Fireside Chat with Pedro Peralta, Security Manager @ Coinbase

Okay, you ready? Yep. Okay. All right. That was a little weird, but I'm in. It booted me out, but I'm in. All right. What's everybody doing? Uh-oh. Katie, can you hear me? Kejo, can you hear me? Yes. All right. All right. Look, why don't we make a start? I think Katie may have, or from may have jumped, but she'll join back in. So why don't we make a start? It looks like the audience can hear us. I'm giving you a thumbs up. All right. Look, Pedro, thanks for taking a moment and some time to join us for this fireside chat. Thanks for those in the audience who can hear us and giving us a thumbs up. There's Katie. I'm back. Can you hear me? Yep. We hear you loud and clear. All right. So if it's the first time you join us, this is our monthly fireside chat. So we thank you for taking the time out of your busy schedule. We do know everybody's busy. It's the middle of the week. Let's have a good time. Let's have a great conversation. We're joined this evening by Pedro Peralta. I've known Pedro for, man, I think a decade plus now. And I've had, I'll say, a first, an eyewitness to Pedro's growth and career throughout the years. So I'm really excited for this conversation. And I'm really excited for those of you who are listening to get to know a little bit more about Pedro and how he got to where he is. So, again, it's the first time you join us. We do this every single month. And for about 90 minutes or so, we'll ask our guests questions for about 30 to 45 minutes. And then we'll open up for the audience for you guys to join in and join the conversation. Quick, quick, quick disclaimers. As I mentioned, it's the middle of the week. Let's have a great time. If you're in the audience, we're happy to have you. Please join in, ask questions. Let's keep it more focused on career orientation, getting to know our guests, and less around any sort of sales pitch, at least for the moment. Feel free to do that afterwards. For the most part, our opinions and comments are our own and do not represent our current, prior, or even our future employers, for that matter. And so we ask that you keep that in mind. If you want to quote us in the news or quote us on LinkedIn, that's fine. Just check in with those individuals that you're trying to quote just so that people can be aware and approve that. We do know that you can record this. This will be recorded for playback. So you will be able to overhear it, and you have the option to record it as well. And we ask if there's any AI bots. I guess I should probably put in this AI disclaimer, Katie. What do you think? If there's any AI bots recording our voice, please don't deepfake us. And there's some folks in the audience who I think will get a chuckle out of that. Please, please, please don't do that. All right. So all the disclaimers out of the way. Let's have a really good conversation. I'm going to go quickly around the room. I'm Tomas Maldonado. Most of you know me. I'm the CISO for the NFL. Katie, over to you. Hello. I'm Katie Hanahan. Currently in between a few different things. I've been juggling a lot of really fun opportunities lately. And so I have some exciting news to share soon about where I'm going to be spending some significant time in the next few months. But I've been in the industry for 20 years, number of different capacities, starting out my career and working with very traditional infrastructure with DOD. And then, you know, moving through, I was on the talk about being on the vendor side. It's where I really learned about, you know, R&D and all the work that happens in this industry outside of being a practitioner. And then now I've spent the last few years more on the practitioner side serving as a virtual CISO. And most recently as a deputy CISO in a global manufacturing company. So that's where I'm, well, it's the background I'm coming to the table with, but really excited to hear from you, Pedro. And just really love the fact that you and Tomas have this background, too, with this being an origin story podcast. The fact that, you know, he has that 10 years and being able to even dig into what happened before those 10 years that you guys have known each other is looking forward to this conversation. Yeah. So, look, Pedro, I'm going to pass it over to you. And why don't you take a moment to introduce yourself and why you're going through that introduction. And feel free to take as long or as short time as you want. The longer, the better. It will make for us for media discussion. Although I am vegetarian. I don't know if I should be saying media. Maybe it will make for more vegetarian-ish discussions. Anyways, you get the point. Why don't you take a moment, introduce yourself, tell us a little bit about you. And why don't you tell us about your origin story? Yeah, sure. Can folks hear me? We can hear you. Perfect. So, thanks for having me, Tomas and Katie. You know, really glad to be here. My name is Pedro Peralta. And right now I'm a security manager at a large crypto company. And I've been in the industry for about 14, 15 years. And I've taken, like, a pretty long road to get here. And I've met a lot of the folks that are in the audience along the way. My family is from Dominican Republic. And they came here in, like, the late 50s or 60s. And eventually I was born in 1985. Primarily, you know, in uptown Manhattan, first language was Spanish. And kind of slowly made my way through school and into a career as a first-generation, you know, Dominican young man. Went to, like, you know, public school in uptown Manhattan. And then kind of things pivoted for me a little bit. Me, my cousin, and a few other folks I know got into a private school called Mott Hall, the original Mott Hall on 135th and Convent. And that was essentially, excuse me, 131st and Convent. And that was a specialized school for science and math. So some teachers saw some kind of light inside of me and recommended me to apply to this program and get into Mott Hall. And then from fourth to eighth grade, did lots of bad sign experiments and played on a chess team? And that was kind of my first exposure to kind of, you know, intellectual pursuits and, you know, lots of hard work and studying to get good at something. From there, I went to high school, basically walking distance from my middle school. So I went to A. Philip Randolph. And there I was in the, I guess, the engineering program. So I sometimes almost forget that I was exposed to programming at an early age from a standpoint. Like, we were doing QBASIC in high school classes. And I almost forget. It's like, oh, yeah, you know, I was doing forward loops like a long time ago. But that, you know, so, you know, I had a, you know, okay time in high school. And I'll double back on the family stuff. But, you know, went to a high school. And then kind of after high school, I didn't know what to do. I graduated. And it was just like, what do I do next, right? College wasn't top of mind. Not necessarily a bad way. But it just wasn't a possibility that was clearly there. Had a buddy of mine that I knew up from the neighborhood. And we, you know, met at one of the arcades. I played lots of video games growing up. So a lot of my friends I met through playing games. And he, his grandparents pushed him to go to college. So I'm very competitive. I mean, Tomas can tell you, right? Like, who can get back to our desks first and so on. Silly things. But, okay, so my buddy goes to school. And I say, you know what? I'm smarter than you. Maybe I'm not, but what have you. So it's still a good thing. And I decided to sign up for LaGuardia Community College. And that was really enriching for me. Because I had primarily been in environments where largely blacks and Hispanics uptown Manhattan. And now I'm at a school that's in Queens. And all of my classrooms look like the United Nations. Like, just lots of different people from different backgrounds. Different walks of life. All speaking in different languages. That was like a, you know, huge, my first real exposure to diversity. And that's something that will kind of come back and back again in my career. So I go to LaGuardia. I don't know what major to pick. I stumble onto computers. Just like, I don't know how these things work. And I remember very distinctly when I had gotten my first computer in my home when I was 16, I had gotten hacked. Right? But I actually didn't know what happened. And I think a lot of folks who have gotten motivated to learn about computers and hacking back. But I was just upset that my computer got hacked. And I didn't understand how these things worked. So I selected computer technology as my major in college. Fast forward a little bit. Well, I guess I didn't really take high school seriously. But I took college seriously. I view it as playing for keeps. I worked a couple different odd jobs between high school and college. Working 60 hours a week for $5.15 an hour. And I kind of said to myself, like, you know, this is honest work. But if I have a chance to do more, then why not? So when I got to college, I took it fairly seriously and really essentially worked my butt off to kind of get good grades. I've always had different people that would support me in different parts of my life. So I remember in middle school, I had like a chess coach, which was great, who would push me. And then in high school, I went to a nonprofit called Heath. So at every step of the way, there was someone that would take interest in me and kind of nudge me along. So in college, I had a professor that kind of made me believe, like, hey, you can be a professional. You can do excellent work. And you just have to invest in yourself. So, you know, took college seriously. Got into a small tutoring job at the college at LaGuardia. Student psychology mentors. They've changed the name. But essentially, like a peer mentor helping other students with psychology. And, you know, from there, doing that kind of work, hanging out in the school, I started really learning about computers. I started making the pivot to security. And a classmate of mine, he's like, hey, do you want to hack the Wi-Fi? And I'm like, of course. I'm like a young man. And, you know, back to the Internet was expensive. But learning how to hack Wi-Fi, it sounded pretty cool. Inevitably, I didn't end up hacking Wi-Fi. But he did give me a live CD called Auditor, which was like the precursor to Cali Linux and Backtrack. So he just had a ton of Linux tools. But I didn't know how to use these tools. So I have my computer technology major. It doesn't really have these courses. And then I basically say, hey, I want to take some Linux stuff. I want to learn Windows. And I start kind of pivoting away from hardware into, like, systems. And that's kind of how I kind of start giving, you know, an eye to security. From there, I get really lucky, right? So I finish LaGuardia Community College. And I go to City Tech. And this is where I get kind of lucky. I have a classmate of mine who says, hey, hey, do you want an internship? And, like, you know, I have no problem. I'm like, what do you mean internship? Like, I'm already doing one at the school. I'm working and so on. Things are coming along pretty well. I'm thinking, oh, I'm doing great. You know, I'm making pretty good money. But kind of some of the background is that at LaGuardia, we had a chairperson. And they had a friend at a large company, Goldman Sachs. And he said, I have brilliant students, but I don't have enough internships for them. So my buddy is part of the first cohort that went to Goldman. And then I ended up being part of the second cohort. And this person kind of gives me a call and says, hey, do you want an internship? They recommend me. I'm supposed to interview with one person. I interview with another. And I get my first internship at Goldman Sachs. And that's in January of 2009. Fast forward a little bit, I end up finishing my first internship and second internship. And I'm able to get a return offer to Goldman. What was kind of atypical around that is that, you know, I see a lot of professionals in the audience. And a lot of the companies, they have something called mobility, right? So let's see you're at a company for a period of time. And you want to kind of get a different job. The company views it as beneficial for you to stay within their four walls, but just take a different role internally, right? And, you know, that reduces the risk for, you know, trying to hire someone from the outside and improves retention, right? So a lot of folks will do mobility as part of, like, their full-time roles. I kind of got a chance to do that literally as an intern, right, which is, like, very atypical. So I'm working on one of the network teams. And I tell my manager, since apparently a great guy, still, like, running to him every now and then, I want to do security. And he kind of hooks me up and brokers a deal for me to hang out with my future first manager and eventually join the security team. So, you know, work your butt off and then things just land. You ask for what you want. And somehow things kind of magically work out. Not to take too much time, get to Goldman, work there for five years on two different teams. You know, on the first side, kind of doing patch management and managing proxies. And that's where I kind of run into Tomas. Tomas is out on jury duty one day, and I break one of the test lab servers for some email monitoring or something, rather. And that's when I get a lot of engagement with Tomas, and he helps me kind of fix it. So that's my first introduction to Tomas. Not like a hello in the hallway, but like, hey, I broke something that you kind of know really well. Please help. So I do, you know. I like that you say, Pedro, I don't want to know the drill, but I like that you say I helped you. That's really great. Thanks, Pedro. Yeah. I felt like it was probably like, why are you calling me? What's going on? What did you break, Pedro? I mean, you were probably frustrated, right? But it's fine. We got through it. So then I do five years at Goldman, kind of get a little antsy looking for a change. Ended up going to Nomura. One of my buddies who I met through OAuth brought me there. He's like, hey, you should come over. Nomura, we can do some cool stuff. I spent two years there. I ended up going to BNY Mellon. I stayed there for four years. You know, this is kind of where I come back to how networking is critical. So when I used to work within job engineering at Goldman, was at BNY Mellon, and we kind of bumped into each other virtually. He's like, hey, you know, come on over. And I spent about four years at BNY Mellon. First as a manager in platform security, and then a kind of like a tech lead within like the security team itself, right? So we had like a separate infrastructure organization. And then I hop over to Google, and I spent a year and four months there. And then I went to Coinbase, where I'm at now. So kind of all throughout my journey from like middle school all the way up, there's always been someone. And every step of the way, it's kind of given me some support or some advice. And it's helped me kind of polish my skills to kind of keep on going up to the next level. So, you know, very grateful in that sense. But that's kind of my origin story, kind of stumbling into computer science and computer tech, getting lucky with the internship and executing, and then kind of just making my way, not on a perfect straight path, but kind of just figuring things out as I go and running into great people that kind of give me some guidance along the way. So that's my origin story. That's great, Pedro. And I just want to maybe, before I pass it over to Katie, just lean in a little bit more on the first generation sort of coming over from Dominican Republic. And, you know, when you think about that portion of your life, right, having to come over, you know, sorry, your parents coming over, you being born, first language being Spanish. You know, what do you think about some of those challenges that you had to overcome with not only learning a language, finding yourself, you know, are there still challenges that you see today? Or are there, or what you learned and what you went through as a young child has prepared you for where you are today? Just reflect on that a little bit. Yeah, no, that's a really good question. So I guess that's the other side of the story, right? So I think most people think, like, origin story is like, how did you get to where you are professionally? But there's so many other things that happen on, like, the personal side. So at least for me, you know, my mom's awesome. And she did the best she could, but sometimes, you know, folks that are coming over as immigrants don't have all the tools in terms of, like, language and understanding of new cultures. So some of that fell onto me and my sister to kind of navigate with help from nonprofits, right? So kind of a funny thing. It's like I remember one instance, you know, I'm applying for college, and it's like, you know, we're doing a FAFSA. And, you know, it's kind of almost like a disconnect. It's like, what? You fill out this paper, and they give you money for school? So I had to kind of do some extra convincing. So some of it is that folks don't really understand some of the systems. And being non-native English speakers, it makes it much more difficult for the parents to navigate. And me, as a result, had to kind of carry more of that load and kind of not only try to navigate things that I would expect a parent to help with. You know, and I don't blame my parents, right? But, you know, it's an extra challenge. And then also being, you know, going to school, learning English, I'm also able to help other members of my family, right? So I feel like when you grow up as a child of a first-gen, you know, first-gen, you don't get as much playtime, right? Because you're also worried about helping family members because you speak English and kind of moving along that way. I guess other things. So growing up, you know, my family was poor. Not destitute, but, you know, check to check, right? And I think that does have some kind of impact. And that kind of drove me to care about money. Not in a greedy way, but, you know, working towards financial security and looking for, you know, not when I went to college, I wasn't seeking a career that made money. And overtly, like I didn't say computers pays, let me go with that, but I knew that having some sense of financial security is important because then I can't, you know, I have to rely on myself. And then I also want to be able to provide and help my family with things as they come up, right? Because they've given me an amazing opportunity, you know, coming to this country, taking all this risk. I'm born here. I always had, you know, food in the fridge and a stable home. So I feel like I need to kind of honor them and create space for them and make sure that I'm able to support my family, not just financially, but also, like, I can help with paperwork. I speak English. I can call the different agencies. So one is kind of the aspects of, like, inability to navigate, you know, some of the different processes in American culture. It's just a huge shock. Second one is just the financial challenges. My family's small, and we're close, but, you know, I'm pretty sure there's some, I guess, you know, when families go through so many things, there's just a lot of challenges and things that haven't been, like, resolved, right? So, you know, I carry some of that, too, and my hope is that as I become older and I have younger siblings or relatives, that I can be, you know, a strong foundation to support them, right? And I'm always very appreciative. I guess the third thing is just you don't have someone that can kind of, like, at least for me, I've been lucky that I've had folks in different places that can guide me, but it's just so much easier if there's someone in your family that has a familiarity that can kind of guide you end to end, right? So I didn't have anyone that I can call in my household to say, hey, how do resumes work? And, like, you know, what kind of roles can I get and what are the expectations and how do these things work? So I've had to, I've been lucky, again, that I've been able to rely on others, but at least I know on the flip side, when I mentor folks, you know, they get, like, a full spectrum of coverage and services because of, like, the experience that I have. So I can tell them end to end, like, you need to do these 29 things, and I've had to kind of piece that together all throughout. So I think not having those built-in resources or folks that understand how things work in corporate America and just navigating life and getting through college and looking for your first job, I think, you know, I got lucky and had a lot of help, but not everyone gets that same level of support from strangers and folks and nonprofits and at companies. So, again, very thankful for that, but that is, I could have not had all this help, and it would have been much more difficult for me to get to where I am today. So that's kind of how growing up first gen wasn't easy. I think it gives folks a lot of grit, right? I think we, I got very, like, my mother worked very hard, my father works very hard, so that kind of stuck on to me. And I think that work ethic has served me well so far. Yeah, I think that's, like, it's, I think what I, one piece, of what you said, which I see is very, very common amongst Latino culture, which is not trying to expect a handout or get a handout, right? I think, and not to get sort of political, but, you know, when I see the news and I see things where, you know, it's reporters like, oh, Latinos are coming over here to get a handout. That's not part of our culture. Our culture is to work really hard and to get what we deserve because we're working very hard. And so, you know, if you said something like, wait, you fill out a paper and they give you money, like, it was like a shock to your parents, I would imagine, right? They're like, what is this? Because in your country, where you came from, that doesn't exist, right? So it was, and it was probably like, what do you mean? That's not how we operate, right? So I say that because I feel like there's this misperception sometimes from, for what ends up happening, you know, what you see in the news around Latinos. And that's just not, that's not part of our culture. So anyways, I digress. But that really struck me, which is why I wanted to say that. So Katie, I'll pass it over to you. Yeah, well, thank you. And I mean, frankly, you can tell by my picture and my, probably my last name, I do not have a background from the Dominican Republic. But one of the things, and actually a few of the things that you said, just now really resonated with me as well, because there's a common theme. We've done hundreds of interviews now, Tomas and the rest of the moderators who run the fireside chat here. And there's one, there's one thread that's the same of the people that we decide to bring onto a program like this. And it's, it's that grit. Where that grit comes from is usually a very interesting story. And you've just touched on a few things for us so far on the discussion. And, you know, and from my perspective, it's socioeconomic. I'm a first generation college student. So I didn't have the language barrier by any stretch. But I remember, you said the FAFSA form. I giggled a little bit out loud because I had the same feeling, right? Of, okay, wait, what is, first of all, what is this form? I, you know, and I filled it out at the last second. I didn't even know what to do. I didn't know how to get a loan. I, you know, some of the same things where I did need to kind of go outside of my, you know, my own familial circle to be able to find the resources to be able to get into this industry. And then along the way, you know, again, to be able to get to where I am. And you, you walked us through, you know, your professional side at the very beginning. And, you know, you mentioned the word stumble a few times. Did we lose? Katie, are you there? I think we lost Katie. Hang tight. But I don't know if you want to answer the first part of her question. I don't know. I know she probably had more, but if you want to. I'm back. All right. There you go. So we heard you up until you said, I know you mentioned stumbled a few times. Yeah, stumbled a few times. And it was just, I really liked that because a lot of another thing beyond the grit is that we have a lot of people that come on and say the word, I stumbled into this industry. And what I loved about what you talked about, Pedro, is that, you know, you have this, you know, you had these opportunities, you know, at Mott Hall. And, you know, and had opportunities along the way. People saw the promise in you. And then, you know, the Goldman Sachs opportunity and the internships and your chess coach. And I don't know. I think it was just a reminder as well for all of us that, you know, we need to remember to keep giving back. I had those people, too. But there was one thing I was hoping you could help us kind of dig into the execution. The execution part, I think, is difficult for a lot of people who aren't used to getting help from people. I'm one of those people that sometimes when someone helps, wants to help me, I won't. I won't accept it because I'm not used to it and I don't execute. And that's something that I've had to learn and grow in even recently in my career. Right. So just wondered when you are mentoring people or even for yourself, you're looking to, you know, principles of execution. What are those principles for you? And kind of practically, how have you had those moments in your career? You've experienced how execution on opportunity has taken you to the next level. Yep. That's a great question. When you think about execution, the first thing is kind of understanding. What's the actual goal? Where are you trying to go? Right. So it's kind of very hard to kind of even a direction to take action if it's not clear what you're trying to accomplish. And I think a lot of folks have the impression that they have like a perfect target that's really high fidelity. But sometimes you just have to be directionally correct. You can say like, I want to do this kind of work and start working from there. You don't have to have like a specific title in mind or something else. I think the second thing to consider around execution is that we just can't do everything. So you have to kind of focus. So once you have a target and, you know, you can kind of modify the target over time and make it into a smart goal. But you have to apply some kind of focus because it's kind of easy to do lots of things, but you end up doing them poorly. So I think for me at least when I've been successful and I've helped other mentees be successful, it's because we're selecting the right targets and we're putting our energy towards that. The third thing is having that introspection, right? So some things just don't go as planned. And that's okay. But if you kind of have a goal and a way to get there, we should anticipate those roadblocks and do the best that we can to kind of move things forward. And lastly, I think to your point, Katie, asking for help. I think for me at least it's hard for me to ask for help. It's still a challenge today. I've gotten a little bit better at it. But as soon as I'm admitting, like, I don't know the answer, but that doesn't represent who you are. It's just a gap in your knowledge, right? None of us are supposed to have all the answers, and that's okay. But, you know, part of growth is, you know, admitting that, okay, I don't know this, but that doesn't reflect on who I am as a person. It's just like a gap that I have in knowledge that someone can help me fill. And then my hope is that I get to return the favor. So to kind of take a step back, like, what's the goal, right? Make sure that I'm working on that. Kind of take in those steps and anticipate that I'm going to stumble and fall. And then lastly, you know, getting help where you need it, right? And I think that's where a lot of folks don't – that's where I think a lot of folks miss, getting the help. Because I view it as, like, if I can learn from someone else and they kind of give me, as the young kids would say, like, the cheat codes or, like, the secret approach. There is no secret. It's all hard work. But if I can leverage someone else's experience and kind of incorporate it into what I'm doing, that's really helpful. And then I can also kind of pass it on, and it's like an accelerant. So, yeah, that's what I think about execution. Yeah, I appreciate that. And, you know, I think it's really important, too, when we have people listen to this live or listen back to the recordings, is that, you know, I just want to say thank you for your transparency there as well. And, yeah, we are all evolving. And that, you know – and obviously your answer was exactly what we needed to hear tonight. But, you know, and I needed to hear. You know, and I think at every level that we're at in our career, it's important to know we're not in this alone, that we are in this together, that this industry is strong, it's diverse, and it's moving forward in a positive direction. And so I really appreciated that insight and practical advice there. So back to you, Tomas. I'm sure you have a million other questions. I do. And I'm shocked that – well, you may get to this or not, but I'm shocked that you haven't asked him some secrets of Tomas since he worked with me long ago. Oh, yeah, I was going to get there eventually. But, you know, we were kind of serious for a little while here. You're right. Look, and there is another – I'll say there. So, one, let's just quick reset. If you just joined us, we're joined by Pedro Peralta, who's sharing his origin story. So, Pedro, as you can see on LinkedIn, you can see where he is organizationally and what he's doing. But fascinating origin story so far. Pedro, I wanted to ask you a question about chess because I honestly forgot that you were – I mean, Pedro said he's interested in chess. Pedro is like a chess master, and I kid you not. But we – I remember you brought in a chess set when we were at Goldman. And, you know, we would play. And I say play. Like, you know, I play chess slightly better than when I play checkers maybe, only because I learned chess later in life. But, Pedro, you're like – you can look at the board, and I remember you looking at the board and saying, oh, this is this starting point, or this is this starting point, or this is – like sort of just analyzing it. Tell us where did that – so you found chess. You started playing it. But you got really, really good at it. Like, how did that all develop? And why? Why do you think that all developed in that way? Yeah. Yeah. So I guess chess was kind of – so I got started playing chess when I went to Mott Hall. Before chess, I was in an orchestra band at PS189, and I played the flute and, like, the recorder and some other instruments. Well, probably just those two. But, you know, I was very sad that I was kind of being taken out of my primary school and going over to Mott Hall. So I kind of had a gap in my life because I loved the orchestra. You know, after school, we would play in the band and so on and perform. So then I go to Mott Hall, and my mom's like, hey, you know, I work a lot of late hours. You need to find an activity. I'm like, yep, latchkey kid all the way, right? So there's a few different options at Mott Hall, and I land on chess. They kind of have a program where they essentially give all the students lessons during the day, and then in the evenings, like, folks can break out into different things. And I was in the chess club, and I was very nerdy and had the giant glasses. I might circulate a picture online and see if folks can kind of laugh at me. But we had a very structured program with a coach, and, you know, we played with our teammates in middle school. And then they actually took us to tournaments, right? So we were not just playing chess purely recreationally. This was competition. This was for trophies, right, which was awesome, right, because I think a lot of folks will kind of frown at competition, but I think competition makes you want to improve and get better, and there's nothing wrong with wanting to win within the context of the game and being, you know, sportsman-like, right? So I started playing chess from fourth to eighth grade, and, you know, just got a chance to kind of go around the country with a nonprofit attached to my school at Mott Hall to kind of go to Disney World and Tennessee and all these wonderful places. Now, on the chess stuff itself, I just want to be very clear. I'm not officially a chess master, so I don't want to go out there. This is, like, very specific terms that we use in the chess world, so I don't want folks to say, you know, like, hey, you're making stuff up. But I'm pretty – I'd say I'm okay at chess. I had, you know, got a lot of good support from my chess coaches. One of them was the first African-American grandmaster, and then another gentleman, like, really strong, you know, master, you know, lives in Harlem. I can walk over to this hall, and he's fairly close. But, you know, I just had really good coaches. And as we know, one of my loves, chess kept me out of trouble. You know, I used to get the books and study them, and then go to tournaments and do reasonably well. And then that love of chess extended into high school. So my high school didn't have a chess program, but the idea that my high school was walking distance from my middle school, Mott Hall, I would literally, like, after class, and, you know, not doing so well in high school, I would walk on over to the middle school, and they would let me up, and I would hang out in the classroom and play chess with the up-and-coming middle schoolers. So that was awesome. And then also in the Mott Hall program. And I've always just come back to chess. So during the pandemic, I was playing a lot of chess online. And then in every single workplace I would go, I would use chess as almost like a weapon to meet people. So I would be a little cocky and, like, bring my chess set and look for, you know, unsuspecting victims such as Tomas, and we would build community around the chess board, right, and just play late into the evening. So at almost every single role, you know, I find some kind of way of sneaking in chess, right? When I was at Goldman, I would bring my chess board, and then I would meet folks from outside of my day-to-day work in different divisions, and those were great networking opportunities. When I went to Nomura, my direct hiring manager probably saw chess on my resume and hired me. Maybe that's what happened. You'd have to ask him, but we would play chess. And then I went to BNY Mellon. I would bring out the chess board again and make new friends. Google, same thing. Coinbase, we're fully remote, so there's not as much in-person chess action, but we can jump online. And, like, you know, we can share our tags and play online. So chess has just been a consistent escape for me where I can go. It's been an intellectual challenge. It taught me focus and discipline, and it taught me that if I invest in myself and train and work hard, it can get better. And lastly, like, I think one of the – so I think a lot of folks kind of – when they think about sports, there's a notion of watching the tapes. Like, you can go back and see what happened and how you played, right? And this probably wasn't a possibility when we were growing up, Tomas, and maybe I'm dating myself. But, like, now everyone has an iPhone or an Android device, and you can kind of watch and film everything. The amazing thing about chess is that you can kind of record all your moves very simply. You can just notate them down. You can always do, like, an after-action report. You can go back and say, like, what happened? And what was I thinking? What was the mistake that I had? And being able to kind of play my games and then go back over them, you know, either by myself or by help, that would let me detect my mistakes and I would learn from them. So chess kind of gives you a really awesome feedback loop and makes you analytical. And I think that's served me well in my career. That's so interesting. And now I'm realizing that I have three sons that always play chess with each other, and I'm also now understanding why there are always three moves ahead of me. I think I'm playing checkers, and my three sons are playing chess, and that's why they're getting away with so much is what I think is happening. Now, that's – I really appreciate that, what you said, too, of the feedback loop, right, the after-action report. They have the need to reflect. And how old were you when you started? So primary school is what, third grade, fourth grade? Yeah, so Mott Hall was – I went over in fourth grade because that's when that school kind of opens up. So it must have been, like, nine or ten. And then I played, I guess, on a team consistently until eighth grade, until 1999. And then I had just been a casual player ever since, and I've just gotten better over time. Like, the Internet's an amazing thing, right? Like, I can just go on YouTube, and I can find all these different instructional videos. I can go any time of night and day, or if I'm on the supermarket line and play some chess, and just kind of – and then, like, the software is so amazing now. So back then, you know, the world champion was playing against IBM's Deep Blue, and that was just, like, a huge computer with all these algorithms. And now, 20, 25 years later, we have software like Stockfish, which is open source, which is amazing and probably better than 99.9% of the players. So there's just so many different ways to play chess and get better and learn. So, like, that's been really transformational. Hey, Pedro, what's your ELO rating? Oh, okay. Asking the tough ones now. So my UFCF rating, which is, like, my official tournament rating, is, like, 1337. You can look it up on uschess.org. So that's actually not very good in the grand scheme of things. So we look at the rating systems very quickly. 2008 is expert. 22 is a master. So that's why I say I'm not a master, right, because that's, like, an official title. But I'm probably a little bit stronger than my rating in real life. And then my online ratings hover around 2,000. To be fair, though, speed chess is very different from over-the-board chess. They use the same skills, but it's not the same. So I could say I'm okay or pretty decent given those ratings online, but it's definitely a different game. So I don't want to give myself too much credit there. Pedro, that's still very good, man. Oh, I can only imagine how badly he beat you in that first chess match. Katie. How bad was it? He left the chess table for us to play as a department, and he beat us all, like, several times over. But what Pedro did almost instinctively, right, with – and he touched upon this, and I'm going to sort of dissect from Pedro, but what you did, Pedro, at that point in time, so young in your career, in your Goldman career, was not only build community but also find a way for people to de-stress, right, in an environment where we were at Goldman. We were very, you know, type A, everyone type A, everything go, go, go. And even around that time period, right, where different financial issues happening, you know, we had this chess set readily available, and people would walk by, go to the restroom, and do a move. Walk by, come back from the water cooler, and do another move. And Pedro would look at it and be like, do-do-do, you know, and he would beat us all. So, anyways, a lot of fun. But, Katie, I know you're going to ask another question, which I don't have any issue with. I just want to say something really, really quickly. If anybody's in the audience, I know you've been sending me messages, which I'll ask the questions if you don't want to ask it live. But now's the time. Feel free to raise your hand. There's a little icon on your app where you can raise your hand, and we'll bring you up on stage, and you can ask a question live to Pedro. So, Katie, I'll pass it back over to you. Oh, well, thank you. No, the question and the reason I interjected is he had mentioned that you guys had, you know, he had annihilated you, I think was the word. I can't remember now. Now I'm misquoting Pedro, but I just wanted to know how that first meeting was. But, you know, you're so right about community, though. I mean, and chess was a way for you to do that at Goldman Sachs. No matter where we are, this is a stressful industry at times to be in. And so, again, Pedro, we were talking a little bit about some of the things in your, you know, in your personal life. We're talking about chess. As a leader outside of chess, in terms of your style, and in terms of the types of people that you're looking to within an organization, when you're seeing that spark in someone that people saw in you, right, and you want to bring them along in this industry as we continue to want to have more diverse teams and more voices at the table. Just curious, so what are the attributes? What are some of the success stories? What are some of the, you know, practical ways with which you're doing that, you know, concurrently in the role you're in or previous stories? Yeah. So I think the approach that I try to take, so at least for me and kind of any job environment, I don't really put up any barriers. So, like, I'm open to talking to anyone or coaching anyone and providing some feedback. And I think it's sometimes a little bit easier to kind of build those connections where there's some common ground, whether it's cultural background or shared interests. But, you know, I typically have, like, an open-door policy. When it comes to, like, and I guess, like, folks just end up gravitating to each other, right? So you start with something like chess or, like, a common project or going to the same school. I went to the CUNY system, so I have an affinity for CUNY. And when I, you know, every time I show up to a company, I say, hey, like, who's from CUNY? I go check all the mailing lists. But I think the starting point is, you know, what common interests do we have? Or, like, how do we kind of intersect? And then I kind of tailor to help, you know, whoever I'm running into who kind of wants that mentorship but just can't show up on people's desks and say, like, hey, you're bad at this. And, you know, drop all this feedback and walk away, right? But if there's some kind of, I guess, a conducive relationship where you can kind of share and grow together, I think that's awesome. I think for me, at least, I try to really understand, like, where is the person trying to go? And then I'm just so lucky that I've had so many mentors that I can kind of pass some of that same information down to them, right? So typically, like, what kind of challenges are they having or where do they want to go from the career standpoint in terms of maybe moving to another department or building a certain skill set and then work with folks to get there? So that's kind of a very practical aspect. And the second one is helping folks kind of understand. Like, for me, you know, I'm a Dominican. So that's like I'm a man of color. I'm a male. So I have some privilege in that sense. But I kind of – I can – a lot of the experiences that I have, other folks can't relate to. So when I go into different environments, some folks will come up to me and say, hey, you're like me in whatever way, whether it's a chess player or being from outside Manhattan or, like, attending CUNY or what have you or, you know, maybe not so many fun experiences. So kind of folks will kind of come up to me and then we'll just kind of share and build that community so we can kind of, you know, be comfortable at work. And it's not that – like, I think at the end of the day, like, you know, we're there to do a job, but it doesn't mean that we can't kind of go and learn while doing it. Like, I think performance is important and we always need to keep that top of mind. But it's like, okay, while I'm here, while I'm doing great work, working next to Tomas, beating him in chess, you know, why not, you know, grow others? From the – like, I've been a manager in two different instances in my career now and my time at BNY. And I think when it comes to my direct reports, I try to find out – and I learned this from my manager at Nomura and other places, like, find out what, you know, what does my report care about, right? What are they trying to do in their career? Are they trying to grow in a particular way or change teams? And I always try to be extremely supportive and build that trust so they know that I'm invested in their career. And my goal is to align the organization's goals to what they want to do as best they can to help them grow. So – and lastly, I think – I think one of the biggest challenges that folks will have is that they just don't get real feedback, right? And I think feedback is very hard to give because it's even harder to receive, right? And I've been very lucky to get feedback. So when I can, I'll pull people aside and really give them that feedback that's going to help them really understand, like, hey, this is a gap that I have. And the hope is that I've built that trust so you see that I'm not trying to tear them down. But I'm saying, like, hey, I know there's this challenge that you have. Do you want to talk about it? And, you know, luckily over the years I've gotten a little bit more tactful and have better ways of offering feedback. But it's kind of letting folks know, like, hey, you know, this is like a chess match. You played these moves. Do you understand the implications of these? What were you thinking? What's your thought process? How do we kind of course correct? And then how do we move forward? So a lot of it is kind of the practical aspects just from, like, doing my own homework and growing. And then it's kind of building that trust and comfort so that you can give people things you may not want to hear, but that they will accept them and work on them. I really appreciate that. And I think that is the, you know, we've used the word, the term feedback loop a few times in a number of different contexts today. And I think that that ability to be able to provide feedback in the way that you're doing it is a difficult thing for most of us in leadership. And so I just, yeah, I appreciate that insight. But as you were speaking, I don't know if you noticed, one of our co-moderators, Octavia Howell, join the stage. Octavia, I'd love for you to meet Pedro. And for those of you in the audience who sent your questions to Tomas, please feel free to raise your hand. And after Octavia asked her question, you know, please, you can join us on the stage and ask the question live or however you'd like to. But Octavia, welcome, welcome, welcome. So good to see you. It's good to be here. So sorry I'm late, Pedro. Thank you for joining. And I apologize for being late. I was actually, funny enough, as I joined, you were talking about diversity and your diversity and how you mentor. I was actually dealing with an issue when I, it was why I'm late. So my name is Octavia Howell. I am the CISO for Equifax Canada. I am located in Toronto, Ontario, and happy to be here. One of the things, one of the things that, you know, I deal with as a black woman a lot is, you know, being, you know, being asked to mentor a lot. And I, and people who know me know I have a really big heart for, for women who look like me. Just like it sounds like, Pedro, you have a heart for those who are, who look like you as well. So one of the things that I, I deal with a lot and I kind of become conflicted with sometimes is when people don't really perform or they expect something of you just because they are aligned to your ethnicity. How do you, have you had that experience, one? And then how do we coach people to, you know, own who they are, but at the same time, let's, let's, you know, be, be professional and actually do the work. Yeah. So I think that's a really good question. And it's something that I still struggle with to some extent, because I always want to help folks. But then I think we can do mentees a disservice by not holding them accountable. Right. So like, what's the fine line of kind of helping someone get over the line, so to speak, or carrying them. Right. So at least for me, I try to establish some kind of ground rules or like, what are we actually trying to work on? And then I, I, I sometimes just give folks homework, like, Hey, please, please take a moment and do X. Right. And I'm not necessarily looking for, I'm trying to kind of ascertain, like, is there a commitment? Do they just want like some quick advice and they want to walk away? Are they too committed to taking the steps to kind of go where they want to go? And can I be part of the story and help them get there? So that's kind of the first thing that comes to mind, that accountability. And sometimes it's kind of tough. Because I think sometimes folks will over-index. Like, it's, sometimes you don't understand what the cause is of why a mentee or a person is struggling, but they're kind of jumping to conclusions. And they haven't looked at the data. So sometimes I have to kind of check people and say, like, Hey, I, you think you are not doing well in the situation because of X for whatever reason, because of your background, ethnicity, and so on. But I say, that could be it. I never want to undermine someone or make them feel like they're not being heard. But at the same time, I do kind of check them a little bit and say, like, Hey, can you help me understand why this is the case? And really dig into, like, what is the root cause of the challenges they're having? And sometimes it is something under their control. But I try to kind of put that, how can I say this? I'm always receptive to understanding what they think. But at the same time, I kind of ask for data. We're like, and how do we know this is the case? Because sometimes folks kind of have blinders on and they can't see things for what they are because they don't have that experience or that context. So I can say, Hey, it's not that your manager is a bully. It's that you just did a poor job on this. But that's okay. You can learn from it. But we sometimes have to give people that reality check. That's the right word. We have to give folks a reality check on, like, where they are in their situation. And then, frankly, the only thing we can do, you know, as in the different parts of our life, you know, we have to focus on what we can control and do the right thing. And if we're in really bad situations, then we need to get out of those. But for the most part, things are workable and folks can make adjustments and make improvements, right? So I'll give an example of a story. So I know a young man. He's like, Hey, I want to get promoted. I'm an analyst at so-and-so company. And I want to be an associate. And they're giving me all these stories, like, Oh, you know, I'm not getting promoted because I am this and I am that. And I kind of walk into the journey. It's like, Well, what is your manager looking for from a promotion standpoint? Do you understand the rubric? Do you know how this process actually works? Right? And I say, You're at this kind of company. Do you have a mentor? Sure. So my goal is to kind of go piece by piece and try to uncover, like, what is the actual problem that you have? And then what are the levers in your control to fix them? And I say, Like, Do you have good performance? If no, this is not even a conversation to have. Like, The prerequisite for a promotion probably is good performance. And then does anyone know your work? Right? So it's kind of helping them understand. It's actually like, Okay, this is a challenge that you're having. But have you done your homework? Do you really understand how this works? Right? And I think promotions are just an easy example that we all can kind of get on board with because all companies have them in some way, shape, or form. They're all different. But, like, it's a very clear goal to identify. And then kind of doing that troubleshooting and saying, Hey, I see this. Have we taken these steps? What's missing? And sometimes it's, you know, you're not on the right projects or you don't have the particular skill set or they're not walking the walk or what have you. But, you know, it comes down to accountability, understanding where your mentee is and where they want to go. Giving them that reality check so that they know what they might need to get there. And then giving them some of the steps so they can kind of get there. Thank you. That was a crux for me. Right? So it's more of not just the, not just, you can be a great performer, but not be aware of your surroundings and how you make people feel. Right? And I think sometimes we don't realize that that is a hindrance for us to actually be promoted, get projects or anything else. Because, you know, this is a small community and people talk. Yep. So what are your thoughts there? Yeah. Yeah. So I guess two things around that. What got you here won't get you there. I don't know where the origin of that is. But sometimes where folks get stuck is that they're very proficient in one space, depending on where they are in their career. And to run to get to the next level, they have to build a new set of skills and capabilities or what have you. Or they have to kind of change their approach. And that's really hard, right? Because it's almost like you're starting at square one, right? So I remember, at least for me, I was an analyst at Goldman. To get to associate. It's not hard, per se. But at the same time, you know, you got to be able to show up on time. Your work has to be polished. You have to have reasonably good comms. So it's like, okay, I'm an associate now. Oh, I want to get to the next level, next level, right? So folks don't take a step back and say, I'm here and I've plateaued. I have to change my approach, right? In terms of introspection, I mean, that's just a hard one, right? Because I think folks have to go through their own journey to kind of be able to kind of look back and see where they've made mistakes. And hopefully, if they're lucky, they'll have other people that can help them kind of see that from the outside and give them that feedback. But I think that's really hard to develop. I don't have an easy answer for that. For me, personally, I journal. I take notes and I kind of go back to them. And I try to understand, like, how I felt about something. And if something goes, you know, off the rails, I do ask for feedback. I mean, this morning, I sent a project status update to some of the senior leaders of my team. And then I got feedback that, you know, my update was too long. So I was, like, slightly annoyed. I'm, like, you know what? This is a gift. I need to understand why this was a challenge. And I went back to the person providing feedback. He was, like, hey, I wrote this to provide context. Seems like you didn't agree with this approach I had given too much content. What should I have cut out, right? So sometimes it's kind of getting past yourself and saying, like, okay, they're telling me this for a reason, right? This feedback. Let me hear them out. I may or may not agree, but, like, that's an opportunity for me to learn and make some adjustments. And frankly, for the most part, if folks are giving you feedback, that means they care. When you're not getting any more feedback, then no one cares, right? Like, you're kind of in a really bad place. And you're not able to get that introspection and adjustment. The last thing I'll say is that I think everyone knows that relationships are important at work. And I think things become – relationships become more important as you become more senior, right? So from the career progression standpoint, when you're a junior in your career, it's basically, like, here's a task, accomplished task. And that is how you're graded, right? And as you progress through your career, you're no longer doing tasks yourself, but you're driving work through others, whether it's, like, through your direct reports or you as an expert or an SME, you're kind of using your expertise to kind of drive work. And a prerequisite to kind of delivering great work is building those relationships and building trust. So I think a lot of folks undersell how much time they should be networking and building those relationships. And it doesn't mean that, you know, you just get on calls all day and, you know, catch up with folks and not do your job. But part of the job is building those relationships and is reaching out to other teams and understanding what they're doing, understanding what their goals are, and then getting that context so that you can, A, get things done more quickly, and, B, know how to navigate the organization, right? And, you know, again, like, you know, middle part of your career, you're accomplishing things within teams, and then as you become more senior, your scope expands, your stand of control expands, and you're not just doing things within your division. You might be working with, like, a completely separate business unit or division. And, again, relationships are the lubricant that makes these conversations easier because, as you kind of go up in your career, right, like, if you're in the security department, it's, like, it's easy. Like, protect the data, don't get hacked, and so on, right? So, like, you have the same set of goals, right? But, you know, when I step out of that space, there's a different set of goals that organizations have, and then we're making tradeoffs. But I can't have those discussions in a productive way if I don't understand, like, what are you, like, what do you care about? What are your care eyes and KPIs? What are your goals? And then how do we work together for the good of the organization? And the relationships are critical there. Absolutely. I love that. And I love that you said that when you got that feedback, you immediately went back and said, hey, what could I have taken out? What could I have done? I think a lot of people don't do that, and that speaks very highly of you. So thank you for that. Yeah, I know in following up on that, too, it's like, and again, I, oh, someone did raise their hand. Thank you, Jeffrey. I'll bring you up. Let me go to you next. Let's see. How are you? How do I bring you up? Tomas owns this, and his power went out. Just so you know, Pedro, he didn't leave you high and dry. I know. We're playing chess on the WhatsApp. I was going to say, yeah, he's busy. He's busy with his, but yeah, as we bring Jeffrey up, though, yeah, I just kind of want to add to, you know, Pedro, I don't know how much Tomas told you about this group and this community. Jeffrey is a big part of that community, you know, and Octavia was a part of this community before I ever even stumbled into it myself, and it's just, it is such a gift to have people who are willing to tell you the truth. Octavia is one of those people that's been wonderful to me in my personal and professional life, and it's just so important to have those folks. Octavia, do you know how to get people up when you're not the owner of the... I am trying to. Normally, we have the ability to do it. This is bad. If not, Nate and Jeffrey, I apologize because you always ask great questions. If you can text them to or send them on a message to Octavia, or you will ask that question, I'm having a hard time bringing you up, though. I'm sorry, Jeffrey. So as you formulate that, both Nate and Jeffrey, thank you for raising your hand, and those in the audience, again, sorry for the technical difficulties this evening. Yeah, so Pedro, one of the things that, you know, you've touched on a lot of leadership principles, you know, your background. We touched on chess. You know, the other thing that people don't talk about enough, I think, in our industry is how you decompress. I know chess is one of those things for you, but just, I mean, for fun in your life at the end of a long day, you know, what is an activity that you do also? I think it just helps people to see. They see someone like you, they're like, look at this guy. He's so successful. I never can be like that. But what's something just very relatable and human that we can all appreciate that you do to decompress? So I go for walks, especially in the summer. So that's how I kind of clear my head. And so I like to do that. I work from home. My company's full remote. So I try to make sure that I at least get out two or three times a week to grab dinner with friends. Actually, one of my buddies who I grab dinner with is on the call today. Thanks for coming on, Sal. So I just like to try different restaurants with different folks. That's always fun. I don't like to admit this, but I do play a couple games, you know, quite frequently online with some of my friends. I kind of grew up playing a lot of, I guess, older 2D fighting games, right? Lots of Street Fighter. So I do play that offline. And, you know, I have friends that will host, like, little tournaments. And then lots of folks will come on over and play video games. So I have a lot of fun doing that. And then just catching up with my family members and close friends, right? We'll get on a Discord chat and talk and talk some junk. Or we'll just play different games online. So I guess, like, I'm a regular guy. I like other folks. I like to go for walks. I like to hang out with my buddies. I like to grab dinner and look at museums. And then I read a fair amount. Just, like, different fun stuff. And then I hate to say it. Sometimes I like to kind of learn how to get better at my craft. I'm doing less technical engineering work these days. I'm trying to learn more about people and about myself. So I'll read books about leadership and then more introspective things like boundaries, right? And how do I kind of treasure myself and ensure that I'm the best that I could be for me so I can be the best for others in my family and professionally. So that's some of the things that I do. I appreciate that. I mean, I think it's just important to, you know, just kind of know that other people are taking the time to do that. I think one of the things that the challenges that, you know, I've had in my career is just not even taking that time to, you know, go for a walk. And I feel like there's just so much else to do, right? There's so many things that are on. Everyone needs me for something. And which, you know, I think is a gift, right? When you are at a point in your career where you're actually needed and when you have a family that actually needs you, that's wonderful. So, but, you know, certainly appreciate just, I think people appreciate hearing that human side. Okay. One other question. And this is going to sound, I'm not trying to make it sound trite or anything, but we talked about kind of your past, your present. But you also touched on at the very beginning of our conversation about how people need to have, when you're mentoring, you're looking at your goals. You know, you mentioned you're always improving your craft. You would love to know what some of those books are, articles, things you're reading. But where do you want to be, Pedro? Where are you looking to go? What are you thinking about for your next 5, 10, 15, 20 years of your life? Yeah. Yeah. So, at this point for now, I'm working toward being a CISO. And I've taken some deliberate steps in my career to kind of get there. I think for me, it's a goal in a sense that I think it's something I can do. And I feel like it's a worthy goal. And if I kind of don't hit that goal, I think I've had a lot of fun along the way. And I'm enjoying the journey. So, that's kind of, I guess, very quickly where I want to go. I think, I'm not interested in the title as much. But it's like, I feel that, well, I think in our security careers, most people can go two paths. They can go and become technical virtuosos or principal engineers. Or they can kind of lead large teams of people to protect organizations and kind of reach amazing goals. And I'm kind of the latter. I get a lot of fulfillment out of working with folks and growing teams and growing people. And I think, I guess for me, being a CISO is kind of being a leader of leaders and helping protect the economy and also grow folks. That's what I want to kind of do professionally. And I think for me, too, I think the other thing is that the better I get in terms of my craft, the more valuable I can be to my community, right? So, at least for me, I can't give other folks advice on how to be a CISO if not a CISO myself. So, kind of every career step that I take kind of expands my ability to kind of be helpful and guide others because I'm kind of walking the walk myself, right? That's kind of the other motivation. Like, I got the chance to do great things. I want to see how far I can get. And, you know, hopefully, I'll meet lots of awesome folks along the way that I'll learn from. And then I can, you know, help grow others. I think that's a very noble goal. And I think it's, there's a couple of questions that have come in. I'm going to ask one just because I think it's fun to learn about something that I don't know about, right? So, we talked about not knowing about things. I'm going to fill a gap in my knowledge right now. From Salvatore, he asked, who is your favorite Street Fighter character? So, I needed to know that. And he also said something about there's no cheat code. And so, we wanted to know those things. And he also said that someone, he's lost many games of chess to you. So, you'll let him know all of these questions. Yeah. So, I guess, who's my favorite character? So, I play pretty competitively. So, it depends on the game, right? So, I'm playing to win and I'm usually gravitating toward the characters that are more effective in said game. So, I don't have like an affinity toward one character per se. I like winning. And again, I think it's healthy to want to win. Because I think you can have a lot of fun in competition as long as it's done in the right way, right? In terms of like cheat codes and so on. And I don't know, maybe, hey, I kind of see different generations of different approaches to things. And folks are kind of like, hey, I want to be like you. What are the two things I can do to just jump 10 years into the future? And so, like if I knew that, I'd be 10 years ahead too. So, I think it's kind of being realistic with people and saying like, hey, you can get further along than I have in my career from the time horizon standpoint. Because you're kind of leveraging the experience of mine, like my experience of others. But there's just like, there's no free lunch, right? Because this stuff is so easy. Everyone else would do it. And unfortunately, there are no cheat codes or shortcuts. You just have to kind of put in some of the time and the work. And it's not to say that people have to, you know, work 70 hours a week and sacrifice their personal life in order to do well in their career. But, you know, at the end, it's also a competition in the sense, right? There's only like one or two C's that every company writes a pyramid. So, you know, as you move up, it gets more competitive and the people are stronger and want to do great work. So, it is a little competitive, not in a bad way, but there are no cheat codes. It's hard work all the way up. There's a few things you can do to kind of move things along. But at the end of the day, everyone knows here, it's just at the end of the day, hard work. I don't think I've ever had so many parallels for chess and video game, gaming, gaming. Sorry. I'm not into either, obviously. Oh, and what you missed, Octavia. So, Pedro is not a grandmaster. Now, I've learned there are different levels. He's an expert. Is that correct, Pedro? I'm going to get killed on the Internet. So, I am, my rating. So, there's different rating systems and different services. Yeah. And these ratings are relative in terms of skill. So, in real life chess, I'm like a 1,300, which is, that's okay. Online, my rating is like around 2,000, which is expert. But online is kind of, it's not taking it seriously because it's kind of just folks kind of playing online for fun. So, there is some credence to that rating, but it's definitely not the same from the achievement standpoint. So, I just want to be very fair about that. So, I'm okay. I'm pretty good. I can probably beat most people I run into in the street, but that doesn't mean that I'm really, really good. It's just that I got coaching. I went to tournaments. So, if other folks did that, they'd be kicking my butt, too. Well, I think that that's, it's just so interesting, too, the whole idea of competition. I mean, that's just an interesting topic, again, to cover, you know, in our industry. For you, it's been a driver. Everyone's driven a little differently. I just wonder, Octavia, do you have anything you're interested in sprinkling in around the idea or question, follow questions around the idea of competition? Come up just a number of times tonight. Oh, it's interesting. I am not a competitive person unless it comes to academics. Then I kind of, like, I'm like the, you ever heard of when they say the prison mentality? Like, you take the strongest, you find the strongest person and punch them in the face? Like, that's what I'm like when it comes to academics. Like, find the smartest person. And I was like, that's the person I'm taking down. So, that's the only competitive gene I have in my body. Everybody else, my family thinks I'm a big nerd. It's all good. But I can compete with you if you want to go mathematically or cryptography or, you know, I'm a nerd. So, whatever. Yeah, I can't compete on any of those things either. But if anybody wants to do a singer-songwriter thing with an acoustic guitar, I could do that. But it just shows how diverse this industry we are all in, I suppose, right? We all have our ways to decompress and levels of competition. And it's interesting, though, Pedro, too, you were talking about leadership. I mean, when you're looking at people and how you're motivating, I mean, you talked about finding out what motivates them. I'll be frank. For me, competition isn't a big thing. I think it's why I noticed you said it a few times. In fact, I tend to shy away from competition maybe to my detriment. So, just curious, you know, how have you been able to take some of those things that work for you? And do you have a kind of, again, back to the leadership piece of, you know, motivating somebody with a completely different personality, completely different motivating factors? Yeah. Yeah. So, I think it's really important that we as leaders have to kind of tailor the approach to our reports or employees, right? Because not everyone is built the same. And, you know, we have to create a level playing field. But it doesn't mean that we treat everyone the same. Like, it's kind of like a – it's like you have to optimize for, you know, where the person is in their career and where they want to go. And then really understand what they want to do. And, you know, I read, you know, all these different books. So, I guess a lot of it comes down to, like, is it a challenge with performance or the person doesn't or does want to do the job? And sometimes you just have to literally ask them, like, hey, like, why are you here? What do you want to do with your time? And then we support, you know, employees as best as we can. I think for me, the competition aspect is not necessarily the winning in itself. But it's just like, you know, there's a goal and then what are all the different ways that I could do to get there? What are the tools I can acquire? What are the things that I can learn to kind of put into practice, right? And it's sometimes not even competing with others, but it's kind of competing against yourself, right? So, it's like, oh, well, you know, this particular kind of activity or, you know, I'm doing this kind of function or what have you. Or I want to really be knowledgeable. So, it's not always, like, competition against others. But it's kind of like, am I better yesterday than I am today and kind of that continuous improvement. I guess the last thing I'll say, too, is that I think managers have a lot of, I guess, leverage on how people get to work and show up. So, it's up to us to also be vulnerable and to be human and to create an environment that people want to come in and just do great work. And as best we can, give them space to be themselves and just deliver, right? I've run into very, very few instances where folks are not capable of doing the work, right? You know, whether it's, like, within one of my teams or just kind of someone in another team. But it's like, are they set up for success? Do they feel like folks have their back? Are they afraid of making mistakes? And I think managers have a huge hand in creating those environments that are conducive to good performance. Yeah, no, I appreciate that. And I almost feel like I've dwelled too much kind of outside of you and your story, though, too, because your story is so incredible. And we covered so much, you know, at the beginning. And I want to focus back on you as we're coming to a close this evening. And, you know, when you look back on, you know, some of those, the answer to this question could be back. You're a very humble person. I've caught that in the last almost 90 minutes we spent together. And so I imagine you might say something that is more humble. But I really would love to hear more about what you think your proudest accomplishments in your life, in your career, as you're reflecting on the past, you know, 15 years of your career and life, you know, what those proudest accomplishments are for you as an individual. Yeah. So I guess I've been really blessed to have the opportunity to work at some really great organizations. Right. And I hate to say it, but sometimes, like, those, like, brand names on your resume really do help. Right. And I think folks aren't being malicious. They're using, you know, company names as shortcuts to kind of gauge how competent you are. And I feel like I've gotten respect from colleagues or from others in the industry. Like, oh, you work at so-and-so? Or do you do this kind of work? And they get to know me. It's like, well, that's just like a sticker. But Pedro's awesome. Right. But I've gotten a, you know, I've gotten a lot of. It feels kind of good to kind of be able to work with some of the best folks in the world in our industry doing cyber. So, you know, that's pretty cool. What else? What was the question again? I kind of got lost in my thoughts. Oh, well. I was just saying. Well, yeah. Brag a little. We've put the focus. I felt like we went away from you a little bit there for a minute. And your leadership principles. And I can't tell you how much I've learned from you this evening. And I'm sure when people listen to this, there are going to be people who will reach out to you and probably want to quote you. But, yeah, I wanted to focus back on your accomplishments, what you're proudest of in your career and life to date. And it looks like Tomas has joined us again and is back in the room as well. But so, Tomas, what's happening here is we're kind of bringing it home and wanting Pedro to. That was the question, though, Pedro. And you got there. You're starting. But I think you got humble again is what I'm thinking. And I don't know. I think I get joy out of my own personal, I guess, growth and career. But what really nails it for me is when other folks come back and says, hey, the thing you helped me with turned out really well. I kind of keep like a little sunshine folder. And I learned this from one of the folks that I know from ITSMF and who I worked with. And I keep like a nice little folder of like all the nice things folks have said, almost like little virtual like greeting cards. It's like, oh, you know, thanks for your help with this. Or I was able to get that promotion. Or I was able to get things done. So I do feel like, again, like kind of rising these different organizations and doing great work is really satisfying. But, you know, I hate to sound kind of corny in a sense. But like I get a lot more joy out of seeing others be successful and knowing that I was part of that story. Right. And at least for me, I felt tons of folks kind of transition into new companies and new jobs and help them kind of negotiate their offers. I've helped folks kind of transition into different teams. I've had folks come back to me 10 years later. I'm like, wow, you've gotten really far. At every company I go to, I tend to have an intern or two and always find a way to get on the website. So almost every single company, I find a way to get on the website for good things, of course. And then something I haven't mentioned explicitly here, but I do try to join ERGs or different kinds of things at different companies because I think it's a good way to meet other folks of my background. And then kind of supporting folks either through sitting on those committees or panels to make sure that good things happen for deserving folks or just literally like pulling folks aside and saying, hey, you know, I see you're doing this. Can I give you some coaching points? I really get a lot of joy out of that. Maybe if I can kind of toot my horn a little bit. When I was at Google, I joined a project that probably needed a little bit of a boost to kind of get out the door. And I think I worked very tirelessly and had really good support from leadership to kind of help launch the short workloads for partners in Europe. That was like a huge milestone for me because I kind of feel like a career transition functionally. I was essentially like engineering manager and a tech lead at a bank. And then I kind of went into a kind of a different kind of role as a TPM at Google. And I've done that work before, but never under that title. And then I was given a mess responsibility. And, you know, I got a lot of support and help, but I worked my butt off. And, you know, working very closely with some of the partners, with my engineering and product management partners, were able to kind of get things out the door. And that was really stressful. But that's something in recent memory that I'm really proud of that I could talk about. Well, thank you, because I felt like we needed to put a little bit more light onto you. But I find it interesting, too, that you still, you know, derive a tremendous amount of joy from the leadership. And that came through loud and clear in this conversation. And I can't tell you just how immensely insightful this has been as a conversation tonight. And I want to thank you again for your time and your transparency and being here with us. Octavia, I hope that you're in a place you can ask the question, kind of bring us home. There's a question, Pedro, that Tomas actually asks at the end of most of these conversations. And so I was hoping that Octavia could bring us home with that question on his behalf, as he's still experiencing a little trouble with the power outage on his end. Yeah, no problem at all. Pedro, I was kind of clapping. You made me smile. You made a couple of comments. I was like, oh, man, he's a man after my own heart. Just really looking to help others to kind of come up. So I appreciate that. I would ask, what question or what answer you would give to your younger self if you looked back to young Pedro? What would you tell young Pedro that may get current Pedro further in his long life journey? Yeah. So I don't know if that was the question, but kind of I'm happy to have a pretty good answer. I think you take more risk, right? And I think that's just not purely in career, but in life in general. And not risk in kind of like a crazy sense, but you'll make mistakes and that's okay, but you'll be able to recover. And I think I would have learned more and potentially even further along from the career standpoint and like in life experiences, I've taken more risk. I think some of that comes from, you know, growing up as a first gen Dominican and kind of like, and again, I, you know, I think I had a, you know, I grew up pretty cool. Like, like there was food on the table. I grew up in a safe home. So I don't want to kind of oversell that growing up was rough, but there were some challenges and I really value stability growing up because I always felt like, you know, my family could be one or two paychecks away from having a pretty rough time in terms of paying the rent. So I really value stability. But then in retrospect, that, that clinging to stability disabled me from taking risks and making moves more quickly or moving on to different companies or taking on bigger projects at work or speaking my mind in different meetings or kind of offering feedback or asking for help. So just taking more risks, measured risks, I think is what is the advice I would have given to young Pedro. Because honestly, if you, you kind of work hard and surround yourself with the, with the right folks, things will be okay. And I think that's a challenge that a lot of folks from my background have that they're just kind of afraid of failing. But sometimes you get so much to the experiences and failure that you'll, you'll get success from that, you know, both from it, as opposed to kind of holding on, hoping everything's going to be okay. Right. I love that. Absolutely. I think I probably would tell myself the same thing, even though, you know, I think we, we, we've done pretty well for ourselves. I think you did pretty well for me. So Pedro, you have so much more to go. So I'll turn it back over to Katie. Oh, I have one more question. Sorry. Um, I guess my question would be like, what question would you ask of Katie and myself? Like what, I know this is you pouring into us and pouring into the audience, but what would you want from us? Hmm. I didn't anticipate this one. Um, so I think, so what are some? So actually I got, I got a good one for you. Right. So what are some of the gaps that you see in leaders from my background and what can, what can I do to make sure, um, folks in diverse backgrounds feel more welcomed, uh, on my teams? And it's not to say that I have a deficiency there, but I'm always looking for like, is there a blind spot that I have that, that you guys can kind of help highlight for me? Or like maybe what's a resource both of you came across that was really insightful that I, I should kind of add on my to-do list for, for this weekend. So I don't know about your, um, I wouldn't say it's a deficiency with people with your background. I would say it's a deficiency with people who grew up, uh, with, uh, with struggle or grew up with seeing struggle outside of their household. Right. Um, and I would just say the gap that I see that I actually have closed and, you know, trying to close, I think you mentioned it, ICSMF. Um, but what I call, uh, black privilege, um, that is something that, uh, that sometimes we don't, because we don't see people that look like us and we don't have people to depend on and we feel like we can't communicate effectively, um, and be open and honest. Then we actually bottle up feelings and bottle up things internally where we can just freely talk to someone and get it over with. And we can jump over that milestone. So sometimes it takes a little bit more time. So I think that's a little bit of a gap that people have diverse backgrounds have. Um, and Katie, you know, Katie and I have talked about this as well, because I think women have the same thing, but to be able to feel fast and move forward, um, is something that I think people with diverse backgrounds struggle with initially. Yeah. I would echo that. Um, yeah. Yeah. Failing forward and fast and just feeling that freedom, uh, you know, Pedro, you mentioned that you, it sounds like you're providing that type of support to your team. And that's what I've always, um, you know, been able to be in the most successful and the most valuable I've ever been to any organization that I have worked with and for, um, has been, um, you know, that, that freedom to do that. And, and, and, and I think that, yeah, folks with, again, my, no, my background is a little different just being more from a, you know, town of 500 people in Podunk, Illinois, right. First generation college students, it's a little bit different, but it just, you know, very, at the very beginning of my career, you know, I definitely looked to my leadership to, you know, did we lose Katie? Okay. I thought it was me. Let's also get lit up. Oh, she lost her. Um, I guess something that's kind of swung into my mind is that sometimes I kind of forget how far I've come. Um, so I think having this conversation has kind of really reminded me of some of the steps that I've taken. So, so this is like a really good, uh, really good conversation. I'm going to reflect on as I probably go for a walk later today. Um, I guess one other thing I'll add is that kind of, kind of when you go back in time, it's like, man, I did a lot of different things and had a lot of great opportunities and I've had more resiliency than I thought. Right. Like I, you know, like grit, like what other folks call it, but. Uh, if folks have confidence in themselves, they can do so much more. And that comes back to taking risks. Right. So, um, this, this, I hope a lot of folks got out of this, but I got a lot of, out of this conversation. I'm, and I'm back. And I think it sounds like you're answering kind of exactly kind of what I was, I was saying. It looks like now we lost Octavia. What's happened? Oh, no, she's back. Um, so as we close though, Pedro, I just want to say thank you again. I don't know why we had so many technical difficulties this evening. Um, but I, I do want to make sure that those of us, those that are listening live and those who are listening back to the playback know where to find you. You've given us so much, um, to think about, um, and, and want to make sure if you have a website or Twitter handle, or, uh, we follow on LinkedIn or where, where should we continue to, uh, keep, keep in touch and follow you as you move forward? Uh, probably my LinkedIn, uh, that's probably the best place in retrospect. I do have something on my list to kind of start building my, my personal brand. Um, so, but, uh, when I get a website, I'll make sure folks hear about it, but my LinkedIn is fine. Well, great. Well, we will ensure that when you have that personal, uh, website and brand built in that book written that we will have you back. Sounds good. We may bring you back before then, Pedro. I'm online. That's a great conversation. I'm always online. Excellent. Thank you. Yep. Well, we want to, we definitely want to be respectful of your time. Uh, we're, we're three minutes over. Thank you again for spending the time with us. Thank you, Octavia, for joining, um, Tomas. Thank you so much for being in here in the beginning. Uh, hope your power comes back on. And with that, thank you everyone. Have a wonderful Wednesday evening and we will see you next month. Thanks for having me. Thanks for having me. Bye. Thank you.