Where the question comes from.
I’m still just that kid who grew up in a small town on Lake Erie, dialing into a Detroit radio station at 1 a.m. trying to record my favorite band.
“To me, counterculture and anti-establishment art is about questioning why and asking, why not better? That is the punk ethos.”
Cybersecurity and Joe Strummer, 18 August 2023
Where it came from
I started playing the saxophone when I was about 8 years old. By the time I was ten, I was pulling records from the public library, consuming as much of Miles Davis, John Coltrane and Sonny Rollins as I could get my hands on. And in that same moment The Clash broke onto the scene, and in my mind there was an immediate connection between the greats in jazz and Strummer and Lydon and later on Jello Biafra and Henry Rollins.
The music and art of counterculture sat in my soul, undisturbed for decades while I pursued a corporate career.
Stuck in a rut
My early career in technology management wasn’t defined by cybersecurity or IT operations. What I was known for was being a fixer. The problem with being a fixer in American business is that you are always told there is a pot of gold at the end of the broken rainbow that you fix and put back on track.
Once you fix the problem, you almost always find out that there was never a pot of gold, and the promises offered to you were hollow and meaningless. The payoff for your hard work is not there, but another bucket of crap to clean up is always waiting.
When the switch flipped
I went to my first music festival when I turned 50. On a Thursday night in 2016, the power of serendipity would ensure that my then-girlfriend and I would sit down at a charity dinner at Bonnaroo next to Bob Ferguson. Bob ran creative alliances and music outreach for Oxfam America. As we talked through the evening, I learned he came from the banking world, just like I had. And I was in awe of both the difference he was making and the music he got to be immersed in daily.
In a moment of self-pity I looked at Bob and said: I grew up as the kid who ate punk music like it was pop-tarts, and now I am just a corporate suit grinding out Excel spreadsheets with my headphones on and Rage Against the Machine turned up to eleven. I am a complete sell-out.
“At some point, we grow up and realize that you can’t change the system from the outside. You’ve got to change it from the inside.”
Bob Ferguson, charity dinner at Bonnaroo, 2016.
Shazam. Life changed.
The whole thing, in one line
To fix the system, you have to be in the system.
That is why there is more than one book. Famous With 12 People argues that a person does not need institutional permission to be a recognized authority or expert: you earn it. Built Wrong argues that my own industry never earned the authority it claims. Same truths, just from different observation points.
The Verified Security Framework is the third, and it is the operating manual for the second.
The two cybersecurity industry books are love letters to my profession. They just read as tough love.
Currently
Principal AI & Identity Officer at Cyera, and an advisor to Singulr AI. Based in Denver, Colorado.
Formal bios and photos · Verify my accounts · What I have been doing