Podcasts about Bromium

About AshleighAshleigh Early is a passionate advocate for sales people and through her consulting, coaching, and The Other Side of Sales, she is devoted to making B2B sales culture more inclusive so anyone can thrive. Over the past ten years Ashleigh has led, built, re-built, and consulted for 2 unicorns, 3 acquisitions, 1 abject failure and every step in between.  She is also the Head of Sales at the Duckbill Group! You can find Ashleigh on Twitter @AshleighatWork and more about the Other Side of Sales at Othersideofsales.comLinks: Twitter: https://twitter.com/ashleighatwork LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashleighearly TranscriptAnnouncer: Hello, and welcome to Screaming in the Cloud with your host, Chief Cloud Economist at The Duckbill Group, Corey Quinn. This weekly show features conversations with people doing interesting work in the world of cloud, thoughtful commentary on the state of the technical world, and ridiculous titles for which Corey refuses to apologize. 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That's min.io/download, and be sure to tell them that I sent you.Corey: Welcome to Screaming in the Cloud. I'm Corey Quinn. My guest today does something that I, sort of, dabbled around the fringes of once upon a time, but then realized I wasn't particularly good at it and got the hell out of it and went screaming into clouds instead. Ashleigh Early is the Head of Sales here at The Duckbill Group. Ashleigh, thank you for joining me.Ashleigh: Thanks for coming on and running, screaming from my chosen profession [laugh]. You're definitely not the only one.Corey: Well, let's be clear here; there are two ways that can go because sure, I used to dabble around in sales when I was, basically, trying to figure how to not starve to death. But I also used to run things; it's basically a smart team. I was managing people and realized I was bad at that, too. So, really, that's, sort of, an open-ended direction. We can go either side and…But, let's go with sales. That seems like a more interesting way for this to play out. So, you've been here for—what is it now—it feels like ages, but my awareness for the passing of time in the middle of a global panini is relatively not great.Ashleigh: Yeah. I think we're at day—what is it—1,053 of March 2020? So, time is irrelevant; it's a construct; I don't know. But, technically, by the Gregorian Calendar, I think I'm at six months.Corey: It's very odd to me, at least the way that I contextualized doing this. Back when I started what became The Duckbill Group, I was an independent consultant. It was, more or less, working people I knew through my network who had a very specific, very expensive problem: The AWS bill is too high. And I figured, this is genius. It is the easiest possible sale in the world and one of the only scenarios where I can provably demonstrate ROI to a point where, “Bring me in; you will inherently save money.”And all of that is true, but one of things I learned very quickly was that, even with the easiest sale of, “Hi. I'd like to sell you this bag of money,” there is no such thing as an easy enterprise sale. There is nuance to it. There is a lot of difficulty to it. And I was left with the, I guess, driving question—after my first few months of playing this game—of, “How on earth does anyone make money in this space?”The reason I persisted was, basically, a bunch of people did favors for me, but they didn't owe me at all. It was, “Oh, great. I'll give them the price quote.” And they're, like, “Oh, yeah.” So cool, they turned around and quoted that to their boss at triple the rate because, “Don't slit your own throat on this.” They were right. And not for nothing, it turns out when you're selling advice, charging more for it makes it likelier to succeed as a project.But, I had no idea what I was doing. And, like most engineers on Twitter, I look at something I don't understand deeply myself, and figure, “Oh. Well, it's not engineering, therefore, it's easy.” Yeah, it turns out that running a business is humbling across a whole bunch of different axes.Ashleigh: I wouldn't even say, it's not running a business; it's working with humans. Working with humans is humbling. If you're working with a machine or even something as simple as, like, you know, you're making a product. It's follow a recipe; it's okay. Follow the instructions. I do A, then B, then C, then D, unless you don't enjoy using the instructions because you don't enjoy using instructions. But you still follow a set general process; you build a thing that comes out correctly.The moment that process is, talk to this person, and then Person A, then Person B, then Person C, then Person D, then Back to Person A, then Person D, and then finally to Person E, everything goes to heck in a handbasket. That's what really makes it interesting. And for those of us who are of a certain disposition, we find that fascinating and enthralling. If you're of another disposition, that's hell on earth [laugh]. So, it's a very—yeah, it's a very interesting thing.Corey: Back when I was independent, and people tried to sell me things—and yeah, sometimes it worked. It was always interesting going through various intake funnels and the rest. And, like, “Well, what role do you hold in the organization? Do you influence the decision? Do you make the decision? How many people need to be involved in the rest?”And I was looking around going, “How many people do you think fit in my home office here? Let's be serious.” I mean, there are times I escalated to the Chihuahua because she's unpleasant and annoying and basically, sometimes so are people. But that's a separate topic for later. But it became a very different story back as the organizational distance between the people that needed to sign off on a sale increased.Ashleigh: Mm-hm. Absolutely. And you might have felt me squirm when you described those questions because one of my biggest pet peeves is when people take sales terminology and directly use that with clients. Just like if you're an engineer and you're describing what you do, you're not going to go home and explain to your dad in technical jargon what exactly; you're going to tell him broad strokes. And if they're interested, go deeper and deeper; technical, more technical.I hate when salespeople use sales jargon, like, “What's your role in the organization? Are you the decision-maker?” Don't—mmm. There are better ways to deal with that. So, that's just a sign of poor training. It's not the sales rep's fault; it's his company's fault—their company's fault. But that's a different thing.It's fascinating to me, kind of, watching this—what you said spoke of two things there. One is poor training, and two, of a lack of awareness of the situation and a lack of just doing a little bit of pre-work. Like, you do five seconds of research on Corey Quinn, you can realize that the company is ten to 15 people tops. So, it makes sense to ask a question around, “Hey, do you need anyone else to sign off before we can move forward with this project?”That tells me if I need to get someone for technical, for budget, for whatever, but asking if you're a decision-maker, or if you're influencing, or if you're doing initial research, like, that's using sales terminology, not actually getting to the root of the problem and immediately making it very clear, you didn't do any actual research in advance, which is not—in modern selling—not okay.Corey: My business partner, Mike, has a CEO job title, and he'll get a whole bunch of cold outreach constantly all day, every day. I conducted a two-week experiment where in front of my Chief Cloud Economist job title, I put ‘CTO/' just to see what would happen, and sure enough, I started getting outreach left, right, up, down, and sideways. Not just for things that a CTO figure might theoretically wind up needing to buy, but also, job opportunities for a skill set that I haven't dusted off in a decade.So, okay. Once people can have something that hits their filters when you're searching for very specific titles, then you wind up getting a lot more outreach. But if you create a job title that no one sensible would ever pick for themselves, suddenly a lot of that tends to go by the wayside. It shined a light on how frustratingly dreary a lot of the sales prospecting work really can be from—Ashleigh: Oh, yeah.Corey: —just from the side of someone who gets it. Now, I'm not exaggerating when I say that I did work in sales once upon a time. Not great at it, but one of the first white-collar-style jobs that I had was telemarketing, of all things. And I was spectacular at it because I was fortunate enough to be working on a co-branded affinity credit card that was great, and I had the opportunity to position it as a benefit of an existing membership or something else people already had. I was consistently top-ten out of 400 people on a shift, and it was great.But it was also something that was very time-limited, and if you're having an off day, everything winds up crumbling. And, eventually, I drifted off and started doing different things. But I've never forgotten those days. And that's why it just grinds my gears both to see crappy sales stuff happening, and two, watching people on Twitter—particularly—taking various sales-prospect outreach for a drag. And it's—Ashleigh: Oh, God. Yeah.Corey: —you know, not everyone is swimming in the ocean of privilege that some of the rest of us are. And understand that you're just making yourself look like a jerk when you're talking to someone who is relatively early-career and didn't happen to google you deeply enough before sending you an email that you find insulting. That bugs me a fair bit.Ashleigh: And I think part of that is just a lack of humanity and understanding. Like, there's—I mean, I get it; I'm the first person to be jumping on Twitter and [unintelligible 00:08:41] when something goes down, or something's not working, and saying, you know—I'm the first one to get angry and start complaining. Don't get me wrong. However, what I think a lot of people—it's really easy to dehumanize something you don't see very often, or you're not involved in directly. And I find it real interesting you mentioned you worked in, you know, doing telemarketing.I lasted literally two weeks in telemarketing. I full-on rage-quit. It was a college job. I worked in my college donations center. I lasted two weeks, and I fully walked out on a shift. I was, like, “Screw this; I'm never doing anything like that ever again. I hate this.”But what I hated about it was I hated the lack of connection. I was, like, I'm not just going to read some scripts and get yelled at for having too much banter. Like, I'm getting money; what do you care? I'm getting more money than other people. Maybe they're not making as many calls, but I'm getting just as much, so why do you care how I do this?But what really gets me is you have to remember—and I think a lot of people don't understand how, kind of, most large, modern sales organizations work. And just really quickly giving you a very, very generic explanation, the way a lot of organizations work is they employ something called SDRs or Sales Development Reps. That title can be permeated in a million different ways. There's ADRs, MDRs, BDRs, whatever. But basically, it's their job to do nothing but scour the internet using, sometimes, actual, like, scripts.Sometimes they use LinkedIn; sometimes they have—they purchase databases. So, for example, like, you might change your title on LinkedIn, but it's not changing in the database. Just trust me Corey, they have you flagged as a CTO. Sorry. What [crosstalk 00:10:16].Corey: My personal favorite is when I get cold outreach asking me on the phone call about whether we have any needs for whatever it is they happen to be selling at—and then they name a company that I left in 2012. I don't know how often that database has been sold and resold and sold onwards, yet again. And it's just, I work in tech. What do you think the odds are that I'm still in the same job I was ten years ago? And I get that it happens, but at some point, it just becomes almost laughable.Ashleigh: Yeah. If you work in a company—that when in doubt—I tell every sales, kind of, every company team that I work with—do not use those vendors. Ninety percent of them are not very good; they're using old databases; they don't update. You're better off paying for a database that is subscription-based because then, literally, you've got an SLA on data quality, and you can flag and get things fixed. The number one sales-data provider, I happen to know for a fact, I actually earned, I think, almost $10,000 in donations to a charity in—what was this—this was 2015 because I went through and did a scrub of are RCRM versus I think, LinkedIn or something else, and I flagged everything that wasn't accurate and sent it back to them.And they happened to have a promotion where for every—where you could do a flag that wasn't accurate because they were no longer at the company. They would donate a buck to charity, and I think I sent them, like, 10,000 or something. [unintelligible 00:11:36] I was like, “None of these are accurate.” And they're, like, you know? And they sent me this great email, like, “Thank you for telling us; we really appreciate it.”I didn't even know they were doing this promotion. They thought I'd be saving up for it. And I was, like, “No, I just happened to run this analysis and thought you'd want to know.” So, subscriptions—Corey: You know, it turns out computers are really fast at things.Ashleigh: Yeah, and I was very proud I figured out how to run a script. I was, like, “Yay. Look at me; I wrote a macro.” This was very exciting for—the first—God, the first five or so years of my sales career, I've consistently called myself a dumb salesperson because I was working in really super-technical products. I worked for Arista Networks, FireEye, Bromium, you know, PernixData. I was working in some pretty reasonably hard tech, and I'd always, kind of, introduced myself, I definitely talked about my technical aptitude because I have a degree in political science and opera. These are not technical fields, and yet here I am every day, talking about, you know, tech [crosstalk 00:12:25].Corey: Well, if the election doesn't pan out the way you want, why don't you sing about it? Why not? You can tie all these things together.Ashleigh: You can. And, honestly, there have several points—I've done a whole other shows on, like, how those two, seemingly, completely disparate things have actually been some of the greatest gifts to my career. And most notably, I think, is the fact that I have my degree in political science as a Bachelor of Science, which means I have a BS in BS, which is incredibly relevant to my career in a lot of different ways.Corey: This episode is sponsored by our friends at Oracle Cloud. 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Visit snark.cloud/oci-free that's snark.cloud/oci-free.Ashleigh: Yeah, so wrapping up, kind of, how modern-skills organizations work, most companies' employees can be called BDRs, and they're typically people who have less than five years of sales experience. They, rightly or wrongly, tend to be people in their early-20s who have very little training. Most people get SDRs on phones within a week, which means—Corey: These are the people that are doing the cold outreach?Ashleigh: —they've gotten maybe five or six hours of product training. Hmm? Sorry.Corey: These are the people who are doing the cold outreach?Ashleigh: These are the people who are doing the cold outreach. So, their whole job is just to get appointments for account execs. Account execs make it—again; tons of different names, but these are the closers. They'll run you through the sales cycle. They typically have between five and thirty years of experience.But they're the ones depending on how big your company is. [unintelligible 00:13:35] the bigger your company, typically the more experience your sales rep's going to have in terms of managing most separate deal cycles. But what ends up happening is you end up with this SDR organization—this is where I've spent most of my career is helping people build healthy sales-development organizations. In terms of this churn-and-burn culture where you've got people coming in and basically flaming out because they go on Twitter or—heaven forbid—Reddit and get sales advice from these loud-mouthed, terrible people, who are telling them to do things that didn't work ten years ago, but they then go try it; they send it out, and then their prospects suddenly blasting them on Twitter.It's not that rep's fault that they got no training in the first place, they got no support, they just had to figure it out because that's the culture. It's the company's fault. And a lot of times, people don't—there was a big push against this last year, I think, within the sales community against other sales leaders doing it, but now, it's starting to spread out. Like, I have no problem dragging someone for a really terrible email. Anonymize the company; anonymize the email. And, if you want to give feedback, give it to them directly. And you can also say, “I'm going to post this, but it's not coming back to you.” And tell them, like—Corey: Whenever I get outreach from—Ashleigh: “Get out of that terrible company.”Corey: Yeah. Whenever I get outreach from AWS for a sales motion or for recruiting or whatnot. I always anonymize the heck out of the rep. It's funny to me because it's, “Don't you know who I am?” It is humorous, on some level. And it's clear that is a numbers game, and they're trying to do a bunch of different things, but a cursory google of my name would show it. It's just amusing.I want to be clear that whenever I do that, I don't think the rep has done anything wrong. They're doing exactly what they should. I just find it very funny that, “Wait, me? Work at an AWS? The bookstore?” It seems like it would be a—yeah. Yeah, the juxtaposition is just hilarious to me. They've done nothing wrong, and that's okay. It's a hard racket.I remember—at least they have the benefit over my first enterprise sales job where I was selling tape drives into the AS/400 market, competing against IBM on price. That was in the days of “No one ever gets fired for buying IBMs.” So, yeah. The place you want to save money on is definitely the backup system that's going to save all of your systems. I made one sale in my time there—and apparently set a company record because it wasn't specifically aimed at the AS/400—and I did the math on that and realized, “Huh, I'd have to do two of these a month in order to beat the draw against commission structure that they had.”So, I said, “To hell with this,” and I quit. The CEO was very much a sales pro, and, “Well, you need to figure out whether you're a salesperson or not.” Even back then, I had an attitude problem, but it was, “Yeah, I think that—oh, I know that I am. It's just a question is am I going to be a salesperson here?” And the answer is, “No.” It [laugh]—Ashleigh: Yeah.Corey: It's a two-way street.Ashleigh: It is. And I say this all the time to people who—I work with a lot of salespeople now who are, like, “I don't think sales is for me. I don't know, I need [unintelligible 00:16:24]. The past three companies didn't work.” The answer isn't, “Is sales for you?”The answer is, “Are you selling the right thing at the right place?” And one of the things we've learned from the ‘Great Recession' and the ‘Great Reshuffling' in everything is there's no reason to stay at a terrible company, and there's no reason to stay at a company where you're not really passionate and understand what you're selling. I joked about, you know, I talked down about myself for the first bit of my career. Doesn't mean I didn't—like, I might not understand exactly how heuristics work, but I understand what heuristics are. Just don't ask me to design any of them.You know, like, you have to understand and you have to be really excited about it. And that's what modern sales is. And so, yes, you're going to get a ton of the outreach because that's how people—it still works. That's why we all still get Nigerian prince emails. Somebody, somewhere, still clicks those things, sadly. And that gets me really angry.Corey: It's a pure numbers game.Ashleigh: Exactly. Ninety percent if enterprise B2B sales is not that anymore. Even the companies that are using BDRs—which is most of them—are now moving to what's called ‘account-based selling'. We're using hyper-personalized messaging. You're probably noticing videos are popping up more.I'm a huge fan of video. I think it's a great way to force personalization. It's, like, “Hi. Corey, I see you. I'm talking to you. I've done my research. I know what you're doing at The Duckbill Group and here's how I think we can help. If that's not the case, no worries. Let me know; I'll leave you alone.” That's what selling should be.Corey: I have yet to receive one of those, but I'm sure it'll happen now that I've mentioned that and put that out into the universe.Ashleigh: Probably.Corey: What always drove me nuts—and maybe this is unfair—but when I'm trying to use a product, probably something SaaS-based—and I see this a lot—where, first, if you aren't letting me self-serve and get off with the free tier and just start testing something, well, that's already a ding against you because usually I'm figuring this out at 2 o'clock in the morning when I can't sleep, and I want to work on something. I don't want to wait for a sales cycle, and I have to slow things down. Cool. But at some point, for sophisticated customers, you absolutely need to have a sales conversation. But, okay, great. Usually, I encounter this more with lead magnets or other things designed to get my contact info.But what drives me up a wall, when they start demanding information that is very clearly trying to classify me in their sales funnel, on some level. I'll give you my name, my company, and my work email address—although I would think that from my work email address, you could probably figure out where I work and the rest—but then there are other questions. How big is your company? What is your functional role within the company? And where are you geographically?Well, that's an interesting question. Why does that matter in 2022? Well, very often leads get circulated out to people based upon geography. And I get it, but it also frustrates me, just because I don't want to have to deal with classifying and sorting myself out for what is going to be a very brief conversation [laugh] with a salesperson. Because if the product works, great, I'm going to buy. If it doesn't work, I'm going to get frustrated and not want to hear from you forever.Which gets to my big question for you—and please don't take the question as anything other than the joking spirit in which it's intended—but why are so many salespeople profoundly annoying?Ashleigh: I would—uh, hmm.Corey: Sales processes is probably the better way to frame it because—Ashleigh: I was going to say, “Yeah, it's not the people; it's the process.” So—Corey: —it's not the individual's fault, as we've talked about it.Ashleigh: —yeah, I was going to say, I was, like, “Okay, I think it's less the people; more of the processes.” And processes that will make [crosstalk 00:19:37]—Corey: Yeah. It expresses itself as the same person showing up again and again. But that is not—Ashleigh: Totally.Corey: —their fault. That is the process by which they are being measured at as a part of their job. And it's unfair to blame them for that. But the expression is, “This person's annoying the hell out of me, what gives?”Ashleigh: “Oh, my gosh. Why does she keep [unintelligible 00:19:51] my inbox? Leave me alone. Just let me freaking test it.” I said, “I needed two weeks. Just let me have the two weeks to freaking test the thing. I will get back to you.” [unintelligible 00:19:58] yeah, no, I know.And even since moving into leadership several years ago, same thing. I'm like, “Okay, no.” I've gotten to the point where I've had several conversations with salespeople. I'm like, “I know the game. I know what you're trying to do. I respect it. Leave me alone. I promise I will get back to you, just lea”—I have literally said this to people. And the weird thing is most salespeople respect that. We really respect the transparency on that.Now, the trick is what you're talking about with lead capture and stuff like this, again, it comes down to company's design and it comes down to companies who value the buyer experience and customer journey, and companies who don't. And this, I think, is actually more driven by—in my humble opinion—our slightly over-reliance on venture capital, which is all about for a gathering of as much data as possible, figuring out how to monetize it, and move from there. In their mind, personal experience and emotion doesn't really factor into that equation very much, so you end up with these buyer journeys that are less about the buyer and more about getting them from click to purchase as efficiently as possible in terms of company resources, which includes salespeople time. So, as to why you have to fill out all those things, that just to me reeks of a company that maybe doesn't really understand the client experience and probably is going to have a pretty, mmm, support program as well, which means the product had better be really freaking good for me to buy it.Corey: To be clear, at The Duckbill Group, we do not have a two-in-the-morning click here and get you onboarded. Turns out that we have yet to really see the value in building a shopping cart system, where you can buy, “One consulting please,” and call it good. We're not quite at the level of productizing our offering yet and having conversations is a necessary part of what we do. But that also aligns with our customer expectation where there is not a general expectation in this industry that you can buy a full-on bespoke consulting engagement without talking to a human being. That, honestly, if someone trying to sell someone such a thing, I would be terrified.Ashleigh: Yeah, run screaming. Good Lord. No, exactly. And that's one of the reasons I love working with this team and I love this problem is because this isn't a quick, you know, download, install, and save, you know, save ten percent on your AWS bill by installing Duckbill Group. It ain't that simple. If it were that simple, like, AWS wouldn't have the market cap it does.So, that's one of the things I love. I love really meaty problems that don't have clean answers, and specifically have answers that look slightly different for everybody. I love those sort of problems. I've done the highly prioritized stuff: Click here, buy, get it on the free tier, and then it's all about up-sale, cross-sale as needed. Been there, done that; that's fun, and that's a whole different bucket of challenges, but what we're dealing with every single day on the consulting's of The Duckbill Group is far more nuanced and far more exciting because we're also seeing some truly incredible architecture designs. Like, companies who are really on the bleeding edge of what they're doing. And it's just really fun—Corey: Cost and architecture are the same thing in the Cloud.Ashleigh: —[crosstalk 00:22:59] that little—Corey: It's a blast to see it.Ashleigh: It's so much fun. It's, it's, it's… the world's best jigsaw puzzle because it covers, like, every single continent and all these different nuances, and you got to think about a ‘ephemerality,' which is my new favorite word. So…Corey: It's fun because you are building a sales team here, which opens up a few interesting avenues for me. For one, I don't have to manage and yell at individual salespeople in the same way. For example, we talk about it being a process and not a person thing. We're launching some outbound sales work and basically, having the person to talk to about that process—namely you—means that I don't need to be hovering over people's shoulders the way I felt that I once did, as far as what are we sending people? These passive-aggressive drip campaigns of, “Clearly, you don't mind lighting money on fire. If that changes, please let me know.”It's email eight in a sequence. It's no. This stuff has an implicit ‘Love, Mike and Corey' at the bottom of everything that comes out of this company, and it represents us on some respect. And let's be clear, we have a savvy, sophisticated, and more-attractive-than-the-average audience listening to all of these shows. And they'll eat me alive if we start doing stuff like that—Ashleigh: Oh, yeah.Corey: —not to mention that I find it not particularly respectful of their time and who they are. It doesn't work, so we have to be very conscious of that. The fact that I never had to explain that concept in any depth to you made bringing you in one of the easiest decisions we've ever made.Ashleigh: Well, I think it helped—I think in one of my interviews I went off on the ‘alligator email,' which is this infamous email we've all gotten, which is basically, like, you know, “Hi. I haven't heard from you yet, so I want to know which one of these three scenarios has happened to you. One, you're not interested in my product but didn't have the balls to email me and say that you're not interested. Two, you're no longer in this position, in which case, you're not going to read this email anyway. Or three, you're being chased by an alligator, and I should call animal control because you need help.” This email was—Corey: He, he, he, hilarious.Ashleigh: Ugh. And there's variations of it. And I've seen variations of it that are very well done and are on brand and work with the company. I've seen variations that could be legitimately, I think, great humor. And that's great.Humor in emails and humor in sales is fantastic. I have to shout out my friend, Jon Selig up in Canada, who actually, literally, does workshops on how sales teams can integrate humor into their prospecting. It's freaking brilliant. But—Corey: Near and dear to my heart.Ashleigh: —if you're not actually trained in that stuff, don't do it. Don't do the alligator email. But I think I went off on that during one of our interviews just because I was just sick of seeing these things. And what kills me, again, it comes back to the beginning, is people who have no training, no experience coming in—I mean, it really kills me, too, because there's a real concerted effort in the sales community to get more diverse people into sales to, kind of, kill the sales bro just by washing them out, basically. And so, we're recruiting hard with veterans, with black and other racial minority groups, LGBTQ communities, all sorts of things, and indigenous peoples.And so, we're bringing people that also are maybe a little bit more mature, a little bit older, have families they're supporting, and we're throwing them in a role with no support and very little training. And then they wash out, and we wonder why. It's, like, well, maybe because you didn't—it's, like, when I explain this to other people who aren't in sales, like, “Really, imagine coming in to being hired for a coding job, being told you're going to be trained on, you know, Ruby on Rails or C# or whatever it is we're currently using”—my reference is probably super outdated—but then, being given a book, and that's it. And told, “Learn it. And by the way, your first project is due in a month.” That's what we're doing in sales—Corey: For a lot of folks, that's how we learned in the engineering spaces, but let's be clear, the people who do well in that, generally have tailwinds of privilege at their back. They don't have headwinds of, “You suck at this.” It was, you're-born-on-third-you-didn't-hit-a-triple school-of-thought. It's—Ashleigh: Yeah.Corey: —the idea of building an onboarding pipeline, of making this stuff more accessible to people earlier on is incredibly important. One of my, I guess, awakening moments as we were building this company was it turns out that if you manage salespeople as if they were engineers, it doesn't go super well. Whereas, if you manage engineers like they're salespeople, they quit—rage quit—cry, and call you out as being an abusive manager.One of the best descriptions I ever heard from an advisor was that salespeople are sharks. But that's not intended to be unkind. It is simply a facet of their nature. They enjoy the hunt; they enjoy chasing things down, and they like playing games. Whereas, as soon as you start playing games with your engineers on how much money they're going to make this week, that turns out to be a very negative thing. It's a different mindset. It's about motivating people as whatever befits what it is that they want to be doing.Ashleigh: It is. And the other thing is it's a cultural conditioning. So, it's really interesting to say, you know, “People,” you know, “Playing games.” We do enjoy—there's definitely some enjoyment of the competition; there's the thrill of the hunt, absolutely, but at the same time, you want your salespeople to quit? Screw with their money.You screw with their money; we will bail so fast it'll make your head spin. So, it's like, people think, “Oh, we love this.” No, it's really more—think of it as we are gamblers.Corey: Yeah. To be clear when I say, “Playing games with money,” I'm talking about the idea of, “Sell to a company in this profile this quarter, and we'll throw a $5,000 bonus your way,” or something like that. It is if the business wants to see something, great, make it worth the sales team's while to pursue it, or don't be surprised when no one really cares that much about those things—Ashleigh: Exactly.Corey: It's all upside. It is not about, “He, he. And if you don't sell to this weird thing that I can't really describe effectively to you, we're going to cut your bet—” Yeah, that goes over like a lead balloon. As it should. My belief is that compensation should always go up, not down.Ashleigh: Yeah. No, it should. Aside from that, here's a fun stat—I believe this came out of Forrester, it might've been out of [Topel 00:28:54]; I apologize, I don't remember exactly who said this, but a recent study found that less than 68 percent of sales reps make their quota every month. So, imagine that where if you're—we have this thing called OTE, which is On Target Earnings. So, if you have this number you're supposed to take home every month, only 68 percent of sales reps actually do that every month.So, that means we live with this number as our target, but we're living and budgeting anywhere from 30 to 50 percent below that. And then hoping and doing the work that goes in there. That's what we've been conditioned to accept, and that's why you end up with sales reps that use terms like ‘shark' and are aggressive and are in your face and can get—[unintelligible 00:29:30]—Corey: I didn't realize it was pejorative.Ashleigh: I know. No. But here's the thing too, but somebody called it ‘commission breath,' which I love. It's, like, you can smell commission breath coming off us when we're desperate. You totally can. It's because of this antiquated way of building commissions.And this is something that I—this was really obvious to me, and apparently, I was a little bit ahead of the curve. When I started designing comp plans, everyone told me, “You want to design a comp plan? Tie it to what you want them to do very specifically.” So, if you want them to move a pen, design a comp plan that they get a buck when they put the pen from the heel of your hand to the tips of your fingers. Then they get a buck. And then they can do that repeatedly. That's literally how I was taught design comp plans.In my head, that meant that I need to design it in such a way that it's doable for my team because I don't want my team worrying about how they're going to put food on the table while they're talking to a client because they're going get commission breath and it'll piss off the client. That's not a good client experience; that's not going to lead to good performance. Apparently—Corey: Yeah. My concern as a business owner has nothing to do with salespeople making too much money. In fact, I am never happier than I am than paying out commissions. The concern, then, therefore has to become the, “Okay, great. How do I keep the salespeople from being inadvertently incentivized to sell something for $10 that costs me $12 to fulfill?”It's a question of what behaviors do you incentivize that align what they're motivated by with what the company needs. And very often getting that wrong—which happens from time to time—is not viewed as a learning experience that it should be. But instead, “They're just out to screw us.” And I've seen so many company owners get so annoyed whenever their salespeople outperform. But what did you expect? That is the positive outcome. As opposed to what? The underperforming sales rep that can't close a deal? Please.Ashleigh: Well, no. And let's think about this too, especially if it's tied to commission and you're paying out commission. It's, like, okay, commission is always some, sort of, percentage—depending on a lot of things—but some sort of percent of what they're bringing in. If you design a comp plan that has you paying out more in commission than the sales that were earned to bring it in, that's on you; you screwed up. And you need to either be honest and say, “I screwed up; I can't pay this,” and know that you're going to lose some sales reps, but you won't lose as many as if you just refuse to pay it.But, honestly, and I'm not even kidding, I know people. I've worked at a company that I happen to know did this. That literally fired people because they didn't have the money to pay out the commission. And because they fired them before the commission was due to be paid out, then that person no longer had a legal claim to it. That's common. So, the commission goes both ways.Corey: To be clear, we've never done that, but I also would say that if we had, that's a screaming red flag for our consultancy, given the nature of what it is that we do here. It turns out that when we're building out comp plans, we model out various scenarios. Like, what is the worst way that this could wind up unfolding? And, okay, some of our early drafts it's, yeah, it turns out that we would not be able to pay salaries because we wound up giving all of that in commission to people with uncapped upside. Okay, great.But we're also not going to cap people's commissions because that winds up being a freaking problem, so how do we wind up motivating in a way that continues to grow and continues to incentivize the behaviors we want? And it turns out it's super complicated which why we brought you in. It's easier.Ashleigh: Yeah, it's a pain. But the other side of this too, I think, is there is another force at play here, which is finance. A lot of traditional finance modeling is built around that 50 to 70 percent of people hit commission. So, if all of the sudden, you design a comp plan such of a way that a hundred percent of the team is hitting commission, finance loses their shit. So, you have to make sure that when you're designing these things, one of the things I learned, I learned the hard way—this is how I learned that not everyone does it this way—I built my first comp plan; my team's hitting it.My team's overperforming, not a ton, but we're doing really well. All of the sudden, I'm getting called to Finance and getting raked over the coals. And they're like, “What did you do?” I'm like, “What do you mean what did I do? I designed a comp plan; we're hitting goal. Why are you mad?” “Well, we only had this much budgeted for commission.”And I was, like, “That's not my fault.” “Well, that's what historic performance was.” “Okay, well that's not what we're going to do going forward. We're going to do this.” And they're like, “Oh, well, you need to notify us if you're going to change it like that.” And I was, like, “Wait a minute. You modeled so that my team would not hit OTE?” “Yes.” “That's how you've always done this?” “Yes.” “Okay. Well, that's not what we're going to do going forward, and if that's a problem, I'll go find a door.” Because, no.Especially when we're talking about people who are living in extremely expensive areas. I spent most of my career living and working in San Francisco, managing teams of people who made less than six figures. And that's rough when you're paying two grand in rent every month. And 60 percent of your pay is commission. Like, no. You need to know that money's coming.So, I talk about modern sales a lot because that's what I'm trying to use because there's Glengarry Glen Ross, kind of, Wolf of Wall Street school, which is not how anyone behaves anymore, and if you're in an environment that's like that or treats your salespeople like that? Please leave. And then you've got modern sales, which is all about, “Okay, let's figure out how we can set up our salespeople to be the best people they can be to give our clients the best experience they can.” That's where you get top performance out of, and that's where you never run into the terrible emails with the alligators, and the, “Clearly you like lighting piles of money on fire.” That's where you don't get emails to Corey Quinn asking him if he's interested in coming to work for AWS, the book company.It's by incentivizing the people and creating good humans where they can really thrive as salespeople and as people in general. The rest comes with time. But, it's this whole, new way of looking at things. And it's big, and it's scary, and it costs more upfront, but you get more on the back end every single time.Corey: Not that you care about this an awful lot, but you have your own podcast that talks about this, The Other Side of Sales. What inspired you to decide, not just to build sales teams through a different lens, but also to, “You know what? I'm going to go out and talk into microphones through the internet from time to time.” Which, let's be clear, it takes a little bit of a certain warped perspective. I say this myself, having done this far too often.Ashleigh: Yeah. No, it's a fun little origin story. So, I'm a huge Star Trek geek; obsessive. And I was listening to a Star Trek podcast run by a couple of guys who are a little bit embarrassed to run a Star Trek podcast, called The Greatest Generation. Definitely not safe for work, but a really good podcast if you're into Star Trek at all.And they always do, kind of, letters at the end of the shows. And one of the letters at the end of the show one day was, “Hey, I was really inspired by you guys and I started my own podcast on this random thing that I am super excited about.” And I'm literally driving in the car with my husband, and I'm, like, “Huh. I don't know why I'm not listening to sales podcasts. I listen to enough of these other random ones.” Jumped online, pulled up a list of sales podcasts, and I think I went through three or four articles of, like, every sales podcast that was big. And this was, like, January of 2019.Corey: “By Broseph McBrowerson, but Everyone Calls Him ‘Browie.'” Yeah.Ashleigh: Literally, there was, Conversations with Women in Sales with the late, great—with the amazing Lori Richardson, who's now with it, but she took over for a mentor of mine who passed in 2020, sadly. But there was that, and then there was one other that was hosted by a husband-and-wife team. And that was it out of, like, 30 podcasts. And [laugh] so it was this moment of, like, epiphany of, like, “I can start my own podcast,” and, “Oh, I probably need to,” because, literally, no one looks or sounds like someone who I would actually want to hang out with ever, or do business with, in a lot of cases. And that's really changed. I'm so grateful.But really, what it came down to was I didn't feel there was a podcast for me. There wasn't a podcast I could listen to about sales that could help me, that I felt like I identified with. So, I was, like, “All right, fine. I'll start my own.” I called up a friend, and she was, literally, going through the same thing at the same time, so we said, “Screw it. We'll do our own.”We went full Bender from Futurama. We're like, “Just screw it; we'll have our own podcast… with liquor… and heels… and honest conversations that happens to us every day,” and random stuff. It's a lot of fun. And we've gone through a few iterations and it's been a long journey. We're about to hit our hundredth episode, which is really exciting.But yeah, we're—The Other Side of Sales is on a mission to make B2B sales culture truly inclusive so everyone can thrive, so, our conversations are all interviews with amazing sales pros who are trying to do amazing things and who are 90—I think are over 90 percent—are from a minority background, which is really exciting to, kind of, try and shift that conversation from Broseph McBrowerson. Our original tagline was the ‘anti-sales bro' podcast, but we thought that was a little too antagonistic. So…Corey: Yeah, being a little too antagonistic is, generally, my failure mode, so I hear you on that. I really want to thank you for taking so much time out of your day to speak with me. Because—well, not that I should thank you. It's one of those, I should really turn around and say, “Wait a minute. Why aren't you selling things? Why are you still talking to me?” But no—Ashleigh: No, I'm waiting for you to say, “Back to work.”Corey: Do appreciate your—exactly. I think that's a different podcast. Thank you so much for your time. If people want to learn more, where's the best place to find you?Ashleigh: Well, definitely please go check out duckbillgroup.com. We would love to talk to with you about anything to do with your AWS bill. Got a ton of resources on there around how to get that managed and sorted.If you're interested in connecting with me you can always hit me up at—I'm on Twitter @ashleighatwork, which is another deep-cut Star Trek reference, or you can hit me up at LinkedIn. Just search Ashleigh Early. My name is spelled a little weird because I'm a little weird. It's A-S-H-L-E-I-G-H, and then Early, like ‘early in the morning.'Corey: And links to all of that will wind up in the [show notes 00:39:11]. Thanks so much for your time. It's appreciated.Ashleigh: This has been fun; we'll do it again soon.AndIf your AWS bill keeps rising and your blood pressure is doing the same, then you need The Duckbill Group. We help companies fix their AWS bill by making it smaller and less horrifying. The Duckbill Group works for you, not AWS. We tailor recommendations to your business and we get to the point. Visit duckbillgroup.com to get started.Announcer: This has been a HumblePod production. Stay humble.

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Simon Crosby (@simoncrosby, CTO @Swim) talks about how to understand the new business models and application uses of data capture and analytics at the edge. SHOW: 539CLOUD NEWS OF THE WEEK - http://bit.ly/cloudcast-cnotwCHECK OUT OUR NEW PODCAST - "CLOUDCAST BASICS"SHOW SPONSORS:Spot by NetAppMore Cloud, Less Cost (Spot by NetApp)CBT Nuggets: Expert IT Training for individuals and teamsSign up for a CBT Nuggets Free Learner account SHOW NOTES:Swim.ai (homepage)The Cloudcast #344 - Bringing AI to the EdgeTopic 1 - Welcome back to the show. Former founder of XenSource and Bromium, now the CTO at Swim. You've always been at the forefront of solving complex challenges, so where is your focus these days?Topic 2 - We've been covering “real-time” with a number of guests this year, but we don't always connect the technology to the business outcomes. Where are we today, as an industry, of connecting this more fast-moving data with our ability to understand it in the context of business? Topic 3 - As you're seeing real-time data and persistent data mixed together, how are those teams organized for success (or failure)? Topic 4 - What are some of the common misperceptions that you see about how to best handle either data at the edge, or streaming data?Topic 5 - Swim is helping companies create real-time representations of their environments. What are some of the unique capabilities that you've seen this enable for companies? Topic 6 - How are some of the most important things that companies can do to enable the opportunity with real-time data? FEEDBACK?Email: show at thecloudcast dot netTwitter: @thecloudcastnet

Gaurav Banga is the Founder and CEO of Balbix, and serves on the boards of several companies. Before Balbix, Gaurav was the Co-founder & CEO of Bromium and led the company from inception for over 5 years. Earlier in his career, he served in various executive roles at Phoenix Technologies and Intellisync Corporation, and was Co-founder and CEO of PDAapps, acquired by Intellisync in 2005. Dr. Banga started his industry career at NetApp. Gaurav has a PhD in CS from Rice University, and a B.Tech. in CS from IIT Delhi. He is a prolific inventor with over 70 patents. In this OODAcast we talk to Gaurav about things his clients tell him are their most important priorities and gain insights modern technologists and business leaders can use to mitigate the growing cyber threats to businesses. We also examine Gaurav's views on the importance of mentors and get specific advice on how to find and leverage the right talent in a startup environment. As CEO of Balbix, Gaurav leads a team focused on providing organizations with comprehensive real-time views into breach risk. This is a daunting challenge but by applying an extensive array of well engineered AI and ML algorithms and well thought out architectures and visualizations (integrated into the workflow of decision-makers at all levels), they have met the challenge in new and very virtuous ways. For more on Balbix see: Balbix Related Reading: Cybersecurity Sensemaking: Strategic intelligence to inform your decisionmaking The OODA leadership and analysts have decades of experience in understanding and mitigating cybersecurity threats and apply this real world practitioner knowledge in our research and reporting. This page on the site is a repository of the best of our actionable research as well as a news stream of our daily reporting on cybersecurity threats and mitigation measures. See: Cybersecurity Sensemaking Corporate Sensemaking: Establishing an Intelligent Enterprise OODA's leadership and analysts have decades of direct experience helping organizations improve their ability to make sense of their current environment and assess the best courses of action for success going forward. This includes helping establish competitive intelligence and corporate intelligence capabilities. Our special series on the Intelligent Enterprise highlights research and reports that can accelerate any organization along their journey to optimized intelligence. See: Corporate Sensemaking Artificial Intelligence Sensemaking: Take advantage of this mega trend for competitive advantage This page serves as a dynamic resource for OODA Network members looking for Artificial Intelligence information to drive their decision-making process. This includes a special guide for executives seeking to make the most of AI in their enterprise. See: Artificial Intelligence Sensemaking COVID-19 Sensemaking: What is next for business and governments From the very beginning of the pandemic we have focused on research on what may come next and what to do about it today. This section of the site captures the best of our reporting plus daily daily intelligence as well as pointers to reputable information from other sites. See: OODA COVID-19 Sensemaking Page. Space Sensemaking: What does your business need to know now A dynamic resource for OODA Network members looking for insights into the current and future developments in Space, including a special executive's guide to space. See: Space Sensemaking Quantum Computing Sensemaking OODA is one of the few independent research sources with experience in due diligence on quantum computing and quantum security companies and capabilities. Our practitioner's lens on insights ensures our research is grounded in reality. See: Quantum Computing Sensemaking. The OODAcast Video and Podcast Series In 2020, we launched the OODAcast video and podcast series designed to provide you with insightful analysis and intelligence to inform your decision making process. We do this through a series of expert interviews and topical videos highlighting global technologies such as cybersecurity, AI, quantum computing along with discussions on global risk and opportunity issues. See: The OODAcast

In this episode, former CRO of Bromium and current Vice President of Strategic Alliances of HYPR, George Muldoon, talks about his journey from being a recently graduated salesperson to leading a global sales team. He also generously shares his effective strategies in hiring people and helping them be at their best from the moment you onboard them. KEY TAKEAWAYS FROM THIS EPISODE Having mentors is critical for growth and success. You need to have a methodology when it comes to hiring people. You need to have a systematic onboarding method. Core things to look for in a good hire are problem-solving skills and intelligence. Integrity and honesty are crucial indicators of the character of the person you are hiring. People will make mistakes. Accept it, learn from it and move on. The success of any hire is down to both parties, the hiring manager and the person being hired. TODAY'S GUEST George Muldoon is the Vice President of Strategic Alliances @ HYPR and has had leadership positions in various Cyber Security and enterprise software vendors, including Bromium, Oracle etc. He grew up in Boston Area and graduated from Bentley University. After graduating with a marketing major he found his true calling in sales. Soon George was given an opportunity to be a sales leader, where he first experienced the challenges of hiring, managing and motivating a sales team. The lessons he learned in those early years of management continue to serve him well. He is a strong believer in metrics and has developed indicators on what makes a good hire, what are red flags and the value of developing a systematic onboarding system. For more information, or to get in touch with George, check out: HYPR's Website: https://www.hypr.com George's LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/georgemuldoon/

Today’s episode features an interview between Matt Trifiro and Simon Crosby, CTO of SWIM.AI.Simon’s impressive resume spans two decades in technology and includes highlights such as co-founder and CTO at XenSource, co-founder and CTO at Bromium, and CTO of Data Center and Cloud at Citrix. In this interview, Simon discusses how SWIM is solving the problem of stateless computing with its edge intelligence software that focuses on edge-based learning for fast-data and continuous intelligence. Key Quotes“We’re moving from a world of big data, where you could reasonably store it all and then think about later, to one where data flows are boundless and you need to process it on the fly. You need to continuously process and analyze streaming data to get continuous intelligence to make your organization more responsible. But the big change is that, whereas before you could reasonably think about big data as a way to store stuff and then analyze it, now you can't.”“The cloud has been tremendously successful really because of two big things. One is rest, which is stateless computing, and the other one is databases…But the problem with that is that stateless computing is a million times slower than the CPU. A million times slower. That means the difference between hours versus milliseconds in terms of getting results."“In this era, we have data flows which are boundless. They never stop. And the data within them is of ephemeral value. So you can't store it and get to it later because later it’s useless. What you care about is that some representation can predict what's going to happen next, but you don't care about the past. So we have ephemeral data value and infinite data, and you need to compute on it continuously…and that's a whole new approach, algorithmically and mathematically.”“We shouldn't apply AI to situations where the marginal cost of being wrong is high…if the cost of being wrong is very high, like somebody dies, just don't do it. But if the cost of being wrong is marginal who cares? Like my Uber may stop at a red light, who cares? Right? We're still better off…There are tons of opportunities for making the world better, where if you're wrong, you don't make it worse.”SponsorsOver the Edge is brought to you by the generous sponsorship of Catchpoint, NetFoundry, Ori Industries, Packet, Seagate, Vapor IO, and Zenlayer.The featured sponsor of this episode of Over the Edge is Ori Industries. Ori Industries is building the world’s largest edge cloud. Their products power the next generation of intelligent applications through unparalleled access to major communication networks worldwide. Ori is laying the foundations for application developers to seamlessly deploy to uncharted edge computing infrastructure across the globe. Learn more at ori.coLinkswww.swimos.orgFollow Matt on TwitterFollow Simon on Twitter

Continuous Intelligence (CI) integrates historical and real-time analytics to automatically monitor and update various types of systems, including supply chains, telecommunications networks and e-commerce sites. CI encompasses data ingestion, transformation and analytics, as well as operational “triggers” that recommend or initiate specific real-time actions. CI casts a wider net than traditional analytics because it includes contextual data, for example related to market behavior, weather patterns or social media trends, that help enterprises operate the core systems more intelligently. In this episode, our VP of Research Kevin Petrie interviews Simon Crosby, CTO at Swim.ai, a continuous intelligence software vendor that focuses on edge-based learning for fast-data. He co-founded security vendor Bromium in 2010, later sold to HP Inc in 2019.

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All links and images for this post can be found on CISO Series (https://cisoseries.com/get-out-the-fud-is-coming-from-the-inside/) On this week's CISO/Security Vendor Relationship Podcast, we're pointing fingers at practitioners, not vendors, for promoting the FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) scare-a-thon. This episode is hosted by me, David Spark (@dspark), producer of CISO Series and founder of Spark Media Solutions and Mike Johnson. Our guest this week is Eddie Contreras (@CISOEdwardC), CISO, Frost Bank. Thanks to this week's podcast sponsor Trend Micro. Trend Micro Incorporated, a global leader in cybersecurity solutions, helps to make the world safe for exchanging digital information. Our innovative solutions for consumers, businesses, and governments provide layered security for data centers, cloud environments, networks, and endpoints. For more information, visit www.trendmicro.com. On this week's episode Why is everyone talking about this now? On LinkedIn, Ron C. of CoreSolutions Software said, "Cybersecurity is no longer just a technical problem. It’s now more of a people problem! So why aren’t businesses prioritizing security awareness training for their staff?" There was a massive response and mixed agreement. Regardless, are we falling short on security awareness training? Is it not effective? Is it too complicated to pull off? Is the cost not justified? More importantly, has security awareness training had any impact? Hey, you're a CISO, what's your take on this? accidentalciso on our reddit channel, r/cisoseries, asks, How does a security professional know if "CISO truly is the right career goal for them? I don’t think the reality of the role is consistent with what one might think early on in their career." What was it about the CISO role that makes a security professional want to pursue it and how does that previous perception of what a CISO did counter or align with what was really experienced? It's time to play, "What's Worse?!" Is there a worst type of attack? Ask a CISO James Dobra, Bromium, asks, "Are security organizations guilty of using FUD internally, e.g. with the board and with users, while complaining that vendors use it too much?" Does FUD happen internally? Do security teams do it to get the money they want and/or shame users into submission? On August 30, 2019, white hat hacker Tavis Ormandy discovered a vulnerability in a LastPass browser extension. This was a vulnerability, not a breach and was very quickly remedied without damage. But it still causes chills when the last bastion of password security reveals its Achilles heel. It’s like seeing your family doctor contract a terminal disease. But for CISOs, this might be a good thing. Password complacency and sloppy security hygiene are the scourge of security specialists everywhere. A SaaS-based password manager that uses hashes and salts to remove the existence of physical passwords in their own vaults, is still a highly proactive solution. More found on CISO Series. Check out lots more cloud security tips sponsored by OpenVPN, provider of next-gen secure and scalable communication software. OpenVPN Access Server keeps your company’s data safe with end-to-end encryption, secure remote access, and extension for your centralized UTM. First 90 Days of a CISO Both Mike and our guest, Ed, are second time CISOs in their first 90 days at the role. We review what mistakes they made the first time as a CISO that they're actively avoiding this time. Are there any hurdles that are simply unavoidable and they're just going to have to face it like any new CISO would.  

This week, in the enterprise news segment, Akamai acquires MFA specialist KryptCo, HP acquires Bromium to enhance its security platform, Cyber Insurance firm Cowbell emerges from stealth with $3.3M in seed funding and more! In our second segment, we interview Brian Dye, Chief Product Officer at Corelight, a Help Systems company, to discuss "The Path to Threat Hunting is Paved with Great Network Data". In our third segment, we interview Tony Meehan, Vice President of Engineering at Endgame, to discuss "Building an engineering team for every stage of company growth".   Full Show Notes: https://wiki.securityweekly.com/ES_Episode155 Visit https://www.securityweekly.com/esw for all the latest episodes!   Follow us on Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/securityweekly Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/secweekly

This week, in the enterprise news segment, Akamai acquires MFA specialist KryptCo, HP acquires Bromium to enhance its security platform, Cyber Insurance firm Cowbell emerges from stealth with $3.3M in seed funding and more! In our second segment, we interview Brian Dye, Chief Product Officer at Corelight, a Help Systems company, to discuss "The Path to Threat Hunting is Paved with Great Network Data". In our third segment, we interview Tony Meehan, Vice President of Engineering at Endgame, to discuss "Building an engineering team for every stage of company growth".   Full Show Notes: https://wiki.securityweekly.com/ES_Episode155 Visit https://www.securityweekly.com/esw for all the latest episodes!   Follow us on Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/securityweekly Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/secweekly

In the news, Akamai acquires MFA specialist KryptCo, HP acquires Bromium to enhance its security platform, Cyber Insurance firm Cowbell emerges from stealth with $3.3M in seed funding, and more. Full Show Notes: https://wiki.securityweekly.com/ES_Episode155 Visit https://www.securityweekly.com/esw for all the latest episodes!

In the news, Akamai acquires MFA specialist KryptCo, HP acquires Bromium to enhance its security platform, Cyber Insurance firm Cowbell emerges from stealth with $3.3M in seed funding, and more. Full Show Notes: https://wiki.securityweekly.com/ES_Episode155 Visit https://www.securityweekly.com/esw for all the latest episodes!

On this week's episode, for the third week in a row there is a lot of information about Windows Updates causing issues and some useful info on some of the 79 fixes rolled out in September. I cover the exciting news of HP's acquisition of Bromium. I get into details of the latest VMware Horizon and Citrix Virtual Apps Desktops releases and much, much more! In fact, so much this week that it's one of the longest episodes in the history of the Podcast. Enjoy! Reference Links: https://www.rorymon.com/blog/episode-90-big-releases-by-vmware-citrix-hp-acquires-bromium-teams-vulnerability-more/

The Emotet malware came on the scene in 2014 as a banking trojan and has since evolved in sophistication and shifted its business model. Researchers at Bromium have taken a detailed look at Emotet, and malware analyst Alex Holland joins us to share their findings. The research can be found here: https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.bromium.com/resource/emotet-a-technical-analysis-of-the-destructive-polymorphic-malware The CyberWire's Research Saturday is presented by Juniper Networks. Thanks to our sponsor Enveil, closing the last gap in data security.

The Emotet malware came on the scene in 2014 as a banking trojan and has since evolved in sophistication and shifted its business model. Researchers at Bromium have taken a detailed look at Emotet, and malware analyst Alex Holland joins us to share their findings. The research can be found here: https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.bromium.com/resource/emotet-a-technical-analysis-of-the-destructive-polymorphic-malware

When data was tangible we took better care of it, now that 90% of data is digital it seems as if we have lost respect for it. The best thing about the internet is that it gives you access to everything, but the worse thing about the internet is that it gives everything access to you! Check out at Fraser's profile - https://www.linkedin.com/in/fraserkyne/ Bromium - https://www.bromium.com/ Also available on: Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2N0XGXR iTunes: https://apple.co/2N0sO9P Follow us on Social Media LinkedIn - http://bit.ly/2FWHKoM Twitter - http://bit.ly/2FWNO0C Instagram - http://bit.ly/2FWMxXj Facebook - http://bit.ly/2FXb2Ue

In the third part of our talk with Fraser, we look at how businesses should be checking their current solutions to make sure they are getting the most ROI out of them. Also how some businesses will have a brilliant security protocol but not apply it to all their employees. Also how the role of a CISO should be to make security easy for everyone. Check out at Fraser's profile - https://www.linkedin.com/in/fraserkyne/ Bromium - https://www.bromium.com/ Also available on: Sound cloud: http://bit.ly/2MYHwxR Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2N0XGXR iTunes: https://apple.co/2N0sO9P Follow us on Social Media LinkedIn - http://bit.ly/2FWHKoM Twitter - http://bit.ly/2FWNO0C Instagram - http://bit.ly/2FWMxXj Facebook - http://bit.ly/2FXb2Ue

In the next part of our chat with Fraser, we hit on how being different from your competition can be a double-edged sword. How you need to review the security solutions you have to make sure they are still providing value to your business and if you going to have multiple solutions, you need to innovate to make them work together. Check out at Fraser's profile - https://www.linkedin.com/in/fraserkyne/ Bromium - https://www.bromium.com/ Also available on: Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2N0XGXR iTunes: https://apple.co/2N0sO9P Follow us on Social Media LinkedIn - http://bit.ly/2FWHKoM Twitter - http://bit.ly/2FWNO0C Instagram - http://bit.ly/2FWMxXj Facebook - http://bit.ly/2FXb2Ue

Cybersecurity is one big jigsaw puzzle and solutions are just one piece of many. We speak with Fraser Kyne from Bromium about what we (cybersecurity) could be doing differently. Also, touch on how to build trust in the vendor relationship and how to mitigate risk. Also, how do you decide between what is urgent and what is important, when it comes to solving your cybersecurity problems. Check out at Fraser's profile - https://www.linkedin.com/in/fraserkyne/ Bromium - https://www.bromium.com/ Also available on: Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2N0XGXR iTunes: https://apple.co/2N0sO9P Follow us on Social Media LinkedIn - http://bit.ly/2FWHKoM Twitter - http://bit.ly/2FWNO0C Instagram - http://bit.ly/2FWMxXj Facebook - http://bit.ly/2FXb2Ue

Simon Crosby has made a career of technology on the edge. From leading the charge with the Xen hypervisor to microVMs with Bromium and much more in between, Crosby has led some of the most innovative technology developers in the industry. He is now the CTO of SWIM.ai which is literally brining computing to the edge (almost an anti-cloud. This approach promises some revolutionary capabilities. If Simon is involved there is a good chance it will succeed as well. Have a listen to what Simon is all about now and check our more at https://www.swim.ai/

Dozens of vulnerabilities discovered in DoD's enterprise travel system, what Apple hiding with iOS 11.4, Git repository vulnerability leds to remote code execution attacks, and feeling for Kaspersky. Full Show Notes: https://wiki.securityweekly.com/Episode562 Subscribe to our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/securityweekly Visit our website: http://securityweekly.com Follow us on Twitter: https://www.twitter.comsecurityweekly

Dozens of vulnerabilities discovered in DoD's enterprise travel system, what Apple hiding with iOS 11.4, Git repository vulnerability leds to remote code execution attacks, and feeling for Kaspersky. Full Show Notes: https://wiki.securityweekly.com/Episode562 Subscribe to our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/securityweekly Visit our website: http://securityweekly.com Follow us on Twitter: https://www.twitter.comsecurityweekly

In this episode, I interview Rahul Kashyap, Chief Security Architect and Head of Security Research at Bromium, a company that focuses on stopping cyber-attacks where users are most vulnerable—the endpoint—through virtualization isolation. One of Silicon Valley’s 40 Under 40, Rahul has built a career around developing cyber defense technologies that focus on exploit prevention. At Bromium, Rahul manages R&D and product security, while simultaneously conducting robust industry outreach, speaking at leading security conferences including BlackHat, BlueHat, Hack-In-The-Box, RSA, DerbyCon, BSides, ISSA International, OWASP, InfoSec UK and others.  Sponsored By: CIO Security Scoreboard – Go to VisualCIO.com to learn more about how to communicate the status of your IT Security program visually and in minutes. Time Stamped Show Notes: 02:00 – Rahul joins to the show 02:41 – Talking about the 40 Under 40 03:30 – The importance of being “unstoppable”—no one believes in you at the front-end—you need to be relentless in your confidence and determination 04:47 – The genesis of being “unstoppable” 06:05 – The importance of taking on big challenges versus small challenges—Rahul’s Gandhi example 06:43 – We are a function of the problems we choose 07:25 – Even when you don’t hit the target when you take on a “big challenge” when you fall, you’ll fall somewhere along the path and that’s a great place to be 07:55 – The problems Bromium tackles 08:34 – Attackers have found a soft-spot—the end users—and all it takes is one bad click 09:12 – Attackers have nothing to lose, and end-users will continue to make mistakes 09:44 – No one can build the perfect security engine—it’s impossible 10:15 – The key is not worrying about users making mistakes, or attackers attacking—the key is isolating the attack at the end-point and confining it there 13:25 – Bromium focuses primarily on desktops, laptops, and tablets 14:00 – Micro-virtualization is at the executable side 14:46 – Rahul defines Bromium Labs 16:09 – Defensive security versus offensive security 16:52 – Every security company should invest in offensive security because it most accurately resembles how hackers think 18:23 – Offensive security gives you the Why 18:44 – Defensive security gives you the How 20:04 – Anti-Virus is approximately 5% effective 20:30 – It has lost its efficacy because the technology—in principle—hasn’t evolved 22:45 – Bromium Labs’ first focus is to keep your network from getting infected in the first place 25:35 – Does Bromium need to be run in isolation or can it bundled into the software stack at the end-point? 26:49 – The security architecture behind managing disparate end-points 28:02 – Bromium’s pre-deployment analysis tool is under development but will launch soon 28:28 – Bromium’s partnership with Microsoft for Windows 10 30:33 – The frequency of patching has become SUCH a burden for small business, which is why Bromium developed a unique position towards patching 32:15 – Patching is often human error related 33:48 – It’s a new way of doing security—isolation versus prevention 34:16 – Sandboxing, Hardware enforced isolation, micro virtualization 35:18 – Most of your browsers already have a sandbox 36:55 – Companies are tired of investing in so many security products…the industry is too fragmented—Bromium is looking to change that 38:08 – It’s vital to understand the architectural limitations of each technology 38:55 – Rahul’s favorite new technology?—Hive which is exploring the intersection between big data and security 40:48 – Rahul shares his thoughts on machine learning and A.I. 42:33 – Rahul has taken up kayaking to manage stress and stay focused…and Call of Duty on X-Box One 4 Key Points: We are a function of the problems we choose—an important concept to live by. The true soft-spot in today’s cyber-security market is the end-user—end-users always have, and always will make mistakes that result in compromised systems and networks. It is impossible to engineer a perfect security system—the threats change to rapidly—instead of trying to focus on prevention, let’s focus on technologies that accept attacks as the inevitability they are…technologies that let an attack happen, but isolate it immediately at the end-point. The cyber-security business (like most businesses) can be extremely taxing—find an outlet for healthy stress management. Key Resources: Rahul Kashyap – Today’s guest—Chief Security Architect and Head of Security Research at Bromium Sandboxing – Default security mechanism that operates through isolation of threats, now available on most browsers Bromium Labs – Dedicated to advancing the “state of the art” of information security by performing advanced research into current and future security threats. The Hive – An incubator that uses deep learning (a new discipline in AI) and neural network models to automate the learning of data representations and features. Micro Virtualization – A proprietary technology that abstracts applications and sub-processes from hardware and runs them in isolated environments. Credits: Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Enterprises large and small run their applications and infrastructure at a whole new level of agility and speed. But unfortunately, security doesn't like speed. “The faster you go, the harder it is to understand what is happening and to protect your infrastructure,” says Andrew Rubin, CEO and co-founder of cloud security startup Illumio. So then how do we rethink the architecture of the past to acknowledge the way business happens today? If you want to start tackling the shifting landscape of business and security today, “Go become a student of the economics of war and crime,” suggests Gaurav Banga, CEO and co-founder of Bromium. If going slow is not an option, what can and should we do? The views expressed here are those of the individual AH Capital Management, L.L.C. (“a16z”) personnel quoted and are not the views of a16z or its affiliates. Certain information contained in here has been obtained from third-party sources, including from portfolio companies of funds managed by a16z. While taken from sources believed to be reliable, a16z has not independently verified such information and makes no representations about the enduring accuracy of the information or its appropriateness for a given situation. This content is provided for informational purposes only, and should not be relied upon as legal, business, investment, or tax advice. You should consult your own advisers as to those matters. References to any securities or digital assets are for illustrative purposes only, and do not constitute an investment recommendation or offer to provide investment advisory services. Furthermore, this content is not directed at nor intended for use by any investors or prospective investors, and may not under any circumstances be relied upon when making a decision to invest in any fund managed by a16z. (An offering to invest in an a16z fund will be made only by the private placement memorandum, subscription agreement, and other relevant documentation of any such fund and should be read in their entirety.) Any investments or portfolio companies mentioned, referred to, or described are not representative of all investments in vehicles managed by a16z, and there can be no assurance that the investments will be profitable or that other investments made in the future will have similar characteristics or results. A list of investments made by funds managed by Andreessen Horowitz (excluding investments and certain publicly traded cryptocurrencies/ digital assets for which the issuer has not provided permission for a16z to disclose publicly) is available at https://a16z.com/investments/. Charts and graphs provided within are for informational purposes solely and should not be relied upon when making any investment decision. Past performance is not indicative of future results. The content speaks only as of the date indicated. Any projections, estimates, forecasts, targets, prospects, and/or opinions expressed in these materials are subject to change without notice and may differ or be contrary to opinions expressed by others. Please see https://a16z.com/disclosures for additional important information.

Jared DeMott is a principal security researcher at Bromium and has spoken at security conferences such as Black Hat, Defcon, ToorCon, Shakacon, DakotaCon, GRRCon, and DerbyCon. He is active in the security community by teaching his Application Security course. Windows Meterpreter recently got some new capabilities thru the Extended API module by OJ Reeves also known as TheColonial. He added support for: *Interacting with the Clipboard *Query services *Window enumeration *Executing ADSI Queries We will cover in this Technical Segment the ADSI interface since it gives us a capacity in enterprise environments not available previously in meterpreter other than a module from Meatballs called enum_ad_computers.

Jared DeMott is a principal security researcher at Bromium and has spoken at security conferences such as Black Hat, Defcon, ToorCon, Shakacon, DakotaCon, GRRCon, and DerbyCon. He is active in the security community by teaching his Application Security course.

I believe there should be a new term for us to use - Time To Innovate (TTI) - which is about measuring how much time it takes you to innovate, as soon as an opportunity is presented. Are you rapidly innovating as well, or endlessly trying to perfect your solution? Here are two examples of fast innovators: Amazon and Bromium... http://jackbezalel.net/2013/07/10/time-to-innovate-tti-amazon-cloud-access-control-and-bromium-vsentry/ #Innovation, #AmazonAWS, #Bromium, #CloudComputing, #Security, #TimeToInnovate", #TTI

We’ve got a couple of interiewees talking tech start ups this week. First, Simon Crosby (@simoncrosby), co-founder and CTO of Bromium, stops by the show to talk about security on mobile devices, specifically using virtualization technology to create a micro-VM for each task a user performs on an untrusted network or document. For more information, visit www.bromium.com. Then Jason Seats (@seats), a managing director at Techstars, joins to talk about their boot camp for technology start-ups, where the tech market is headed, and how their mentoring program works. Show Timeline: • 0:00: Introductions and News of the Week • 9:14: Interview with Simon Crosby • 22:29: Interview with Jason Seats • 38:45: Wrap up

Aaron and Brian Katz (@bmkatz) talk with Simon Crosby (@simoncrosby, Founder/CTO at Bromium) about the landscape of security threats on the Internet, recent high-profile hackings, and an update on how Bromium vSentry is setting the new benchmark for security lab results and protection.

Description: Aaron talks with Simon Crosby (@simoncrosby) and Tal Klein (@VirtualTal) of Bromium in depth about their new vSentry product announced today at the Gartner Security & Risk Management Summit.

Aaron and Brian talk with Simon Crosby, (@simoncrosby, Co-Founder/CTO) and Tal Klein (@VirtualTal) from Bromium, about the launch of their micro-virtualization platform and how this intends to change the security of end-points for the Enterprise and Governments.