Fireside Chat w/Joshua Selfe, Sr. Security Specialist @ Microsoft

Hello and welcome to our fireside chat. This is the replay and you got here right on time. So thanks for joining and thanks for being a member of our community. We hope you enjoy the rest of the show. Thank you for taking the time out of your busy schedule to join us this evening. We have a really good show for you. We have Joshua herself joining us and we'll get to Josh in a little bit. But if it's the first time you've joined us for one of these events, we do this once a month. So sorry that we do it less frequently as we did in the past. But for some reason, people are a little bit more busy these days now that we're in this, I'll call it post pandemic sort of model, if you will. But with that said, it's the same format. We're here to have fun. It's the middle of the week. Let's try to take this as an opportunity to really learn about our guests. Use this as an opportunity to learn specifically about their journey. Let's leave any sales pitches or the likes to the wayside. Let's not use this as a sales pitch today. Let's really try to spend some time and learn more about Josh. Just quick guardrails or ground rules. As I mentioned, let's have fun. For most of us, so the majority of us, our comments and opinions today express our own and do not represent our current or prior employers. So please keep that in mind as you may want to quote us on things. Please know that we are here in a personal capacity, not really representing our specific organization. The other thing I will say, actually, that's it. So I'm going to go around the room very quickly and introduce ourselves. I'm Tomas Maldonado. Most of you know me as the CISO at the NFL. Russell, I'll pass it over to you. Thanks so much, Tomas. And, yes, it's great to be back here again. Looking forward to the conversation with Josh. Russell Eubanks, I've been running my company, Security Ever After, where we help companies who lost their CISO. And, again, a great highlight to be here. But let me pass it over to Anil for introductions. Thanks, Russell. Anil Varghese. I'm a senior operating advisor with Francisco Partners. Looking forward to connecting with Joshua. On to you, David. Thanks, Anil. I'm David Kass. I'm the managing director for GSR.io. We are a crypto market maker, one that isn't in trouble. I'm responsible for security, privacy, and enterprise tech. And let's see here. Octavia, on to you. Awesome. Thanks, David. I'm Octavia Howell. I am the VP of CISO at Equifax Canada. And I'm over information risk, the BSO function, and anything related to regulations in Canada. I'll pass it over to you, Katie. Thank you. Hi, everybody. I'm Katie Hanahan. I am a cybersecurity strategist, former virtual CISO in transition right now, actually. And I'm excited for this evening's conversation with Joshua. Back over to you, Tomas, to kick everything off. Thank you, co-host. And again, I'm really looking forward to this conversation. I'll start off and say, Josh, thank you for your service. I really appreciate you committing time to the military. So thank you for your service. With that said, Josh, I did mute you, so you may have to unmute yourself. Why don't you take a few moments? You can take as long as you like or as little as you like. The longer is usually probably the better because there's a lot more insight into you. Why don't you take a moment and introduce yourself and tell us a little bit more about you and your origin story? Yeah. Well, one, thank you for the panel. This is quite an honor. And thanks for everyone that's showing up at 8 o'clock or whatever time zone you're in. I am Josh Self. I currently work for Microsoft, actually, as a cybersecurity. And if you looked at the hashtag sales guy, I really appreciate that, Tomas. That's such a big question. And it's something I've actually been pondering all day is like, where do you start your origin story? For me, obviously, you know, Tomas, you kind of hit the nail on the head. My journey and growing up as a human being started in the military. And some of the people that are actually on this were part of that journey with me on the actual participants. But I joined the military because, honestly, I didn't really have any options. I wasn't very good at school. I was actually taught that at least the way that it was presented to me and how I received it is that I wasn't very good at math. I didn't understand how to read well. Now, today, we understand that as like, you know, that's a common thing. But at the time, I didn't have anything. And so I joined the military because it was around 9-11. I didn't really know what else to do. And actually, looking back, it was something about trying to find and address some insecurities that I had. And I had a lot of them. And I joined the military because I wanted to prove to myself that I could achieve something. And it turns out that I actually was pretty good at being an infantryman. And from there, I grew and snowballed. I was able to go and do things like ranger school, sapper school, achieve some other stuff, and meet, I think, a lot of incredible people along the way. For me, in particular, I learned what leadership was. And that was probably the most important thing as I transitioned into civilian life. I realized that it's probably one of the most incredible programs to, like, rebuild human beings into effective leaders, especially in the NCO Corps. I was in E6 by the time I got out. And I learned what leadership really was. Now, what the Army doesn't teach you is the techniques and how to apply that in the civilian world. Like, you can't tell someone to do push-ups. You have to be a little more collaborative and peer leadership driven. But you learn that over time. And I think that's one of the hardest things. If there's any vets out there, I tell you, one of the most important things I tell all veterans is that everything you've learned is applicable. You just have to change your approach. And so once I learned that and then started to address some of the PTSD stuff, which I think is such an important thing for vets, things started to blossom. I was able to get out of the military. And one of the things that I would tell most veterans is that, yes, you have tons of skills, like so many skills. But you have to take a step back and you're about to go into different industries. And it's really important to understand that. And so for me, I joined at like the lowest of low in defense. But because of my skills in the military, I was able to stand out and then be offered the opportunity to go to get an electrical engineering degree. And it turns out I do know math. And then from there, I was able to go into R&D programs. I go into the kind of the top secret world. And then that's the entry into cybersecurity. And then from there, I'll just leave it at that because I've been talking a lot and I'm sure people are like bored. So how about the panel ask me questions about that experience? And then we'll open it up a little bit. No, that's great. Look, don't feel compelled to stop your story short. This is your time, right? So we're going to focus a lot in on you. So feel free to go as long as you want. Obviously, we are committed to an hour and a half. At the hour and a half, we are going to cut you off, Josh. But with that said, I do want to recognize that I missed one introduction with that of Steven Garcia. So I will give Steven a moment to introduce himself. And then the other thing I've mentioned is that we typically open it up for the audience to ask questions around 30 to 40 minutes or so. So if you have a burning question that you want to ask Josh, just give us about 30 minutes and then you can raise your hand and we'll bring you up on stage so you can ask your question live. So Steven, you want to introduce yourself? Sure. Hey, everyone. Hey, Joshua. Thanks for the background. My name is Steven Garcia. My last gig was running security for a company called FanDuel. Left in February. So taking some time off before I get on to my next gig. But thank you for joining us here and sharing your background and your wisdom. Looking forward to asking you some questions later. Yeah. Sounds good. Thanks, Steven. Russell, I'll pass it over to you. All right. Thanks, Tomas. Hey, Josh, as Tomas said, thank you for your service to our country. What an impressive things that you got to do. I love what you said, the fact that you can't tell people to do push-ups when you move from military to civilian. But I'm curious, what lessons, what things or experiences you had in ranger school that you mentioned earlier are things that may actually do apply in the corporate world? Or any things you learned or been able to apply or transfer any of those things into corporate life? I'd love to hear about that. Yeah. So outside of just understanding my physical limits, you know, the whole purpose of ranger school, and actually, at least how I interpret it, is to teach the idea of peer leadership. Because what they'll do to you under very austere conditions is they'll swap you out in leadership roles. So you could be like, I don't know, a machine gunner, right, on the patrol. You're carrying all the heavy stuff and really sucking, and then all of a sudden, you know, mid-patrol, they'll put you as what they call the platoon leader, right? And now you have to make all decisions, and you have to rely on everyone else that is around you to succeed. Otherwise, you will fail. And you'll be recycled in the ranger school and have to do it all over again. And that model that you don't lead through, you know, you lead through inspiration. You lead through charisma. When you're not the leader, you still lead. But you're just, you know, peer leadership, peer following and service to the person in charge, right? Because you never know when you might have to step up. That concept, I'm telling you, especially in Microsoft, we're highly matrix organization. You know, everything we do is stovepipe, you know, from administrative, right? So you're not really in charge of anybody, but we all have to come together. And that kind of mentality is done in, like, the micro moments of how you interact with people. And so you have to have that mindset that, like, this is a team sport. But then how do you translate that? And in ranger school, you learn that. The hard way, of course, but in the most extreme way. But I would say that's probably the biggest thing that you learn from ranger school, that you could translate. Hopefully that makes sense. It makes total sense. And I love what you said there, the idea of whether you're leading yourself or leading the whole platoon and team. And then being aware of those micro moments definitely was, I think, a great takeaway for me. So I definitely appreciate that. And, again, looking forward to more questions. But let me pass it over to Anil to make sure we all get our fair share at you. Yeah. Thanks, Russell. Josh, love the insights and, you know, being able to tie those themes together. You know, one of the things is, you know, I enjoy working with our veterans. And, you know, part of that, you touched upon it. It was that transition. Tell us about some of those experiences you initially had coming out of service, the transition in the corporate world, but also some of the lessons learned of what works and what doesn't. I think it's, yeah, that's a really good question. This is one of the. Yeah, that's a really good question. It's one of the. I'm getting, like, feedback. I don't know. I'm getting, like, feedback. There we go. So, you know, this is a problem that I think millions of dollars being spent, tons of nonprofits are trying to address this and the military itself. And with partnerships with corporations, you know, you see it all over the place. But from my experience. It's like being highly qualified, but not on paper. Right. All the things that you typically come, especially as infantry soldier. Like, how do you. It's not quantifiable. Right. It's it's qualitative, not quantitative. And so I think that's one of the biggest struggles. And, you know, we there's a lot of resume writing stuff and sometimes it works. But I think it's also a mentality. Before this job, I was head of growth of a startup. Right. And I'm going to circle back to why that's important is that throughout my career, I've realized as I went to the military through the military and civilian life. And it's OK to start back at the bottom because what you learn is what it's like to be, you know, a cog in the wheel. And I did the same thing after, you know, my stint as the head of growth is I went back to Microsoft and I chose not to be a leader again because I wanted to feel what it felt like. To be led. Right. And so I think for all like I would tell all veterans is like it's it's not a step back to go into an industry and learn from the ground up, because, again, you're when you enter into that field. All the the qualitative stuff that everyone else doesn't carry with them will make you stand out as long as you learn how to communicate in the civilian world, because, again, it's not the same. And nor should it be because we're not dealing with life and death stuff. So for me, I would communicate to any veteran. It's OK to take a step back to take three steps forward. Just be patient and keep your eyes open and your head on a swivel and, you know, opportunity kind of presents itself. And at that point, you will know how to capture it. So that's my biggest advice in transition is be OK with, you know, taking a step back and learning the field that you want to enter into. I know Neil is is in transit. I'll turn it back over to David Cass. But just real quick, if you just joined us, we're joined by Josh Self. He is at Microsoft and he's telling us about his origin story and how he got towards that destination, which we're I'm sure we'll approach at some point in time. Not a sales pitch. Even though he is a sales guy, he promised us he wouldn't sell us anything. If you have a question and you want to ask your question, you can raise your hand in about give us about 15 minutes or so. And then we will bring you up on stage if you do have a burning question for Josh. I will pass it over to David Cass. Thanks, Tomas. And, you know, Josh, great background. And I wouldn't, you know, based on what you're saying, I wouldn't even consider it kind of like a step down as far as, you know, knowing where you see other opportunities is key. Because I've stepped from private sector in the government sector. So I think your analogies are great. And now I'm back in private sector. So one of the things, you know, you know, Microsoft is so big and has such a diverse array. So how do you keep current as a security specialist for them? Woo. I'll tell you. It's in fact, you know, David, it's actually one of the reasons why I joined Microsoft. I was actually working with them in that in that other company. I was we were providing services to Microsoft. And, you know, two years ago. And this is not a Tomas is not a sales pitch. Wait, are you going to tell us that the Kool-Aid? No, it's not the Kool-Aid. It's not the Kool-Aid. Okay, go ahead. I'm very serious. Two years ago, we were kind of laughing at Microsoft. You know, we were supporting them. But, you know, I work with a lot of people that had really deep background in cybersecurity from the government side. And, you know, their tooling was a little bit, you know, and we still did a thing. But I would say after two years, it was like we were flabbergasted by how quickly they advanced. And so for me, it was basically like, wow, this I think they're really serious, you know. And so I joined because there was so much opportunity to learn because their portfolio started growing. So how I keep, you know, stay interested and like keep up. It's just a passion. I think you have to care. You know, I've talked to my boss about this, that sellers should care about this technology they're selling. And so I think I have an edge when it comes to just being curious. I have a background in electrical engineering. Technology is fascinating to me. I've learned that I'm not going to be the person who's going to design the next electric, you know, antenna. You know, I'm not that curious. But I still, it's like a bridge for me where I get to talk about it with people while still learning it and translating it for intuition. And that's usually my goal. Like if, and that's what drives me is because like, I feel like I can't talk to people like Tomas through an authentic way if I don't understand it. And so I just take every, probably every week. And usually actually I use customers kind of problems. And then I dive into the technology around that. Of course, Microsoft has a vast array of people and resources. And don't get me wrong. We have a lot that we can draw upon. But for me, it's just, I come with passion for the space. I always want to learn so I can be authentic. And then, you know, you just take one bite of the elephant at a time, to be honest with you. It's a lot, David. And it's evolving. That's, I think, the exciting part. Like if you learn something tomorrow, it's going to change probably in a week, you know. And that's what keeps the space exciting. For me anyways. Yeah, thanks. Great point. Octavia, over to you. Awesome. Thanks, David. Thank you for your service, Joshua. I find your approach to leadership and leading what I call from the second chair very refreshing and interesting as well. As most, so before I say this, you know, most people who listen know my husband's a Marine. And we joke all the time because his way of leadership is a little different than mine. But one of the things on your profile, you said you make cyber compliance and privacy fun, right? Which is interesting to me because we always go back. I don't know if people who are not in our space would actually consider it fun. Definitely interesting. But I just want to know a little bit more about your philosophy on leadership and how you actually integrate that fun into teams and team building for convergence, especially since we're in such a stressful time in our industry. So it evolves, right? If you ask Tomas, I did a speaking thing for him. It was a week or so ago. And I asked them to play a lot of big energy right before I walked out, you know, because I wanted people to like, you know, get excited about data security and pay attention. You want to sing a little bit of that for you? I don't know if you want to sing it. I don't think, you know, my karaoke song is up by Cardi B. So if we ever get a chance to do karaoke, you'll see that. My favorite. Let's do it. So, no, I think it's so we live in like a very remote world. Right. And so for me, if you ever, if we ever talk like on camera, I'm always, I always have my camera on. Like always. Like it doesn't matter because I feel like even though I'm not in the room with you or everyone else, like I really want that connection. Right. I want you to see my face. And then the second thing I do is I typically have a really crazy background. I always try to change it up. But it's those like micro things that I'm trying to do to like make just let the air out of the room. Yeah, we're talking about a super serious topic. Sometimes it gets super geeky, but we can still have fun with it. And we're just let's just talk like we're human beings. And, you know, it's really about your problem and what I can do about it. And maybe I can't do anything. But that's OK, too. So for me, it's just make sure that we stay as human as possible. And that's like turn on your camera, like laugh, tell a joke and tell me about your, you know, what's going on in your life. Doesn't even have to be about work. And I think that's a big one, especially for peers, like internally is like let's not talk about business all the time. And I learned that from a really good friend of mine that I used to work with. His name was Clayton. I don't know if he joined. And his thing was like he always talked about his personal life. Always. Not like inappropriately, of course, but like he wanted to know about you and care about you. And I think showing that empathy and showing actual caring and actually getting into someone's life is really, really important because you don't know what they're going through. And I think people forget that when we're remote, you know, because you're not there. So I think you're just investing in people, if that makes sense. Octavia. Yeah. No, I love it. We talk a lot about equity. Like people talk about diversity and inclusion, but I like to talk about equity. And it's exactly what you said, like actually connecting to the human being, not actually caring based on what you're willing to give, but caring enough, then giving enough based on what they actually want and what they need from you. I think that's beautiful. Yeah. Yeah. And speaking of like, we call it D&I here, diversity and inclusion in Microsoft. And that's a huge tenant inside our company. And thank God it is. And they really, we really do do it. And so by reaching out, I'm white, male, cisgendered, heterosexual person. And so like my experience for that, not to get too, you know, about this, but, you know, those types of connections are very micro interaction. And I learn a lot because I, I'm vulnerable about it, you know, and then in turn, people are vulnerable to me. We actually get pretty, pretty amazing conversations about that. Healthy, like really healthy. And it brings in, it educates me, you know, because through, through my ignorance and so uncertain things. And so I, it, it, it works in many, and it permeates across many different paths. I would say Octavia. Yeah. I'll turn it over to Katie. Thank you, Octavia. Hi, hi, Josh. So listen, I hope that I'm not crossing a line here, but I have a question for you. Pivoting from what Octavia just touched on. I, I also noticed that you have a very positive and really, you know, all, everything that you're putting out into the world is very positive. And I appreciate that. And we all need that in the industry, but I can only imagine you're a human being served in the military. You've had a significant number of challenges as well. And I imagine you've found some really incredible ways to overcome those types of challenges to be able to be standing here and sitting here with this, you know, the way that you're communicating about data privacy in general. There's gotta be, there had to have been some challenges, even getting, getting to the place where you're, you're a subject matter expert and can be that lighthearted about, you know, such a fun topic for all of us. Just curious, would you be open sharing some of the, I'm imagining you've had some challenging moments along the way in your career. And we have a lot of listeners who are at all different places in their career and maybe facing some of those now. I'm curious what some of the ways that you've gotten through those, those phases of your career and life. Yeah. I mean, the biggest, and most, some people might be related to this on the call of their veterans and their, or their combat veterans. And, but the biggest in how I, I'll just tell you about my life real quick and how it affected me in professional way. So the, the mental health aspect of transitioning is severe for veterans, especially combat veterans. I always tell, depending on how long you served and what you did, it could be, you know, for me, it was two weeks just transitioning out of the military. It was like two weeks of like, I don't know what's going on. All these civilians are crazy. Like they're nuts. I don't understand how this works. So maybe it was two weeks. Some people takes a year just to transition and like, understand how like the civilian mind works. Right. Cause it is so different. But for me, then the next hurdle for me was, so once I figured that out and learned, like I got to like up my game and communication skills, which took time and a lot of mentorship. That was the first thing that I learned is the importance of mentors. I can't stress that enough. Like I can't, I, there are so many people in my life after I transitioned that if I didn't have them, you know, and their willingness to invest in me, I would not be here. So one thing is learn how to attract, maintain, and, you know, really when they're speaking, listen, right? Cause sometimes it's hard, but they're going to tell you and, and then digest that and learn about constructive feedback and how to process constructive feedback. But the first step is to attract mentors and then take, learn how to process their feedback. But once you do that, I think you're going to be on a right path because there's going to be people around you that care about you. People you can go ask questions to, because like things are confusing. And then the other thing was, is around the PTSD thing. The only thing I would say about that for any vet that's suffering with that is that mental health is, is absolutely key. For me, it took, it went down some pretty dark paths. And I'm standing here today because I have an amazing wife of 18 years that stuck with me and just so happens to be a social worker who specializes in childhood trauma. So that was a very benefit. I got very lucky there, but I would say, understand that mentors are the key to success. Learn what that means and how to get them. Know what constructive feedback is. And then if you're dealing with PTSD or any sort of trauma, it doesn't have to be in the military. You will not move forward with, without addressing it. You will find things that are very unhealthy and they will impact you professionally. You will not grow. So that would be what I would say, Kate. Yeah, no, I appreciate that. And, you know, I'd be interested, too, in terms of the, you know, the resources that you would suggest. I don't know if you're connected to any organizations or anything that you could plug real quickly here just to make sure. Because in theory, you know, I hear what you're saying, but at the end of the day, how do we practically, you know, support people that we're working with to be able to give them, you know, connections to the resources that it sounds like you know what those are. So could you do that real quick? Well, there's time. Katie, there's, there's. Yeah, I would put it back is that, like, if you see, if you see, if you have a veteran in your life, invest in them, right? Reach out to them. Especially the combat ones. I'm, you know, obviously, I lean towards that. But any veteran, invest in them. Ask them questions, right? Because, you know, we could talk about organizations, and I do have a few. But at the end of the day, like, it's all of us that have to actually go out and actually try to find them, right? And they will reach out to you. But just make yourself open. Make it a point, I think. But besides that, there might be some, it might be very controversial. Because the VA is not the same everywhere. But for me, actually, the VA was actually pivotal for me. You know, I've tried a few nonprofits. That did not work out for me. But there are thousands of programs in the regional level, at the state level, at the federal level that you can go to. But for me, the VA was very, very important in getting the resources that I need, right? So I know that probably is controversial for those that have dealt with the VA. But for me, it was very helpful. Well, I think what you said, too, just now is maybe what I was hitting at. Because I do have a number of veterans in my life. And I really appreciate what you said about you attempted to work with some organizations. It didn't work out. But you didn't give up. And you kept pursuing that drive to be able to find that ability to work through and continue to live with what I imagine is a lifetime of PTSD, is what it sounds like, I think, if I heard you correctly. So I think that was, for me, very inspiring that you mentioned that. And thank you for that vulnerability. And to give that inspiration to people to continue to move forward if something doesn't work. Maybe it's the VA. Maybe it's something else in their region. But I appreciate that. Thank you, Joshua. With that, I'll give the floor, I believe, to Mas. Back to you. Thank you, Katie. I think we have Stephen. Stephen, up to you, my friend. Sure. I'm sorry, Stephen. Hey, Joshua. Well, as many have said, thank you for your service. I thought it was cool that they played a lot of big energy. But I think the Mas might have lost the opportunity there because I definitely would have went with the allow me to introduce myself. But that's my choice for introducing you. But look, I'm not sure if I missed why you got into security. So I might have missed that. But I'm curious about how much of the training in Ranger School and otherwise helped you prepare for it, right? Because this gig needs a certain mindset, right? Like there's the technical stuff that you can train. And then there's the other, like, you know, whether it's innate curiosity or just that detective type of mindset. So I'm curious how much of the training prepared you for what you're seeing in the roles that you have now. And in addition, you know, in your own opinion, like, what was your sense in, you know, like we talk about how the next war is going to be in cyberspace, right? Like, what's your sense of where we are from a public and private kind of partnership, right? Because we've had conversations on this forum before about how no place can do it by themselves, whether it's public or private. Like, you need that partnership. So curious about what you've seen in your time. So there's like three questions in there. Oh, my bad. No, it's okay. It's okay. Okay. How did, actually, I didn't get into cyber because of Ranger School or Sapper School or the military. It was actually a different reason, which I'll circle back to. But, oh, the partnership thing. Well, if you've been following anything with generative security or generative security, generative AI, you know, it's causing a lot of questions, which I think is great, right? And obviously, Microsoft is a key player in that. It's here to stay. It's not going anywhere. This is a big question, man. I wasn't trying to stop you. I can find another one. It's okay. It's one of those things where it's like my mind is spinning a thousand things. I think you said partnership. But when I talk to companies, and I'm not talking about the NFL. I'm talking about in general. We often think about these like deviant cases, right? Like deviant things that could happen to us. And I don't know if that's industry, you know, because there's a lot of fear-based kind of advertising and things like that. And, you know, some of it's very real. It actually is very real. But I see and talk to a lot of people, and we talk about these very mature advanced attacks, yet we aren't managing our endpoints. You know, we haven't shifted to an identity perimeter, right? We haven't gone beyond EDR. We're still focused on recycling passwords, right? So like, i.e. cyber hygiene. And so for me, how do we partner? If we go, and actually, maybe this does tie back to the military. It's crawl, walk, run, right? Like stop talking about the things that are like in the upper right-hand quadrant when we haven't even addressed the bottom left, right? You know, and help each other remind each other of that. Because everything that's marketed to everyone on this call, if you're actually doing any sort of vendor procurement or anything, it's all about the latest and greatest, which is very important. But again, like if your house is not in order, right? One, you probably won't even be able to implement those tools. Two, even if you get that telemetry, you won't even know what to do with it. You probably won't even see it. And so like, I always say like, let's remind each other like to reinforce good cyber hygiene, right? And then share practices on how we did that. And then we can get to like crawling and walking and running, you know? But to your second question, what inspired me to get into cybersecurity? It actually went back to when I got out of the military and I was trying to go to engineering school. I had to retake my math courses because honestly, I didn't understand algebra. And I was really struggling and I was really scared because I was always taught that I didn't understand math. And then if you guys remember Khan Academy came out, that's, you know, that's how old I am. Khan Academy just came out. It was just on YouTube. And I was inspired by him because he does a lot. He visually teaches you and he did it with love because he was teaching his cousin. That's what he was doing. And here's a guy that has an advanced degree in mathematics, I think from MIT. You know, he worked at a hedge fund and he's telling people that calculus is actually hard for him. And like to hear that was very refreshing. And so why I got into cybersecurity is when I started to get involved in it, it was a lot around cyber training and cyber learning. And one of the things I really, really did not like about cybersecurity and the way the path to learn was that one, it was about certifications, which I find repulsive. And I'm sorry, you know, I just do. Because cybersecurity is very vocational. It's very hands on. And to be hands on, there was a lot of resources. If you have a privileged background, but if you did not have a privileged background, there was just nothing for you. And I thought that was really infuriating. And that actually got me motivated in the prior company to like really try to solve that problem. And that's how I got passionate about cybersecurity is I just started learning it because I wanted it to be more accessible to people. And just because, you know, you didn't hack in high school doesn't mean you can't, you know, be a cybersecurity analyst in an FSI company. Right. There are people that are gifted, but some people just learn differently. And so that's what really drove me to do it. And it just turns out I thought it was a cool space. And so I just kept learning and learning. And here I am. I appreciate that. I was definitely a big fan of Khan Academy myself. So I could definitely attest to using it to augment some of the stuff that I've learned. And I definitely recommended it to others. But thank you again for the answer. So, Katie, I think I'm going to pass it to you now for the room reset. Yeah, I'll just do a quick room reset. We moved over to the platform here on LinkedIn Audio just a couple of months ago. And, you know, actually, I'm really enjoying. Thank you for those who have sent, you know, direct messages while we've been on the call listening to Josh. Josh, do you go by Joshua or Josh? Oh, Josh. It's less syllables. Okay. I just wanted to make sure because I noticed that people are calling you Josh, but you have. Okay. So Josh Self is here with us tonight and so gracious with his time. We're learning so much about his background. What we do here at the Fireside Chat is we invite people in to not only hear their origin story, but also really get a great sense about their place in our industry, their contributions, what they're doing, who they're interacting with, and how we can, you know, learn from what they're doing every single day and apply that to, you know, our piece of the industry. It's a great community. We started a couple of years ago on Clubhouse. I was not one of the founding members of Tomas Maldonado, David Kass, Anil, Russell, Stephen, Octavia, who you see here, have been doing this for over two years now. So just really grateful to be a part of this community and really excited about what we're doing here now on LinkedIn Audio. For those of you in the audience, feel free to raise your hand. Some people have said this feels a little bit like a radio show. You can raise your hand. We bring you up on stage. It's like that. You can ask your question of our guest. What a great opportunity to meet someone and the ultimate, you know, networking opportunity where you don't have to, as an introvert, this is my dream because I don't have to have a camera on. I don't have to be in person and walk up to somebody, shake their hand before I get to ask an incredible person a question. So for those of you in the audience, please feel free to raise your hand. We will bring you up on stage and I'm sure Josh would be happy to answer your questions. With that, I think Tomas has re-entered the room. I had to step away for a second, but I want to turn the room back over to Tomas to be able to ask a few questions as well while we wait for people to join the stage. Yeah, thanks, Katie, and thank you, Josh. I usually call Joshua when I'm upset at him. Joshua! I'm playing. I'm playing. Hey, Josh, I did want to – I know you talked about the PTSD, so I actually wanted to touch upon that, but I'll ask you a different question because I think you gave some good information on there. And you talked about mentorship, and one of the questions that I know I've received quite a few times from different folks that are in that transition period from military, either having some level of cyber skill set or trying to break into cyber security. Can you expand a little bit more upon that and your journey there? Just share maybe some more tips or tricks that helped you land your role, or not so much land your role, but land in a place where you felt comfortable to start and you had a good foundation to continue to grow. So I would tell you, if you land comfortably, you probably didn't shoot high enough, to be honest with you. Well, I've always – in fact, one of the mentors that I've ever – you know, one of my key mentors instilled that in me pretty quickly. There was a time that I was complaining about going somewhere because I felt completely uncomfortable, or when the time that I, you know, became a platoon sergeant when I was six months left in the military and called my stepfather, and he's like, well, why would you not take that, you know? So I would tell anybody that if you find yourself being, you know, comfortable, maybe stretch a little bit further. But for cyber security, there are – if you go on the – I think the NICE framework, there's tons of paths you could take. And I think for me, I learned very quickly that I would probably – I'm not good enough to be – or do I find passion in being a cyber operator, right? Maybe for like the NSA. So I think finding what you're really curious about – and sometimes that takes learning how to learn, you know? And everyone's different. So like we talked about Khan Academy, I learn through visual means. That's in actually drawing and things like that. So learning how to learn, step one. Two, don't be comfortable. If that's the case, you're probably not going to stretch yourself, and you won't learn how to grow in that way and be comfortable with uncomfortable. And step three is just as you begin to iterate and explore this space, you're going to find things that are really, really interesting, right? Go down that path and be relentless about it is what I would advise because there's so much in cyber security. You could be on the risk side. You could be in cyber insurance. You could be a cyber marketer. And I wish we'd have better cyber marketers with an operational background. But that's how I would do it is like you can't really just pick a path. You can do the certifications. You can get hands-on. That's a little bit harder. But there's actually tons of resources like Hack the Box, Try to Hack Me. There's open source stuff. There's like competitions you can do. I think there's the cyber games. Of course, every community college has a program you can do, which is, I think, very financially effective. But, again, you can go down a path. And back to Katie's point, like with the VA, you could try something, and it could be a total miss. Don't give up, right? Keep exploring. And I'm telling you, you will find something that really interests you in cyber because it's so big, and there's so much opportunity for you, right? Thanks for that, Josh. I do see someone trying to jump up on stage to ask a question, so let's see if you came up. There he is. Felitas, thanks for joining us this evening. Anything you want to ask Josh? Yeah. You were talking about mentorship and other situations, and I was just curious. Could you describe a situation where you had to communicate a complex cybersecurity concept or risk to a non-technical stakeholder? Every day. No. You know, I'll take a step back. And I guess let me reword that a little bit in how you use your military training to apply that to that conversation. Well, so if you understand, what is a platoon sergeant for those that aren't, right? You're in charge of about 60 guys split in like four squads, right? And you have a lieutenant that's actually in charge, but in the reality, you're in charge. And so you have a bunch of, at that stage, it was all men, right, who have various degrees of backgrounds, various degrees of, you know, socioeconomic backgrounds, educational backgrounds, personalities. And, you know, in the military, you have to be very clear and make sure that they understand what you've just told them. Otherwise, there's obviously very serious consequences that could happen to them and their fellow battles. In the military, you learn that a short, concise, being funny usually works, too. And a lot of analogies. So if you ever, like, see me talk about a complex topic, I try to break it down like attack. I was trying to describe sensitive information types that go to a protection label. And I use the term, you know, like it's a Lego and you're building a ship and that ship is, what did I say? That's your highly sensitive ship, you know, things like that. So I think anything you can do to, you know, break it down into like a visual for them is something that they can actually relate to and laugh about, you know, is always a plus. I think it's helpful because when people aren't technical, it doesn't mean they're dumb, right? It just means that they just don't have that knowledge. So your job is to make it relatable, right? And so that's what I typically do. But the background is because I had to talk to a bunch of grunts and get them to move out on something, you know, with less than 30 seconds, you know? So there you go. Thanks, Felitas. Thanks for joining us this evening and adding to the conversation. Again, if there's anybody in the audience that does have a question for Josh, please raise your hand and I'll bring you up on the stage. So you can ask your question. Katie, I'll turn it over to you. Oh, okay. Sorry. I thought you were going to wrestle next. Sorry, I was unmuting. You know, I was thinking, you know, again, Josh, I really appreciate your time and your candor. I wanted to go back a little bit further. You've touched on socioeconomic background several times this evening. And I'm curious why, because it's something that I've noticed, you know, as we, you know, continue to focus on having a diverse group of candidates that we're hiring as part of our organizations, peers that we're working with to be able to create the right type of team to be able to address highly complex cybersecurity, you know, dilemmas for large and small organizations. I believe that socioeconomic background is one of those big differentiators. And you've touched on it so many times. I just want to know why. Is that your background, is it something that you've noticed in building out your teams? Is it something that you've read about? Just could you share a little bit why it is? I experienced it. Yeah, I experienced it. You know, I didn't, I've read about it and I've heard about it, but, you know, and researched it. But, you know, post my experience. So, like, when I joined the infantry, you know, I was middle class, middle class guy, right? I didn't, you know, my parents couldn't afford college, right? But they, you know, you know, I could have afforded college, right? But when I joined the Army, I was with a bunch of individuals from all walks of life. You have country boys, you have city guys, you have suburban guys like me, you have people that were dirt poor, right? That couldn't feed themselves, right? And then you had people that had an abundance, right? And I remember walking out of basic training and I don't think anywhere else in the planet at that time was a kid from the city, a kid from the country and a suburban, you know, from all, you know, ethnic backgrounds. Hanging out, you know, and they were friends. And that's what makes the Army, our Army so impressive, right? And in that diversity, you get complexity, right? You do. But in that diversity, you get, like, such a strong bond. It's so effective on the battlefield because you're getting all sorts of perspectives, you know? And so from that, like, you know, you didn't have to sell me. I didn't have to read in an article. I knew it. I've seen it. And that's why it's so important to me because that's what builds incredible teams that do incredible stuff, right? Because you need the diversity to think about something from 75 different angles to actually get to the right problem. You know, it's like that elephant thing, you know, the little gif with the elephant, right? Everyone's looking at it, but they're blind, right? But it's like if you have diversity, it's like everyone's blindfolds come off and everyone can see it's an elephant. Yeah, I appreciate that. And I also, by the way, speaking of elephants, appreciated your analogy the one bite at a time. Really, it's one of my favorites. And I think what you touched on, I think, was just really important. And you got, you know, from your experience in the military. The final, like, bridge I'd love to get to, though, is how are you seeing that? Maybe it's at Microsoft. Maybe you're seeing that in your clientele. What is the best way for us as leaders in this industry to ensure that we're incorporating those from different socioeconomic backgrounds into our organizations? Are there practical pieces of advice that maybe, and maybe you did something about, just something practical that you could add as we're doing that on our teams? It's so hard because when I was a hiring manager at the company, hiring for my team, you know, the way we source talent is tough because, like, it goes back to, like, you know, you apply for a resume and then the engine does things, right? And it's more quantitative and things like that. What I tried to do is stop that. I actually didn't really look at resumes, right? The way I sourced people was obviously through network and things like that. But I really tried to stay away from the resume thing and actually do more one-on-ones with people. Like, even though I wasn't being hired, I would very much get involved in it because that person and making sure we sourced people of many different backgrounds, maybe they didn't look good on a resume. I would take the time to talk to them. And even though it might be a dud, right, and it didn't work out and it's just, you know, but even then I could actually advise that person. Like, hey, you know, like, next time, you know, maybe you want to do this. So, you know, so I'd invest in actually the hiring process, like, very deeply and make that a very, very important thing. And then get away from the resume as a qualification and more into the individual and how they present themselves and what their story is. I think, again, goes back to, like, the D&I conversation we were having with Octavia is that it's hard and it takes a lot of time and it sucks a lot of energy. But you have to get dirty as a hiring manager. That was, and I know it's harder the bigger you get into organizations. But to me, that's the only way to break the cycle that everything has to be quantitative and resume driven. That was just my journey. Oh, man, I love that, Josh. And I guess it's what I was getting at. And honestly, I'm a product of that. My very first job, official job out of college. I was in this sea of resumes and it took a hiring manager to, you know, sit down and understood, you know, my background. I put myself through school, things like that that were interesting enough just to elevate me to a point where I actually was able to get my first job after being, you know, turned down by many organizations previously. I appreciate that. Just everybody to, you know, take that step back and a reminder to, yeah, get a little bit out of the algorithm and back into the dirt, as you say. And I love that. So thank you. Thank you for that. With that, I don't think we, oh, we do. We have somebody who just joined us. Ganell Lewis. Over to you for the next question. Hi. Thank you. My question for Josh was, I also did 20 years in the military and I retired and now I'm making the transition over. I'm trying to get into risk management. What I'm noticing is the terminology. There are a lot of things that I did in the military that actually applies to the process, but because the terminology is different. So I guess what my question is, is there, I know in the military we had like different sites that we could go to where we would look for keywords for evaluations and things like that when we were writing them for troops. Is there something like that where you can see the terms and figure out exactly the similarities? You know, that is, I've seen people try to do that. I have. And what I would, it's really hard, man, because every industry, I'll just take Microsoft. We literally have a thing inside Microsoft that's like upsite just for Microsoft acronyms. Would you believe it? It's true. Right. Because there's so many, right. Every industry is so different. And it goes back to my point of like, it sounds like you're getting into, you said risk management. Yes, sir. By the way, thank you for your, for your service, man. And sticking it out for 20 years. Like, seriously. Thank you. Yeah. Make sure you hit that VA up. All right. Yes, sir. Yeah. But it's really hard, man. I, it goes back to, I would say, instead of trying to use data to do that, find yourself people that are mentors in that community. Right. Walk to them because like you can, and we can set up databases and we can try to, you know, do data mapping and stuff, but really you don't know what they're talking about. Right. You know what I'm saying? You might see a term, but you're like, I could maybe think that, but you're trusting someone who's done that mapping, go actually talk to someone who's actually done it, you know, and build that relationships, you know, multiple people. And that's what I would tell you, man, is like, it's really hard to do that at scale. Go get human and go connect with them because it's going to be really important as you continue down risk management, which it sounds just as exciting as cybersecurity, by the way. It absolutely is. Yeah. Imagine trying to cross the street without doing risk management. Oh, boy. Hey, especially if you're in New York. Hey, Russell, I know you had a question for Josh. Over to you. Yeah, definitely. Josh, I just love the insight you share so far, the things you've done, the things you've achieved. I'd love to ask you a question. So what's something you've learned recently that you wish you'd learned a long time ago? Oh, that's a good one, Russell. Well, man, give me a second, man. That's a, what have I learned recently? Well, speechless is a new, is something new. Yeah, I know. It's me speechless, right? It has nothing to do professionally, right? Actually, in recent, I would say in the COVID era, right? So I was really like a workaholic, I would say. Like, even during, I was working from home before working home was like an actual thing, which I was very blessed to do that. So when COVID happened, I was traveling all the time. What I've learned recently is the importance of my kids. And that sounds cheesy, but I'm very serious. Like, from the military to, you know, getting a degree and having a newborn baby and working full time to then, you know, doing the other stuff. I didn't prioritize that at all, right? And COVID stopped me in my tracks. And that was, it's been one of the most important things in my life. And one of the saddest things, actually, that I, that I missed that time with them. I have a, I have a soon to be 15 year old daughter and a, just recently a year old son. And so the most important thing that I've learned recently is to put the damn phone down and, and turn it off and go, you know, spend very focused time with them. You know, Russell, like that's, that's, it's something I'm constantly doing, right? And reminding myself. And that goes back to the PTSD thing. Like I'll go off in these worlds and, and be disconnected and stuff. And that's something I have to work on, but my kids crown me. And so that's, that's one of the biggest things. I love that. And I appreciate you sharing and being transparent on that. And I'll say it's something, I mean, I've got kids a little bit older than yours. That's something I've had to learn a few times myself. So much respect for, for that. Hey, being father's hard. I don't care what anybody says. What's next? Being a father is hard. I've got a, my, my little baby's about 250 months now. So why are you laughing, Josh? That's a, that's very intentional. Every, every month's a birthday. I like that. Yeah. Yeah. I do see some of your, some of your colleagues in the audience. I'm surprised they haven't come up to try to, you know, get some jabs in. I'm just, I'm actually disappointed to be, to be very transparent. But I will, I will stop talking and see if any of the, any of the other co-hosts would like to ask a question. And if you are in the audience, please raise your hand. We'll bring you up if you want to ask a question. All right. Well, that will always. I like to add to my audio books and I don't believe anybody's asked you, what are you reading or listening to? Oh, that's. I, I, I need some new, some new things to put on my, my wishlist. So what, what do you, what do you, what do you listen to Josh? I have a very, is there a bunch of sales books? Actually for the, for a while I was, I was really passionate about entrepreneurship. Like, okay. You could not, there was not a podcast that I wouldn't listen to. There wasn't a book I wouldn't read. I actually joined the YCs, not the actual YC, but, or, you know, what am I trying to say? YC has two programs, the actual program. And then like the one you can join. That's like, like the program I joined that, you know, pretended like I was going to start a startup. Right. You know, actually, you know, did the co-founder dating thing for a while, but like just completely entrenched myself into entrepreneurship, VC rounds, everything you could possibly imagine. Had to do it for my job as well. But after I, you know, figured out that, you know what, I'm going to give my wife a turn to be an entrepreneur. I'm going to not do that, which I'm super impressed by what she's been able to do. But I shifted over to, I listened to the journal, right? I don't commute anymore. That's the problem, Tomas. Like used to be commuting. I would like have podcasts, you know, for every day after commuting to DC, but I don't do that anymore. So, but I listened to the journal, but I'm actually a huge fan of epic fantasy. Most people don't know that I read, like, if you imagine Game of Thrones, Dune, things like that, books that would, you know, thousands of pages for, per book and 10 books per series. I can't get enough of it. Like I'm, I'm a geek for that type of stuff. So I actually read that a lot and it's a way for me to decompress. Actually, I actually did that in Iraq. One of the ways I would decompress was, if you guys remember the OC, it was a really cheesy show about kids in California. But the way I would get out of Iraq was I would watch the OC on like burned and bootleg DVDs. But that's a way for me to actually decompress. I learned so much every day during work that I need to shift my mind over to something that's a little bit more enjoyable. And it's part of that mental health stuff. But I used to be huge on entrepreneurship. Still am. But I've been passing that off a little bit. And now it's just about mental health and doing, reading stuff I enjoy. And then obviously keeping up with current events. I actually don't, I don't follow a lot of cybersecurity stuff, actually, personally. Because I feel like it just inundates me and I need to shift away from it to, you know, to be energized, to go back and do it. So diversity, Tomas, you need diversity in your life. No, that's going to be great. Right, Katie? That's the theme, Octavia, of this. Yeah, 100%. Yeah, it's funny. I was about to jump in before Tomas asked that question about what you're listening to. Because I do feel like there is this, you know, there's this balance. And, you know, I think it's Jeff, Jeff Bezos says it. And I'm like, well, of course, if you own Amazon, you're able to, you know, merge your lives. But, you know, there's some level where I don't believe in a work-life balance either. I believe that they should come together. I think your story about the fact that, you know, you and your wife are able to communicate and support each other in her entrepreneurship and in your career as well and be able to have those conversations. Yeah. But yeah, I was going to ask you a little bit more about, yeah, you know, you're obviously a very proud dad. You're, you know, you have this big career with Microsoft. You have a successful, you know, life partner who's out doing, you know, a lot of work as well. It's not really the balance as much as tell us a fun story. You know, like I think that all of us have just that fun story. I also was a remote worker way before, since 2006 is when I started remote working. So I have so many fun stories about the fact that, like, my five-year-old, you know, knew what a quarter was, the end of a quarter when he was five, you know, or I worked, I was working in support of the government. So September 30th was a big, you know, day for our closing our books and things like that. So just curious, do you have any, you know, stories that where your kids have leaned into what you're doing or maybe even like mine, they just go off to school and major in evolutionary biology and say, screw this cyber stuff. Just curious about how you've emerged your life, you know, your personal life and your work life and what that looks like for you. I don't know if I've solved that, Katie. I should be honest with you. But, you know, there was, you know, Frank Mesa's on this. Frank is an absolutely brilliant seller. He's one of the, you know, I'm not, you know, petting him right now. I'm very serious. He, there was a, he struck, he got in a, one of the most recent things that I thought was really cool working from home and my daughter got to experience was. Microsoft does these things out in Seattle. It's like this executive briefing thing. And, and we did one for a customer and Frank was leading that. And, and one of the special things that happened was Satya Nadella walked in the room. Right. And here I am listening to the CEO of Microsoft in a sales engagement. Right. That's pretty neat. Just so happened to my daughter was in the room too. And I, and I pointed, I said, do you know who that is? And she was like, no, of course not. Right. She's 15. And, and here, you know, and she got to, you know, see, you know, our CEO do his thing. And, which is quite impressive. And I thought that was just one of those moments that you're like, whoa. Right. But other than that, just like everyone, they'll come running in. I think I had one time I was on a customer call and my son walked in and kept screaming that he had to, he needed to be looked after, after using the toilet. And he kept screaming it. And this was before teams had really great filtering, noise filtering, background filtering. So everyone on the call got to hear that. But that was, that was, that was memorable because I couldn't get him to be quiet and he kept screaming it. But those are two ones that kind of stand out top of mind. My son's screaming from the bathroom and then my daughter getting to witness a really special moment with a special person and a special client. So I thought that was really cool. Those are great. That is cool. But what did she say afterwards? She was like, all right, daddy, can I get off the TV now? Yeah, she totally didn't care. At all. It was like, whatever. That's great. Mia, thanks for, thanks for joining us this evening. Anything you want to ask Josh? Yeah. Thank you so much for hosting this talk. It's my first time here. Going back to talking about the TV shows, I think, Tomas, you definitely should check out the OC. It's life changing. It's one of my favorite things. But I've been recently binge watching this session. So I don't know if anyone has seen it. But going back to the question for Josh, you know, going back to when you were first breaking into cybersecurity is definitely not an easy thing to do. I myself am new, fairly new to this tech space as well, also in sales. But I was wondering, what were some of the successful ways that you found to building those lasting relationship that has really helped you via that's, you know, through mentorship or just making friends in the industry? So this is going to come off philosophical, Mia, but, you know, if there was a silver bullet, I'd be a billionaire, right? You know, in like consulting people to like be successful. I would tell you that there's a, one of the entrepreneurial podcasts I used to listen to is called How I Built This. And it's about, it's an NPR, it's popular, it's HPIT. And one of the last questions they ask entrepreneurs, and these are entrepreneurs from all walks of life. You know, if you haven't listened to the podcast, basically, they go through their journey much like this. And it could be, you know, someone who made pita chips all the way to tech founders to whatever, right? People that, restaurant chains and stuff. Anyways, the last question they ask that person or that group of individuals, co-founders, is, was it, was your success based off luck or skill or hard work? Actually, I think it's hard work. And that's a really hard question to answer. But I pose it to you because it's both, right? If you work really hard and you don't give up, back to the kind of the theme that Katie mentioned about tenacity. And just because I went to the one veteran program, it didn't give up, right? And went to the next one. You're going to hit lots of blocks, right? But if you work really hard, next thing you know, luck will happen. But every time you fail getting in, you're going to learn something. Nothing is ever wasted if you have that mentality. And so every time you fail or you get one step further, but you meet someone, maybe they fall off your network or they get busy, right? Or you took a class and it was, eh, you know? You still learn something. I guarantee it. That will exponentially build over time. And next thing you know, you'll get lucky. And you'll be able to capture that opportunity. And that's the secret. I'm telling you. And I still haven't figured it all out. I'm telling you. But that right there, if you live by that, you will break into cybersecurity. It might take you a little longer. And I think that's a mentality that we tell ourselves that, like, oh, you know, that person over there got in quicker because they, you know, whatever it is, right? You got to cut that crap out, right? And just focus on you and your journey. And I'm telling you, you'll break into cybersecurity and you're going to have a successful career because you have a certain mentality, right? I know, I mean, you know, that's probably not the best answer, but I'm telling you, that's what I could give you. No, I think that's really insightful, you know, especially with so many different people doing career change and whatnot. Have you, what are some ways, like, as far as, like, relationship building, especially when you were new? Did you go to conferences and things of that nature? And so the secret to mentorship was I was fearless in asking questions, did not care. And I learned over time that, like, maybe context matters. Read the room, Josh, you know, like, that wasn't the best question to ask. But I was, there wasn't a question. If I had a question and I didn't understand something, I had no fear in asking it. None. And I still, to this day, don't really have any fears when it comes to asking questions. That's Tomas. But I think if you just lead with that, you will pique someone's interest. So that's, like, the first step. If you have a question, freaking ask it, you know. The second thing is, because then people are going to, like, start paying attention because you're the person asking questions. But two, you have to learn how to really listen, right? Really listen to that response. And understand that there's more to that response than you might think. Because that person is drawing upon tons of experience. Things that you don't, you've never experienced. And when you come at it and really learn to listen, they're just going to want to keep answering your questions. It's just a fact of life, right? And that was the secret to my mentors. I used to have, like, it was ridiculous. My wife used to make fun of me, you know, because all my friends were older people. So for a while there. But that was what I do is just ask questions and really listen. And then eventually you'll get invited to rooms that you shouldn't be in. And that's the time to really listen and pay attention. Because you're getting exposure. And that's the secret. They just, they got exposure. That's it. If you learn that, you'd be surprised. Awesome. Thank you. Thanks, Mia. Thanks for asking your question and contributing to the conversation. I'm going to skip the jab that Josh made at me and go over to Tony. Tony, anything you want to ask Josh? Hey, good evening, everybody. This is also my first time joining us. Very inspiring. Josh, thank you so much for being so authentic and so vulnerable. My question was actually inspired by Mia. And as we were talking here, we're all in cybersecurity. We've come into it. I wanted to share that I'm personally very passionate and focused in what is our legacy and how do we help solve this three plus million talent gap, talent skills gap that we have. And what are you, Josh, Microsoft, and all of us, right? Are we doing or can we be doing more to help inspire, poach, persuade, recruit, whatever that you want to use to bring them over to cybersecurity, but also offer maybe career transitioning. I know there's a lot of activities. I work with Microsoft in partnerships. And I'm a couple of think tanks that we're trying to do this. So just thought I'll share that since you guys were hovering around that topic. Tony, I spent four years. In fact, there's a real good friend of mine. His name is Carl Gossett. I don't know if he's paying attention, but he's actually on this. We worked together for this for almost four years to try to unpack this particular challenge. It's very complicated, Tony, I would say. It's from what I learned, right? First, IT is not security and security is not IT, right? When I spent a lot of time in, I would say, high school, right? There's a lot of confusion around that. Now, there's a lot of skills blending, but they're not the same thing, right? Like, yeah, you should learn Python. Python could be software engineering. It could be IT, but it's also cybersecurity. So there's, like, fundamental things, right? So I think being really clear that they're not the same thing. Two, one of the things that I found really, really challenging to inspire kids is that they're – it's really hard. Again, it goes back to that vocational thing. To really dive in and experience an incident, right? Because if you really unpack what it takes to build a scenario and, you know, to give someone that experience in a safe, safe, safe way, it's actually very technically hard. So I would be honest with you, Tony. I still not have seen it in a way to do and inspire. I think there's a lot of people like – I think Tomas is actually part of the cyber games. Have you heard of that, Tony? Yes, yes. Yeah, yeah, okay. Books are working right now. Yeah, I think that's an incredible effort to inspire. And I think there's two things, right? There's actually having really proper cyber learning paths, right, that account for, again, socioeconomic status, right, backgrounds, people that learn differently. But then also there's just getting – investing in events that actually get people excited about the topic, right? The cyber games is an example, but I don't think we do a lot of that, right? And that's actually something I was talking to Microsoft actually recently is, like, how do you get people excited, right, about that and get them involved in a safe way? Hands-on in a safe way. Because once they touch the keyboard, you're going to find people that are just like, oh, my gosh, right? Oh, my gosh. This is great, you know? I don't know, Tony. It's a complicated – that's a really complicated thing. But for me, it's about investing in kids at high school, right, and evangelizing that nonstop. And I think that's very important. And there's a lot of efforts, like you mentioned, cyber games and a few other entities that are doing that. I was thinking maybe more tactical. One thought was, since you took the path of coming from the military and a career change, do you know of ways that the industry could work with the military, kind of like go back in your career? Or, you know, you picked it up out of curiosity, out of questioning, out of something you wanted to do. How many other folks from the service, those backgrounds, whether they've been in a range or not, is there a way that you could be an alumni, kind of like I'm thinking like a TEDx kind of conversation, and showing, hey, there's an arrow here, right, and there's a path. This is Josh's path to something that is rewarding, right, and it helped him deal with all the things that you shared through adversity, you know, through overcoming that, and then leading to the, you know, success that you're sharing with us, right? I think, you know, what we do with the universities, right, alumni goes back, and I think maybe you can be an alumni or folks have been in service. I'm just seeing something more attainable in a more short in time, right? The high school is great. We're doing a lot of efforts, but I think we have a more vivid problem right now, right? This number is not going down. It's going up because you had cyber, and you have cyber and AI, and AI is cyber. It's supposed to solve the problem. I just think it's exacerbating it. So, I don't know, just thought I'll share that, and I was listening to you. I think, yeah, it could be very inspiring to other folks that like this story. Yeah. Right now, my life pattern just doesn't allow me to invest back in the community. I wish it did. You know, to be honest with you, I have this dream of, like, you know, helping people understand and unpack the mystifying, like, how to deploy E5, you know, without all the confusion. Right? I feel like that's, like, somebody could solve that. That'd be great. And make people laugh along the way. But I have not had the opportunity to do that, to be quite frank with you. But I do believe it's very, very important. Also, the opportunity hasn't presented itself. I'm a very believer that, you know, keep your ears open and life will open up. Right? Kind of like this, you know? You know, I was hanging out with Tomas. I was like, hey, I want to do that, you know, and then do it. But, you know, back to kind of the tactical thing. I think it actually, you know, there's that point where someone maybe goes through a track or they've invested in themselves. And it kind of goes back to Katie's point when we talked about hiring. Right? In cybersecurity, there's this aspect that you need all these certifications. And certifications is, like, proving someone. I wish that employers would invest in early talent. Right? And have programs to groom them along the way. But also, when they're hiring them, have a vocation, like, a project-based thing. Don't just rely on certifications. Actually make them go and try to do something. Right? And at the level you're trying to hire. Right? Because if you start focusing on what they can do, not what's on paper, and going back to the resume thing, I think you're going to find extremely talented people. Or people with a lot of potential that have incredible soft skills that you can mold. Just through, like, throwing them into the fire. Because they come with tenacity. They come with all that stuff. Does that make sense, Tony? I think a lot of it's the employer, the employing side, I would say. At least for my clients. I totally agree with you. I lived that on the practitioner side when I was. I remember when we were hiring. There was a gentleman. I became good friends. But when we were interviewing him, the guy had more certifications that I knew of at that time. Right? And I was just working on, I guess, my boss wanted me to get CIS to speak. And my question was, like, if you had this time to go to all the certifications or put all the time, when did you actually have the time to do the work? And that was my question. And I worked with him. And sure enough, he knew the certifications. But he caused more problem because he didn't have the hands-on experience. And fast forward. Now, going back to the tactical thing, I'm volunteering on different boards. And one of the things that, to your point, is with the community colleges just here in Bay Area, there are a lot of group of people that created apprenticeship programs. Right? Around cybersecurity. Now, you would think that would be so easy for him to find jobs. And the problem is that the industry, you know, is so disconnected with the community. And what I'm trying to do is build a bridge. I'm like, because these are not internships. These are apprenticeships. And there's a different process. So, but yeah, your point, absolutely. I think the certifications are certifications. That doesn't really build the talent that we need. I think we need more hands-on. So, I appreciate it. Thank you. Yeah. And for those that have certifications, please don't take it the wrong way. I just, we're talking about, you know, how to solve a really hard problem. And a problem that seems to get any worse. Finding people that either have the hard skills, right? Like the stuff they can actually do it. But more importantly, the soft skills. Because like cybersecurity is not a individual sport. Anybody that's working in a soccer, it's a team sport. So, what you want, especially if you're hiring juniors, is you want people to understand the concept of a team and working hard. I agree. And I just updated my LinkedIn to delete my certifications. Because apparently there's an attack on certifications. That was another dig at you, Tomas. I just didn't want to be super direct. Well, I was just thinking about, you know, our SANS instructor, Russell. I'm not deleting mine. I was thinking about Russell, who teaches a lot of SANS classes. I did. Sorry, Russell. I saw SANS and that's why I paused. I was like, oh, crap. But look, Tony, thanks for jumping up on stage and asking your question. We have about nine minutes left. I want to be respectful of everybody's time. If there is a burning question that you have, please raise your hand and we'll bring you up so we can wrap. Sorry, so we can get you before we conclude this evening. Octavia, I'll pass it over to you. I know you have one question you want to ask Josh. I do. Thanks. Yeah, I'm not. I already don't put all my certs on my LinkedIn. So definitely not going to delete the ones I have there. But I'm just joking. So, Josh, you know, one of the things I look in the audience and I look at the people who are asking you questions and I just have a really, really, really. It's like the elephant in the room. So this is number three elephant, right? You know, I'm just going to be very blunt. Some salespeople on LinkedIn get on my nerves. And so how do you how do you really? I'm sorry. I'm not on mute. My bad. But how do you not just on LinkedIn, but also the phone calls and the constant phone calls and like really like I for me, it would be very helpful if I had a partner, if I actually built relationships. So how do you it seems like you and Tomas actually have some sort of relationships. And as we're talking about how to get people in and all this stuff, like really, what advice can you give to a to a person who was in business development or sales or something that helps with those relationships as opposed to those cold calls? Or, hey, you know, I would see that we have mutual connections. I would love to connect. Like those are just, you know, help me help your friends. Well, let's let's be empathetic to the salespeople. They, you know, they have quotas. They have managers. You know, they have, you know, all these things. And, you know, and they've been told to do certain things. Right. Like, you know, tactics. Right. Some of them get lazy with it. Microsoft, it's an unusual situation because everyone's a Microsoft customer in one fashion or not. So eventually you're going to talk to us. So there is that. Right. But outside of that, even outside of Microsoft, for me, it's. And I told my boss this and I think he's actually on this call. So it's very important for me to to to go slow at it. Right. Because I think for Tomas, I think Tomas, we didn't talk for like I think I emailed you a few times, you know, and I was like, hey, maybe we should just like get on a monthly call and figure out like just tell me what your problem is and I'll go solve it. Right. I didn't say like, hey, let's talk about E5 or let's talk about Sentinel. I said, let's just meet. Let's just talk as humans. I've done that with all my CISOs, you know. And that are that I need to build a relationship with and want to. But I just usually try to enter the conversation with is just what is top of mind to you? And typically has nothing to do with anything that I'm going to be able to sell them because it's something they already own, maybe from Microsoft or something else. But for me, start off the relationship by actually bringing value to Tomas in this case or you or anyone else. And then let them know that I can actually show up and deliver because if I can't deliver on a problem they have today. It's probably I'm not going to solve a problem that I'm artificially creating for a new solution. Right. And so for me, that's the philosophy and that's going to take a lot more time. I might miss my quarter, you know, but that's OK to me. And Eric, close your ears. I'm sorry. Or Frank. But, you know, that's that's how I've been able to build a relationship with Tomas. And I think he I don't know. You have to ask him, but please don't ask him online because he might say no. But if you trust me or not. And. That's just my philosophy. Solve your guys's problems and eventually you're going to want to come to me about the stuff I have to sell you and that kind of thing. Does that help? I'll say if there's any salespeople in the audience, please don't contact me after this. Please, please, please. And normally I would deny any sort of knowledge of Josh. But it's hard because NFL is a Microsoft. Also the NFL. So it's hard to say that I don't know him. But I do know Josh and he is right. It did take him a while to to to get a hold of me. Not because I was busy. Actually, that's exactly why. Not because I had plenty of time to talk, but it was because I was extremely busy. But what I will say, you know, about Josh and really about just general. Sales individuals and then I'll get off the soapbox is there's two sides to cybersecurity, right? There's the practitioners, the consumers of products and then the ones that are producing or providing products. And we need to both be able to dance in a way that makes sense for our organization. So find that right balance. Find that person that's going to really look to grow and be a partner. And you'll end up on a fireside chat. With that said. You'll end up on a fireside chat. Everybody go to Tomas. Tomas is open. No. He's not open for ED. No, he's Microsoft got him covered on the screen. Yeah. So I do see. No, that was hopeful, Josh. I do see Javon. Hopefully I pronounced your name right. From Microsoft. Somebody that wants to take a few stabs at Josh. Go for it. I'm here for that. No, I got no stabs against Josh. So Javon White. I recently joined Microsoft a few months ago. I think LinkedIn just told me seven months ago. And I just want to give some kind of commentary on, you know, who Josh is as a person. When I came in, he was one of the few people that reached out and said, hey, you know, I'm here to help you out. And, you know, he'll pick time on your calendar. He'll call you just, you know, sort of out of the blue if you're pinging him with questions on teams. And, you know, I just always want to say, like, I was always really appreciative of, you know, that level of effort. Sometimes when you're joining a new organization and you're onboarding, there's a lot thrown at you. And you can imagine, you know, what that's like at a company as big as Microsoft with a lot of things that are developing. If you're paying attention to Microsoft, all the solutions and technologies are coming out. Sometimes it's hard to make sense of it all. And, you know, Josh was there to, you know, pick time and help me out there. And I'll say that I know he's, so there's a bit about the mentoring piece. If there's any doubts about his passion there, I know you say he doesn't have time to, you know, really put things back out there. But you already are. You're doing it with me and you're doing it with others. On the other side, even with customers, you know, they're humans just like us. They have a boss just like we do there, sometimes asking them, you know, to have all the answers to all the questions and all the new developments, you know, like give me a report on this. Give me a point of view on this thing. Right. And I've seen them come to Josh, you know, to get sort of that guidance. And I know Josh said, like, everyone wants to do it differently. And I think he mentioned earlier that he's a visual learner. What I've seen many times that he'll get, he'll use a surface and he'll whiteboard out, you know, sort of the thought processes and the complex cybersecurity ideas that he's thinking about or just, you know, internal like processes, you know, point A to point B to point C. He'll whiteboard that out with the customer. And you can, when the camera's on, you can see in their eyes like that educational, you know, eureka moment where, oh, okay, I get it now. Right. He's making it plain. And I just want to come off mute and say, Josh, like, you know, doing a good job. Let everyone know the impact that he's having, impact that he's had with me, impact that I see that he's having with customers. And, you know, just add a little bit to that. Thanks, Javon. Yeah, thanks. Thanks, Javon. Thanks for that. Thanks for bringing us down this evening. Well, I will say that the time that I have seen Josh do his whiteboard activity, it's been on a MacBook Pro. But I just try to get him involved. Omar, over to you. Anything you want to ask Josh or contribute to the conversation? Yeah, no big questions here. I'm just here to support Josh. He invited me to this. And I just wanted to say that when I've been on calls or even listening to Josh, I don't necessarily see a salesperson. I see a trusted advisor. I think that's something that, Josh, you bring to the table. Please mentor more. No worries, Omar. Hey, Tomas, can we extend this for 30 more minutes and have just all the Microsoft people tell me all the good things? You know, I'm good. I'm good. I don't want to. I'm already feeling a little bit under the water and sick. I don't want to have, you know. I thought Omar was going to give Joshua some jabs about all of his certifications and how. You know, I'll talk to him later. I'll talk to him later. Oh, man. I'm going to get so much backlash. I'm going to be canceled out of the cybersecurity community. They're going to cancel me. Oh, darn it. Look, it is the hour and a half mark, so I do want to bring us home. Thank you again. I was just poking fun at Josh, but thank you, Javon, and thank you, Omar, for your contributions and kind words to Mr. Self. I'm sure he'll appreciate that and check us probably in the mail. So with that said, I do want to bring us home and I'll ask my co-host any final questions before I sort of ask Josh our last question or any final thoughts. Just thank Josh for his time. These are always really valuable. And it's no small thing for people to take time out, especially in the evenings, to share this and help. But we do strongly believe this is our way of giving back to the community that's helped us get here and be successful. So thank you again for your time. Thank you. Yeah, I totally agree. There's so many one-liners. I've been writing them down as you've been spending the last hour and a half with us, Josh. I really appreciate what you've done for me, what you've done for us, and really want to just acknowledge that. So thank you. Thank you so much. Thanks, Russell. And those are trademarks. That's the same. I just, I think. Russell, there's a copyrighted. You can't use those, man. No, I'm just kidding. Go ahead, Octavia. Sorry. I appreciate you just coming on. I think the thing I took away is when you're not, when you are not the leader, you still lead. And I think that's something that we all need to look at through the industry as a whole, because it is something that's a team sport. And as you play your role, then, you know, we can actually do it better together. So thank you, Josh, for being here. Thank you for being a trusted advisor. And, you know, Tomas is pretty hard. So, you know, you did something right. I'll add exactly to that, actually, Octavia, because one of the things I really appreciated, Josh, is just, you know, the amount of times you said, you know, be comfortable being uncomfortable. It's something that I say a lot as well. And the way you worded it, too, is if you feel like you're too comfortable in that room, then you're in the wrong room. And I really took that to heart. And honestly, even, you know, just, you know, you coming on here today, some of the people we interview, frankly, sometimes I feel like that. I'm like, am I in the, I don't know if I deserve to be in this room. And then I realize I'm in the right room if I'm in this kind of company. So I just wanted to thank you again for that comment. You're welcome. I want to go back to the leadership thing. I think it's beyond just our industry, especially in today's world. I was, you know, I think it's more important ever to, whatever you're doing, you can lead and you can make an impact. Like, that is a very true statement. And I hope everyone takes that beyond cybersecurity and into their daily life, into their kids' lives and their partners' lives. Because it's very, very important. I'll leave it at that. Good stuff. So, look, I just want to make a quick announcement before everybody decides to take off. And I do want to ask you a last question to bring us home, Josh. So please join us back next month. As I mentioned in the open, we do this monthly. Next month, we have Nicole Darden Ford joining us. She's a global VP and CISO at Rockwell Automation. So please tune in next month. There will be an announcement as to what specific day in June shortly, I'll say. But that should be an interesting conversation. Josh, I do want to, one, thank you, obviously, for your time. And if everybody only knew how much of a hard time I actually do give you during our meetings, man, they would be shocked that you wanted to do this. But I do want to ask you, I always like asking this last question. It's a bit of a reflection question. I think Russell alluded to a little bit of this earlier. So I will ask you, if you have one piece of advice to the younger Josh, given everything that you know and everything you've worked with so far, what would it be and why? You can do it. That would be the Josh. Watching that voice like, you can do it. Yeah, yeah, you can do it. There has been a lot of times that I didn't think I could. And I think it, not set me back, I don't think that's the right word, but I didn't believe in myself. And sometimes people don't get that in life, right? And I have a very supportive family. It was just in my head. And I would say that over and over again. And I do say it all the time, even today. You know, I said it a few times, whether it's in CrossFit or whatever it is, or impatience from my daughter talking back to me constantly as a teenager. You can do it. And that would be the one thing that I would keep saying to myself. No, look, I think a lot of people at different points in their life, whether it's professional, personal, or both, go through those moments in time where they need to remind themselves of who they are and what their capabilities are. You're not alone. And I'm sure others can relate as well. So with that, you can do it. Everybody, please focus in on your mental health. If you know someone in the military, reach out to them. Those are some key takeaways that I took away from this conversation. The other one was don't call Tomas if you're a vendor. And we'll be back next month. Octavia didn't make fun of me for any dad jokes, so I think I won. So one for Tomas. You didn't tell any. You're slipping. You are slipping. Yeah, I was thinking the same. Octavia, I was thinking the same. Fair enough. I will bring my dad jokes back next month in full effect. But look, sorry that I was a little sick. And Graggy, thank you, everybody, for your time and for tuning in and listening. The playback, if you missed the beginning of the session, will be up on our firesidechat.live website soon. So look out for that announcement. And we'll see you all next month. Have a good rest of your week and month, everybody. Cheers. Thanks, Josh. Thank you. Thanks, everyone.