Author | Founder | Cat Herder
Calling all Founders, I am working on a new book titled Founder Fails: Stories of Startup Stumbles. The goal of this book is to demonstrate that:
- Failure is an opportunity to grow, learn, and improve.
- Failure can spark necessary changes in a startup.
- It is okay to fail. It builds character, strength, resilience, and experience.
Sign up for an interview and share your story of failure, growth, and success.
Monocultures are a net positive for cybersecurity. Find out more in my new article in Architecture & Governance Magazine.
#cybersecurity #crowdstrike #microsoft #monoculture #standardization
What is so special about “Founder Mode?” Find out in my new article at MBE: https://mbemag.com/articles/what-is-so-special-about-founder-mode/
Microsoft: security company. Sure.
Nothing expresses your desperation, immaturity as a leader, and lack of strategy more clearly than badmouthing competitors. Are you in the "anti-them business" or the "pro-you business?"
Always be in the "pro-you" business.
This and more pithy insights are available in The Founder's User Manual: Practical Strategies for the Startup Leader.
I was surprised Wiz walked away from Google's $23B bid. That was a bold move, let's hope it works out for them.
However, I can understand not wanting to get mired down in a big org with its infuriating politics.
But is that worth $23B?
All security sales are a credibility sale (as are most tech). You are not selling a security product or service per se, you are selling your credibility to get the customer where they want to be.
Find out about this, and a lot more nitty gritty details of running a startup in The Founder's User Manual: Practical Strategies for the Startup Leader.
I remain skeptical of any kind of sustained "cyberwar." It is too hard to maintain, too easy to stop, and too risky to expose all your zero-days. Isolated attacks, aimed at disruption, yes. Sustained "cyberwar," I don't think so.
Check out this story from Cyber Intelligence I was quoted in: https://buff.ly/4cqiEsW
Avoid Zero-Sum people. These are people who think the only way they can succeed is for somebody else to fail. Unfortunately, this mentality is commonplace in tech and VC community.
Find out more about this and other personalities to avoid or embrace in the Founder's User Manual: Practical Strategies for the Startup Leader
Every time there is a widespread outage, the bloviating "thought leaders" declare we must stop the software monoculture. Yeah, that is not happening.
Check out my new bloviating thought leader blog on this issue.
Protecting AI connections (between GenAI apps and external LLMs like ChatGPT) seems like a perfect use case for SASE technologies. Yet, none of them mention this (well, none I could find).
Interesting.
Establishing boundaries is crucial for leaders. While it is important for leaders to foster openness, transparency, and trust within their teams, forming personal friendships with employees is risky. What happens when you must fire one of your “friends?”
Explore the intricacies of employee connections and learn how to set reasonable boundaries in the Founder’s User Manual: Practical Strategies for the Startup Leader.
Big thanks to IT Harvest for their platform. I have been researching MSSPs lately and the IT Harvest platform helped me quickly identify almost 100 MSSPs to analyze. It also gave me a lot of background data on them. One startup MSSP that I was convinced was crushing it, has actually been contracting for over a year. Their headcount is down over 20%.
I would have never known that if it was not for IT Harvest! I like data.
Check it out: https://buff.ly/3KLyIKA
Beware of Accountability Sheilds. When a team is swamped with project management duties, they can become lost inside busywork rather than actual work. This behavior allows them to evade responsibility for not completing their necessary tasks.
Learn how to steer clear of the troublesome Accountability Shields in The Founder's User Manual: Practical Strategies for the Startup Leader.
Fortinet acquiring Laceworks is another tale of the ongoing Platform Wars. I just demo'ed Fortinet's SASE solution and found it rather impressive. Adding Laceworks tech into that (along with everything else they do) is compelling.
What do you think is the next big platform move?
I got a demo of two products in the past week, @field Effect and @fortinet FortiSASE. Both of these products are impressive.
More specifically, I am impressed with the huge set of features these products offer. Feild Effect has a massive set of security capabilities. When I was building a SOC in 2017, it took a dozen tools to do what this single tool can do.
This is platformization at work:
This may be the nerdiest thing I ever wrote.
I ranked all the Star Trek themes from TOS to SNW. Come for the ultra-geek out, stay for the timpani drums.
What is a Managed Security Service Provider (MSSP)?
The MSSP market is growing like crazy. However, it is also fracturing, with local and regional MSSPs grabbing new business. Find out what makes up an MSSP and how to evaluate them in this blog.
What is the problem with Work from Home?
Ever notice some employees are always missing meetings? Or wonder why your boss is more interested in blaming people for problems than solving them? These are the signs of a company and culture that cannot handle work-from-home.
Would you like to know more? There is a book about this (and lots of other stuff) and I happen to have written it.