From Childhood Curiosity to Cyber Empire with Brian DeMuth

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Today on the pod, I've got my good friend, Brian DeMuth.

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Brian is an executive, he's an investor, and he's a hacker.

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And on this pod, we discuss how at an early childhood, his parents

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helped foster that creativity and curiosity that kind of pushed him

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into the successes that he's had now.

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That encouragement that he experienced in early childhood.

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We discuss the portfolio of companies that one, he has to figure out how to keep

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track of because he's all over the place.

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If anybody knows him and trying to keep track of him is very

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difficult, but also in particular, one company called rapid ascent.

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who is giving hands on cybersecurity training for people in transitioning

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military or transitioning from a different career so they are ready

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for their new job on day one.

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So enjoy my conversation with Brian as we discuss cybersecurity curiosity, portfolio

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management, and entering cybersecurity workforce and closing the gap.

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Nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two

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one.

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Brian, appreciate you being here today.

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You got a whole ton of things going on.

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And for anybody, I'm not going to put the list up on the screen, but if you

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saw just the partial bullet dots list, you would go, how does anybody in their

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right mind came up with all of this stuff?

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But before we get into all of the fun things you're doing currently, can

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you break down a little bit, you know, you've got a big hacking background

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and kind of your pathway to working for an investment firm and identifying new

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and upcoming cyber related technology.

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Absolutely.

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Um, yeah.

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Thanks for having me on.

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Um, I guess I'll start by saying it was, uh, it was, uh, uh, a number

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of reschedules to get us here, um, snow day here in, in, uh, Virginia.

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And so, um, just down, uh, playing with the kids.

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So, you know, in addition to that long list I sent you, obviously I've

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got, you know, kids at home and kids that are moving out and all kinds of

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And if you're, and if you're just listening to this, there's all

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kinds of like puppy and princess pictures over his shoulder.

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Oh, yeah, that's, uh, from my youngest, she, uh, just got another one.

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She's, she's

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Oh, nice.

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Hopefully she will not interrupt us with yet another one to stick up

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there, um, until after we're done, but, well, yeah, so, um, like you were

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saying, my background, uh, you know, I.

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Was always inquisitive, right?

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Always be curious.

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Um, I think, uh, some of those, some of those quotes about

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being curious are my favorite.

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Um, and, uh, you know, it coming up on Ted Lasso was, was good to, you

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know, him quoting the be, be curious.

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Um, I was always curious and I was always driven to learn.

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I was driven to figure out how things work, how they tick.

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Uh, so even from the time that I was a young, young kid,

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I would take things apart.

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Um, one of the stories my mother likes to tell is when I was four, I She had, uh,

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saved up money for, I don't know, a year.

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Um, and she was really looking forward to buying this Kirby vacuum cleaner with

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all the attachments and all the parts, you know, basically did everything.

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It was, uh, a floor mopping device and it was a really high

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Super expensive, super expensive device.

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when I was a little kid, uh, those things still were three, 4, 000.

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Right.

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And, uh, You know, you could buy a car for that.

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Like not a really junky used car.

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Like you can barely buy, you know, that, that doesn't get you much

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today, but you could get a decent car.

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So, uh, she got this Kirby vacuum cleaner and it's like I

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said, they, they didn't have.

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Uh, that kind of, uh, um, wealth at the time.

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So they, you know, they, they saved up, you know, son of an

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enlisted Marine and a part time tax, you know, tax, uh, uh, filer.

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Um, and so they saved up and they like to tell the story that after they

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got it and they were all proud of it, primarily my mom was all proud of it.

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Uh, I took it apart, like all the way down to the brushes and the motors.

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Um.

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And, uh, was pushed to, uh, put it back together again.

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So that was, that was fun.

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Um, I honestly don't really remember it all that much, but,

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um, it's a story they like to tell.

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So, uh, so yeah, that kind of, I was like that throughout my childhood.

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Right.

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Um.

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Early computers, gaming systems.

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I was more interested in like, while I played the games, I was more interested

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in figuring out how the system worked, taking those things apart, had Commodore

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64s and one 28 and all the tape reels and the eight tracks and all the stuff

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that went with them back then got some computer equipment through what my father

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was doing for work fairly early in my life, which, you know, just further,

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um, Uh, cause me to be curious, right?

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Like gave me something else to think about something else to dream about.

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Um, and, and when we get to, you know, this part later, you remember when

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I said this, because those kinds of opportunities and yes, you know, despite

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the fact that my parents really did not have much for money at all at the time,

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you know, they, they did find ways to put me in front of things that just

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fed my curiosity, that fed my interest.

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So.

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That, you know, we'll, we'll talk about what I'm doing about that later.

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Um, but, but that kind of kept me going.

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Right.

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And so my father had, uh, old trucks and boats cause that's most of what

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they could afford with five kids and on Marine Corps enlisted salary.

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So.

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Uh, you know, I, I learned to play with mechanics and he was into radios

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because he was a signals intelligence officer in the Marine Corps.

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Um, and so he, uh, he always had CB radios when I was a kid and, you know,

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um, AM radios and, and different types of equipment that he, he was playing with.

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And so I got very interested in, I think.

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Six, seven years old, I was building those transistor radios that you

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could buy the kits for from like radio shack or wherever back then, um,

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mail order catalogs, because that's about all we had before the internet.

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Um, and, and, and I had a lot of fun with that.

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Um, later on, you know, a little bit older in middle school days, you know, there's

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Pentium computers coming out, right?

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Um, I actually had a, uh, what was it, a two 86 for a long time and, you know,

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three 86 and went up through the process.

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But I remember around the time that Pentium computers come out,

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uh, there was those, um, those early software definable radios.

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It was like this brick.

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It looked like a cinder block that had a big parallel table.

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You could plug into the computer.

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My father got, got to borrow one again because of stuff he was working on.

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And that got me really interested in, in, uh, radio, um, even more so.

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And again, all of those things are just opportunity to be more curious.

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If, if you had put like 3d printers, if they existed back then in front

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of me, and if you put, you know, uh, detractive, um, printing in front

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of me, think like, you know, the lathe beds that you can, you can do.

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Um, You know, that would have, that would have fed my curiosity as well

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and, and, and pushed me forward in, in probably one of those tracks.

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But, but essentially, um, you know, fast forward a bit, there's a lot of other

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opportunities like that, that, you know, while, you know, most would look and

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go, Oh, you know, you can't afford that.

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Or my parents would look and say, you can't afford that.

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Um, they found a way to.

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Borrow or, you know, take me somewhere, go, um, sit with other people.

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They did the same with music.

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Um, also when I was four, they, they put a, put a acoustic guitar in my

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hands and sent me off to music lessons to actually learn music theory, um, and

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then violin and a whole bunch of other instruments afterwards and all of that.

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What's that?

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that's still stuck, right?

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Some of it, some of it.

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Yeah.

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Um, there's an interesting, uh, concept around, uh, the intersection of music

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and information management and how our information analytics really, um, and how,

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if you have a musical brain, um, you are.

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Much more in tune with understanding information analytics.

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It, I mean, we could do a talk,

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That's a whole different thing, yeah, yeah, yeah.

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that I've got to experience early on in my career and then,

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um, have given the talk since.

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Um, but in any case, yeah, so when I was a kid, um, you know, I kind of had

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a bunch of these, these opportunities, even if they were short windows of

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opportunity to put my hands on something right to, to, to put my hands on a new

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piece of gear, a new piece of technology.

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Um, and that, that kept pushing my, um, curiosity forward.

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And so I got into, you know, around that time, you know, early middle school,

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there were the LAN parties were starting to happen, you know, people were doing

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the Doom, uh, game LAN parties, and while I would play them and had fun doing it,

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you know, I was having fun just with simple stuff, like simple hacking, um.

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You know, making my friends PCs that they've carried over to the house, making

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their CD drives open and close while they're trying to play the game, right?

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Just annoying things, making the graphics display flip upside down inside the

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old CRT monitors that they were using.

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Right?

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Um, I had fun with that.

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And I was like, Oh, wait, this is even more fun because I can beat

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them in the game, or at least, you know, stay up to their level.

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Um, But, uh, it was much more fun to just mess with the environment they were trying

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to play in to make it harder to play.

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That was funny and, and, and, and, you know, a blast.

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Um, I'm also the oldest of five kids.

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So like I had built in people to mess with too, which was a great fun.

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I'm sure they have a different version of the story, but, but regardless, um,

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you know, that kept me, kept me curious.

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Right.

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And so then I was like, Oh, wait, like.

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It's during a gaming LAN party.

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You're not supposed to be able to like, make your, your competitor

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screens flip upside down, you know, like virtually inside of the monitor.

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Um, and we're talking like, this is when we're in middle school, right?

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This isn't recent.

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Um, and you could do stuff like that then.

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And then I started looking at, oh, well, Wait, this is because somebody

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didn't, like, make it secure.

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Somebody didn't protect it from, you know, little jerks like me

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that can go and cause that problem.

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Uh, what else didn't they protect from me and other people like me?

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And then I started, you know, looking into more and more.

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Um.

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And, uh, you know, was on a lot of the early dial up bulletin boards and,

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you know, uh, reading, uh, messages.

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I probably shouldn't have been at that age, but was figuring

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out how to get to them.

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Um, and so, yeah, it was, it was, uh, again, um, those experiences, they drive

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curiosity, they drive interest, they, they grow into passion potentially.

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Right.

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So.

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As I went through that process, um, you know, I got very interested in

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the security of things and ultimately, um, started pulling, uh, data off the

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airwaves, um, that, uh, was encrypted, figured out how to decrypt it, um, and,

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uh, that kind of led to my first, uh, job, or not my first job, but my first job in

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the industry, I ended up going to work for a defense contractor, um, at the behest

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of some people that they worked for, um, Um, and, you know, ended up, uh, launching

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kind of this path in this career and where I've, where I've, you know, gone.

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Um, so from that point on, um, I worked, um, signals intelligence

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work, I did, uh, counter Intel.

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Kind of stuff, uh, mostly on the equipment, on the equipping side, um,

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providing, um, input to the systems they use and how to transmit, uh, uh,

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imagery that they'd taken behind enemy lines back across, you know, HF or

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satellite or whatever, uh, to try to try to maximize the bandwidth usage

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and get their imagery back or get their, you know, critical intelligence

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reports back or things like that.

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And so I spent, I spent a bunch of time working that and then ended up.

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Um, because of my passion, um, about, well, how did I get to

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where I kind of got at that point?

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You know, probably thinking 15 years ago or so, maybe a little more in my career.

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Um, I, it, you know, I started thinking about, well, you know, I hear about

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all these other people who don't get other opportunities and a lot

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of people who do and squander them.

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Like, how do we just.

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Make opportunities available for more people.

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Um, so I spent a lot of time just taking stuff, computers, radios, projectors,

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other things to schools all around the region here, you know, up into Maryland.

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Um, you know, flying to some other places and, um, just talking to kids, you know,

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schools were inviting me out to talk to kids and, uh, show them something,

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show them something that was cool.

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You know, um, sometimes that was a hack.

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Sometimes that was, um, you know, uh, early drone, you know, whatever it was,

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something cool and technology, um, Matt turned into me getting involved with

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several nonprofits, co founding a couple of nonprofits, um, all kind of focused on.

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Um, trying to help with that, uh, availability of, um,

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things that push curiosity.

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So there you

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I don't know if I ever told you this story about me as a kid.

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So it was awesome.

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Your parents saw that you had the spark and feeding into that type of stuff.

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Um, never that was something I don't think I really experienced in the same way.

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Not even that I even had something that I showed a spark

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in at a young age necessarily.

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Um, but, you know, grew up where, you know, my 1st.

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Papers in school were on typewriters, you know, this is back when you had

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the family computer room, you know, family computer room, there was like

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one computer in the house and share it.

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If you got on the internet, you tied up the phone line because you have

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the phone line in the house, you know,

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Absolutely.

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We had a party line, uh, with one of the neighbors and then we

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had two extra lines in the house.

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Oh, no.

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Yeah.

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The 2 extra lines.

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That was that was a no go.

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I do.

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I do remember that growing up.

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Arrow's internet.

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But I remember

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you.

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trying to like, hey, you know, we finally got, you know, it

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was a 286 or 386 Packard Bell.

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It was a Packard Bell computer and I was sitting there trying to figure out,

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you know, I'm in 9th or 10th grade.

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Maybe didn't know anything about it.

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I have the manual, the manuals like, you know, inch and a half thick of stuff

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trying to like, format a floppy disk.

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That was my goal, format a floppy disk.

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In the middle of trying to format the floppy disk, I formatted the C drive,

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the main hard drive with the operating system, and immediately panicked when you

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turn on the computer and if you've never done formatted a computer before and it

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just kind of blinks a black screen at you.

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You know, me being the, uh, the 12 or 13 year old that didn't know

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what I was doing panicked because I knew how much my parents spent on a

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computer that now none of us could use.

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That was pretty, my dad was not very happy with me and ended

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up getting a friend of his to

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I am certain that I had done that at least once or twice.

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Oh, yeah, no, that re, I distinctly remember.

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once on purpose.

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I forget how long it took because at that point I wasn't allowed to touch it

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anymore after I had broken the new machine that they had brought into the house.

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But so, so now with, with what you've been doing, you know, I

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know, you know, we've been through the Cybervirus Foundation and.

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Talk about that some, but more, more curious with some of the investment

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companies that you're working with there in the tech sector.

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Um, you know, 1 in particular, uh, with rapid ascent where you're

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because, you know, we've talked about there's this whole big gigantic.

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Gap in the cybersecurity workforce, and some of the new methodologies

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and training programs that you guys are trying to put in place.

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To kind of shore up that gap by all, but also bringing, you know, new blood into

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the industry, maybe from other job sets.

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What can you talk about with some of the advancements that you guys

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are doing in that, in that arena?

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Yeah, Rapid Ascent's, um, um, an interesting one for me.

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Uh, one, because like I said, um, I'm passionate about trying to

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find a way to, to, uh, push those opportunities out to others, but this

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one is a for profit, um, company.

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And really, uh, myself and a few other people, um, we.

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We talked about, um, like how do we solve this workforce shortage, right?

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This goes back to 2019, I think, and there's a lot of talk about, um,

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certifications as a solution to training.

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There's a lot of talk about.

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Um, you know, University XYZ is creating a cyber security specific program.

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Um, there's a lot of talk about, um, you know, all these training companies

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out there that'll get you up to speed in one week or three weeks or whatever.

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And.

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You know, sounds great.

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But when have you ever seen that actually happen?

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Right?

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Um, if you just take a step back, and I know it's needed, but if you take a

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step back and you look at it, you know, objectively and realize what you're

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really talking about here, you're, you're talking about how to train someone to do.

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Um, essentially what is new blue collar work?

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Um, you, you need to know what a known good configuration looks like.

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What is a table that is properly built look like, and how does it measure out?

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And what are all the, you know, um, measurements and weights

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and everything that that.

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That's what a table should be.

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And what is a wrong?

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What does wrong look like?

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That table that's lopsided, the corners are shaved off and, you

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know, it's not quite square.

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Um, and then how do you get to write?

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How do you, how do you walk through the day to day, uh,

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tasks to, to keep things right?

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Um, and that's, you know, you can apply that general thought.

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I'm not saying that's all there is to entry level cyber.

Speaker: 00:18:15

There's a lot more, right?

Speaker: 00:18:17

But at a high level, um, that framework.

Speaker: 00:18:20

Kind of what there is.

Speaker: 00:18:21

Um, so, you know, whether you're a, uh, SOC analyst and you're sitting in

Speaker: 00:18:27

a security operation center and you're watching, you know, you're the junior

Speaker: 00:18:31

and you're watching the logs, you're listening to the systems, you've learned

Speaker: 00:18:34

how those appliances that sit in.

Speaker: 00:18:37

Or with the sock that are used by the sock, you've learned what, what it is

Speaker: 00:18:41

to look at them and understand an alert.

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You've learned what, um, you know, the basic analysis of those lines,

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you know, like, look to this part and see if it's flagging on a certain

Speaker: 00:18:53

signature or a certain something.

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And then, you know, who do you report that to?

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And what do you, what do you do to fix it?

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And if it's something simpler that.

Speaker: 00:19:00

You know, a junior person can work on what do you do?

Speaker: 00:19:03

Um, you see, you see this in entry level it as well, but, um, you know, in general,

Speaker: 00:19:09

I'll just call it entry level cyber.

Speaker: 00:19:11

And so what we started doing is we went around to realizing that, um,

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and then realizing that there's this, this shortage that it just

Speaker: 00:19:20

doesn't seem like what's available in industry is going to really solve it.

Speaker: 00:19:24

Um, and there's all these, you know, newspaper articles, magazines about.

Speaker: 00:19:29

Um, you know, Oh my God, like we have to do something because

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we have such a huge shortage.

Speaker: 00:19:34

We need cyber people here, right?

Speaker: 00:19:36

We hear it a little less, but we're still hearing it.

Speaker: 00:19:38

The numbers have only gotten larger though.

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So, um,

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ask something on that real quick.

Speaker: 00:19:44

yeah,

Speaker: 00:19:44

before I do, I definitely want to go down the rabbit hole of your methodology

Speaker: 00:19:49

with the training and being job ready when they, when you're done.

Speaker: 00:19:52

But how much of some of this is these companies don't

Speaker: 00:19:57

know how to hire for cyber?

Speaker: 00:19:59

That these companies

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that's part of it.

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they don't know what the requirements, they don't know what they're actually

Speaker: 00:20:04

need when they get into there.

Speaker: 00:20:06

And so you see these mismatch position descriptions, um, that they're just

Speaker: 00:20:11

making up or the term itself cyber security means.

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Different

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things.

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So many things.

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It means so many things.

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It covers so much stuff and there's a,

Speaker: 00:20:20

Absolutely.

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and it's getting to me.

Speaker: 00:20:22

I mean, the organization I work with when you're talking 25

Speaker: 00:20:25

years ago, I'm not sitting there saying that we had sock analyst.

Speaker: 00:20:28

There's somebody sitting there looking for threats coming in, but you were looking

Speaker: 00:20:32

for, you know, you know, I came from the network engineering background side.

Speaker: 00:20:36

So you were trying to harden your perimeter.

Speaker: 00:20:38

You were trying to do those types of that was the, that was the thing.

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It was keeping things

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out.

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And I've seen this push.

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Yeah.

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of trying to disassociate a lot of the, you know, cyber operations,

Speaker: 00:20:50

that threat hunting piece, that configuration stuff, trying to find

Speaker: 00:20:53

your vulnerabilities away from ICA.

Speaker: 00:20:54

I see those conversations online.

Speaker: 00:20:58

I don't know how much that's contributing to, hold on a second,

Speaker: 00:21:01

you're a different silo, but you guys are still together, you know, because

Speaker: 00:21:05

if you find the vulnerability, you're not patching, you're not fixing the

Speaker: 00:21:08

configuration, you're just raising your hand saying, hey, we, we see this.

Speaker: 00:21:12

Um, how much do you think that's contributing to some of the workforce

Speaker: 00:21:16

gap?

Speaker: 00:21:16

It definitely is.

Speaker: 00:21:18

Um, you know, and this fits right into where I was going.

Speaker: 00:21:20

Um, the, uh, Most of those, so we went and talked to Fortune 50, Fortune 100,

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um, small businesses, government agencies.

Speaker: 00:21:29

Um, there was several of us that did this for over a year, right?

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Collected all the data and talked about it as an addition to everything else

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that each of us was doing at the time.

Speaker: 00:21:39

Um, and essentially found that.

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Just like you're saying, uh, they knew that they weren't putting

Speaker: 00:21:47

out good, you know, job recs.

Speaker: 00:21:49

They weren't putting out a very good job descriptions.

Speaker: 00:21:52

And that's a problem in a lot of companies.

Speaker: 00:21:54

Um, a lot of times you have managers who either newly promoted to managers

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or, um, their managers, they're good at management, but they're.

Speaker: 00:22:04

They don't understand the specifics of what they're, you

Speaker: 00:22:07

know, the deep, the technical details of what they're managing.

Speaker: 00:22:10

Um, and so there are some good resources out there for those technical

Speaker: 00:22:14

managers to, um, to help build out what good job recs should look like.

Speaker: 00:22:20

Um, so I'd highly advise, you know, people in those, those kinds of roles going and

Speaker: 00:22:23

looking for those, but, um, We definitely found that that was part of the problem

Speaker: 00:22:28

and by and large, you know, and, and again, back to your point, it could be

Speaker: 00:22:33

part of it, but by and large, what we were told, um, the data that we collected was.

Speaker: 00:22:38

That when the people came in to sit down and take over the keyboard doing

Speaker: 00:22:43

whatever their job is, sock analyst one, for example, that they couldn't start

Speaker: 00:22:49

day one, they couldn't start day 10, they couldn't really even start day 45, right?

Speaker: 00:22:54

It took a lot of on the job training to get them to the

Speaker: 00:22:56

point where they understood, um.

Speaker: 00:22:59

You know what it was they needed to do.

Speaker: 00:23:01

And now there's a lot of excuses for it.

Speaker: 00:23:03

Um, you know, sometimes, uh, there's a lot of, there's a lot of different types of

Speaker: 00:23:08

appliances and infrastructure and software that are used at different places.

Speaker: 00:23:11

And so it's totally possible, you know, that some of them had unique

Speaker: 00:23:14

things, but, but like across the board, no matter what, we heard the

Speaker: 00:23:19

same thing over and over again, right.

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That like the majority of their.

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Entry level or close to entry level folks would come in and

Speaker: 00:23:26

not know how to do the tasks.

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And so we started thinking about that.

Speaker: 00:23:30

I got it.

Speaker: 00:23:31

Well, like.

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What does that mean?

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And what, what did they have for training?

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You know, that college degrees in cybersecurity or computer

Speaker: 00:23:38

science or information management, like something like that.

Speaker: 00:23:41

Did they have certifications?

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Like, what did they have?

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Did they have any years of experience?

Speaker: 00:23:45

And so, you know, it ran the gamut.

Speaker: 00:23:48

Um, and I don't remember all the percentages off the top of my

Speaker: 00:23:50

head, but essentially, um, You know, it kind of didn't matter.

Speaker: 00:23:55

Um, the only thing that really seemed to make any difference was the years

Speaker: 00:23:59

of experience, but once the years of experience got up there, generally

Speaker: 00:24:02

those candidates cost more, right?

Speaker: 00:24:04

And that was one of the, is a business.

Speaker: 00:24:06

And yes, you want to, you want to cost more as the, as the labor force, right?

Speaker: 00:24:11

You do, you learn and get there through experience and training.

Speaker: 00:24:14

Right.

Speaker: 00:24:15

But the, the folks that have been through college that had a year or two experience,

Speaker: 00:24:19

they weren't meeting the bill, um, they weren't meeting the requirements.

Speaker: 00:24:23

They weren't able to start day one.

Speaker: 00:24:24

The folks that were going through multiple boot camps and starting, they

Speaker: 00:24:27

weren't, they weren't able to, you know, start day one, um, on all the things.

Speaker: 00:24:31

And this is as assessed by those managers, right?

Speaker: 00:24:34

So I'm sure there's some nuance and some, you know, favoritism, some,

Speaker: 00:24:38

you know, bias based on who it is that was providing us this data.

Speaker: 00:24:42

But, but the reality set in that, Those that were really, really, really hard

Speaker: 00:24:48

chargers and set up all the labs at home to do all the things, um, you know, paid

Speaker: 00:24:53

to get into the virtual environments in various places, like the ones that

Speaker: 00:24:57

really spent that extra time, they were closer to being able to start the job.

Speaker: 00:25:02

Um, and there's a lot of good, you know, um, small pro by small, I mean,

Speaker: 00:25:09

short programs that you can learn from for relatively decent price.

Speaker: 00:25:13

Um, But what we decided we would, we would try to do with Rapid Ascent

Speaker: 00:25:18

is put together, you know, a no kidding, like blue collar style.

Speaker: 00:25:22

And by that, I mean, methodologies, um, apprenticeship program.

Speaker: 00:25:27

Um, and that's turned into what Rapid Ascent now calls

Speaker: 00:25:30

their job readiness program.

Speaker: 00:25:32

So it's four months full time.

Speaker: 00:25:35

And it takes people, you know, from zero to hero, right?

Speaker: 00:25:38

It takes them from zero to hero.

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You know, not, not having any training.

Speaker: 00:25:42

Maybe, maybe they have some background.

Speaker: 00:25:43

Some people come into it with background, but come into it with, uh, with no

Speaker: 00:25:47

background in, in cyber defense and they leave getting a job and, uh,

Speaker: 00:25:52

represent has very high placement.

Speaker: 00:25:56

Uh, rates, uh, right now and as it, as their program grows more, um, I'm sure

Speaker: 00:26:01

those will drop just naturally, but, um, they're doing a really good job.

Speaker: 00:26:04

Um, the training program is expanding, um, the, I'll do a quick, uh, kind of overview

Speaker: 00:26:11

on the training, uh, or at least the way it's delivered, it's all virtual, but one

Speaker: 00:26:17

of the things that was really exciting for, for me and for the investment

Speaker: 00:26:20

firm and the other investors in it is.

Speaker: 00:26:23

Today they do attitude, aptitude, and psychometric testing, and

Speaker: 00:26:26

they're, they're pushing forward with expanding what that looks like.

Speaker: 00:26:30

Um, and so you go into what the, what Rapid Ascent calls jumpstart,

Speaker: 00:26:35

and you basically go through some cyber defense training.

Speaker: 00:26:38

Um, and it's anywhere from a few hours to a few days, depending on how

Speaker: 00:26:43

long, you know, you take to do it.

Speaker: 00:26:45

And the system monitors you, monitors how you respond to things, monitors

Speaker: 00:26:48

how you respond to questions.

Speaker: 00:26:51

And then ultimately gives a score about, you know, your path for training.

Speaker: 00:26:55

What does training look like for you?

Speaker: 00:26:57

Um, you know, what's the best path for you?

Speaker: 00:27:00

What things do you need to work on?

Speaker: 00:27:01

What other areas do you need to test on better?

Speaker: 00:27:04

And when you're accepted into one of the programs, um, through there's an

Speaker: 00:27:07

application process on their website, you just go to the, um, rapid ascent.

Speaker: 00:27:10

com and click on, get started.

Speaker: 00:27:12

And you can.

Speaker: 00:27:13

Find out everything.

Speaker: 00:27:14

Um, but once you get in there and you get accepted into the program, uh, the

Speaker: 00:27:18

core program is a four month program, um, that goes through everything from

Speaker: 00:27:25

start to finish, um, really big with, um, um, transitioning military right now.

Speaker: 00:27:32

That's a large, um, a large number of our current students are transitioning

Speaker: 00:27:37

military, um, because they can.

Speaker: 00:27:39

Use skill bridge and other things to, you know, continue to pay them, get paid

Speaker: 00:27:43

a salary while they go through it and they jump, they go through jumpstart and

Speaker: 00:27:47

they jump into the platform itself when they're accepted, um, and they're able

Speaker: 00:27:51

to, um, you know, spend that 3 to 4 months in pretty in depth training and come

Speaker: 00:27:57

out the other side with, um, job offers.

Speaker: 00:28:00

Um, which is really cool.

Speaker: 00:28:01

It's really exciting to see.

Speaker: 00:28:02

It's something that makes me feel good.

Speaker: 00:28:04

I want to see it expand and it's, it is a startup.

Speaker: 00:28:07

So it's, it's going through, you know, normal startup woes and

Speaker: 00:28:10

challenges and, um, but it's doing.

Speaker: 00:28:12

involved in on a day to day basis.

Speaker: 00:28:14

I believe

Speaker: 00:28:15

It's one of, uh, there's two that I'm pretty involved with day to day, um,

Speaker: 00:28:19

that one, that one I've stepped into assists and so I'm, I'm heavily involved

Speaker: 00:28:23

in it, but, um, you know, it's, uh, as it grows, that won't be the case,

Speaker: 00:28:28

um, I'll kind of step back again, but, but yeah, right now I'm helping them.

Speaker: 00:28:32

Helping them

Speaker: 00:28:32

one of the things and I've heard this from a couple other places.

Speaker: 00:28:35

I know the dues.

Speaker: 00:28:36

I don't call it the same thing, but, you know, cyber readiness,

Speaker: 00:28:38

you know, trying to fill that gap.

Speaker: 00:28:41

a lot of, there was focus on the aptitude.

Speaker: 00:28:45

What,

Speaker: 00:28:45

specifically are you finding when, when you're saying aptitude are good fits

Speaker: 00:28:50

for people that may be doing a career transition or that transitioning military?

Speaker: 00:28:54

What, what is, what are those, how are you testing that?

Speaker: 00:28:57

And then what is the sign?

Speaker: 00:28:58

It's like, oh man, yeah, you got, you got what it takes to continue

Speaker: 00:29:05

Yeah.

Speaker: 00:29:06

So I've got a little, I've got some anecdotes for you around that bit.

Speaker: 00:29:08

Uh, Craig, uh, Schultz, our CTO, uh, would be the best person to talk to for that.

Speaker: 00:29:14

Um, so we're testing in a variety of ways.

Speaker: 00:29:16

Um, we have some question based pop ups in the front end of the system.

Speaker: 00:29:20

Um, the system is, uh, all virtual.

Speaker: 00:29:22

I mean, we can do it in person if there's a company or organization that wants

Speaker: 00:29:25

that, but, um, we, we generally do it all virtual and we've got, uh, some.

Speaker: 00:29:31

You know, AI is a big deal, right?

Speaker: 00:29:33

Everyone's talking about AI, everything's AI.

Speaker: 00:29:35

So I'd be remiss if I didn't say something about

Speaker: 00:29:37

or at least say the word AI.

Speaker: 00:29:39

yeah.

Speaker: 00:29:40

AI.

Speaker: 00:29:40

word.

Speaker: 00:29:42

Train training my devices here to, to, to try to sell me AI tonight.

Speaker: 00:29:46

Um, also another topic, uh, but yeah, so, uh, we have, uh, this concept of an

Speaker: 00:29:54

artificial intelligence instructor, um, that sits in with the real instructors

Speaker: 00:29:59

through the program to allow us to scale.

Speaker: 00:30:02

Um, so that's exciting.

Speaker: 00:30:03

We'll be some exciting things this year.

Speaker: 00:30:06

That'll come more into fruition, but, um, you know, it's been, it's

Speaker: 00:30:11

been really cool to see, um, see people go through the program.

Speaker: 00:30:14

Um, And, uh, and, and find their way into new jobs.

Speaker: 00:30:19

Um, on the way that we're testing, uh, AI is going to play

Speaker: 00:30:23

into that a lot in the future.

Speaker: 00:30:25

Right now there's the system, which again, integrated platform.

Speaker: 00:30:28

So it tracks you throughout the platform and instructors can drop

Speaker: 00:30:32

into different sessions and, um.

Speaker: 00:30:35

So during that process, we, we almost have like a jumpstart is almost a

Speaker: 00:30:38

mini version of the course, right?

Speaker: 00:30:40

So we have some training lessons.

Speaker: 00:30:42

Um, there's some front end, uh, lessons, there's some quizzes and,

Speaker: 00:30:47

and some of those are attitude or aptitude related questions.

Speaker: 00:30:51

Um, and there's a couple of organizations that have been putting together some

Speaker: 00:30:57

really cool data, some large models on, on, you know, what different

Speaker: 00:31:02

things linked to what, and it gets.

Speaker: 00:31:04

You know, highly technical pretty quickly, but, um, it's kind of exciting to watch.

Speaker: 00:31:08

Um, Craig is definitely the right person to talk to on that one, but, um, well,

Speaker: 00:31:13

So this is probably 1 of those things.

Speaker: 00:31:15

If you had a question on there, it says, do you like computers?

Speaker: 00:31:17

And somebody says, no, you go, probably not for you.

Speaker: 00:31:22

I didn't

Speaker: 00:31:22

you know, I think there are.

Speaker: 00:31:23

it got.

Speaker: 00:31:25

There's some basic questions, but most of them are, are more about math

Speaker: 00:31:29

or more about what you like to do in your life or how, you know, uh,

Speaker: 00:31:35

certain types of technologies might make a difference for you or whatever.

Speaker: 00:31:38

And there's, there's, there's questions you might not necessarily assume

Speaker: 00:31:42

are related to, uh, um, cyber career interest or, you know, assessing

Speaker: 00:31:48

whether you'll be successful in cyber that do in fact play a role.

Speaker: 00:31:52

Right.

Speaker: 00:31:53

Again, some of it, I mean, there, there are questions that, that really

Speaker: 00:31:56

do go back to your curiosity, right?

Speaker: 00:31:58

Like, are you curious?

Speaker: 00:31:59

Are you driven to learn more?

Speaker: 00:32:01

Are you, you know, and it's not directly asking those questions, but they're,

Speaker: 00:32:05

but that's what it's getting at.

Speaker: 00:32:06

That's where it's going to, um, because you're looking for a candidate that

Speaker: 00:32:10

is going to commit a lot of time.

Speaker: 00:32:12

I mean, we do have shorter programs, um, and this quarter we'll be announcing

Speaker: 00:32:16

some new shorter term, um, Opportunities, um, some, we'll be announcing some

Speaker: 00:32:21

partnerships with some companies that want to offer a shorter term opportunities.

Speaker: 00:32:26

But, um, but the reality is the full blown program, the zero to hero program.

Speaker: 00:32:32

That's like.

Speaker: 00:32:34

It's a commitment.

Speaker: 00:32:35

And so we want to know that the folks going into it are

Speaker: 00:32:39

really up for that challenge.

Speaker: 00:32:40

And sometimes the challenge is, can you make yourself get up and do it every day?

Speaker: 00:32:43

Right?

Speaker: 00:32:44

And so that's, that's kind of built into those questions to just to make

Speaker: 00:32:48

sure that people are truly committed.

Speaker: 00:32:49

And for that 1, for anybody that was interested in more information, you

Speaker: 00:32:52

just say go to rapid ascent dot com.

Speaker: 00:32:55

Absolutely.

Speaker: 00:32:56

All right.

Speaker: 00:32:56

So out of your whole gigantic list of things that you are.

Speaker: 00:32:59

Working on what would be the next thing that you would like to

Speaker: 00:33:03

discuss that is top of mind to you.

Speaker: 00:33:04

I will leave that

Speaker: 00:33:05

open because again, for anybody that doesn't know, I've got like

Speaker: 00:33:08

four pages of notes in front of me and I'm not going to pick,

Speaker: 00:33:13

yeah.

Speaker: 00:33:14

So I've known John for a while and, uh, and you know, he, he knows a lot of stuff

Speaker: 00:33:19

about me and things I'm up to, but I, I realized in the last week or so, it's

Speaker: 00:33:24

like, Oh, wait, John probably doesn't have a real handle on everything I'm up to.

Speaker: 00:33:28

do you have a real handle on everything you're up to as a better question,

Speaker: 00:33:31

whether I do or no,

Speaker: 00:33:34

Of course I do.

Speaker: 00:33:35

Um, no, I've got, uh, great people, um, around me that I work with,

Speaker: 00:33:40

, I've got a bunch of different things going on, um, but they're

Speaker: 00:33:42

all interconnected in some way.

Speaker: 00:33:44

Um, you know, so I, you know, let me touch on that if I can first, uh, which,

Speaker: 00:33:50

uh, you know, like we were saying, I sent you over a list of just all this stuff

Speaker: 00:33:54

and I didn't even cover everything on it.

Speaker: 00:33:56

Um, cause when we were

Speaker: 00:33:57

I looked at him like, hold on a second.

Speaker: 00:33:59

There's things missing that I already know about.

Speaker: 00:34:01

the stuff you do know about that aren't on there, yeah, um,

Speaker: 00:34:04

plus some budding opportunities.

Speaker: 00:34:05

Um, one of the things I wanted to touch on though, you know, cause you

Speaker: 00:34:09

joke about, do I know what all am I, am I on top of everything I'm up to?

Speaker: 00:34:14

Uh, yeah, I am.

Speaker: 00:34:15

Um, the different companies and firms have, uh, some great people.

Speaker: 00:34:20

Um, and I've got a great ecosystem around me, partners and, um,

Speaker: 00:34:26

you know, business partners and nonprofits, nonprofit partners.

Speaker: 00:34:31

Um, and, and that really helps to, you know, keep me sane.

Speaker: 00:34:36

Um, but one of the things that for my own sanity, I always need to keep

Speaker: 00:34:39

pushing and doing something new as well.

Speaker: 00:34:41

Um, you know, I'm one of those.

Speaker: 00:34:43

Um.

Speaker: 00:34:44

I think it's probably something they might diagnose as a problem, but I think it's

Speaker: 00:34:48

great because it helps with business.

Speaker: 00:34:50

But, um, but yeah, one of the things that came up recently, I was talking at an

Speaker: 00:34:56

event and the audience asked a question about like, wait a minute, you were just

Speaker: 00:35:00

talking about like all this nonprofit stuff for election related things.

Speaker: 00:35:04

Then you switch to talking about like nonprofits for kids and small businesses.

Speaker: 00:35:09

And, uh, and then you switched over to talking about some, you know,

Speaker: 00:35:13

investment firm, like what do you do?

Speaker: 00:35:16

And, you know, and I had given a, they read a short bio.

Speaker: 00:35:20

I don't, I think at most of those events, people don't pay

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attention to bio reading, you know?

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Um, and someone asked towards the end, they're like, wait, how are

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you doing like all this stuff?

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And I was like, well, What do you mean?

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What do you mean how?

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Because it just seems natural to me.

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And it, I realize that when I'm talking about all the different

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things I'm doing, why it seems crazy.

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Um, but it's really not for me because I'm not spending that much

Speaker: 00:35:45

extra time when things go wrong.

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Yeah, it takes a lot of my time.

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So, you know, if, if, uh, customers don't pay one of the companies,

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you know, in time and they're small businesses, cashflow is king and

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they need, they have payroll due.

Speaker: 00:35:58

Then, you know, I get a call like, Hey, we need help.

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And, you know.

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I naturally want to know what went wrong, and then it turns into a bunch of work.

Speaker: 00:36:05

Um, it's, it's time, but just maintaining the majority of the growth, um, a lot of

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these things are interconnected, right?

Speaker: 00:36:16

Like Cyberbites Foundation that you mentioned earlier.

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Um, so co founded that, but it's around cyber and tech and helping

Speaker: 00:36:23

kids and helping, you know, local businesses, small businesses grow

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and, you know, um, bringing in large businesses and public entities to work

Speaker: 00:36:33

with all of the other said people.

Speaker: 00:36:35

So well, I go and talk to a lot of small businesses all the time as part

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of what I do for the investment firm.

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Um, I work.

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With growing the small businesses in my portfolio of companies.

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Um, and so I kind of already do that a lot.

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And so if I get a phone call from one of the directors at cyber bites saying,

Speaker: 00:36:56

Hey, we really need help by providing some advice to this small business.

Speaker: 00:37:00

I go, okay, well, like I could probably give you my standard advice in 15 minutes.

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It's right.

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And it's just kind of all interconnected.

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Um, I go to conferences and events, um, so government, uh, contracting

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events like FCA and IT and all the four letter government, um, associations,

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um, that you do in that industry.

Speaker: 00:37:19

I go to investment conferences, they go to cyber and tech conferences.

Speaker: 00:37:22

I go to hacker conferences, um, been going to DEF CON since I was like 13, um, But

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all of those things I like everything in my kind of my set of endeavors, I'll

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call them, um, somehow has connectivity to each other through kind of that

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ecosystem and, you know, I happily.

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Bring in other people, um, you know, once I've obviously trust them and,

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and, uh, like working with them.

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Um, cause I, I am at that stage in my life where I don't want to

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work with people I don't like,

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no,

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creates too

Speaker: 00:37:58

assholes allow, no assholes allow

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no asshole policy.

Speaker: 00:38:01

Um, I can't a hundred percent get that, you know, cause I do have to deal with

Speaker: 00:38:05

the vast, like wide variety of people.

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But, um, you know, I just, in general, I feel like people don't need to be

Speaker: 00:38:11

jerks and like people are too, the human condition makes us, you know,

Speaker: 00:38:16

Uh, frustrated and angry individuals, uh, as a, as a people, as a human race.

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So it's not about any specific, you know, race, creed, color,

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nationality, religion, whatever it's, it's none of that really matters.

Speaker: 00:38:31

All of us could be nice.

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Um, well, yeah, nice, kind.

Speaker: 00:38:37

Um, you know, all of that's a possibility.

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Um, and.

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Choose not to because they're so wrapped up in what we're doing, but, but yeah,

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so I want to work with people I want to work with and have collected, uh, a really

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great set of people in the ecosystem.

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And not all of them are business partners.

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Some of them are partners to companies.

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Some of them are friends.

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Um, But we all kind of jump in and help each other and we're always

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adding new people to that ecosystem.

Speaker: 00:39:06

Thankfully, rarely have had to kick people out of it.

Speaker: 00:39:08

But, um, but yeah, um, it, so going back to your point, like there's a lot

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of stuff going on, but it feels like it's all interrelated and then the

Speaker: 00:39:19

ecosystem makes it all kind of work without feeling like it's going to fall

Speaker: 00:39:24

Unlike, I mean, I know some people, they're like, hey, I'm going to do,

Speaker: 00:39:26

I got a music thing over here and I got this other thing that's over

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here and I got none of them, like, nothing from 1 relates to the other.

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So, at least in your case.

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That's

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Yeah.

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yeah, you know, you've got, you've got the

Speaker: 00:39:38

tech, you know, the cyber basis for

Speaker: 00:39:42

I, I tried to argue with myself that my homeowners association was somehow

Speaker: 00:39:50

related because it was related to my own sanity in dealing with those people.

Speaker: 00:39:55

Um, and so I joined and was quickly elected by the rest of

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the board members as president.

Speaker: 00:40:02

And that lasted for about two years.

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And I was like, okay, this has got to go.

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This is not interconnected with the rest of my life, um, at all.

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And.

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Discovered, you know, well, here's what the actual like Virginia homeowners,

Speaker: 00:40:19

uh, association act says, and here's all the legalities of what they're doing.

Speaker: 00:40:24

And I'm not, I'm not 1 of the people that like, they have a lot of

Speaker: 00:40:27

problems with, but at the same time, I

Speaker: 00:40:29

you don't.

Speaker: 00:40:29

want everybody else's problems heaped on you on that crap.

Speaker: 00:40:32

Yes.

Speaker: 00:40:33

So I quickly had to drop that 1.

Speaker: 00:40:34

For example, there was another nonprofit.

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I was, I was part of for a while, but it had nothing to do

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with anything else I'm doing.

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So when you look through that list of stuff that I'm up to, and the

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other things, you know, that I'm.

Speaker: 00:40:45

Doing or about to do, um, you know, they're all interrelated.

Speaker: 00:40:50

And so it doesn't take that much more time because I've already kind of

Speaker: 00:40:54

like run into the people in, you know, like while working for the investment

Speaker: 00:40:59

firm or working for the cyber firm, I ran into the people I needed to

Speaker: 00:41:03

introduce to the training firm.

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Right.

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It, it was just kind of like, it all fits together.

Speaker: 00:41:08

who I heard this from, because I actually say this to myself now, if

Speaker: 00:41:11

it's not a hell, yeah, it's a no.

Speaker: 00:41:14

And, uh, you knew I was on the technical advisory committee for

Speaker: 00:41:18

Stafford County schools last year, and they were reworking their policy.

Speaker: 00:41:21

And it was super cool because we had drafted the first AI

Speaker: 00:41:24

policy for a school system in the state of Virginia to the point.

Speaker: 00:41:27

We could see that the governor's team had actually taken.

Speaker: 00:41:30

Our language for their use in what they were rolling out later in

Speaker: 00:41:34

the year because we were so far

Speaker: 00:41:35

ahead and what was then, um, in their reapplication process.

Speaker: 00:41:41

I got hit up to like, can you do the transportation committee?

Speaker: 00:41:44

I mean, the transportation school transportation stuff I'm like doing.

Speaker: 00:41:52

Early access things over here, like, to the point, you know, we were trying to

Speaker: 00:41:55

keep the team together as much as possible for another cycle and it didn't happen.

Speaker: 00:42:01

I didn't get reappointed for whatever reason.

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Never heard back.

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And it was 1 of those things.

Speaker: 00:42:05

I just go through my head.

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I'm like, that was I thought about it.

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I'm like, oh, I can be the team player.

Speaker: 00:42:10

You know, it's community support and all that kind of stuff

Speaker: 00:42:12

that rolls through my head.

Speaker: 00:42:14

And then at the back,

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it was.

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That wasn't a hell yeah, that was me trying to justify this some other way.

Speaker: 00:42:19

It does not fit anything else I'm doing, nor do I want to have to learn.

Speaker: 00:42:24

School walking

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policies are around the school.

Speaker: 00:42:26

That just doesn't, I would probably get irritated for a two year

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commitment if that wasn't there.

Speaker: 00:42:32

I'll wrap,

Speaker: 00:42:33

we'll wrap with this.

Speaker: 00:42:33

Part of a lot of what you do also is with fundraising to

Speaker: 00:42:38

Yep.

Speaker: 00:42:38

So how, um, how do you identify or what are you looking for

Speaker: 00:42:43

for anybody that hears this?

Speaker: 00:42:45

That may be interesting going.

Speaker: 00:42:46

Oh, man, you're, you're doing some bleeding edge stuff with new companies

Speaker: 00:42:49

and things of this nature, um, to get, you know, potential interested

Speaker: 00:42:52

investors into what you're working on.

Speaker: 00:42:55

Yeah.

Speaker: 00:42:56

Um, I have to be careful here just because, and, and, you know,

Speaker: 00:43:03

for the group, for everyone, uh, listening to this, um, SEC

Speaker: 00:43:08

regulates a lot of things, right?

Speaker: 00:43:10

Um, and so they regulate the type of fund that I run, uh, at Riffian investments,

Speaker: 00:43:16

uh, with my partner, Joel over there and my lead, uh, executive Victor.

Speaker: 00:43:21

Um, So we're a 506 B fund, um, which means it has a number of meetings.

Speaker: 00:43:30

I won't bore you with the details, but I can't like market it.

Speaker: 00:43:33

Um, talk about having it.

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Right.

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Um, and so, you know, essentially, uh, in a broad sense, um, we're.

Speaker: 00:43:42

We, my ecosystem, not just Riffian, uh, are investing in, um, cyber and tech.

Speaker: 00:43:49

Um, we look for dynamic leadership, you know, all the, the, the general blocking

Speaker: 00:43:55

and tackling on the business side.

Speaker: 00:43:57

Although sometimes, uh, we're good with taking on a company that doesn't fully

Speaker: 00:44:01

understand the business side because.

Speaker: 00:44:05

I will, or, you know, under the context of just me doing it or, uh, Riffian or,

Speaker: 00:44:11

um, you know, whatever it is, whoever it is I'm working with, uh, we'll get.

Speaker: 00:44:15

Um, we'll get involved and help them understand the business side,

Speaker: 00:44:20

help to teach them, help to provide that level of experience that we've

Speaker: 00:44:23

had, uh, being operators and running businesses and getting them acquired,

Speaker: 00:44:27

et cetera, or acquiring other companies.

Speaker: 00:44:30

Um, so conveniently, um, for me, this is back to that ecosystem thing.

Speaker: 00:44:36

I'm going off and talking to executives.

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I'm going off and going to.

Speaker: 00:44:39

Like tech conferences, like CES going off and going to, um, sitting with, um,

Speaker: 00:44:45

small business, GovCon owner groups, um, you know, all that kind of thing.

Speaker: 00:44:50

And a lot of those folks are getting to the point where they're trying to figure

Speaker: 00:44:52

out like, well, how do they, you know, they're making really good money and

Speaker: 00:44:56

how do they figure out, um, or how do they decide what to invest in and what

Speaker: 00:45:02

kind of opportunities are out there?

Speaker: 00:45:04

So I do a lot of, um, partnership work.

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Um, Personally, for my businesses and with, uh, you know, my fund at Riffian, we

Speaker: 00:45:14

do a lot of partnership activity with, um, angel groups with investment syndicates,

Speaker: 00:45:20

um, with, uh, with a number of different, um, groups that are all kind of looking at

Speaker: 00:45:25

opportunities, vetting them, sharing deal flow, sharing, you know, for invest in

Speaker: 00:45:30

investor speak deal flow means pipeline.

Speaker: 00:45:33

So those of you that know what pipelines are in business, That's what it's

Speaker: 00:45:36

for investors, but, um, we share our pipelines, um, of potential companies to

Speaker: 00:45:40

invest in and kind of what, what, uh, what things we found interesting or didn't.

Speaker: 00:45:47

And so, you know, we're, it, it's great to have that ecosystem, um, you know, to, to

Speaker: 00:45:54

reach out and share new things I'm doing.

Speaker: 00:45:57

I don't directly market fundraising, um, like, or I will

Speaker: 00:46:01

individually market fundraising.

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I won't like publicly,

Speaker: 00:46:04

a beer a cigar.

Speaker: 00:46:05

out.

Speaker: 00:46:06

Yeah.

Speaker: 00:46:07

Well, yes.

Speaker: 00:46:09

One of the rules is for a 506B fund, I have to know you.

Speaker: 00:46:12

I have to get to know you.

Speaker: 00:46:13

Um, so it's individual.

Speaker: 00:46:15

Like, so if we'd never met before, John, and you wanted to invest, um, I'd be

Speaker: 00:46:20

like, oh, okay, well, let's go to dinner.

Speaker: 00:46:21

You know, let's um, you know, a week later, let's go have scars together.

Speaker: 00:46:25

Let's, you know, talk, tell me about your family.

Speaker: 00:46:27

Tell me about your financial situation.

Speaker: 00:46:28

situation.

Speaker: 00:46:28

Tell me about whatever you already have to be an accredited investor.

Speaker: 00:46:32

Um, I won't bore everyone with the details here, but a lot of the

Speaker: 00:46:36

middle class meets the standard for accredited investor at this point.

Speaker: 00:46:40

Um, so to come into a fund like mine, you have to be an accredited investor.

Speaker: 00:46:43

Um, and we do have.

Speaker: 00:46:45

Um, for a fund like, uh, ours, we, we have a pretty low buy in, um, there are

Speaker: 00:46:52

syndicate groups, um, and angel groups that I work with that, you know, for

Speaker: 00:46:56

them, you might be able to invest less, uh, when you come into something and

Speaker: 00:47:00

then, you know, back to your question on fundraising because of the nonprofits.

Speaker: 00:47:04

Also fundraising for three different nonprofits,

Speaker: 00:47:06

Okay.

Speaker: 00:47:06

Mute.

Speaker: 00:47:21

my sphere of influence, if you will.

Speaker: 00:47:23

Um, and that's kind of worked out really well.

Speaker: 00:47:26

People have been really interested in all the different things we have going on.

Speaker: 00:47:30

And then my partner, Joel Griffin on the Riphean Investment side, um,

Speaker: 00:47:34

he and I came together and founded, uh, Riphean Investments late 2020.

Speaker: 00:47:38

Um, and that's where the investment fund is.

Speaker: 00:47:40

Joel has a bunch of other investments, uh, uh, opportunities available in

Speaker: 00:47:45

restaurants and other hospitality and some really interesting things

Speaker: 00:47:49

that, that all fit into our ecosystem.

Speaker: 00:47:51

So it's great to be able to use all of those in the ecosystem that we built.

Speaker: 00:47:56

Um,

Speaker: 00:47:56

in the Fredericksburg area and you want to talk about, Cybersecurity

Speaker: 00:47:59

startups, you go to Rebellion on William street in downtown Fredericksburg,

Speaker: 00:48:03

and then you pop across the

Speaker: 00:48:04

street and go,

Speaker: 00:48:05

talk cybersecurity at the Rifian office.

Speaker: 00:48:08

there you go, there you go, there you go.

Speaker: 00:48:12

Or, you know, go across the street to, uh, Italian food with Consigliere's

Speaker: 00:48:16

of Yeah,

Speaker: 00:48:17

pretty soon, pretty soon the, the, uh, Port Asterio will be open with, uh,

Speaker: 00:48:22

oysters, um, fresh seafood and, uh, uh, there's a micro brew in there too.

Speaker: 00:48:28

So there's paired beers now.

Speaker: 00:48:32

awesome.

Speaker: 00:48:32

Deal

Speaker: 00:48:33

So yeah, we, we run the gamut.

Speaker: 00:48:35

deal flowed.

Speaker: 00:48:36

The deal will be flowing through.

Speaker: 00:48:40

exactly.

Speaker: 00:48:41

cool.

Speaker: 00:48:41

Anybody wants to reach out, what's the best way to, to hit you up to talk about

Speaker: 00:48:45

any of your, any of your many interests?

Speaker: 00:48:51

yeah, I think, um, what's the safest way for me to give that out?

Speaker: 00:48:56

Uh, LinkedIn.

Speaker: 00:48:57

I'm

Speaker: 00:48:57

I was going to say LinkedIn.

Speaker: 00:48:58

When you say it that way, I'm saying LinkedIn.

Speaker: 00:49:00

I'll

Speaker: 00:49:01

because it filters fairly decent, uh, on LinkedIn.

Speaker: 00:49:04

Um, so yeah, hit me up there.

Speaker: 00:49:06

Send me a direct message.

Speaker: 00:49:07

Um, the other, the other thing you can do is, um, I guess the filtering is pretty

Speaker: 00:49:14

good on my, um, immortal group, um, email.

Speaker: 00:49:18

So, uh, info at.

Speaker: 00:49:21

Immortal.

Speaker: 00:49:23

pe.

Speaker: 00:49:26

make sure I put all that stuff in the show notes.

Speaker: 00:49:30

Cool.

Speaker: 00:49:30

I appreciate the time.

Speaker: 00:49:32

Absolutely.

Speaker: 00:49:34

It's fun as always, especially when I get to stay dressed down

Speaker: 00:49:37

after playing outside in the snow,