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Explore your curiosity - Interesting people with fascinating stories.
Life consists of three things:
-The stories we tell others
-The stories others tell us
-The stories we tell ourselves.
Shlomo, welcome aboard to the show. So happy to have you today.
Speaker 2:Great being here. Thank you
Speaker 1:so much for having me. I I wanna start on a personal note. I absolutely love when people kind of support their communities and volunteer. I'd love to start with something a little different. Tell us about the Nova Project.
Speaker 2:Okay. Cool. Nova Project is an Nova is an NGO that supports other NGOs. Many NGOs are trying to do some very good things to the communities where they are and stuff like that. Many of them just challenge, find management challenging.
Speaker 2:Lots of good intentions, but but you need to know how you you need some practice, you know, to make something to bring results. So the Novo project took a huge project. Take 21 NGOs every year. People that are doing amazing things, but kind of struggle. It can be with financials.
Speaker 2:It can be with actually achieving their KPIs that are aimed at.
Speaker 1:So wait. Hold on. Hold on.
Speaker 2:Is this an is
Speaker 1:this an accelerator for NGOs? Is that what you're saying?
Speaker 2:Not at all. Okay. It's an annual project. Okay. They have 21 NGOs career, and they support these 21 NGOs and trying to bring them to to to enrich them with all the know how and with all the processes and and with managing what they're doing to achieve the goals that they're actually aiming at, whether it's financial to support them just staying alive Right.
Speaker 2:Or achieving the the other KPIs.
Speaker 1:And what does the program look like?
Speaker 2:What it looks like. Okay. So it works with the some three large universities. It's an annual course for the students. Very, very challenging one.
Speaker 2:You need to accept not easy to accept, high demand.
Speaker 1:Oh,
Speaker 2:wow. For this course, A very challenging one. And these students have to analyze these NGOs. They separate into groups. Each group get an NCO an NGO with a team leader.
Speaker 2:Team leader is a volunteer who work for a consulting firm, mainly one of the big fours.
Speaker 1:Oh, wow.
Speaker 2:Oh, wow. Okay? So these consultants take their time and and volunteering for and the mentor. Mentor is most cases, it's C level executive who can talk at eye level with NGO, CEOs, sometimes with authorities, with the government, with the city, stuff like that.
Speaker 1:So so, basically, it's almost a consulting project where students are analyzing the organization. You have an actual big four consultant and an experienced c level. This is amazing. I mean, I'm sure there's some awesome success stories. What what has been your personal experience with the program?
Speaker 1:How it's affected the kids and how it affect, I should say, students, young adults, and how it's affected the NGOs? What's, what's your favorite moment in the program?
Speaker 2:Let's start with the two with the students. I love the fact that you asked about the students, about the acupiter. From my perspective, I think it was one of the I think it was legal from my perspective. Because these young people, students, who study very hard and they take a course which is more challenging than as they said, more challenging than any more demanding than any other I love that. University.
Speaker 2:And they don't do it just for the credits. They do it because they believe they're doing something good. And I think it is doing amazing for these people. It's the way to distribute our commitment to the community. They see these guys from the big four consultants who earn nice salaries and work pretty hard.
Speaker 2:And they see these c level executives who don't really need anything else to do, and they work pretty hard as well. And all these people find the time to leave their families and to leave their job and to do something just for the community. And and I think it gives a lot to these students the fact that they're not alone. It kind of building the the the notion that it's it's okay. It's the cheat you should do.
Speaker 1:You're part
Speaker 2:of the good guys once you volunteer and do something for the community that you live in. It's not only you. It's also your
Speaker 1:That's so delightful. What has any of the students come back to you, whatever, three, four, five, ten years later and said, this program had an effect on me, changed my life?
Speaker 2:I heard more twice. I remember twice, then we where we wrapped up the year at the end of the year, kind of separate and list what the students said to me. Twice it happened to me that students said it was the most challenging course we ever had, but it was the reason, it was what we expected to have from university. Because it's extremely challenging, because you don't take business administration courses. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Now you have a case study, You analyze it. And then four very brilliant students within three weeks come to a conclusion exactly what a huge company, a trillion dollar company should have done. That's not how it works in real life. Mhmm. Okay?
Speaker 2:So in real life, you analyze, you build your concept, you deliver it to the NGO, and then you try to implement it. Then you find out that real life don't really work the way you expected it. Because when you start to deliver, you make it to real life. Right. Things happen.
Speaker 2:It was going the way you wanted. And more than one time, you just you built your analysis, your bignutists, and it all kind of collapsed. Yeah. It doesn't really work in real life. And you have to to pull yourself together and to work harder and to make things happen.
Speaker 2:And so it's extremely challenging for these young people. And as they said, it changed your perspective of what actually consulting and what actually management working with real life is like. Oh, wow.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So On one side, I feel, like, ecstatic about that. That's amazing. On the other side, it's not a great testament to how education is done in our universities. I did an MBA with, you know, top university, University of Chicago.
Speaker 1:I gotta tell you, I've posted multiple times that I feel like I've been scammed. But the the good news is that it feels like your program that you participated in, it gave these these young adults justification that, well, maybe the degree was actually a great thing. So maybe you're the light at the end of the tunnel, and it's not a train coming towards us in this case.
Speaker 2:Yeah. It's it's not it's not middle. I but, yeah, I I I met students in universities, they told them, guys, I'm afraid that university is misleading you. In the university, when you get a 100 Yeah. You're great.
Speaker 2:In real life, there is no 100. If you think you're a, then you're wrong. Then you're absolutely out of focus. You don't know what's really gone what's your goals really. In real life, if you don't fail Yeah.
Speaker 2:In no way you can succeed.
Speaker 1:I wanna dive into this. So I'll start with a personal story. My son, he's two grades above his grade level in math. So so he was in sixth grade. He's doing eighth grade math, and, he was tested on eighth grade math.
Speaker 1:And this is called the Idaho test. It's kind of a famous thing. And he got 97 percentile. So only 3% of the people got a better grade than him. He got 9% 97 percentile testing on math two years above his grade.
Speaker 1:Right? So he comes home. He's like, hey, daddy. You know, this is what happened. I don't like you're an idiot.
Speaker 1:Why do I say you're an idiot? Yep. Yep. Yep. So why do I say you're an idiot?
Speaker 1:Now he knows me and he knows my philosophy, so this was not no surprise for him. So his response is to me is this, yes, daddy. You are an idiot too, and I will continue to work hard to cure myself of this ailment for the rest of my life. And this is based on a philosophy that if you think that you are an a plus plus, you have nowhere more to learn, then that's where you fail. But if you have the mindset that even though somebody graded you as 97 percentile two years above your grade, that you still have miles and miles and miles to learn, that's the mindset that you wanna have.
Speaker 1:So when I call my children idiots, they smile. And I wish everybody had that mindset of learning. So I I deeply, deeply appreciate what you did and are doing with Project Nova. I wanna change the topic a little bit. You look at your employees, right, and you're in the hiring process, What are the values?
Speaker 1:What are the things? What is the fires that you wanna see burning in this potential prospective employee to which you're, yep. I'm gonna hire that person.
Speaker 2:Curiosity. Above all.
Speaker 1:Why above all? Like, that that's I want you to say more. But before we get to the other ones, why above all? Like, wouldn't you want them to be actually really good at what they're doing? This is the hard part, the hard questions part of the interview.
Speaker 2:For it's not a hard question. It's it's it's, I'm I should say for me, it's pretty trivial. When I recruit employees, mostly high level managers, tell them only one favor on personal level, I'm asking for you. The day that you will believe that you truly now know everything you should know in your job, please quit.
Speaker 1:Love that. You actually say this
Speaker 2:to your executives? Always. Always. Always. Always.
Speaker 2:Because that will be the day that someone else in another organization who don't know all the things they should know would bypass us.
Speaker 1:A, that's absolutely delight delightful. I've never heard that before. Curiosity. What else?
Speaker 2:Commitment. I I love people who are really who are committed to things. Don't count the hours. Don't work just for the salary. Just really want to work, want to do.
Speaker 2:So it doesn't really matter what the reason is. It can be because of the goal that we are serving, because of our vision, or just because you love to program. I don't really care why.
Speaker 1:As long as it's something that is that motivates you. Let me play the devil's advocate here. Right? The evil CEO wants their employees to work as hard as possible. That's not exactly what you're saying.
Speaker 1:Why is this level of commitment and hard work, why is it important both for the company, obviously, but also for the employee? What does it create? Give us a little bit more color here.
Speaker 2:That's a challenging question.
Speaker 1:I can tell you a story about myself. Okay. Give you a moment to think there. I'm working my ass off for my current company. It's a we build drones, and we serve law enforcement agencies, and I remember twenty years ago I was working for a company called Celebrite and we were also serving law enforcement, and I actually built the first forensic device And, it was an idea of Adi, the CEO from America, and and Ron and I built that device.
Speaker 1:We programmed the first version. I hired the first team. I hired the guys that hacked the Apple phone. Every single person I hired, I shared the following story. The Metropolitan Police in The UK was able to catch a, pedophile who was molesting a 13 year old girl.
Speaker 1:There was a six second recording of the molesting. He deleted that recording, and yet our device, the Celebrite UFED, was able to reverse engineer, extract that. Because when you delete something, you delete just the first, it's still on the file system. We were able to extract that, encrypt it, give it as evidence to the courts. He was put away.
Speaker 1:So I worked my ass off because I believed in that mission, and every single person that I hired worked their ass off because they believed in that mission. So I I think that maybe hard work for me in that organization and in the organization that I'm in right now, it's not the requirement. It's the symptom. So that's how I see your comment. Well, how do you kind of see it from your perspective?
Speaker 2:First, I highly appreciate it. I like your story, truly. And if it's okay on your end, they love to use it.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. Absolutely. I don't have stock in Celebrite anymore. I mean, they should probably give me That company went when we sold the company, it was $80,000,000 I still remember, you know, the smile Ron had on his face. He was the CEO.
Speaker 1:He had a good percentage in the company. Had this amazing smile on his face the day that the money cleared into his bank account. But it's a billion dollar company nowadays and that was
Speaker 2:I like
Speaker 1:I triggered that. Like I did the pivot because I did the research. So I'm like, I had a big part in this. So I feel proud about that. But yeah, no stock anymore.
Speaker 1:So they should they should send me some. You should.
Speaker 2:Well, I think as I told you, I expect people to be enthusiastic about what you're doing and to be very committed to what you're doing Right. No matter what it is, as I told you. Some would be because of the vision, because we are doing doing good and doing some very important we're going to save some people, which we'll discuss probably later. Save people lives from time to time Yeah. Actually.
Speaker 2:But I don't really care why. It can be just because you love coding. It can be just I I use the word for core points. You can just be a a a clerk or an administrative whatever. I don't really care.
Speaker 1:Love what you do. Yeah. There's no small I
Speaker 2:don't like I I don't like this give and take. You're giving me $5 so I should Leave it with all your heart. It's it's good for everyone. It's good for the organization, but it's also good for you as a person. If you're in a give and take situation with anyone, I mean, you're in kind of you're in kind of it's it's war.
Speaker 2:It's combat. Yeah. You know? Yeah. You gave me war.
Speaker 2:I gave him good. Now let's do the math. Let's do it's it's bad energy for you. You know what? Mike give everything you can, and I, as an organization, will do my best to to give you anything I can, but let's not do this math.
Speaker 1:I mean, shouldn't this be so simple? Like, you should do a job that you love and enjoy and wanna do with all your heart because that's gonna make you happy? Like, isn't it as simple as that?
Speaker 2:That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it.
Speaker 1:So I I wanna talk about scams. Talk about scams. Yeah. Bank scams. And it's a topic that you're have become quite an expert in.
Speaker 1:So, you know, before we talk about and keep me honest here, Leprechaun. We don't really talk about companies and in the podcast, but we do talk about the problem sets. So I wanna talk about your current problem. Who are you serving? What are the customers' pains?
Speaker 1:And if you can, give me an example. Like, what have you seen your customers basically tell you horror stories?
Speaker 2:Okay. So first, let's let's discuss. We are serving banks. We sell to banks and to insurance companies. We are saving their customers.
Speaker 1:Oh, hold on. Saving is a strong word. You gotta you gotta explain that.
Speaker 2:Let's start with the customers. With the end, who's the one who is not paying us, who is not aware to our existence at all. Like the story that you told that this young girl knew nothing about Celebrite. Okay, so this is our position. So let's talk about scams.
Speaker 2:Let's talk about social engineering scams. It's something that started actually start to explode around twenty twenty one, some four years ago, late COVID times. Where a criminal organization kind of discovered the perfect crime. The perfect crime is instead of hacking into customer accounts, bank accounts, or phishing for their credentials and then logging into their accounts and stealing their money. The perfect crime is just making simple phone calls and asking, hey, Ari, would you mind transferring your funds to my account?
Speaker 2:More than 1,000,000 Americans a year say yes.
Speaker 1:Okay. This is this is stupid. Like, we've all like, I you know, you get the prince from Nigeria and the the, oh, I've got a casket of gold that I need to transfer out of Africa. And I I'm always like, who falls for this? And then the other day, I'm talking to a CEO who tells me that a friend of his, another CEO, was responded in an email, oh, I can't meet tomorrow.
Speaker 1:I'm busy helping transfer a a casket of gold out of Africa. And this guy, he's like a top security guy. Right, Len? He's like so he calls up his friend right away and like, dude, you're being scammed. Like, how do smart intelligent people fall?
Speaker 1:And clearly it's happening all the time. It's a big industry. How do they fall for this?
Speaker 2:Extremely sophisticated manipulating techniques that these criminal organizations are using. I'll give you some examples. For example, phone call, 10PM at night. Hello, Harry, we are from your bank fraud prevention department. Everything is okay.
Speaker 2:Relax. We just want to to ask. Did you just try to transfer $7,000 from your account to this specific bank in Uzbekistan? And you said, no, I didn't. They said everything is under control.
Speaker 2:No worry. We're holding. Don't try to log into your account. It's under control. We're moving it to to FBI investigation.
Speaker 2:And a bit later, you get a phone call from the FBI. And this guy, of course, he he would go to infinity if you want, and you would see him in the FBI and stuff like that. And you should not log in to your account. And then you they can keep you updated from time to time what's going on. And then you get an urgent call saying, okay, the bank couldn't stop them.
Speaker 2:They're logging into your account. You need right now, at this moment, to transfer all your funds to an account controlled by the FBI. We're going to save your money there. Do it now. Okay?
Speaker 2:And this is only one of we've heard tens, and probably there are more horrible stories. It can be invest this is impostor scam. It can be investment scam. We have a great opportunity. And this great opportunity can be that you you met Facebook or LinkedIn, a group of someone who is connected to mister Bill Eckman himself, and he works with him and he advises him.
Speaker 2:And now we somehow become part of a group that enjoyed what he knows from working directly with Bill Eckman. And of course, over time, you you hear people in this group strong the the vast amounts of money that they did with the advice of this guy, and and you become part of it, and then they manipulate you into investing in the in the earth accounts. And it can be Roman scam. In Roman scam, once again, we heard people highly intelligent, highly intelligent, educated, very successful people who fell prey because there's extremely sophisticated, these guys, in how they manipulate people. And and to make things worse, it's we now understand that it is easier to deceive people than to make people believe they've been deceived.
Speaker 2:So in many cases, the bank would call you and say, hey, this is fraud. And you say, no, it's not fraud. And you would go to your bank and you would sign a paper saying, I authorized this transaction and it's not fraud. So so this is what we're dealing with.
Speaker 1:Man, these this is the long con. Right? These confidence men and maybe women as well are playing the long con. It's you need to be so smart, so intelligent, so technologically savvy. Wouldn't they just do the work?
Speaker 1:Like, wouldn't it be better for them just to provide the service and be honest? Like, this is so much work going into these cons. How does it make sense? And you're breaking the law. You're going to have the feds and and who else come after you.
Speaker 1:Like, just do the work. Like, how does this make sense?
Speaker 2:Okay. There was an article in the six months ago in the AP news under the headline, I think it was scammers are scamming billions from Americans every year. And worse, most of them are getting away with it. Oh my lord. And the reason that most of them are getting away with it is that most of this crime is not conducted from within The United States.
Speaker 2:Mainly from Asia, Myanmar, some places in The Philippines. And it's the world's largest criminal organization now running the shoulder because it seems to be more profitable from their on their end than other crimes they used to work with. And as I told you, it's it's kind of the perfect crime. So it exploded. It's only a few years to more than 50% of a reported fraud in The United States Wow.
Speaker 2:According to the Federal Trade Committee data.
Speaker 1:So okay. Let's go to the horror stories now. If that wasn't bad enough, let's make it worse. More than two years ago, something wonderful and something terrible happened, and it was the same thing. ChatGPT came along, and the criminal this is not individual hackers.
Speaker 1:These are now criminal organizations, organized crime. This is governments. This is basically hostile governments. They are now taking CHAP GPT, or really, it's a different LLM. They're using it locally in the dark web.
Speaker 1:They have removed all guardrails so it will do whatever it's told, and they're now simulating real people, sending out emails. They have support desks. They have productized criminal software to be sold as a SaaS service so the young and aspiring criminal can commit fraud or phishing attacks or whatever. And then if you're a young and aspiring criminal, can call customer success and be like, hey. I'm trying to defraud this person.
Speaker 1:The software, can I do this and this? And then they'll answer and tell you, hey. This is what you should do. Most people don't know about the story that I've just told, unless you're in the security industry like yourself. This is getting scary.
Speaker 1:Like, the criminals, it feels, are light years ahead of us. So one is feel free to share any story that you have. But how do we catch up?
Speaker 2:Okay. To be honest, it's challenging and yes, we do have a problem. And as you said, these guys are well financed, have great technologies. To make things a bit nicer for this conversation. Tell from time to time, I tell my investors that we're fighting guys who are in a better position than I am.
Speaker 2:Because when I want to sell my my product to bank, have some AT meetings there and they have to approve it and check for that yet. And this is a story that they tell my investors. These guys tell their investors, give me a name for bank and I'll give you their money. And so yes, and they advance, rapidly advance. But it's not just the technical story.
Speaker 2:It's getting story gets even worse. They make real phone calls. Illegal call centers are making billions of phone calls to American citizens every year according to official data. It is conducted mostly from the as I told you, from Asia, Myanmar, places like this, by world's largest criminal organizations. How do they make billions of free phone calls?
Speaker 2:And what going on there is that they have they're now dealing with human trafficking.
Speaker 1:Oh my Lord.
Speaker 2:Estimations are there, there's currently more than 100,000 people being trapped there and they are forced to make these phone calls. Lord. So it's horrible.
Speaker 1:Shlomo, being being
Speaker 2:exposed worse. Yes.
Speaker 1:Being being exposed to really the worst sides of humanity, do you sometimes come home and and just think to yourself, like, the devil is real, and it's in the hearts of these men and women?
Speaker 2:Yes. The devil is real, and it's the heart of, some of these people. And, from time to time, we meet when we actually meet real stories, not just the data. When we stump they're horrible, just horrible. I mean, it make people really pissed off in our office.
Speaker 2:I see even engineers, which don't really have, just have to code. When they get involved with these stories, they just get pissed off because it's it's really it's it's horrible. No other words. Yes. And we are and other organizations are trying to do what we can to save these good people.
Speaker 1:What's your call to action? So if you had to ask, you know, every single bank, every single person at home listen to us, what would be your call to action? What should they do?
Speaker 2:Let's start with the end consumer, and then with the bank. End consumer, unfortunately, I would recommend anyone to do things. I I I hate I'm saying it. It's not my nature. But unfortunately, don't trust anyone.
Speaker 2:I keep telling my mother, if you get a phone call from me or from one of your grandchildren saying, hey, mom, and you see us on video, and it's us. And I said, hey. I just need I got stuck. I just need you help me with your credit card. Oh, my.
Speaker 2:Hang off on your grandchildren or your children and call us. For anybody that's not following Unfortunately, it's not good for humanity. It's not good for people to think this way. I rather be living in a world where people trust each other. Unfortunately, these guys forced us.
Speaker 2:And because of the magnitude, it's not rare. It's not something that it's not going to hit no. It may hit any each one of us.
Speaker 1:Okay. Targeting targeting senior citizens is just evil. But for anybody who didn't follow what Shlomo just said, they are creating digital avatars of real people with their real voices and they are attacking their family. Like that's that's what explains, right, that's the technology that is making your grandchild call you. It sounds like your grandchild.
Speaker 1:And it's like, hey, I'm stuck, grandma. Can you help me? And then, hey, can you give me your credit card? Like, that is
Speaker 2:You can see him on a video call. And, that's your grandchild. That's your kid. Yes.
Speaker 1:Lord, help us.
Speaker 2:We just need some help.
Speaker 1:So what should we do? Just call grandma back to her so that, hey. Hang on. To call back.
Speaker 2:Right? Hang Call call him.
Speaker 1:Call your grandma. That's the call grandma. No.
Speaker 2:No. No. If you're grandma, hang the call Yeah. And say, I love you. I'm going to call you in a second.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Hang the call. Call him.
Speaker 1:Sorry. Sorry. Call your grandchild. Yeah. That's right.
Speaker 2:That's right. What is your grandchild? Yes.
Speaker 1:Hang up the phone Just and call your
Speaker 2:grandchild to make sure that it's really him.
Speaker 1:Wonderful. So if grandma is calling you
Speaker 2:Who is your bank? So is anyone who approached
Speaker 1:you on
Speaker 2:their they initiated the call.
Speaker 1:I love it. So just call your grandchildren, talk to grandma, call her back. She asked for your credit card. I love that. What about the banks?
Speaker 1:What about the financial institutions?
Speaker 2:Okay. Financial institutions, I must say, are doing a lot of effort. Now it's being regulate becoming regulated, but they did a lot of effort to protect their customers before regulation. So they spend a fortune, they invest a fortune in fraud investigators and in fraud detection systems and stuff like that. They are doing all they can to protect their system.
Speaker 2:And in many cases, they even reimbursed, compensated customers who lost money to fraud despite the fact that the bank had nothing to do with it. In many cases, it happened. So I do appreciate the bank approach. And now it's been regulated. In The UK and Australia, it's been regulated starting October 24.
Speaker 2:In The United States, it's about to be regulated. The drafts are there, ready to be signed. So banks will have to reimburse customers who fell prey to such type of fraud. That's very interesting because let let's give it a second thought. It's the first time I I spent two decades in the banking industry.
Speaker 2:Never seen such regulation. Because once again, the story is a customer. Right. Me, for example, logged into my bank account from my own device using my own credentials. Nothing happened.
Speaker 2:Didn't cancel my my fingerprint authorization, transfer funds. I believed I was doing something good, something okay. I invested or I sent it to my new loved one
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:My funds. And then when I found out it was a scam, the bank would have to reimburse me. Wow. Wow. That's a big
Speaker 1:There's only one question that is scripted in this show, and it's a hard question because it's personal. Shlomo, if you had to go back to 20 year old young Shlomo, what advice would you give him?
Speaker 2:Wow. I don't know. Probably be yourself. Stick to who you are. I mean and don't feel uncomfortable when you when you hear from people surrounding you that your way is going to lead you to nowhere.
Speaker 2:Stay you, don't try to follow what you're expected to do. Stay innovative, and that's it.
Speaker 1:Shlomo, you have been an absolute delight. Thank you so much for joining our show today. I appreciate you truly, and I appreciate the work that you're doing. We don't do this, but since this is such an important, I think, work that you're doing, we're gonna mention the company. Keep me honest here.
Speaker 1:It's Leprechaun. That's the the pronunciation. And it's got a really cool logo. It's like a green hat, kind of like a leprechaun, and a thumb and a thumbtick. I thought that was delightful.
Speaker 1:Thank you for the work that you're doing. Thank you for your service to your community, and thank you for coming on the show today.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much, Harry. Real pleasure chatting with you. Thank you so much.