Fireside Chat with Rob Cross

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. We have this week Rob Cross joining us. The beautiful part about LinkedIn now is that you can actually click on his name and see his whole profile's bio. I don't have to sort of read it off to you but I will say that Rob is on the sales side moderators. He's on the sales side. We usually have folks on the I'll call it the CISO or security practitioner side and we've got Rob on the sales side. So let's be nice to Rob even though he is on the sales side or is it a dark side right? That's probably what we're going to call it. No, I'm just fine. No, look, it should be a fun conversation. As I mentioned, weekly fireside chat with you is every single Wednesday from about for about an hour and a half or so. So we'll ask questions of Rob for about 30 to 45 minutes and then we'll open up for the audience to raise their hand and then we'll bring you up on stage and you can ask a question of Rob and join in on the conversation which is what we like to happen. Just some very quick ground guardrails if you will, ground rules. Let's have a good time. Let's have a great time actually. It's the bit of the week. Let your hair down. This is an opportunity for you to sort of use this as as a de-stressor if you will. So if you are a vendor in the audience and you do jump up on stage and you want to ask a question, our only guidance is that you don't try to sell us on your latest and greatest product. I know that Rob is a quote-unquote vendor but there's so much more to Rob and his background and so let's use this as an opportunity to get to know him, get to know his journey and really you know try to get free mentorship if you will, right? So the other thing that we usually like to say at least for some of us on stage, our comments and opinion are our own and are not representative of our current or prior employers. So please keep that in mind. If you do want to quote us on anything online, feel free to just ping us, let us know what you're trying to quote us on and I'm sure we'll be more than happy to be quoted. But just please keep that in mind that these are our opinions not representative of our current or prior employers or even future employers for that matter. I'll just put that out there. So last for a lot, Nise, we're going to go around the room. Rob, we'll leave you for last. I'm Tomas Maltadano. I'm the CISO at the NFL. Russell, over to you. Thanks, Tomas. And always a highlight to be here every Wednesday night, 8 p.m. Eastern. Russell Eubanks, former CISO for the Atlanta Fed. The last three years been running my company, Security Ever After. Teach for Sands, do things with ions and just really enjoy being a part of this community. But Katie, over to you. Thank you, Russell. Good evening, everybody. I'm Katie Hanahan. I am the VP of Cybersecurity Strategy for a Boutique SI out of Chicago. I also run their VC so program. So I serve as a VC or a CISO as part of that program. And so as I kind of wear two hats from both the integrator and the practitioner side. And in this case, an interviewer in which, you know, Robert, you're in good hands, I promise. Over to you, Nile. Thanks, Katie. Neil Varghese, virtual CISO, former five-time CISO director of CISO across various industries and co-author of the CISO Mentor. Back to you, Tomas. Sounds good. Thanks. Thanks, fellow moderators. So, Rob, why don't you take a moment to introduce yourself? Take as much time as you like or as little time as you like, but the more the better. It gives us a lot of material, if you will, for us to sort of ask you and learn about you and ask you further questions. So while you're going through your introduction, why don't you tell us a little bit about you and your origin story? Wow. So first off, it's just a pleasure to be here. I think this type of forum is really fantastic. So really appreciate the opportunity. Sometimes we go throughout life thinking, you know, my life story isn't really that interesting. That's because we live it. So I hope that my story inspires others to take risks, take chances, and never stop believing in yourself and the others around you. So hopefully they can garner something. And I'm always open to LinkedIn connections. I think too often in the digital world, we just connect just to rack up a score and view it as a video game versus actual connection. So that's why I love this is that I think too far too often we just connect just for connection's sake, instead of really digging in and understanding a person's perspective. So thank you for hosting. This was really fantastic. Wait, so you're saying that my 13,000 connections are not real connections on LinkedIn? Well, I will say that my 17,000, I'll one of you. I don't know a lot of them. And I started being a little more discerning. So yeah. And you know, it's interesting to us because like about, about four years ago, I came to the conclusion that at that time, I had about 13,000 connections. And I'm like, gosh, I don't, I don't, the more I'm connected, the more disconnected I felt. And so every time someone connects with me, I always try to offer to have a chat. And it's been actually, I won't say life changing, but it's been really fantastic to just listen to people and be interested instead of being interesting. And I've made a lot of friends and help people get jobs and, or just connect with other folks. So it's been, it's been really fun. It's been a fun experience, but you got to embrace all of it, you know, the good and the bad. So, but anyway, I don't know how far you want me to go back. I guess, you know, I was born in Eastern Pennsylvania. I moved to Ohio as a kid. I grew up in central Ohio, in a great town called Dayton, Ohio, and graduated from the University of Cincinnati, with a couple degrees in engineering and operations management. And that's where I met my wife of 25 years that we just celebrated last week. So that was truly fantastic. And I've, you know, I grew up with a fairly decent sized family. I'm the senior manager. And who are vastly more successful than me and just amazing individuals that I look up to. And so they've been fantastic mentors for me in all aspects of my life. And then, you know, you could probably see through my LinkedIn profile, I have a very mixed background. My first job out of college was actually working for my collegiate fraternity, Sigma Phi Epsilon. And that was very life changing. It was a junior executive program. It really knocked off a lot of the rough edges that we all graduate with from college and taught me a lot of the soft skills that I still use today, whether it's public speaking or transformational conversations or selling or you name it confrontation. You know, how to do team building, it was really wonderful. And then from there, my dream was always to work in the auto industry. I don't know why I just liked cars. And I got a job with Honda research and development. And that was actually my third day in, I realized it was the wrong job for me. So I made lemonade out of lemons. And I really learned a lot about how we develop cars, especially the Japanese do. And it was really shock and awe on how fast they bring from concept to market. And I was only there a year and had just a blast. I really connected with the test guys on testing vehicles. I've got tons of stories I can tell you there that you guys are like, no way. Totally. Fun fact, this is a fun fact that I know we can't show hands here over LinkedIn, but I actually was the one who named the Acura MDX as MDX. And it's kind of a not a very interesting story. But like, you know, back then, in an R&D project, you had to give out code names. And I was on that project, the very first generation of it. And I just picked the two letter designation of that code name called MD. And then in Honda's great marketing prowess, they just added an X onto it. So I always claim the fame that I named the Acura MDX, which I own one today, believe it or not. So I am a customer. That is awesome. And I don't mean to interrupt you, but that is awesome. What's the MD stand for? I've actually never plotted to it. Yeah, it doesn't mean anything. But some of the project engineers were like, Oh, it means mad dog, or it means multi dimensional. And people were coming up with all types of like, you know, goofy, you know, names, it was just it was literally Tomas, it's a spreadsheet that has a list of like 500 different code designations. And I just went through randomly, it was a Monday, I'm like, I don't know, MD sounds cool. Just pick MD. That's how there was no other genius in it than that. But it doesn't stand for anything. To be honest, don't let Honda say that. So if anyone says, Hey, Rob said that, I'll deny it. But yeah, that was totally it. So funny. You know, from from there, I, you know, I wasn't real happy. And my whole life, people have been telling me, you should go into sales. And I was like, Oh, you know, I kind of resisted a little bit, because I fancied myself as an engineer. And but I said, you know, Honda, at the time, I was making very little money. And I worked my butt off. And at the end of the year, I sat down with my Japanese manager who couldn't really speak that creative English. And, and he was like, Rob's on. And I was, my name is Rob's on. So he's better than Robert. And he said, you get a 3% raise. And I'm like 3% of nothing's nothing. And at that point, my wife and I were looking to raise a family. So sales really looked good. And I had some, believe it or not, some fraternity brothers that were with a startup, a software startup out of Boston. And that startup, and this will, this is definitely more than $14 words, was called software emancipation technology. It's a mouthful. It was shortened by SET was what we called it. And I was pretty aggressive. You know, I was, I've, I've always been kind of this aggressive guy. And they weren't hiring for someone in Ohio. And I was like, Okay, so I literally bought myself my own plane ticket, called the president's secretary, set up a meeting, showed up, and he didn't know that I was interviewing him, which turned into him interviewing me. And then I got the job. I mean, they were a pretty, you know, aggressive startup trying to change the world in software development. They said, why not put a guy in the middle of Ohio, we're not going to pay him much anyway. And he sinks great, or too bad if he if he swims wonderful. So anyway, that was a fun company, I learned a lot there. And what that company was trying to do, and some of you on the line might know this, they were trying to do parametric modeling. And parametric modeling, so the founder of SET, he was brother with Sam Geisberg, who was the founder of Parametric Technology Corporation, which is a big software company to do modeling to design hardware and cars and helicopters and tanks and, and whatnot. So the idea of parametric modeling is that if you're designing a helicopter, let's say, and you have the, you have the 3d model in front of you, and you want to change out the term, the turbine, you can in the model, pull out the turbine and put another one in there and run what they call an impact analysis, all the way down to the, to the weld joint to the bolts to everything and updates the entire model and shows you what is negatively impact. So everything is connected, including the physics. So it was a very, they eventually like, well, they are one of the leading CAD CAM companies, and they blew everyone away because of that. So his brother, Sam Geisberg founded Software Emancipation, trying to apply that same concept of parametric modeling to code. So for those who are, are code folks here, very complex. And back then I'm going to date myself, you know, C, C++ was kind of a thing. Java was really just coffee at that point. No one knew that Java language existed, but it's very nested and very complex. And the story then, and today it's even holds true is when you have a developer go in and make a change, they break more than they fix because it's when they touch something, it's somewhere downstream in the code breaks other things. So how can you model that in the same way PTC did is when you change something in the code, can you understand the nature of the relationships of all the entities that make up that software program linguistically that you can run an impact analysis and know that when I change this function and, or change this call or whatever, um, or variable in C++ or C, here's what else is impacted by that. So you can contain kind of the blast radius of that change. Um, and then it had some unique, uh, capabilities to find bugs and software. So we were really kind of positioned as a Y2K company, which, you know, was a big fizzle in the pop, uh, in the end. And so it was a great experience. And that was my, my first sales job. Um, in the first year I tripled my salary. So my wife was happy. We started a family, bought a house that, you know, did the whole American dream. Um, and then I just kind of continued in sales. So I figured, you know, I, I was, I was pretty good at it. Um, but, uh, from there, uh, I, we learned something in that market, which is in the DevOps environment. Uh, what we found is even though this, this parametric modeling of code system was really powerful, we found that engineers at the desktop level weren't adopting it, um, because they didn't have the time to look through the results. And it's still true today that, and that, and this was a story going back many, many years ago, that software is built to a date that either the market management, the, the competition, the customer forces you to build code in faster time than what your process says it should take to properly incubate it and field it correctly. And when that happens, and it, and it's, it's a legit reason that speed should be the objective, not necessarily quality. And it was quality back then, not security. That you do have to, you know, violate that to, to get it out, to violate your own process. And we were finding that even though our technology was finding lots of defects, people weren't, weren't looking at them. So, um, I met a couple guys at that company and we saw an opportunity, a big gap in the market that there was a data management problem with software analysis tools at that time. And I still think it's true today. So we started our own company, um, called, uh, PSC, uh, Pro Services Corporation. And, uh, the, the whole design of that company was to actually go into companies and grab that data from sat. We know them now, SAS tools, software analysis, uh, static analysis, uh, software tools, and, and take as an MSP, go in and take that data. And so let's just say you run a code analysis on, on your program and it comes out with 3000 findings. Your engineers aren't going to look at that cause they don't have the time, but we would. And we had our own, uh, group of software engineers that we would take that data, shove it through our, you know, our own little crowd sourced, uh, in-house crowd sourced, if you will, uh, folks. And go through each of those 3000 findings. And then, you know, we had our own, uh, separate the wheat from the chaff and then bring back to the team, the three of the 3000 that were killers that were saying, Hey, you know, this is a memory leak. You better fix this or this thing's going to crash. And it was, it was a really great business. Um, I was there for 18 years as a founder, you know, my title was managing director, VP COO. I cleaned the toilets every Thursday. That's what you do with your own company. Um, but it was a really awesome experience. We, we built a technology out there. Um, that was a data aggregator for all these software analysis tools. Um, we did a lot of business with the department of defense. Um, in fact, that was probably my main customer was the federal government. We did some commercial business as well. And then along the way, um, I started a company called Hades, which at the time was a crowd hacking platform. Um, and I tried, uh, raising money for it. And, and I wasn't able to, because every investor I met with basically was said, Hey, this is a fantastic idea. You're going to be a billionaire, but you're going to be in jail. Um, because my idea was to broker relationship between black hat hackers and legit corporations. And have them hack on them in a very unique way, um, and get them paid. So now you kind of know as a bug bounty program these days. Um, and along that way, uh, a couple of years after I started that company, I found out about these two guys, uh, Mark core and Jay Kaplan out of the NSA, who was actually one of my clients. And, uh, they started a company called Sinek that was basically doing the same thing. So I tracked them for a while. And, uh, because I couldn't get funding for my own company. Uh, and then I had kind of seen PSC through, uh, through some tricky wickets. And I had a nice little exit from there. Uh, I decided to hook up with Mark and Jay and Sinek at that point was, you know, about six years old, maybe a little bit less than that, um, to join the ranks and figured I'd, it'd be great to join a company that was one of my original ideas. Um, but it's more mature and I could have some fun just being a sales guy again. And I'm an entrepreneur and, um, and, and sell that. So I'll stop there. There's lots of details in between, but I don't necessarily want to keep going on and off that you guys, uh, probing. So I'll, I'll stop there. And that's, that's kind of where I am today. And I've been with Sinek for about a little over four and a half years. And, uh, it's been a great ride. Uh, so far, you know, I started off as a salesperson. Now I'm the vice president for the Eastern half of the United States, running a fantastic team and just being associated with really just truly fantastic people. No, that's, that's, uh, that's, that's great, Robin. I was just trying to think like, when did you and I meet? And I felt like it was at a conference or something, but I can't remember. Yeah. Yeah. We met, we met at an apex conference in New York back in like 2018. I was like my first year with Sinek and, um, and you were up on stage and, you know, it was one of those things where it was a panel and you had all these other CISOs up there and everyone was being real serious and you were doing, you were serious too, but your personality was making me laugh because, um, you just brought a really great, easygoing perspective. And I came up and I introduced myself to you just saying, Hey, you're a super cool guy and you're really entertaining. Would love to just connect. Um, and then you invited me in to just come and talk about Sinek to at that time, IFNF. And that's when, um, I think that relationship started. So yeah, I've always found you to be super cool. And then I, I wanted to host a couple events in Manhattan and have you just MC because you just have that personality where I think you could own the room as you do this one. Um, and, uh, so yeah, that's, that's when it started. Uh, uh, thanks for the impromptu. Uh, I will send you a check in the mail for, for the nice words, but, uh, uh, Russ, I'll pass it over to you. You know, I'd say it's pretty hard to, to top that. Uh, that's a nice endorsement and one that I endorse as well. Hey, Rob, thanks so much for joining us and sharing part of your origin story and things that you're, uh, up to things that you're, um, uh, working on. And it's so amazing to have so many people here, uh, to hear this with us this evening. You know, as I'm looking at, I love this feature in LinkedIn, uh, audio, what we're doing now. And you can see your profile, but something caught my attention, uh, in your profile, hell bent on changing the world. One, I'm impressed. And if I, if you happen to see that on my profile in the future, you'll know where it came from. But what I'd love to know, what does that mean to you? When, when, when, how do you aim for something like that? What does that look like? Can you tell us a bit more about that? Yeah. You know, I, I think, um, some of that is just for flair. Um, I, I, I'm a believer that, um, you know, the brain normalizes data. Um, and after you get spam mail the first five times, you just, your brain normalizes it and, and all it sees is a C's of O's. And, and for you to get someone's attention, you need to be that X and a C of O's to say, oh, you got to wake up the brain. Um, so, um, part of my LinkedIn strategy was how do I build out a subtitle that, um, is a little bit aggressive and maybe catches your eyes. And I've gotten more comments on that than anything over the years that allows me to kind of wake up your brain. When you look at my profile saying, wow, that's interesting. What do you mean by that? So I'm glad it worked. You just proved my theory. So congratulations. Um, I, I, I didn't write it just for flair. Um, I actually, it's something I do believe in. Um, you know, I, I, where I've been successful Russell is that, um, not just as a sales guy, but really just as an entrepreneur and businessman is that when I work with my clients and my customers, um, I tend to care about the problem or their challenges more than they do. Um, I really get vested in helping them get to the other side of true transformation. And because most of my career has been in testing, whether I'm testing cars, testing software, testing networks, that's really been, um, where I've, I've, I've, I've made my, my living. And what I've always found is that people have viewed, um, testing as the destination. And I've always viewed testing as the beginning of a journey. And far too often people look at just testing as an activity as, Hey, I'm just going to do it. Do I pass fail? Great. If I fail, what did I fail on? And let me fix it real quick. And then let me get past the gate. And what they, what they realize is that they've missed out on a really wonderful and fantastic opportunity to look at their failures and the pattern of that. And if that pattern repeats after successive tests, and what does that say about behavior? And then once I can understand what behaviors are being done by engineers, whether it's building a car or building software, um, I can start to design, uh, programs around the weakness, whether it's education, training, process, incentive, management, other types of dynamics that go on in a company to try to combat that behavior. And if I start seeing the same signature across multiple tests, whether it's multiple cars, multiple software within the team, whatever, you can start looking at what type of habits are they developing. And then if I'm looking across, you know, multiple groups and I'm, I'm finding maybe different signatures, but similar and, and flaws and what they're building. That's when you have a culture problem. And, and so when I started realizing that I look at the world slightly differently from a data perspective, and when I would bring my client on board with that saying, Hey, I'm, we're doing some pretty good work, but you're just focusing on the bugs we're finding in your code. But if, let me just, can I just come, come here for a second. Let me show you the lens of how I view it. And man, you see the light bulbs flip in their head. They're like, Oh my God. I'm like, yeah, you've got some problems here. You're building stuff and you're paying people a professional workday to do it the wrong way. And then you're paying me to find it. And I'm finding the same thing over and over again. And you're not healing. Like it's, you're re-injecting that risk into the program. And so I've always looked at testing as a way to be very transformative. And because some of the system, not some, a lot of the systems that we've worked on over the years. And I obviously can't talk about most of them in the military context were very much national defense systems that, you know, keep you safe at night. And so that's kind of where that, that tagline came is, you know, hell bent on changing the world. Because I know that if I can prevent through leadership and transformation through wonderful data, preventing people from introducing risk really at the point of creation. And maybe we have a better chance of being much more effective and efficient and pumping out new capabilities in a faster timeframe, safe, safely to those who consume it. I was a very long winded answer, but there was, there was a story behind that. Hopefully that makes you happy. It did make me happy. And I love that approach of, you know, kind of moving from, or you said transformation. So transforming from, you know, fixing one flaw, one bug at a time to looking to more systemic change. And I really appreciate that so, so much. I also appreciate that. I imagine Katie's got a question or two for you. So I'll pass it over to her at this time. Thank you, Russell. And hey, Rob. Hi again, Rob. Yeah. I thought you were going to be fine. We're not too scary here. So listen, you said a lot of things that were incredibly interesting to me. At the very beginning, you talked about soft skills and, you know, having transformational conversations. And then you hinted almost jokingly at the title in your LinkedIn profile. But I love it because you're not wrong. When you said transformational conversations, I glossed over it with my ears because I was like, okay, everybody says that, right? But then you backed it up. You backed it up. So as you were going through your story and talking about your journey in this industry, going from dreaming about a career in the auto industry and then figuring out that testing vehicles could also equal the beginning of a journey. And then translating that into your cybersecurity journey is fascinating to me. So you lived up to your LinkedIn title. But I have to say, I think that what you said was really important because you're right. So many times we say things that are important. And what you said about having transformational conversations is, from what I can understand, really, you know, fundamental to who you are in this industry. Yet I glossed over it with my ears a little bit because we've heard that word a lot. And so you backed it up with all of these facts. And I really appreciate that. What I'd love to understand from you, as a leader in this industry, as somebody that I know a lot of people look up to, as you've, you know, kind of validated your own process in this industry and getting attention, I find it really interesting the way that you have really leaned into that aspect of it. You know, now you're, you know, now you're in a place where you're actually promoting or, you know, working in tangent with a company to bring something to market. Really interested in how you validate and measure. You mentioned some things already, but just really interested in how you do that and what your process is in bringing something that is transformational and truly transformational to market. Yeah, I mean, I could talk about that in a couple of ways. I mean, it's not easy, right? I mean, you, with my own company, just going back two iterations to PSC, you really have to be, I want to say evangelical, if I'm saying that correctly. To the point, Katie, where it's like, and I'd say pen testing with Cynac is the same way. It's a highly, just like static analysis is, pen testing is also highly commoditized. And so you really have to be passionate and really believe in the path that you're on to convince people that there's more there than what they realize. Almost to the point where, like, they look at you like you're crazy. Like, why? Like, and I'll tell you a funny story. I was, I was down at the Pentagon. We had done a lot of work with a particular division of the military. Well, we had looked at, I don't know, probably like 15, I don't know, 8, 10 billion lines of code across lots of different systems. And I was briefing someone very, very high up in the Department of Defense on all of the trends that we've seen across the services. And, and she asked me a question that actually kind of infuriated me, but, but I wanted to answer where she said, well, if you guys are so good looking at other people's code using your methodology. Like, doesn't, don't I pay Lockheed Martin and Raytheon and Boeing and all these big companies to do that? Like, why are you doing this? And then I just like, I care about the problem more than she did. And I'm like, well, this is because I'm a taxpayer. I'm like, well, this is why. And then I started to get very animated to the point where this big colonel, I mean, this guy was like six, eight. He was just jacked with muscles on muscles. And he stood up behind her because he was her XO. And he kind of gave me a stern look. I'm like, okay, I better back my stuff. I better pump the bricks on this because he got up and gave me a hard stare. But I bring my pointer that, you know, I'm very passionate about transformation and that I have data. And so I've been in more conversations. So I think the way you convince someone on how to bring something, a transformation idea to market is when you're working in a technical arena and with engineers, I've been in thousands of meetings where if I come into that meeting and I say, hey, Katie, like your code's really bad or, you know, we totally owned you with this pen test and you need to figure some stuff out. Well, that's my opinion to a degree. And I'll leave with really some bad opinions. But if I come to that conversation with really empirical data to say, let me show you exactly what I'm talking about in the code. Boom, boom. Here it is. And all of a sudden their eyes get really bright. And the thing is fixed before the meeting is over. And that's how I try to empower the executives, the teams that I work with that hire, that hired my previous companies and certainly my current company. And you don't really control much in security. But the way you can lead transformation is through really powerful data because they will listen to you because you've got them. There's no running from it. And that's how I think I've answered your question. I'm trying to answer that. Hopefully I mentioned your question. That's how I've been successful is empowering my clients to use that technique because that's how I've been successful with my clients. And showing them the way to have really meaningful conversations based on facts, not opinions. And the other thing that I've learned just with testing and really with software is there are lots of people out there that believe they build stuff to a standard. And they sit in their ivory tower. And it was always a joke with my business partners and I when I was doing code analysis that we walk into these big defense contractors and they'd have these banners in their lobby saying we're at SCI CMMI level five. And that's a very old standard nowadays, I think. I don't know if people know what that means, but it basically means you build gold plated code. You're very optimized in your software process. And we always still laugh at each other because we go and meet with the clients saying, hey, I saw the banner in your lobby. Like, do you really think you're a level five code builder? And they're like, oh, yeah, yeah, we were just certified last year. I'm like, OK, well, give me your code. I'll tell you what you actually do. And it was always different because the only thing ever in sync with your true manufacturing or development process is that which is a result of it. I don't care what you say. Let me see the actual artifact that it produces and let me test that, audit that, forensically and analyze it, whatever it is. And then I'll show you what you do. And it is eye opening. And that's a data driven conversation that no one can argue ever. I've never lost a discussion because it's not my opinion. It's the opinion of the data. And that's being very. And then once you start getting them on the side, that data wins. Then you can start employing other techniques to start looking at other transformational things downstream from that or upstream from that, that to start building that. What I believe is measuring behavior, identifying habits, and then changing those to become being aware of your culture. And just through that, just through testing. So I think I answered your question. Did I totally miss the target? You 100% answered my question. Yeah. And you backed up the strength of the word transformational and everything that you say, including the title on your LinkedIn page. But yeah. I'll tell you a funny story real quick. We love stories here. Please do. I'll tell you a funny story. And obviously, I can't name things. So we show up to this major system, critical of national defense. And it was screaming red. They call it code reds. To the point where it was being briefed to the White House weekly. And my company was kind of known as SEAL Team Sixers Software. So whenever the train came off the tracks, we would get the call. So we fly out to the site. We get in there. And this program manager shows up. And he looked like he was on a bender. I mean, I felt so bad for this guy. He was like chain smoking. He was like just totally, there was no color in his skin. It seemed like they put him in a dark hole for like weeks and hadn't showered. And I felt so bad because he was struggling on this program. And then his vice president, who seemed perfectly happy, was across the desk. And myself and my partner were talking and we're just, you know, with them and asking them all types of questions. And they're like, yeah, we just really need your help. We don't really know what's going on. The stat and the other were like, yeah, yeah. Listen, just give us the code. And so my business partner, who I would say was like the Muhammad Ali of code analysis, looked at him and said, well, you know, based on what you're telling us and kind of what this thing does, I think we're going to find a ton of these types of errors in the software. And the VP slammed his fist and he goes, there is no way you will find one of those in our code. We follow a professional workday. We follow a process. And that is absolutely in our standard that we don't do that. We just don't. And we're like, okay, like, all right, man, back off. Like, we're all good. Let's get a soda. Let's calm down. Just give us the code. So anyway, we after about two weeks, my partner comes to me. He goes, we're going to be in trouble. I'm like, oh, my God, what'd you do? And he goes, I didn't do anything. He goes, we just we we found about 16,000 of those things in the software. And I'm like, are you kidding? He goes, no. And so we got to the brief and we told we had to break the news to the VP saying, hey, man, this is what we found. You don't just have one. You have 16,000. And you just saw the blood go right out of his face. And then but we got his obviously we got his attention. And then he started believing in the juju we were dealing out saying, hey, data trumps your opinion and your people aren't doing what you think they're doing. So let's fix it. And the good news is we have a way now that, you know, you have 16,000 of them and there's many more of other types. We can start measuring it and seeing where exactly this is being eliminated and where it's being injected. So the good news was after six months, it went from like the worst program to the brightest of greens. And we fixed it and got them up. We're all safe now. But just a funny story about just transformation and how people sometimes believe in one thing. And until you kind of do the forensic deep dive, you're doing an entirely different thing without knowing. I appreciate the extra story and color. And yes, absolutely. Insert those wherever you find the floor is yours, sir. We appreciate it. So thank you. And for those who have joined, I just want to do a quick reset. We have moved our platform from one to now LinkedIn audio. And this is the fireside chat that we do every single Wednesday night at 8 p.m. Eastern time. We we meet with people from all over the industry. We have tonight we have Robert Cross. We have, you know, authors, CEOs of companies, CISOs from global companies, CISOs from smaller companies, people like me. I've been on the hot seat and told my story, as have all the other moderators here tonight. So always an interesting story, always an interesting discussion every single Wednesday night. Just wanted to reset for those who might be new to us on LinkedIn audio that we will be here every single Wednesday. So with that, though, what we normally do then is we go through the rest of the moderators and we ask a question. And then anyone who has a question, feel free to raise your hand and then we'll go to you as soon as we get through all of those questions. And as we go through the end of the time. So with that, I'd like to pass it over to my colleague, Anil, for the next question. And thank you again, Robert. That was awesome. Thank you. No, thank you. Thanks, Katie. Rob, thanks for carving out the time. You know, at the top of the hour, you had touched upon a number of connections you had. But I want to change direction a little bit and get your take and thoughts on mentorship as well as networking. And especially drawn to mind a story from one of the students you had helped get their foothold in the security space. Just give me your philosophy and approach. And, you know, if you could highlight that example, that'd be great. Yeah. I mean, so. I think LinkedIn, like any platform, you get out of it what you put into it. And when I first, you know, started on this journey of really trying to connect and make meaningful connections, I would always offer a conversation. And, you know, some of it selfishly would be to hook up with a guy like yourself, Anil, and say, oh, Sinek or at the time Pro Services looks kind of interesting. Let's talk about that. But more times than not, I would connect with folks and find out that, you know, they would be, you know, looking just to connect and have a conversation and looking to actually get a job or be networked into things. So, you know, I think it's just really important to always be open and realizing that you have a lot to bring with your connections. Because I started to amass them. I realized that the asset I have is now 17 or 16, 17,000 connections. And so one story I can tell you is I have a soft spot for many different types of folks. One of them is our veterans. And a lot of folks that are coming out of our military have a hard time transitioning. So a fun story there is that a gentleman that I connected with on LinkedIn, he was working for an organization in the city of New York and then got pulled up on reserves and went downrange, served his time. And then COVID hit and was supposed to come back, but then was redeployed. And by the time he came back from deployment, his job was eliminated. And he didn't have a job. And I was like, what? Like, is that illegal? And he's like, well, it's, you know, it's a contractor. It's that well, this and the other. I'm like, okay, well, that's really bad. Like, let's figure this out. So I helped him with his resume. Well, first off, you know, it's interesting. What I found is when I, if anyone here on the phone is looking for a job, people, when you ask them, like, well, what do you want to do? It's like they always tell you what they've done. They never tell you what they want to do. And so I've really built the skill of listening and also really drawing it out of people of what are their superpowers. And just like kind of what you're doing with me is really interviewing them on, tell me about your experience. And what do you like? What do you don't like? You want to go to a big company? You want a small company? Remote? Like, I would ask everything an interviewer would ask. And there's no skin in the game for me on this, by the way. I'm just trying to help someone out, right? So then now I'd have them give me their resume. And because I look at resumes all day long, so I'm a hiring manager as well. And my prior lives, I've done a lot of hiring. I would, and I'm a very good writer. That is one of my superpowers. I'm a very good writer. So I would go back and I would actually rework the resume. And then my assets, my network here. So I would do a posting. And if you go back in the history of my posts, you would see it where I put in bold letters, you know, attention, hiring alert, attention, hiring alert to my security network in caps. And then I would do like a paragraph write-up on saying, hey, Anil is, you know, served our country, blah, blah, blah, blah, yada, yada, this, that, and the other. I try to keep it brief but concise and say he's looking for this type of opportunity. Please connect with him. And if you don't want to connect with him directly, please connect with me and I'll make the introduction. And within, I don't know, I'd say within the first 24 to 48 hours, he had several offers for interviews. And within probably a month, he had a new job. And he actually moved his family from New York City down to Baltimore and took advantage of his clearance he has from the reserves and works for the intelligence community. So, you know, he was a nice young man and I mentored him through that process and then made also direct introductions. But I just think it's like you have to be authentic in networking. I think you have to be genuinely authentic that if you're in it, like be in it to win it. Like, you know, really be all in and trying to help people out. And that's why I say to people, and I've gotten these comments from folks, and I've done this several times. And they always, you know, say, like, why are you doing this? Like, I mean, like, we just met. And that's like, because someone's got to care. You know, it's like headhunters, I like headhunters, but sometimes they're not necessarily the most emotionally connected people to their candidates. They just want to push you around a little bit. I'm like, I don't know. I just feel like I have the power to help because I have this wonderful thing called a 17,000 person network. Whether I know them or not, I know that they also care, too, if you write a compelling story on why you matter. And I just think that that little piece of giving back to the universe and giving back to people makes me happy. And I think the older I've gotten, I'm more happy giving than I am receiving. And that just little piece I just think makes me happy. And I've done that. And a fun story is I actually did it for my own son recently, who's graduating from Rutgers this year in IT. And he wants to do cybersecurity. So I did the same thing for him at the beginning of the summer. He was looking for an internship. And I did it. I redid his LinkedIn profile. And that's another thing I do is I don't do LinkedIn consulting, but I help everyone redo their LinkedIn profile because some of them are not really great. And there are some tips and tricks. So I juiced up his LinkedIn profile. I posted that thing in my news feed that I just mentioned to you by noon on Sunday. And by 4 o'clock that same Sunday, he had like 30 connect requests, four folks at this panel's level of seniority and cyber that offered to mentor him. And then he had like four job offers within a week and a half. And then he took an internship over the summer with an awesome company making crazy money on a per hour rate that I was like, are you kidding me? That's like four times I made at TCBY when I was like 14. It's a little embarrassing. But so hopefully that answers your question about just mentorship and networking. No, that's awesome. Appreciate that, Rob, because I did see that post about Michael. And like you said, I think part of this is demonstrating the power of the network, but also showcase it to folks that are listening along with our fellow moderators here and yourself. That this is actually happening, right? It's not just people just paying lip service to it, but people are actually there to assist and mentor where they can. So I appreciate that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I think the thing I love to do is be a super connector. That's why it's worth investing in your network because, you know, now that you and I know each other, Neil, you call me tomorrow saying, hey, man, I'm looking for a company or I'm looking for someone who does this. Like I may have that. And I love making introductions. Again, no skin in the game. I don't want anything from it other than a beer or sometime when we meet in person. But I love doing that. That brings so much joy is when I connect to, you know, power players or, you know, where one plus one equals three. That is so much fun to just see the kind of the lightning, the spark and the lightning that happens. So, yeah, I think it's something that a lot of people just take for granted. And I do not. Exactly. I appreciate that. I need to call you, Rob, so you can, when I'm looking for another job, you put it out there. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and Tomas, to be honest, again, I'm going to give you a little bit of an attaboy. Tomas is one of these guys that I've had some friends at your guys' level that are CISOs that have been in transition. And Tomas had some connections with some high-end, you know, folks in the recruiting field. And he was very kind when I reached out to him saying, hey, Tomas, we're friends. I've got another friend of mine that's looking to transition into another CISO role. Can I make the introduction? And he was, you know, you live up to your word because he said, absolutely, make the introduction. And I made the introduction and you guys hit it off and you guys helped each other out. And that was, you all are part of my network. And so it's, when I ask something, I take your time as being very valuable and I do not want to waste it. Because I know we all get pinged with spam. But when I ask for something, because if you ever called me or said, say, hey, Rob, I need your help. Like, you get all of me. You don't get part of me. Like, I'm in. Okay. And I just, I love the fact that Tomas, when I reached out to you, you're like, yeah, man. Like, I'm in. Like, how can I help? That's just super powerful. So. Man, don't go spreading those good rumors, Rob. Please don't message me, people. I really am backlogged. You're going to be upset with me. And I'm not going to live up to your expectations. Anyways, Lisa Beth, sorry. I don't want to take up your time. Go ahead, Lisa Beth. Hey, hey, everyone. Happy Wednesday. It's good to be back at the Fireside Chat. And Rob, I'm just so impressed with everything I've heard about you tonight. I love, you know, hearing about data-driven decision-making and how you mentor and bring forth the best in people as they are navigating their careers. So let me combine a little bit of that and ask you. Right now, there are a lot of people who are finding themselves suddenly, perhaps precipitously, looking for a job, particularly in the tech space. How do you recommend to people that they show up as their very best when they find themselves in a position where they're delivering themselves up as a potential candidate in a sea full of really competitive options? Yeah. Yeah. Boy, that's interesting. So, yeah. Sometimes the crazy comes out because my mind works faster than my mouth. So I just did a whole seminar on professional development for a student group at a local university where they were asking that same thing of how do we stand out? And a lot of that was, one is, you know, we live in the digital age, obviously. So it really goes back to your LinkedIn profile and making sure that it's really set up and, as I like to call it, a fire-breathing dragon. And there's certain things on a LinkedIn profile that are more valuable than others from a real estate standpoint. So I would always advise people, I would coach them through that to make sure your digital representation is the best version of you. And your representation of that is action-driven, outcome-driven, and not just what you're responsible for because no one really cares what you're responsible for. They care about what you've achieved. So that's number one. Number two, I always advise folks that if you're going to play the job boards, and if there's folks on here that are finding themselves in the situation that you had mentioned, they can also kind of game the system a little bit. Like there's a website, and I think there's several of these out there called like JobScan. So if you're going to play a job boards where you're just submitting your resume, one is, you know, tailor it to the job. But when you do that, the bots, you know, the AI bots analyze the resume and score it. And so there are engines out there like JobScan that will, you can upload the job profile and then upload your resume. And then it'll look at it from a bot standpoint and see how diffracted you are from keywords. And it will give you feedback saying, hey, like if this was the bot you're submitting to, you're about 75% or 65% compliant or a fit for this role. You need to add this to your resume in order to be at 99%. And so if you are going to do that, you know, you might as well use the technology to your advantage. So when you do submit it, you're a 99% fit. So at least you make the first cut to be at the top of the stack if you're going to do that. I think the other thing is, and they don't teach people how to do this well, is the networking piece, right? Is that if you want to get a job with Apple, there's lots of different strategies in the digital domain to start connecting with people at that target company. Like there's visit strategies, there's connect strategies. And then when people connect with you, that first message back, you'd be surprised how many people don't know how to write a great message. Like, you know, Katie just connected with me today. And normally what I'd write to Katie is, I would say something like, and I didn't tonight, I just kind of kept the brief is, oh my gosh, super fantastic. I'm so flattered that you actually would connect with me. Really great to meet you. Would love to have a chat. I've looked at your background. I see you do this, this, and this. I can't wait to get your posts in my news feed because you have some great thought leadership pieces really looking to learn from you. And I've just doing that, just taking the time to do that, like blows people away. And shows that you actually have a personality and you have genuine interest in who they are. And so if you're out there, if you're out there looking for a job, again, kind of going back to 10, 15, 20 minutes ago when I said the brain normalizes data, you're in a sea of zeros. So how do you stand out as the X? What's that X factor that's going to wake up the brain of someone saying, wow, that woman is pretty interesting. I've never gotten something like that before. And some of that is the outreach of one. The reason why I tell people to supercharge your LinkedIn profile is you can do a visit strategy where if I'm just using Apple because they're bringing this Apple. But if I want to get a job at Apple in engineering, I would do a search of everyone in engineering at Apple and I just start visiting all their profiles and there's LinkedIn automation. I'm recording this, but there's LinkedIn automation tools that allow you to do that. And I'll ask you guys or I'll ask you this question is, what do you think the number one feature on LinkedIn that's used by users? What would you say it is? Take it, guys. For me, it's a spam message. Wrong. Anyone else? No. Okay. I'll get those. It's the huge who has viewed my profile. And so, I mean, we're all a little bit narcissistic. So when you start viewing, you get a notification like, hey, you know, Rob Cross just viewed your profile. And if your headshot is really great, your backgrounds are great, and your tagline is something that's juicy and delicious and interesting, I'm going to click on that saying, who's Rob Cross? He's a hacker evangelist. He's transformational. He's hellbent on Changes World. That sounds interesting. And they go in and then they look at the about and that starts to get a little more interesting. And then you start pulling them in. It's all about creating a story digitally that makes you more interesting than every other one that's clicking on your profile. And then once you clicked on that, now I've got you. Now I've just said that. Now you visited me back. Now I can send Jennifer or Katie or Lisa or Anil a message saying, hey, Anil, mutual profile views. Super awesome. I see we're both in software engineering, would love to connect. And then I'd say probably 90% of the time, Anil would connect with me. And then once that happens, I can start conversing with him or her, whoever, on just networking inside that company, and then become more of a trusted asset to where that might lead to getting an opportunity in that company. It's a lot of work, but getting a job, I've always believed this. It's not what you know. It's who you know. And it's how you present yourself. And I just think there are ways in the modern age to do that better than others. So hopefully that makes sense. That was absolutely outstanding. And I think a lot of people take what you had to say. So thank you for sharing it. Russell, I'll turn it back over to you so that you can bring other people up to ask questions. Sounds like a great idea. So, Jennifer, I see you here. And then Tom. But, Jennifer, go ahead. Well, one, great to see you here. And two, go ahead and ask your question. Oh, hi. Sorry. I was actually writing Robert a message. This new platform is working. Hey, Robert. As I said, my message to you, I think we have a ton in common. Ton love all those superpowers that we have in common. And then I think networking and being our superpower, connecting people is our superpower. And then I think modesty sounds like probably our biggest one in common. Totally kidding. But I loved your earlier comment on the data. I love data and I love going back to facts. And I'm wondering how both coming in this, both from a data point and also from a taxpayer point. And as a quick aside, not a lot of people get to start their stories with, oh, yeah, I was at the Pentagon and X, Y, Z. But how do you – so you're looking at results, but you make it sound – you're kind of skating over these things so quickly or making them sound so easily. And I agree with you on results and I agree with you on looking at this stuff. But can you dig down into that a little bit deeper to say how do you do that with showing that? And is it super customized to each customer or partner that you're working with? Or is it something that you've standardized and are able to – like what is your process or application there to look at that? Yeah. No, it's a great question. I don't want to dip you in too much geek oil. So I think – so typically when I do – when I start diving into the data analytics and the transformative part of it, I think in pictures. So data can be very boring. And even though I'm like every engineer where I just can't look away at a spreadsheet, like I love them, but I hate them, I love to visualize data. So one of my biggest things that I've done is when I sit down with like – and I'm just picking on Tomas. When I sit down with like a Tomas and we've just been done – we've done 100 tests for him and his organization. I love to put visuals in front of them like radar charts. And if you guys don't love radar charts, I totally get it. I love them because they're so just – they just show you a pattern of where you have risk. And then once I can show you just the aggregated view – because let's face it, every executive is paid to manage risk, right? But until you can visualize, it's not as visceral as just talking about it. So I present a very visual presentation to my clients on where there is risk. And then I start to ask questions about it because not everyone – and you'd even think even at your guys' level that, oh, you're trained in asking questions about this. I don't ever assume that. So I start asking them questions about, well, what if we double-clicked into this and broke out this aggregated data and looked at this pattern? But, boy, wasn't it interesting over in this group how their pattern is significantly small? But everyone else is really, like, exploded. Like, they are messy and they're introducing risks in massive volumes to where it seems like chaos. Like, what are they doing? Have you ever asked that question? They're like, whoa, I haven't asked that question. Maybe we should go talk to those folks as though they're doing something right. And let's find that out on what best practices is meaning that. So I really try to spoon-feed it in a very visual way that they can connect to and empower them to ask really great questions on the why and the how and not just the what. But why was it injected? And I find that I've empowered them to lead that into their organizations to ask those great questions backed up by that. Does that answer that? That's awesome. That's actually awesome. And actually what that ties back to, I would – the next layer I would describe that as is telling stories. And so you're looking at the why, as you said in the end, the why and the how. So you're drawing stories or showing relevance to that data by putting it in charts and visualizing it. That's awesome. Thanks. Yeah. Yeah. No, no worries. And it's a lot of fun. So it's a fun idea. Great question. I can tell all those stories if you want me to prompt stuff because I got a thousand of them. So cool. Appreciate that. Thank you as always, Jennifer. Hey, Tom, great to see you. What do you have? Russell, how's it going? Robert, you and I definitely have quite similar backgrounds. Unfortunately, I never left the software security space. I kind of went the opposite direction of you and kind of focused on – I went from pen testing and red team over to software security sales. And then understand the pain of that. And then trying to show people, yeah, well, especially government agencies, yeah, here's your 400,000 criticals and your bloated application built by some of the names you've named. Now, how are you going to fix them? And then their thing was to always look for the easy button. So, one, what made you want to go into sales leadership? You know, not a great paid writer. You can pay the least. You can pay the least in sales leadership. Why would you go there? You know, it's just – again, talking about superpowers. It's just been one of my superpowers. And I've enjoyed it being in sales leadership. I mean, sales leadership, right? So, I'm presuming, are you asking me why did I go into management in my current company versus being a paid assassin, just being a sales guy? Or why did I just go to sales in general? Oh, you're on mute. I think I lost them. Well, why don't you answer both? Why not both? I'm curious. I'm on the edge of my seat. Okay. Honestly, Rob, I think it's an interesting question from both sides. And if Tom gets back online, he can clarify his question. But I do think what he was maybe getting at is where you were going with your answer. Yeah. You should go ahead. Yeah. Oh, there he is. Okay. Yeah. What happens is you touch this app and then it takes you into looking at profiles and then you can't get back. It's a pain. Yeah. I was just curious. What made you want to go into leadership instead of being on the money making side? Oh, oh, yeah. No. Yeah. So, such a story behind that. So, when I left my own company, I swear I'd never – boy, man, we're going to get into some really psychological depth of my nutty brain. And I was going to get into my own company because I saw my dad work his tail off for the same company and retire and then not really enjoy the fruits of his labor. And he didn't really have much at the end of it. And I said, that's not going to be me. And after working at Honda for like a 100,000-person company, you realize you're just a cog in a machine. I was like, I don't want to do this. So, that's when I started my own company and then when I left that company, it was a little bit like an emotional process for me because I didn't want to work for someone else. But I kind of had a little bit of an entrepreneurial PTSD of being in charge of everything and strategy and HR and everything. So, when I had the opportunity to exit and work for someone else, it was great. I just wanted to put the fun back into business. And I just went into sales to say, you know what, I just want to go in, have fun, not worry about – go out and meet people like Kamas and press the flesh and have just a great time. And it was fun. But I don't want to say this without sounding like – when you have the seniority and you know the way and you see others around you that could benefit from your mentorship and leadership, and yet you're kind of in your own foxhole and service to the world or to your coworkers. And I had an opportunity where my boss at Synac had moved on from Synac to another opportunity. And the company approached me and said, hey, would you – and take leadership. And it's not why I came to Synac. I did not want to be a manager. I didn't want nothing to do with it. But then I thought to myself, you know, who better than me? I know my peers. And I do love mentoring and I love coaching. And I love bringing people up in the system and growing and being part of that growth path. And so I said, yeah, I think maybe it's time for me to be helpful to leadership because I felt like giving back to my peers and helping them be awesome and helping them make a lot of money and help the company grow in a much more impactful multiplier effect. And I think that's a great question. But that's the genesis of how I just took on this new leadership role. No, I've watched a lot of people in sales where they're forced into it. That's why I was kind of curious about it. Here, you're going to be the new director or the VP and that's it. You have no questions about it. That's what it was a little curious. Yeah, I had a choice and I chose that in this case. But great question. Thanks. And then since you're in New York, we could probably always go get a drink sometime. I'm literally over on the Jersey City side. Fantastic. I'm in Jersey too. So, yes, absolutely. Would love to. And then Tomas, I can have a drink with him when the NFL season's over. Good luck with that. I was about to say the same. The season never ends. Are there any other questions for me? The season never ends. No. Well, I mean, I do. Okay. I always have another question. I, you know, my favorite part of this, you know, now year and a half of first listening to this program, being a guest on this program and then becoming a moderator on this program is the journey that got you to this place. And we've covered a ton of your adult journey, which is amazing. And I've, I've gleaned so much from it. But there are a couple of things that I'd love to dig into if we could. In terms of your origin story. I mean, you said something that was super interesting to me about your father working in the auto industry. You said something later at the beginning and then something just about 10 minutes ago where you said something again about that. And it always reminds me of that, you know, the quote where it's, you know, I am a soldier, so my son can be a farmer and his son can be a poet. If you were in that scenario, who are you? Are you the soldier, farmer or poet? And as you think about what you're leaving behind, because you clearly do lean into this piece of the industry in a way that I respect tremendously. What are you hoping to leave behind for the next generation, whether or not you are the soldier, farmer or poet? That is very deep. I guess I would view myself as the soldier. I think earlier on in my career, I was very risk adverse. And then when I started my company with my two other partners, I just realized that I'm not risk. And I'm happy to, using a soldier analogy, I'm happy to run towards gunfire and bring my family along. I don't know, it's amazing that my wife has stayed married to me for 25 years. After all, I've dragged her through being an entrepreneur. So I think what I want to leave behind, I guess when you say, what am I leaving behind from the next generation? Is that on a personal level for my kids or just that? Oh, you could take it anyway. At what level do you want me to comment on that? Yeah, no, it's up to you. And I think the quote bubbled up as you were speaking throughout the evening. It's something that I've thought about both personally and professionally for myself. And you said something that really kind of stirred that up for me just a few minutes ago when you were talking about what you felt your father. And so I thought that was really interesting because this is a professional program platform where we're speaking with other people in our industry. And you seem to have a deep fervor for what you're doing. And it's inspiring and lovely. And I want to understand that more. And how can we help the next generation also have this same fervor? Which, by the way, I also have a huge passion for this industry. I almost feel like I'm the poet, even though I would say I was also the soldier. So it's weird, you know, in that analogy. So you can take it anyway, Rob. Yeah. You stirred something in me that made me think about it in both personal and professional terms. And as we begin to close down, you know, in the next 20 minutes or so, I imagine you'd have some, you've come up with some great stories. So I just thought that might stir up some stories. Nice. Hey, Kate, talk? Yeah, no, I think. Robert, can I add to that? If you have experiences. I think for my kids, it's just, you know, follow your passion, never give up. And I think something we don't teach our kids enough is, like, it's okay to fail. You know, I think so many times, like, you know, and my wife and I sometimes are helicopter parents. Like, you need to let them fail and teach them that failure is success. You're not failing. You're not trying. And I can't tell you how many times I'm just trying to launch my own company is how many times I've failed. But then I sit back in my chair and I'm like, you know what? Who the hell else is doing this? Nobody. I'm actually succeeding because I'm trying. And, you know, every day you've got to wake up and, as I always say in my kids' life, you've got to punch at that 500-pound marshmallow. And eventually you're going to get it to move an inch. And I just want to get my kids. And I think the thing I want to leave behind in the industry is that nothing is ever what it seems. And I think too many times, like what I found in testing, because that's been my passion for 20-plus years, people just take stuff for granted at face value, and we never take the time just to take a step back and just be curious. I'm not the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree. Like, I'm really not a smart guy. I'm just curious. And when I look at something, I'm like, huh, well, that's interesting. And people are like, what's that? I'm like, I don't know. Why does it look that way? And why do we keep doing it the same way over and over again? And people are like, oh, I'm just curious about fixing it and getting on with it. I'm like, well, I'm curious how we cannot get there at the same point next time around. Like, how can we – it's just always be curious. And I think just far too often where we are so busy trying to fix stuff that we never just take a step back, just be curious as to why do we have to fix it? Like, what's really the root cause? And we're always throwing – the other thing is this that drives me a little crazy, is that we're always throwing new widgets and tools at stuff. And I've just found that, you know, the more tools you throw out, the more data it produces, and the less time we have to look at the data. And then the data becomes the risk. And now you have a technical debt problem. And next thing you know, you're getting owned or you're being compromised or something's breaking because you just bought this thing that no one cares about because no one has time. And no one took the time to look at it that had the risk that you never fixed. So it's like it's just a circular, vicious thing. And I would have thought, like, 25 years ago, like, we would have learned that lesson. And it's so true. The older I get, some of the stuff my parents used to say to me, and I used to give them the OMG eye roll back in the 80s, it's so true that history repeats itself. And I just believe that, you know, if you just, you know, be curious and look at things just slightly differently, that the answer, the better answer is just somewhere deep within. Maybe that's the poet, the poetic part of it versus the soldier. I just know that you've got to be a soldier to cut through the noise to get someone's attention to actually care. And that's the hard thing. And so, yeah, that's, I felt like I should have had, like, a little shot of tequila before I answered that, just to get a little metaphysical and spiritual on that one. Yeah, I was going to say sometimes, you know, a little bourbon or something. 9 p.m. is okay in the conversation. But with that, yeah, no, with that, thank you for that answer. Can I have to follow on that, Katie? I will, I'll tell you guys one more story. It's a fun one, if there's any car fanatics here. When I worked for Honda, the Japanese have some fun things they do. There's one thing that they call, it's called a Gentechi. And so when you're manufacturing a car, what they do is they build these prototypes. And these prototypes are like, and I didn't know it's a thousand dollars, right? Because you're building, like, one-off parts. You're not at mass production. So what they do is once they build a working, a full-scale working prototype motor and all and everything, they tape it up. And if any of you all have seen, like, road and track, things get masked over and taped up to hide the lines in the car. Well, Gentechi means, like, they want to test that prototype, not on a track. Because a track, from a test standpoint, is the same thing. If it's just a mile loop, you're doing the same mile loop over and over again. It doesn't really, it's not a true test, we'll call it, for the software guys, in a production environment, which is the real road. So what they would do is they would, it was the, well, now it's called the TLX, the TL program. We had just done a full model change, and we had this prototype, and we masked it up, we put it on a semi-trailer, and we shipped it out to Los Angeles. It was all this top-secret event, right? Because you had to keep it secret so no press would show up. So literally in the middle of the night, the whole team flew out there. We would, class-A drivers, and class-A drivers basically, in Honda terms, are, can drive Formula One cars. They're like, you know, they're experts in vehicular performance. So everyone flies in from around the world into Los Angeles. Whereas before you meet, everybody gets the email. And yes, we had an email back then to say, hey, show up at this grocery store lot at 12 p.m. And so at 12 p.m., everyone comes in, the type is there. And then we have a bunch of competitor vehicles. So it would be like the Audi A4. You'd have a Mercedes. You'd have a BMW. And we buy all these cars. Cash, you know, under the secrecy of Honda. We would have, we'd hand out a map. And that map would map out the streets of L.A. that we want to go down to demonstrate how this car performs in a real environment. Now, the competitor cars were there for people to drive to feel, look, all that good stuff. But they're also there as protector vehicles that if press came around or if the cops came, you would actually block the cops and try to, you know, have the cops come to you. And so the competitor would have a licensed car to be on the road. So that would be really bad if they pulled you over and said, is this thing registered? And you're like, no, this thing isn't street legal. So what was fun is we did all this. We had the cover of darkness. And we get in these cars. And I'm a younger guy. So I didn't get to drive the prototype. But I jumped in an Audi A4 with this guy from Toshiki, Japan. He was a Class A driver. And he didn't really speak much English, broken English. And I didn't obviously speak Japanese. So I was like, hey, I'm just, I'm the copilot. And I was like, no problem. So, oh, my God, we were ripping through running red lights. He was, how do you want to call it? When you slide, like when you slide the car, like you take a corner and you glide it. I thought I was going to just lose my you know what. And I had never been through a ride like that. And it was so, it was really fun, but terrifying at the same time. And then at the end of it, I'm like, so what do you think of this car? Because it was an awesome car. I mean, it was great. And he looks at me, he goes, hmm, Rolson. Emotion. And I realized that what they were talking about was the emotion of the car was like the paneling. And it was very German, very hard. Wasn't very soft. But the ride was great. But he was really talking about it. And that was just a fun experience that, you know, like I said, it wasn't a great job, but I turned lemonade out of lemons. And I really connected with the test guys. And I would always go on these events. And that was just one of many that I was. And I'll never have a chance to do again. But it was a blast. And then the last thing on that is I did jump in the prototype car just to play around with some stuff. And the center console, I hit a button and it broke. And the guy came to me, the project leader, was like, and I go, this thing broke. And he goes, oh, that's okay. It's only about a $50,000 part. And I was like, oh, my God, they're going to die from my pay. I'm never going to get any pay from this company. But it was totally cool. You know, it's like they're not made for, you know, lots of usage. So stuff like that. Well, what a cool story. I think earlier, Jennifer, you were going to do a follow-up. I think we're back. So, Jennifer, I think you had a follow-up question a few minutes ago. Thank you, Russell. Can you hear me? I can hear you. Did I lose you? Hey, Robert. Yeah. No, mine was going to tag with Katie's a bit. And I'm free to say that your response to Katie's also responds to this one. But I was going to say, what does success for your company look like? For Cynic? Yeah. When you're doing your company, what does success look like to you? Boy, just as a company, it's really being disruptive in the pen testing space and being... When people say, hey, I'm looking to do a pen test. Have you considered Cynic? And us being kind of not a household name, but just a corporate recognized brand with the global... When you think of pen testing, when you think of how do you think of testing as a strategy and a journey, not a destination, that you think of Cynic as your partner in that. You know, it's getting... And elevating the pen testing space from just being a commodity to being a true part of your strategy and evolving your security culture to be one that's proactive versus reactive. Yeah. If you can hear me... And I'm not the founder, not the CEO, but that's what I would say. Okay. No, and the reason I ask... So I'm over in California. I'm in Silicon Valley. So I'm in the entrepreneurial space, which is what you're talking about and doing. And that question came up tonight in... Oh, my goodness. You know, Chamath, Holly, Pata, whatever his last name is. And they were like, you can't ask a startup what success looks like because it's the journey. As you just said, we're alluding. It's what's the journey going to look like? Like, you can't nail your... It's really hard to say what does success look like. And so saying it's a, you know, one of the top or one of the household names is a great response. But I was just curious to hear your response to that as well. So thanks. I don't know if I'm dropping out. The LinkedIn's kind of glitching. I don't know if you guys... Did you guys hear my full answer? I don't know if you did or not. Can you hear me? I did hear it. We're all glitchy. Yeah. I was glitchy here as well. Katie, one of the moderators here. So, Rob, did you hear... You heard the last question. We did hear the answer. So I think we can just do a quick reset. Hopefully things are being a little less glitchy right now. And as we bring it home, I think that, you know, Anil, you've been quiet for a little while. I just want to make sure. Did you have any other questions for Rob before we start to close down the room? And then also wanted to make sure that anyone who's still in the room, you're invited to please raise your hand. Raise your hand. For Rob. But otherwise, I'd go to Anil if you have anything. Oh, let's go. Okay. Yeah, I think we lost Rob. Yeah. Maybe he'd like a little restart there. So, Rob, hopefully you're back and can hear you now. Maybe not. Maybe the next time is the charm. Trying new things tonight. Right. You know, I have to say, I do like the platform here over on LinkedIn Audio. I think it's nice to, there were a lot of people I got messaged this evening. We're happy that they found us here in this platform. So thank you for everybody who joined us on the new platform. But it looks like we have Rob back again. Rob, can you hear us? Yes, I can hear you. I'm sorry. I joined with my phone. I don't know what's going on my computer. I don't know if it's going to glitch out. Can you hear me? Yes, sir. Sounds really good. Yeah. Yeah. That sounds good. Okay. Okay. So I don't know. I don't know why I probably missed some stuff. But if you guys were rapping, that's fine, too. If no one has any other questions. Well, yeah, you missed the most. We had a whole bunch of stuff. We volunteered you for a bunch of these volunteer things. So thank you in advance for all of those things. Yeah. No worries. Happy to do it. We do want to thank you for your time tonight. But you were kind of finishing something up. We want to make sure you close that out. But then, yeah, defer again to Anil and Russell. Yeah, we're going to close out the room pretty soon. But, yeah, we really appreciated this conversation tonight. Sorry about the choppy nature. I don't know what was going on. I don't run LinkedIn. I'm not in charge. No worries. Yet. You don't run LinkedIn yet. Yet. Oh, I love that, Russell. Thank you. You know, put that in the universe. I don't run LinkedIn yet. So I love it. But, yeah, Rob, were you finishing something? I don't want to. No, I just something. I was just saying something about Sinek being just kind of a well-known corporate brand and the de facto standard for security testing and thinking of testing as a strategy for transformation. Just not, you know, just doing pen testing as a commodity and being viewed as a partner, not just a vendor. So that would be my vision for the company. And I think we've got lots of things coming out just with expanding our platform that is going to make that hopefully vision realized. But, yeah, that would be the vision. I don't know how much of that you guys got last time, but that was kind of my. And I think I said I'm not the. That's my viewpoint. I'm not the CEO or founder of Sinek. I'm just in sales leadership. Well, I can say I interacted with your company a little bit at a cyber risk alliance, cyber security collaboration forum event in Chicago. And, yeah, really interested in your company. But also just because, you know, when you can those things out and you wonder if people think of your company. I handed out a little like a wasn't it was like a coffee cup, but more like for cold drinks. Oh, yeah, yeah. I use it all the time. And when you were on tonight, I was like, oh, that's the company. Yes. And I dug into your company. So I always like to make sure that your CMO knows that when you do those things and you send people out into the field to give things out at those events, they actually do resonate with people because we use them every day and become part of our core memories with their children or like family events or certain things. I mean, I just feel like they actually do matter. So I just want to let you know I have one. I'm very interested in your company. Well, you've restored my faith and trade show trinkets. Oh, man. I hate those things. So I'm like, all people do is they come by and they're like, can I get a T-shirt? I'm like, do you want to know who we are? Like, let's have a conversation. They're like, OK. And I'm like, they're just waiting for me to get through my elevator pitch. Like, OK, great. Can I get a T-shirt? I'm like, yeah, please leave me. Get the T-shirt. Go. Be free. You know, live life. So you've restored my faith that that it actually does work. So thank you. Well, I guess when you place them in the right places and actually there was another I sent an email to a friend of mine who's a CEO of a security company. And my son wore a one of the shirts under his football uniform for his final game of his senior year. And I took a few pictures and I was like, well, that's funny. He's in his T-shirt that everyone else is like an Under Armour. But his says the security company of this company, which I'm not going to promote here, I suppose. Maybe I could. But it almost looked like an Abercrombie ad, too. It was like everybody's just like, you know, Midwestern, you know, game. And then with their brand. And I was like, man. So I sent him a note and he was tickled to death, too, that the the T-shirt that, you know, that I had gotten from, you know, a colleague I know at the company that work and they work for him and a company that I work with as a partner. But that honestly, those things do matter because they become part of your core memory with your child. So now that picture and by the way, all of the hundred other parents who are taking pictures also took a picture of that brand. And so those things do matter. And if you're doing the right things and you're, you know, doing what you said you were doing, you know, from your perspective, you do the right thing and then you get your brand out there as well. It all ends up working out. You know, the favorite thing I love giving away is we have these Cynac onesies. So whenever we have a client that has a newborn, we send it. And then the pictures we get back are these beautiful children and Cynac logos in a onesie. And I think on the I think on the butt, it says like future hacker or something like that or whatever on their rear. It is the greatest thing. I mean, it's your gear on just the wonderful, like darling of a kid. And it just always makes me smile. So there is truth to that. Oh, there's so much truth. And then also, and this is like if anyone wants to hack me, it's send me a picture of a baby and a puppy. And yeah, that's my fate. Just please don't say cats. Like everyone's like, everyone freaks out about memes on cats. Like that actually gets people's attention. I think it actually works. I've never tried that, but that's the thing. It would definitely work on Ms. Jennifer Sanders Esquire. But with that, no, we digress. And you know what was really great about us coming kind of closer together here at the end in a more informal way is this is the way this community was formed. And we call it a community because it is one. And we formed, you know, during the pandemic when we were listening in on, you know, another app, you know, on Clubhouse and just wanting to talk to other professionals who are sitting at home behind their desk. And we came together and we created this community, you know, Fireside Chat, which now we meet every single Wednesday night at 8 o'clock Eastern time. And, you know, and that's the thing is it's not all, you know, being a practitioner in this business, a professional in this business is a lifestyle. It's kind of like being a Green Bay Packers fan, I guess is what they say. You know, so I think that, you know, I just I'm thankful that we kind of ended on this note. But with that, you know, I want to make sure that I defer back to Russell, the other mods. I know some people were tied up with other things, but just want to make sure that we close out the room on that note of just, you know, thanking you, you know, for your time tonight. And yeah, and for, you know, closing it out on a casual nature, you know, where we are just here, where people, we're a community of people who want to, you know, encourage each other in this difficult industry that we're in. Yeah, I agree. No, thank you for the opportunity. This is what community is about. Hopefully my story was interesting. And believe me, I have like 100 other stories I could have told you guys. We'll save that for when hopefully we meet in person. And but hopefully I've inspired some to do something different tomorrow than they did today. And I just appreciate you giving me the stage. And thanks for the wonderful questions and the interest. So it really was just a great experience. So thank you so much. Yeah, I'll echo that comment. Rob, really appreciate getting to know you, the stories you've shared. I've got so many back channel messages from many of the attendees about it was the message that they needed to hear, even though they're not in the area, maybe not even in cyber. Or sales. But this idea of ways that each of us can have takeaways and be the 1% better, perhaps as a result of you giving us your most precious resource, of course, that being your time. One reminder. So next week, we're going to take the week off for Thanksgiving. So there will be no meeting next week. But we will get back on the calendar. We've already got our schedule. The next four speakers are already lined up and ready to go. But again, next week, we will not have Fireside Chat. And we do hope that you're able to spend time with friends, family, loved ones, people that matter the most to you, whether you're traveling or folks are coming to see you. We hope that you have a restful and peaceful next Thanksgiving week. Lisa, Beth, Katie, any final comments before we give the last word to Rob? Well, none for me. I think I definitely monopolized a lot of the time tonight. I really enjoyed this conversation. Thank you again. And Lisa Beth sent a note to us that she may be stepping away for a second. So we'll give her a second, but she may not be available. But Lisa Beth, are you available to say one last thing? And then we'll close up. Yeah, I think she may have stepped away for this final moment. So with that, I mean, Rob, you know, there's a question that Tomas Maldonado usually asks. And, you know, I'll fully give him credit, but steal it in this moment. And I like the question. And we didn't get too much into your younger self-ness. So the question that he normally asks is, what is the advice you'd give to your younger self? So as we close out the evening, that would be kind of the final question. We'd love to know a little bit more about that. You know, I think it would be just believe in yourself. I think one of the toughest things that I know I've had is that inner voice. You know, we're our own worst critics. And when things are bad, you can make it a lot worse. And, you know, self-talk is real, you know, in raising a daughter and sons, empowering them to look at themselves in the mirror and say, I'm beautiful, I'm powerful. Like, you know, using really strong words to believe in yourself is something that I'm not good at. And I think it's affected me and maybe has held me back in some cases. And I would just encourage my younger self to say, hey, it's okay to believe in yourself and not feel guilty about it. Like, that's okay. Like, you should be your biggest fan. Like, that's an okay thing. And that's what I probably say to myself, because I think I might be in a slightly different place today than I was. I'm not denying the journey and the toughness of it. But I think we all could do that a lot better job of that is just believing in ourselves and just that self-talk. I think it's really powerful. And I think that has to go with mental health, too. I think as a society, I think we're very confused about what's mental health and what's mental illness. I think far too often we look at mental illness. I'm sorry. That's very much a tangent conversation. But that's why I'd say my younger self just to kind of cap it there. I love that so much. I love ending on questions just like that. Again, Rob, thanks for your time. Thanks, everyone, for hanging out with us. Again, no fireside chat next week. We'll come back the week after Thanksgiving and looking forward to that. So, hey, we'll say goodbye with this. Say bye for now. And we'll see you back again in two weeks. Take care, everybody. And again, Rob, thank you so much. Bye, everybody. Thank you. Bye, everybody. Bye, everyone.