themselves. [00:49:52] That's incredible. [00:49:53] All the great innovations that have been produced over the last millennium have all come through like teams of people working together. [00:50:00] And so I think being a good team member and like taking junior people and mentoring them and being kind with them and making sure that we set an environment that they feel comfortable asking questions and learning. [00:50:16] I think that's probably something I'm extremely proud of. [00:50:20] And I continue to work on. [00:50:22] I'm absolutely not perfect at that by any stretch of the imagination. [00:50:24] But I think it's probably the most important skill that I've developed over time as well as the company has grown in times. [00:50:33] Awesome. [00:50:33] Thanks for that. [00:50:35] And thanks, Jenny. [00:50:36] Thanks for asking your question. [00:50:37] Octavia, I'll pass it over to you. [00:50:40] Thanks, Tomas. [00:50:42] I don't know. [00:50:42] Can you hear me now? [00:50:44] Yeah. [00:50:45] Okay, awesome. [00:50:47] No, it's something that you said. [00:50:48] You know, you said that your greatest, I guess your greatest accomplishment is really kind of seeing other people develop and mentoring them. [00:50:58] I'm wondering, you know, a lot of times when we mentor people and we help develop people, we actually see something develop in ourselves as well. [00:51:06] So if you look back amongst all those people who you kind of, the lives that you touched and the careers that you touched, what lesson did you learn from those individuals that you were kind of bringing up that you thought you were mentoring, but maybe end up coaching and mentoring you? [00:51:25] Oh, yeah. [00:51:27] Oh, yeah. [00:51:28] Great question. [00:51:29] So to kind of like paraphrase, what true mentorship, what did I learn about myself, I guess, is another way of describing it. [00:51:39] Sure. [00:51:41] Yeah, I think like the big lesson that I've taken away from like hiring junior people or even like kind of like people in the middle of the career or even senior people and working with them and mentoring [00:51:54] is that you really got to let people make their own mistakes. [00:51:59] And even, you know, you can give people great advice and tell them, look, I'm telling you right now that if you do this thing, it's going to backfire for a reason X, Y, Z. [00:52:09] But at the same time, you kind of have to let them go and make their own mistakes. [00:52:13] And critically, when they make those mistakes and they come back and they say, yeah, you're absolutely right, that you don't have this I told you so attitude, right? [00:52:23] That you're not this holier than thou person and that you're sympathetic and you say, look, yeah, absolutely. [00:52:29] The reason I knew that this wasn't going to work out is because I made those mistakes myself. [00:52:35] And I think making mistakes and this is extraordinarily cliched, but I think still important, like making mistakes is where you learn. [00:52:43] And nobody in times or nobody I've mentored is ever punished for like making and making their own mistakes. [00:52:51] Right. Like, sure, we'll absolutely tell you, hey, you know, we kind of like we warned you not to do this or this wasn't a great idea. [00:52:58] But I understand that you needed to go and kind of touch the fire. [00:53:01] And now you'll know never to touch it again. [00:53:03] So I think I think that's a really, really important one. [00:53:06] And I know I've given advice, been given like advice from mentors, my personal mentors loads of times who told me, like, I don't know if this is a great idea, but I've gone ahead and done it anyway. [00:53:17] And the lesson I learned was that, OK, I actually needed to go and make that mistake. [00:53:23] I needed to go and get burned. [00:53:24] I needed to go and mess up so that now I have internalized that lesson. [00:53:30] And you better believe I'm going to grow from it. [00:53:31] That was great. [00:53:36] I used to have one of my former CIOs. [00:53:40] He was really, really keen on the fail fast. [00:53:43] Right. [00:53:44] So really understanding when you're going down the right path and when to self-correct really, really quickly. [00:53:51] So I actually love that. [00:53:53] Yeah. [00:53:53] Yeah. [00:53:53] I think I think it's the it's the best way. [00:53:56] And I think, you know, what's what's worse? [00:53:59] What's going to help you grow faster? [00:54:00] Like sitting, pondering over like a decision or like making a quick decision and identifying that it's not working and going back and trying again. [00:54:10] Like you're always going to be more successful. [00:54:12] You're going to grow more when you make those risks and learn from them. [00:54:20] Absolutely. [00:54:21] Tomas, I'll pass it back over to you. [00:54:25] OK. [00:54:25] Thanks, Octavia. [00:54:26] Kitty, do you have a question that you want to ask? [00:54:29] I know you always do. [00:54:31] That's why I'm asking. [00:54:32] Yeah, I have one. [00:54:33] It's kind of it relates a little bit back to we talked about corporate culture and what what you've done to to instill the culture within the organization. [00:54:43] Curious for you. [00:54:44] I'm a question that I have for a lot of founders and just really anyone who's in a high pressure job, which most of us in this in this group of people, both on stage and in the audience are all in these really high pressure jobs within the cyberspace. [00:54:59] So curious about what you do to unwind or what are ways that you find that you can balance all of the challenges of running a company, always raising funding, doing one o'clock in the morning podcasts with people. [00:55:16] You don't really even know that well. [00:55:17] So thank you again for having faith in us and coming on in the morning. [00:55:21] But just curious, what are the things that you do outside of work to to balance it all? [00:55:25] Yeah, it's a great question. [00:55:29] And you're right. [00:55:29] Like if I did nothing but like my job at times, I would just be like a miserable person to be around. [00:55:39] And because as much as I adore my company and as much as I absolutely love my colleagues and as much as I love our customers and the problems that we're solving, you're right. [00:55:48] It's a it's a it's a lot and it's stressful and it's an extreme amount of workload. [00:55:54] And so the way I try and balance it is I surround myself with like my friends and my family. [00:56:00] And I like I still have a very close knit bunch of friends that I hang out with very, very regularly that I've known for like 20, 30 years and who treat me the exact same way as they treated me when I was like a, you know, an 18 year old undergrad in college. [00:56:17] So I think that grounding is extremely important because like, frankly, you can get a bit of an ego in this world, right? [00:56:23] Like you can you can say like, hey, I've raised like 100 million dollars from VCs and so on and so forth. [00:56:29] And you can you can start to think that like you're you're invincible and that you have a right to some things that you have absolutely no right to. [00:56:36] And so having that grounding through like friends and family, I think is really important. [00:56:41] And my wife and I have a have a five year old son and we also have an eight month old daughter. [00:56:47] And so let me tell you, it's hard to get an ego when you're like changing diapers like all day. [00:56:54] There's nothing more leveling than having to like change a diaper. [00:56:58] And so that's one part of like staying grounded. [00:57:01] I think the other thing that I love to do is I like to like just get like physical exercise. [00:57:04] And so, you know, the science behind this has been proven many times over that, like just getting out and getting some sort of exercise and being in the fresh air is extremely beneficial. [00:57:16] And I've I've always been a runner, as I say, and I've done a bunch of marathons and I don't really compete in running anymore. [00:57:25] For me, it's really just like a meditative practice. [00:57:29] So I'll go for like a six to ten mile run on most days. [00:57:34] And it's where I have like pretty much all my best ideas. [00:57:37] And so like most of the ideas for the features that I've come up with in tines have come to me while I've been running. [00:57:43] Even the idea for tines came to me while I was out for a jog. [00:57:47] And aside from it just being like a really relaxing, comfortable, safe place, happy place for me to spend some time. [00:57:57] It's also honestly probably the only time or the only hour that I don't check my phone or I'm not in front of a screen or I'm not on the phone. [00:58:08] And so having that like that detachment from technology, even if it is just for an hour a day, just kind of helps like helps keep you a little bit stable, I think. [00:58:20] Well, I appreciate that. [00:58:22] And, you know, I think that any time, whether it's running or I think it's great advice is the turning off the phone, even if it's for 20 to 30 minutes. [00:58:32] It can be so helpful for all of us and to just take a minute to actually breathe and think and be more strategic. [00:58:40] So it's just really nice to hear somebody who, you know, has has been, you know, had a lot on their plate that is doing that. [00:58:47] It's just always helpful because I don't know about you guys, but sometimes I feel I feel guilt, you know, like, well, if I if I do that, well, then I might miss something. [00:58:55] And then, you know, it's just it's it's not a good way to live at all. [00:58:58] So I have to be real cognizant about it. [00:59:00] And you actually made me laugh out loud because, again, because I, you know, sometimes, too, when I've been traveling a lot and then I was getting upgrades and stuff. [00:59:08] And I would I remember a moment where I was upgraded to first class. [00:59:11] And I was like, oh, this is so great. [00:59:12] I'm so fancy. [00:59:13] I get home. [00:59:14] The first thing that happened is my my little infant son barfed all over me. [00:59:18] This was a few years ago. [00:59:19] But, you know, it's just like, well, there you go. [00:59:20] I'm back to reality. [00:59:22] It was fun. [00:59:22] Absolutely. [00:59:24] And that that that that keeps you modest. [00:59:26] Yeah. [00:59:27] And the other thing I would say, like, you know, you kind of have to balance it. [00:59:30] Like some days you are going to be like in front of your computer for like 18 days. [00:59:34] Right. [00:59:35] So you have to like identify that. [00:59:36] OK, sometimes I'm going to be absolutely slammed and work and I'm just like not going to be available and I'm not going to see my kid or whatever it is. [00:59:44] And then other days, like you need to be fully immersive with your family and so on. [00:59:48] And you guys have like that screen time thing that you get from like iPhones and stuff. [00:59:55] And so I think that's a really good indicator. [00:59:57] And like just to give you an idea of how wrong I get it sometimes. [01:00:00] I got like a screen time and notification a couple of weeks ago that was like, hey, your screen time last week averaged something like 22 hours a day. [01:00:10] And I was like, oh, that's that's probably not good. [01:00:12] Yeah, that's a lot. [01:00:14] No, I think mine's a little less than that. [01:00:16] But yeah, but I do track that. [01:00:18] And I actually I thought you were going to say something. [01:00:20] Do you do that for your kids? [01:00:21] And you know how a lot of parents will do that. [01:00:23] They actually will turn off their social media apps and stuff. [01:00:27] I also was finding myself sometimes just being a little too long on maybe an Instagram thing to turn my mind off. [01:00:33] And really, I should have probably been going for a run. [01:00:35] That would have been a better thing for me to do. [01:00:37] And so I put screen time on my own phone, but then I ignore it half the time. [01:00:41] So it's because I'm in charge. [01:00:44] It's got to start somewhere, right? [01:00:47] Exactly. [01:00:48] No, it really isn't. [01:00:48] That's what I think. [01:00:49] That's why the point I was making is that, you know, even if you can't go for a run for an hour, just doing something like that and hearing you say that you do that is just it's always so helpful for for me personally to hear someone else that's making an effort to do that. [01:01:02] So appreciate that. [01:01:05] Yeah. [01:01:05] You know, Octavia, did you have another question? [01:01:08] I think I saw you on mute. [01:01:09] Yeah, I don't know if you guys can hear me. [01:01:12] I was saying you can do what I do and just have three phones and then you won't get caught by the screen time thing. [01:01:18] That's hilarious. [01:01:20] That's a great approach. [01:01:21] I like it. [01:01:22] That's funny. [01:01:23] I have a question for you, Owen, and it's regarding the name Times. [01:01:30] I don't know if you already covered this or not, and I missed it. [01:01:34] But where did the name come from? [01:01:36] And what does it mean? [01:01:38] Or how did you sort of arrive at that name? [01:01:41] Oh, that's a really good question. [01:01:43] So I have a bit of a weird obsession with like the formal names of everyday things. [01:01:51] And so, for example, like the plastic part at the end of your shoelace is called like an aglet. [01:01:57] So like I know all these like names of weird everyday things. [01:02:00] A tine, T-I-N-E, is the formal name for like the prong on a fork. [01:02:07] So, you know, like a fork, a piece of cutlery. [01:02:09] Those spikes are called tines. [01:02:11] And when I was imagining tines at the product and I was like out for jobs and I was picturing how the product would work. [01:02:21] Really, without going into too much detail about the product, we have kind of like this extraordinarily powerful drag and drop canvas that allows people build their processes. [01:02:31] Similar to like if you were using like a whiteboarding application like Visio. [01:02:34] So you drag and drop the various actions that you want to take across your security processes, whether it's create a ticket in JIRA or like if this alert is high priority, then go and send a message through PagerDuty. [01:02:47] And so when I used to picture tines, I would picture this kind of like canvas. [01:02:52] And I would imagine like a notification or an alert coming in at the top of the screen in a line. [01:02:59] Right. So there's just a single line down with like a notification. [01:03:02] And then that line would branch off or fork off into a number of individual like branches or forks. [01:03:11] So based on the severity of the alert, you might do four individual things that would be working in parallel in different branches. [01:03:21] And so when I used to be visualizing this, I was kind of thinking it kind of looks like an upside down fork. [01:03:26] Right. So you have this single notification coming in and then you have a breaking up into all these individual prongs, which look like a fork. [01:03:35] And so then I was thinking, oh, it's kind of like tines. [01:03:39] And so that's where the name tines originally came from. [01:03:43] And I also, you know, having been a security practitioner, as I'm sure you guys know, you get kind of jaded by the names of security companies, whether it's like Terror Strike or like Red Blaze or whatever it is. [01:03:58] And so I knew I didn't want to start a company that like had those very cliched footy security names. [01:04:05] I wanted something a little bit more unique. [01:04:08] And so tines felt like a good fit. [01:04:12] That's awesome. [01:04:13] That's a I don't know what I was expecting, but that was definitely not what I was expecting. [01:04:20] You didn't think we were going to talk about shoelaces, did you? [01:04:24] No, I had no idea we were going to talk about shoelaces. [01:04:28] That's great. [01:04:30] Look, it is about 9 p.m. Eastern time. [01:04:35] So that means it is about 2 a.m. for you, Owen. [01:04:39] So if you do have a question and you want to raise your hand and jump up on stage, feel free to raise your hand. [01:04:43] We'll bring you up and you can ask you a question. [01:04:45] If not, we will continue asking Owen our questions because this is what's on our mind. [01:04:51] So hopefully we're hitting the mark for you all in the audience. [01:04:54] Katie, I'll pass it back over to you. [01:04:58] Yeah, thank you. [01:05:00] Yeah, so one of the questions I have, I mean, you seem very tied in overall to the global cyber market. [01:05:04] And, you know, one of the reasons why I love doing this every single Wednesday night is it's a collaboration of, you know, ideas and really, you know, interesting people who have different backgrounds and, you know, a viewpoint of how they're going to move forward. [01:05:23] So I guess you being in Ireland and we asked a little bit about the cyber community in Ireland and in the EU, what kind of opportunities do you have or what do you suggest in terms of how are you collaborating with not just your fellow entrepreneurs and founders, [01:05:44] but really continuing to stay in touch with that practitioner side and kind of where the company was founded from? [01:05:52] How are you staying close to that as you're growing the company through collaboration and events? [01:05:58] Yeah, phenomenal question. [01:06:00] So, you know, the reason we founded this company is because security should be the best job in the world, right? [01:06:09] Like working in security is an absolute privilege. [01:06:13] You get exposed to this cutting edge technology. [01:06:16] You know, you're generally on balance, well budgeted, and you can like, you get paid really well. [01:06:22] And you're ultimately playing like kind of cops and robbers for a living. [01:06:25] So it should be the best job in the world. [01:06:27] But the reality is that like working security is hard. [01:06:30] You know, I was the lead instant responder on the eBay breach in 2014 when we lost like 250 million-ish records. [01:06:36] And I remember just how hard and stressful it is working in security. [01:06:42] And so staying in touch with the community and understanding how they're feeling was like really important. [01:06:50] And it's now four and a half years since like I was a legitimate badge-wearing cybersecurity practitioner. [01:06:57] And about 12 months ago, to give you an example, about 12 months ago, we kind of sat down and said, wow, are we still like solving the right problems here? [01:07:09] Like we think we are. [01:07:10] And, you know, our revenue growth and our trajectory and our adoption certainly indicates that we are. [01:07:16] But we're no longer living and breeding the lives of security practitioners every single day. [01:07:24] And so what we did was we said, well, like what's a way that we can kind of like almost ask as many security practitioners as possible, like what they're working on and how they're building and so on and so forth. [01:07:35] And so we ended up doing a survey at the start of this year that we called the voice of the SOC analyst. [01:07:43] And we spoke to something like 500 security analysts right across the world, right, from the U.S. to the EU to APAC, across a variety of industries, right, pharma, big tech, manufacturing, you name it. [01:07:59] And we spoke to these 500 people and we said, like, hey, what has it going? [01:08:02] Like, what are you working on? [01:08:04] Where are you struggling? [01:08:05] What are your biggest challenges? [01:08:07] And the data that we got back was so eye opening, right? [01:08:11] Everything from just the level of burnout that people were experiencing, the degree of tool sprawl that people were dealing with, the ideas that the kind of like challenges that people were dealing and where they felt that they needed to grow. [01:08:29] So it was extremely, extremely eye opening. [01:08:32] And we actually made that report available for free on our website to absolutely anybody who wanted it. [01:08:39] Right. [01:08:39] You didn't have to, like, give us your email address to download it. [01:08:42] You could just go to tines.com forward slash SOC, download this report and just get a view for how the security community is doing, like, generally speaking. [01:08:51] And that was just an extremely, an extremely eye opening exercise because it gave us like a lot of a lot of confidence that, yes, we're solving the right problems. [01:09:03] But also it kind of like awoke us a little bit to understand that actually there's a whole load of things happening amongst this community, this critical community of people that we're not paying attention to, like mental health, for example. [01:09:17] And we started to understand that, like, holy crap, like CISOs and SOC analysts, these people are stressed and they're dealing with a lot and their mental health is being impacted. [01:09:30] And so, you know, we're very fortunate now in times that we've been able to build this company and build this business and generate revenue. [01:09:39] And we wanted to start giving back somewhat as well. [01:09:42] So about six months ago, we ran an initiative called the State of Mental Health Insecurity. [01:09:49] And what we did essentially was we sponsored something like 500 Headspace subscriptions for anybody that works in security. [01:09:59] No strings attached. [01:10:01] You didn't get a single marketing email. [01:10:03] And it was just a chance for us to say, and if you don't know, Headspace is kind of this mental well-being app that's extremely popular and helps you kind of like walk through meditation and mindfulness and just kind of like allows you to de-stress somewhat. [01:10:20] And we gave away these 500 subscriptions right across the world. [01:10:23] And the feedback was like, hey, what's the catch? [01:10:28] Like, you know, I've been fooled by cybersecurity vendors before. [01:10:32] Like, what's the catch to this? [01:10:33] And for us, genuinely, there was no catch. [01:10:36] Like I said, we were cybersecurity practitioners ourselves. [01:10:39] We know how hard this job is. [01:10:41] And we wanted to give back to the community. [01:10:43] And so I think going forward, we'll continue to do these type of like investigative exercises into the community to understand what people are working on. [01:10:56] And then figure out creative ways that we can give back. [01:10:59] It won't always be mindfulness apps. [01:11:01] But maybe it'll be other things like, hey, we're missing certain types of technology that we have answers to that we can open source or whatever. [01:11:08] But, you know, the headline here is that I wouldn't have this career that I have today if it hadn't been for the cybersecurity community. [01:11:18] And I care deeply about giving back in any way I possibly can. [01:11:25] Wow, I can't commend you enough for that. [01:11:28] And I am familiar with Headspace. [01:11:30] I don't know if other people in the room are. [01:11:31] I think it's wonderful that you provided that. [01:11:34] And I mean, back to what you were talking about earlier, you know, you know, just being able to take that time. [01:11:39] It's a great app that even though the phone is on to take a break from the day. [01:11:45] So, yeah, that's amazing. [01:11:47] And I also love that you made sure that they knew that there were no strings attached. [01:11:51] And I'm always so scared to take anything. [01:11:55] What does this mean? [01:11:57] I know. [01:11:58] Like, do I have to sit through your demo if I take this like webcam shield? [01:12:02] Right. [01:12:03] Like, yeah, now my schedule will be even more full and my inbox will be more full. [01:12:08] This Headspace thing just made me more stressed out. [01:12:12] That's amazing. [01:12:13] And, yeah, commend you for that. [01:12:16] Yeah, with that then, I think, Octavia, you had another question as well, right? [01:12:20] Yeah. [01:12:20] No, thanks, Katie. [01:12:21] I think that takes collaboration with the cyber community to an entirely different level, honestly, right? [01:12:30] Because you're not just kind of looking across where the gaps are, but you're also looking at why they're there and then how you can actually keep people in the game, right? [01:12:42] And so I think that's very commendable. [01:12:46] And then also, I guess, to that, you know, one of the things that I noticed, and this may be just me, is that we have a lot of people that are new to security that are kind of in the game now. [01:13:03] Like, we initially had, like, we didn't have enough people entering into. [01:13:08] Now I find that we may not have enough people managers or enough people who have, like, real skills that are, that have tenure within security. [01:13:22] So with that, I think what you did when it comes to, like, the Headspace app and with the community, I feel like that is kind of giving back. [01:13:31] But what do you, have you actually looked and have you noticed a challenge with managers and leaders or people with tenure within security? [01:13:41] And what are your thoughts on how do we actually keep people in security? [01:13:49] And also, what are your thoughts on how do we nurture and get more people to, like, not stay an analyst for five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten years and kind of move away into a more senior position? [01:14:03] Oh, such a, such a phenomenal question. [01:14:07] So first and foremost, thank you so much, so much for those, for those really kind words. [01:14:11] I think it's a really interesting, so the question of have I seen a, kind of like a lack of frontline security managers who have been around the block, who understand the game, who can kind of, like, mentor and manage junior employees? [01:14:30] 100%. Like, I think we often talk in security about the skills gap, to use the much overused term. [01:14:40] And we tend to, like, focus in on entry level positions, as you say, right? [01:14:46] They look, we've known to do, like, L1, L2 soft and so on and so forth. [01:14:51] And to me, I think that the larger problem is that we're having these people focus on, like, jobs that they probably don't need to do, whether that's, like, being a ticket jockey or whether that's, like, working on really kind of repetitive manual tasks. [01:15:07] Maybe those people could be focused on other stuff. [01:15:09] We definitely see, even amongst our customer base and amongst our users and even, you know, my network of friends that I work on security, there is that constant battle to fill those next level of positions. [01:15:25] Whether that's, like, you know, a senior manager of detection and response or a director of application security or a, I don't know, like a head of compliance or something like that. [01:15:36] So I think there's definitely that missing piece. [01:15:41] I also think in security that, like, we often have a bit of a main character syndrome situation where we don't think that other people who didn't move through the ranks in security are capable of doing those jobs, right? [01:15:58] So we don't think that, hey, this person who worked in, who was a great leader in DevOps, they shouldn't be, like, a senior manager in SecOps or security or something. [01:16:07] And we almost exclude them as a result of that. [01:16:11] And I think that's wrong. [01:16:12] I think that we should be open to people who don't have 100% security tenure being in security leadership positions. [01:16:21] We need to be a little bit more creative about the people that we allow into the wall garden. [01:16:26] In terms of how we develop and how we keep people working in security, I think personally I'm, like, a really good example of this, right? [01:16:35] Like, I was on CISO track. [01:16:38] I worked my way up from being a security analyst to being a security manager to being a security director to being a security senior director. [01:16:46] And the next position for me that was, like, fairly obvious would have been to, like, move into a CISO role in a company. [01:16:55] But quite frankly, that position just did not attract me in any way, shape, or form. [01:17:01] Like, I had no desire to be a CISO. [01:17:04] And to the CISOs who are in the room and on the call, you have my absolute admiration. [01:17:08] I think it's an incredibly challenging job. [01:17:11] And I have nothing but respect for anybody who does it. [01:17:15] But it just wasn't for me. [01:17:16] Like, I just couldn't see myself being in that position. [01:17:20] And so I think if, like, from a personal perspective, what could the industry have done for me to make me stay in security and want to be a CISO? [01:17:32] I think one of the obvious things is just, like, make that job less stressful. [01:17:36] And I know, like, there's a fairly, there's a base level of stress that comes with being a C-suite executive no matter what. [01:17:46] But the CISO position to me just feels like an extraordinarily unnecessarily stressful position. [01:17:53] And I think doing things like empowering CISOs to actually own outcomes start to finish is a really important way to do that. [01:18:02] And so from my experience, like, a lot of times CISOs are accountable and responsible for stuff that they have very limited control over. [01:18:11] Whether that's, like, the number of endpoints that have endpoint protection installed, right? [01:18:19] Like, a CISO at a board is being grilled about, hey, how come we haven't deployed all these endpoint protection? [01:18:25] Or our asset tracker isn't up to date? [01:18:28] And a lot of the time, the CISO is kind of like, well, yeah, like, I'm responsible for that. [01:18:33] But, like, it's not my, I can't be accountable because I have no control over endpoints. [01:18:37] And it's actually IT or somebody else who's ultimately responsible for that. [01:18:40] So I think changing the expectations of the CISO right throughout the entire company is really, really important. [01:18:48] Everything from, like, hey, what the security analyst expects the CISO to be to the chairperson of the board, what they expect the CISO to be. [01:18:57] And I think I would have probably stuck around in industry and been a practitioner a little bit longer if I had felt that, hey, I have complete control over my success in this position, regardless of what else happens within the organization. [01:19:17] Yeah, that's interesting. [01:19:21] I don't know. [01:19:22] I don't know if we're going to be able to turn that tide. [01:19:24] I don't know what you're going to want. [01:19:27] Like, I think we will, but it's going to take a while, right? [01:19:35] Like, you know, we have to, and you guys mostly have to give yourselves credit as, like, senior leaders and executives in security. [01:19:43] Like, you've changed the tide quite a bit, even from a decade ago. [01:19:46] Like, a decade ago, it was unheard of that the CISO didn't report to the CIO, right? [01:19:52] Like, that was just the way it worked. [01:19:53] And now, it's not only a case that, like, more often than not, the CISO is a peer to the CIO. [01:20:00] But even more commonly, I'm actually seeing the CIO report to the CISO, right, in a lot of kind of, like, progressive companies. [01:20:08] And so IT rolls up to the CISO now. [01:20:11] And so I do think that the tide is turning. [01:20:16] And there's definitely a shift towards the CISO being more empowered to do the things they need to do to keep the organization secure within their function. [01:20:28] But you're right. [01:20:28] It is going to take some time. [01:20:29] Yeah, absolutely. [01:20:33] I think it's going to take that time. [01:20:35] And then also, you know, I do see more accountability from the CISO role as well to the board. [01:20:43] But then at the same time, we have to figure out. [01:20:46] And I think really what it is is we'll have to figure out a way how we actually work together and partner within our own organizations. [01:20:52] And so just that influence of bringing things together. [01:20:57] And, like, people like you, it's actually solving problems in the entire industry and looking at our mental health. [01:21:03] So I appreciate that as well. [01:21:07] Tomas, I'm going to turn it back over to you. [01:21:12] Sounds good. [01:21:13] That's a great conversation. [01:21:15] Great, great conversation so far. [01:21:17] Look, it is a – I'm going to do a quick room reset if you just joined us. [01:21:22] You missed some really great conversation, but this is being recorded so you can listen to the playback shortly after this is done. [01:21:30] That said, Owen, you know, just thinking about – thinking about – I'm thinking about – what am I thinking about? [01:21:41] Oh, man, so many things to think of. [01:21:43] So many things to talk about there. [01:21:45] You're thinking about running that six or eight miles per day is what you're thinking about. [01:21:50] Oh, six or eight miles. [01:21:51] What? [01:21:52] I ran 10 today. [01:21:53] What are you talking about, six or eight miles? [01:21:55] Did you have your cane when you were running? [01:21:58] Oh, my cane. [01:21:59] Oh, man. [01:22:00] I remember when we couldn't hear Octavia very well. [01:22:03] It was actually not a bad thing. [01:22:05] My cane. [01:22:07] Man. [01:22:08] No. [01:22:09] Yeah. [01:22:09] If you see me running, call the cops. [01:22:12] Somebody's chasing me. [01:22:13] Please. [01:22:13] I don't do running. [01:22:17] I enjoyed it when I was younger, but, yeah, I don't really do it much more now. [01:22:22] No, I wanted – what I was thinking about was – I don't want to talk about that. [01:22:30] I was thinking about the whole sort of CISO and where you were going with that, but I'll leave that one alone. [01:22:36] I appreciate the fact that you completely are and were self-aware as to what you wanted to do and what you didn't want to do, which is great. [01:22:49] And you found a problem and you decided to solve it, and not only solve it, but also think about it from a commercial standpoint for other people to sort of solve it in that entrepreneurial spirit. [01:23:03] Man, I lost what I wanted to ask you. [01:23:09] It was a fascinating question. [01:23:14] Octavia, Octavia, let me mute her. [01:23:17] Where's the mute option? [01:23:18] She's in rare form this evening. [01:23:21] Even though we could barely – Octavia, when you listen to the playback, you know what we're saying. [01:23:26] We could barely hear you, but, man, I could – it sounds so loud when she talks in my ear. [01:23:31] I can hear her cracking jokes on me. [01:23:36] Katie, I'll pass it over to you. [01:23:39] I lost my question. [01:23:40] It's not going back right now. [01:23:42] That's okay. [01:23:43] Yeah. [01:23:44] No, listen. [01:23:44] Wednesdays are tricky. [01:23:46] I, you know, my brain is always a little tired as well at this time of day. [01:23:52] And I, again, thank you again, Owen, for being up so late. [01:23:55] Your time. [01:23:56] You know, it was – I don't know what I was – why this has been in my head the entire time. [01:24:01] But when you were talking about early on you were doing a bake-off and then couldn't figure out – it just didn't work for you. [01:24:11] It made me think – I just, for whatever reason, pictured you as, like, a seven-year-old kid trying to find, like, the exact bicycle that you wanted. [01:24:19] And then figuring out that, you know what, I actually want a bicycle with a motor. [01:24:24] And I don't know why. [01:24:24] I was just like, huh, I wonder if he's a tinkerer. [01:24:26] I wonder if you've always been somebody who builds things or does things like that. [01:24:32] And I just – I'm always curious if somebody – if you have just kind of some fun stories. [01:24:35] We had somebody who said that, oh, yeah, actually, I used to, you know, do – have a chemistry set and used to do that all the time and drove my mom crazy or whatever. [01:24:42] So, yeah, I just kind of curious what your childhood looked like. [01:24:44] Is there something we should be looking for in our children that someday they can also be a founder of a company and help foster that in them? [01:24:51] Oh, yeah, that's a great question. [01:24:53] Yeah, I definitely grew up in a house that valued, like, doing things with our hands. [01:24:59] And so whether that was, like, repairing hinges and doors or, you know, making cabinets and so on and so forth. [01:25:08] So, like, I was definitely, like, quite comfortable around, like, hand tools and power tools and so on growing up. [01:25:16] And it's a hobby that I've maintained over the years. [01:25:20] And so I still like to do much to my wife's absolute annoyance. [01:25:24] I still like to try and fix things before – myself – before we, like, will call in a handyman. [01:25:31] And so to give you an example, just this last weekend – and this is why I should never do DIY – just this last weekend, my wife brought home, like, this kind of, like, antique lampshade, right? [01:25:44] So something that we would hang out of the ceiling. [01:25:47] And it was, like, an absolute gorgeous piece of work. [01:25:52] It was, like, solid brass with a whole load of glass. [01:25:55] And the thing must have weighed, like, 15 kilos. [01:25:58] So, like, a stone, which is, like, what, 16 pounds or something? [01:26:02] So it was, like, heavy. [01:26:04] And she was, like, hey, can you just, like, hang this up in the front room? [01:26:07] And I was, like, yeah, absolutely, I can do that. [01:26:10] And so I went into the front room and I was, like, okay, how am I going to hang this up? [01:26:14] And we have one of those, like, plaster ceiling roses that's quite a kind of, like, ornate ceiling work in our front room. [01:26:21] And I was, like, well, crap, like, that's never going to be strong enough to hold this, like, 16-pound lightshade. [01:26:31] So I was, like, oh, man, what am I going to do? [01:26:33] So the room that I was trying to hang it up in is, like, directly below my five-year-old kid's bedroom. [01:26:41] And I'm, like, oh, man, like, to make this work, I'm going to have to move my kid's bed, lift up the carpet, [01:26:47] unscrew the floorboards, put, like, a supporting piece of wood inside the ceiling, [01:26:54] and then screw the lampshade into that supporting piece of wood. [01:26:58] I was, like, okay, I'm actually going to have to do this for this to work. [01:27:01] And so I said about it, like, I pushed the bed out of the way, I pulled up the carpet, [01:27:05] I ripped up the underlay, I unscrewed the floorboards, I did all the wiring, [01:27:10] I put in the new piece of wood, and then screwed the lampshade into the ceiling. [01:27:15] And it worked perfectly. [01:27:16] Like, it was a really successful outcome. [01:27:19] It was super secure, super solid, and this thing was not going to fall down ever. [01:27:23] And so I'm exhausted at this stage, right? [01:27:27] This is, like, a ton of work. [01:27:28] It was, like, a Saturday morning. [01:27:29] A job that was supposed to take, you know, 15 minutes ended up taking, like, three hours. [01:27:34] And so I put the floorboards back down. [01:27:37] I put the carpet back down. [01:27:39] I pulled the bed back into place. [01:27:41] And I'm wrecked. [01:27:43] I'm so tired. [01:27:44] I'm, like, sweating bullets. [01:27:45] And I, my wife was, like, super happy. [01:27:49] The light looks absolutely great. [01:27:51] And I'm, like, you know what? [01:27:52] I think I'll go and take, like, my kids for a walk to the shop and come back. [01:27:56] And I'm, like, oh, man, what do I do with my phone? [01:27:58] And it turns out I had been using my phone, like, the torch on my phone to help while I was, like, doing the wiring and doing the screwing. [01:28:08] And I had left my phone in the ceiling underneath the floorboards. [01:28:14] And I was, like, oh, no. [01:28:16] Like, what am I going to do? [01:28:18] And so I asked my wife, hey, will you just ring my phone to be sure? [01:28:21] And so she rang my phone. [01:28:22] And sure enough, like, this sound was, like, coming from, like, between the ceiling and the floorboards. [01:28:29] And I was, like, so tired. [01:28:30] I was thinking, oh, I'm, like, I might just, like, get a new phone. [01:28:35] I might actually leave my phone in the floor because it's just going to be so much work to get it back. [01:28:41] But I was, like, oh, no, I'm just going to have to man up. [01:28:43] So, like, pushed the bed back out of the way, lifted up all the carpet, unscrewed the floorboards, took my phone out, put the carpet back down, screwed back the floorboards, pulled back the bed, and was absolutely exhausted by the end of it. [01:28:57] So, although I've always loved, like, doing stuff with my hands and, like, doing, like, home repair and, like, being a tinkerer for sure, I'm not sure I'm cut out for it given, like, the absolute disaster I had over the weekend. [01:29:18] Oh, man, we are cracking up, laughing out loud, literally. [01:29:24] That's so funny. [01:29:27] It was so, so embarrassing. [01:29:29] Because, like, I was really proud of myself. [01:29:31] I was, like, man, like, that was a really complicated job I just did. [01:29:36] And I'm, like, super happy. [01:29:37] And I was, like, bragging about it to my wife. [01:29:38] And I was, like, look at that. [01:29:39] Isn't that amazing? [01:29:40] And then she rings my phone and it's, like, clearly stuck in the ceiling. [01:29:44] Yeah. [01:29:45] Not what I would recommend. [01:29:48] That's so funny. [01:29:49] And, you know, just so you know, when we flash our mics, when you see the mics sort of blinking, that's us sort of applauding or laughing, if you will. [01:29:57] Oh, cool. [01:29:59] That's a little clubhouse etiquette there. [01:30:01] Look, it is getting close to closing time. [01:30:06] I do want to be respectful of your time and everybody else's time. [01:30:09] Before I ask you sort of that last question and that reflection question, I just want to make a very, very quick announcement. [01:30:16] For those in the room, so next week, if you come back next week, Wednesday, October 26th, we will be joined by Kenan Skelly. [01:30:26] Most of you probably know Kenan. [01:30:28] So join us back next week. [01:30:29] That should be a very interesting conversation, learning about Kenan and her origin story. [01:30:34] So that being said, Owen, I do want to ask you this question. [01:30:43] It's one of the questions that I ask just about every one of our guests, and it's a reflection question. [01:30:48] And the question really focuses on, actually, you know, I'll just ask you the question. [01:30:55] If you have one piece of advice for the younger Owen, what would it be and why? [01:31:02] Hmm. [01:31:04] You know, it's funny. [01:31:06] This is a question that I should really have a pre-canned answer for, but I genuinely don't. [01:31:16] I think, like, being 100% intellectually honest, I think I would say it's okay to be yourself. [01:31:23] I think, and it seems really obvious, and we tell our kids, hey, be yourself. [01:31:29] But I think looking back at, like, the mistakes that I made or the regrets that I have, the reason, the most simple reason for why they happened or why I did something that I'm like, that I regret or that I'm ashamed of or whatever, it was because I wasn't being true to myself. [01:31:49] Or I was trying to impress somebody or I was trying to do something that I thought society wanted me to do or, like, would make my parents proud or whatever. [01:31:58] So I think just being very, very true to yourself and being mindful of who you are as a person and hopefully it's the right thing. [01:32:09] I think that's the advice that I would give. [01:32:11] And there's loads of things that you could say that are simpler or that are, like, equally as important. [01:32:17] But to me, I think, you know, the world is a tough place, right? [01:32:23] There's a lot of challenges that you're going to face. [01:32:25] But if you look back and you say to yourself, look, I did what I thought was right at the time for me. [01:32:33] And I think then you can be satisfied about, like, no matter what happened, like, even if it was a mistake, even if something went wrong, if you're true to your instincts and true to who you are, I think you will live a happier, more fulfilled life. [01:32:50] So I think that's what I would tell them. [01:32:53] That's awesome. [01:32:56] No, that's great. [01:33:02] That's great. [01:33:03] Sorry, I was just quickly reading the chat. [01:33:05] I did get a question on a back channel directly to me. [01:33:11] So I will ask you this question. [01:33:13] I know it's going to probably bump us over, but inquiring minds want to know. [01:33:18] So how do you so the question is, the question is from a, I'll call it from a sales standpoint. [01:33:26] So how do you as a former practitioner guide your salespeople to reach out to current practitioners? [01:33:30] Oh, wow. [01:33:32] That's such a great question. [01:33:34] And this is something we think about in times every single day. [01:33:39] Right. [01:33:39] I have been on the end of those, like, cold emails that say, hi, first name. [01:33:45] Right. [01:33:46] Like, I live that life. [01:33:48] And I, the way we tell our secure, or the way we tell our sales team to, like, reach out. [01:33:55] And we do, right, we do send outbound messages, but we only send outbound messages to people that we genuinely believe we can help or that we can add value to. [01:34:06] And we do it in a very thoughtful, well-researched, unobtrusive way. [01:34:13] And we give people, like, all the opportunities to opt out. [01:34:16] So we don't send, like, mass spam emails. [01:34:18] We don't, like, have our product behind paywalls. [01:34:22] So essentially, when we're reaching out to a prospect or a practitioner, we're saying, like, look, here's the reason we're reaching out. [01:34:29] Here's the value that we think we can add to your organization. [01:34:32] Here's why we think that we can add that value to your organization. [01:34:35] Because we have read about these challenges, or we know person XYZ in your company, or we were introduced in some way, shape, or form. [01:34:44] So we're only reaching out to someone where we have high confidence that we can actually add value. [01:34:50] And that is what you want as a security practitioner, right? [01:34:55] As a security practitioner, you're not opposed to speaking to vendors. [01:34:58] You're not opposed to receiving emails. [01:35:00] What you are opposed to is receiving these emails that are, like, unthoughtful, intrusive, have no understanding of you as a practitioner, [01:35:09] have no understanding of your business, have no understanding of your security program, have no understanding of your priorities. [01:35:15] And so what we do is we invest a lot of time and energy and money, frankly, into understanding a company, understanding their business, [01:35:25] understanding their security program, understanding their priorities, so that when we're reaching out, [01:35:29] A, like I said, we're confident that this is somebody that we can help. [01:35:33] And B, we believe that if this person were to use our product or wanted to get on a demo, [01:35:40] that it would be a high-quality interaction that would be valuable to them and us. [01:35:46] Awesome. Awesome. [01:35:48] Good job. Good job teaching your sales guys a good approach. [01:35:52] Look, I do want to thank you, Owen, for taking the time out of your busy schedule. [01:35:59] Moderators, any final thoughts before we kind of wrap up? [01:36:03] I just want to say thank you again. [01:36:06] I really enjoyed this conversation, really enjoyed getting to know you. [01:36:09] And even the way you answered that final question, I definitely hope people are listening, [01:36:15] because for us to be able to collaborate, we need to be able to communicate effectively. [01:36:19] And so I like that you're being so deliberate with that. [01:36:22] But thank you again. [01:36:24] Honestly, a pleasure this evening. [01:36:27] Awesome. [01:36:28] Thank you so much, Katie. [01:36:29] It's been amazing. [01:36:30] And I apologize for my audio issues, but at least you were able to translate. [01:36:34] So thank you for sharing today. [01:36:36] And also thank you just for being mindful and helping the community as well. [01:36:42] My pleasure. [01:36:43] I was going to say, Octavia, that's what happens when you leave the country, [01:36:46] but we do have Owen who's in Dublin. [01:36:48] So his mic works. [01:36:49] I guess it's just a Canadian thing. [01:36:50] I don't think that you guys are trying to, like, say something. [01:36:52] Like, you don't like Canadians or something. [01:36:54] I don't know. [01:36:57] It's not that at all, Octavia. [01:37:00] So, Owen, again, you know, thank you for taking the time out of your busy schedule to spend that with us this evening, [01:37:05] sharing your story, sharing a lot of great insights and great tips, [01:37:10] and your journey from practitioner to CEO and entrepreneur. [01:37:14] So I'll leave you with the final words to take us home. [01:37:17] I just want to say thank you guys so, so much. [01:37:21] I can't believe we've been speaking for 90 minutes. [01:37:23] This absolutely flew. [01:37:25] If you had told me I would enjoy doing a podcast for 90 minutes and finishing up at 2.30 in the morning, [01:37:31] I would not believe you. [01:37:32] But I think it's a measure to the quality of the questions that you asked. [01:37:36] It's a testament to the engagement and the comfortableness in the environment that you created. [01:37:43] And I'm just truly, truly grateful for you guys giving me the opportunity to chat. [01:37:46] Thank you so much. [01:37:49] Thank you. [01:37:49] And thank you, everybody. [01:37:50] We'll see you all next week. [01:37:52] Have a good rest of your week. [01:37:53] Cheers. [01:37:54] Bye now.