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Technology isn't built by companies. It's built by people.
Random Access Memories (RAM) is where technology gets personal. Host Jake Bernardes sits down with founders, CISOs, engineers, operators, investors, and community builders to explore the stories behind the products, the pivots, the failures, and the moments that shaped their careers.
Whether we're talking cybersecurity, AI, startups, leadership, or life outside the office, every conversation asks the same question:
What shaped the person behind the technology?
New episodes every week.
Presented by Hubscale.
JAKE B.: We are here for another episode
of Random Access Memories with my dear
friend Adam. This is gonna be an
interesting one.
He is one of the most interesting and
thought-provoking people I know.
So we'll see where it goes. So firstly,
thank you for being here. Of course.
I'm gonna start the same way that I've
always started, which is introduce
yourself, tell us your hero, and tell me
your hobby.
ADAM A.: So my name is Adam Arellano.
I'm a field CTO at Harness, which is a
platform and security company.
I grew up in North Carolina. One of my
heroes was —
ADAM A.: I think my little brother.
ADAM A.: And I'll say my little brother
because he watched the rest of us older
kids struggle through some really
interesting stuff in life, took notes, and
then didn't make the same mistakes, which
I don't think the older three of us were
even capable of thinking about. We were
just gonna go and do and make mistakes.
ADAM A.: And he was smart enough to learn
from doing that.
So I think that that makes him my hero.
And then my hobby right now is trying to
consume as much science fiction as
possible until the next Dungeon Crawler
Carl books come out,
ADAM A.: because I really wanna know
what's gonna happen next, but I have to
kill the time until it gets there.
JAKE B.: And you told us the interesting
of the day that you listen to all your
books in the car without driving.
ADAM A.: Yeah, that's true.
So my 10-year-olds and I are listening
through the Bobiverse series, which is
another science fiction series.
And we're wrapped up in the second book,
and so we don't get enough time in the car
to actually listen and make progress.
So every once in a while, we'll go into
the car, listen to the book, because
that's our little safe space where we can
concentrate.
JAKE B.: I love that. That's cool.
There's a million things I wanna talk
about, but I'm gonna try and distil it
into two or three for today.
And I think one is around personal
branding, personal image.
The second is around embracing diversity
in forms.
And the third is around the industry and
the balance of technical versus salesy
versus whatever that means, right? As a
field CTO, you're in that world very much.
So let's start with the top.
JAKE B.: How do you stand out in a world
where everyone wants to stand out?
ADAM A.: I mean, visually. Yeah, okay. I
do stand out a little bit.
JAKE B.: Is that intentional to stand out?
ADAM A.: Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah,
completely.
I think there are choices that I make
every day where I could be louder visually
than I am, or I can be quieter.
And I generally tend to go for the louder
option.
So for example, this year, I have two
kilts that I love.
JAKE B.: Okay, yeah, I've seen already.
ADAM A.: And I decided that I really
wanted to be in a kilt.
And so I decided I was gonna wear a kilt
for two days.
I also put on some heels and those killed
my feet, which is why I'm not wearing them
today. So that choice was both painful but
effective because it's the only
person I saw in a kilt.
ADAM A.: But interestingly, the other part
about me that I think stands out, that is
less intentional and more intrinsic to who
I am, is that I'm a
humanist more than anything.
And my background in social work, my
background as a leader from a very, very
young age, isn't the most common thing to
see in the security industry.
ADAM A.: Not a lot of people have put
actual academic study time into leadership
itself as opposed to just management.
JAKE B.: Let's double click on both those
things.
I think there's an interesting paradox
there.
Like the first one, this idea around
standing out visually by intent, not
everyone is gonna wanna go in a kilt,
heels and red hair.
So how do people find a way to make
themselves stand out, maybe early in their
careers or as they wanna get picked up,
but without going the way that you've gone
because they might not want to?
ADAM A.: Yeah, and I don't think I could
have early in my career, more when I was
in uniform, so that wasn't gonna work out.
But early in my career, before I had the
credibility that I have now, I don't think
I would have been taken seriously if I had
been dressing as loudly and
being as loud as I am.
ADAM A.: But I feel it imperative to me
that I, now that I have credibility, that
I am like this, because there are other
weird queer people out there that wanna
express themselves but don't because of
work.
But I think for those who really wanna
stand out in their careers,
ADAM A.: you have to try to follow a
different path or create your own path
more than follow somebody else's.
ADAM A.: It's effective to kind of do the
Ernst and Young thing, then go to pen
testing and then go into the SOC and
things like that.
That is a path, but you really have to
find inside yourself what's different and
capitalise on it. And I think that that's
the thing that a lot of people miss.
ADAM A.: They look for paths that are
well-worn instead of trying to find out
what their particular mind and skillset is
gonna bring to the industry.
JAKE B.: Since you very much have embraced
– this is who you are, like F you.
JAKE B.: And how much of that is because
you want to give other people the feeling
that it's okay to do that.
So how much of it is like you actually
being who you are versus you making a
statement to enable other people? Like how
much is diverse for diversity sake?
ADAM A.: Oh yeah. And you know, I've
thought a lot about this since then.
I actually realised through an interesting
experience that we probably won't have
enough time to get into that I'm actually
talking to my past self.
JAKE B.: Expound, let's take some time to
expound how you're
talking to your past self.
ADAM A.: Yeah, and so like had I seen
someone like me in a position of
respectability and authority or whatever
you want to call it,
ADAM A.: had I seen somebody who was able
to be openly weird and queer and not
conform to gender norms and things like
that, my past self would have then had the
language and the visibility to know that
that's actually what I was feeling inside.
ADAM A.: And I didn't have that.
So like in the nineties when I was growing
up, the whole idea of being gender fluid
or being genderqueer wasn't a thing. At
best it was a joke in Ace Ventura, right?
And so like, I didn't even know it was
there.
And so a lot of what I've been doing, I
think, is actually talking to my past self
of just letting people know that this is
out there. This is okay.
ADAM A.: This is something you can be. And
I feel a little bit driven to do that.
Kind of diversity for the sake of
diversity, driven to like be out there so
that other people can see that it is and
it's okay.
JAKE B.: The second part is harder because
you said like, I am who I am because of my
study, my background, my different
approach of looking at things, which I
totally get, but how does someone develop
and show that? Like that's the hard part.
Physically manifesting your differences is
very easy, but like showing externally
your intrinsic or internal differences is
very, very hard.
ADAM A.: Yeah, I don't think the answer is
going to be standard for anybody because
different people are averse to risk in
different ways.
And I don't mean like cybersecurity risk.
I'm talking about like personal risk,
brand risk and things like that.
I, there literally is a malfunctioning
piece of my brain that has
removed my fear of risk.
ADAM A.: And so I actually don't have a
survival response that's
very effective anymore.
And that's actually been there for
probably 10 years and
I wasn't aware of it.
And so I don't feel fear of kind of doing
weird, crazy things because I think, oh,
this will probably work out, but not
everybody has that. And so
ADAM A.: for somebody who's struggling
with that, I think it's to find the small
moments, like paint the first fingernail
or wear the different shirt once.
ADAM A.: For me, I remember in high
school, for spirit week or whatever it
was, I put on a cheerleader skirt the
first time, happiest day of my life to
that point, and then took it off. I'm
like, oh, that was weird, but okay,
ADAM A.: back to being heterosexual and
straight. Let's go.
That was like, it was the funniest thing.
ADAM A.: And I look at pictures of me back
then and I'm like, what in the world?
If I just had language for that.
But I think for any individual to find out
where you actually sit, you have to think
about it. You have to actually explore it.
JAKE B.: Do you think as an industry, we
are better or worse than the average?
I feel like you go to like an RSA, a Black
Hat, a DEF CON, a BSides, and like people
are liberated in being who they wanna be.
I feel like we are quite progressive as an
industry, but then maybe I'm wrong because
then I walk around the floor and everyone
looks the same in like
sports coats and blazers.
ADAM A.: Yeah, but we're at RSA.
Like Black Hat and BSides are like the
epitome of the vanguard of cybersecurity.
Those are the people that are actually
doing good things, not just
trying to make money.
And so the people at BSides and at Black
Hat — I don't know if Black Hat is getting
there, but they're actually there to do
security things and they're the vanguard
of expertise and the vanguard of hacking
and things like that.
That's where the weirdness can shine very
easily.
But you get to RSA and RSA is great.
We love the RSA conference, but it's also
like Dreamforce
basically for security nerds.
It's like, this is a very corporate, money
to money conversation, not expert
to money conversation.
JAKE B.: Do you think that's a problem in
the industry now?
There's so much money floating around
cybersecurity, it's become driven by money
and less by where its roots and origins
came? Are we losing our souls?
ADAM A.: No, I don't think we had one to
begin with.
ADAM A.: It's the whole punk rock
mentality, right?
To be like a true punk band, you don't
sign with a label, you play the grungy
underground, you never make a dime. Or you
go Green Day and you start that way.
And then when you do sign a label, you get
big.
And it's the question of the artist versus
the art.
ADAM A.: Is it more important that
everybody hear your music and
that you become famous?
Or is it more important that you stay true
to these weird core values of just
playing underground?
JAKE B.: Is a big personal branding lesson
going back to our last conversation in
that statement, right?
That you have to find that balance
between, like you do, right?
You work for a very large tech company and
you have an image of kind of be what you
want. But it's, I reckon to a large
degree, it's also tempered at times.
Where you'd like to be and where you are,
because you found that spot where you want
to be Green Day.
You want to be in a place that you can
influence, maintain some
of your individuality.
But if you go too punk, you're never in a
place that anything you ever say gets
heard and never really matters.
ADAM A.: Right, right. Did we talk about
the painting behind me last time?
It's more noble to be effective than to be
righteous. I think that's the question.
Is like, do you want to be the righteous
punk rocker that only does underground?
Or do you want to be effective punk rocker
that actually gets the message and the
music to everybody? That's the big
question.
ADAM A.: Like you have to — I don't even
think it's a balance.
I think that you have to give up the
purity to be able to actually be effective
in the industry.
JAKE B.: Is that true in that respect too?
Like you are from a technical background,
I am too.
Both of us now sit in much more commercial
type roles.
Do you think the same thing rings true
there?
That to truly influence anything, you have
to kind of sit in the money chairs or in
the hats where you can influence
commercial cycles because that's
where things matter.
So you have to kind of step back a little
bit from what you want to say and how you
think and your technical love to go and
say, this is how I can actually
change and impact things?
ADAM A.: I think there are more people who
consider themselves technical
than who are technical.
JAKE B.: That's interesting, tell me about
that.
ADAM A.: Yeah, so there are, especially
those of us that are farther along in our
careers, our ability at some point in our
careers to get our hands on a keyboard and
make broad technical decisions or
configure things or find or threat hunt
and things like that, our ability to do
that is as old as our career and is as
worthless today as the technology we used
at that time.
JAKE B.: Oh, it's like I said, you grew up
doing deep fakes and social engineering
attacks that took me days and now you can
do it on your phone in 30 seconds.
So the skills I have are absolutely
meaningless.
ADAM A.: Right, right, and so yes, we came
from a technical background but I think
most security people farther along in
their careers like to think of themselves
as technical and they are technical in
2006, but it's not 2006.
JAKE B.: Is it possible to maintain being
technical and also go up a chain of
leadership and influence?
ADAM A.: No, no, I think it's possible to
maintain the illusion inside yourself that
you're technical but it's impossible to
actually be immersed in technical things
all day, every day and still handle larger
responsibilities.
JAKE B.: So you wanna handle larger
responsibilities, you wanna be in the
field, you wanna influence, you wanna
harness and their growth patterns, they're
their future. What is the most important
skill?
If it's not technology skills, because
you're from 2006, what are the skills you
need to have to pair with your technical
background and your individuality and
branding and stuff?
ADAM A.: At that point it becomes
communication.
Can you distil the things that you've
learned and the things that you're trying
to do into a concise and simple enough
message that people who maybe don't have
your same background or not as technical
understand the importance of it?
JAKE B.: The idea of true intelligence is
explaining something to a stupid person.
ADAM A.: Yes, which you did very well just
now.
JAKE B.: So that comes back to your
anthropological background and the fact
that you have a study of people, skills,
how to interact with, how to counsel
people, right? Your background is almost
in therapy to a large degree.
ADAM A.: Oh no, it very much is, yeah.
JAKE B.: So that skill set is inherent in
you and you paired it with some technical
knowledge and then got to a point where
that became more relevant and useful
again. And so like the stuff that wasn't
useful now is much more useful currently.
ADAM A.: Yeah.
JAKE B.: But let's say people came from a
more traditional path, you said, they went
and did the pen test or the SOC or like
the GLC analyst, everyone built their way
up through the career.
They probably haven't developed those or
didn't have that historical educational
background. How do you develop those
skills?
If the core skills for you are
communication, ability to distil a
message, ability to speak to a different
audience, but I didn't have the education
training you did, how do I learn those
things?
ADAM A.: Yeah, I mean, it's the same way
that you would dive into a certification
for Cisco routers back in the day. You
just have to start.
JAKE B.: Where do you start?
I can tell you where I started learning
about Cisco routers, I couldn't tell you
where I started learning about how to
distil messages to people.
ADAM A.: Oh yeah, no, I mean, I always
tell people podcasts and blogs are the
most relevant because they're the most
recent.
Books that are longstanding, things like
Work Rules by Laszlo Bock, things like
that, Assaf Keren's new book —
JAKE B.: It's in my bag over there, I just
interviewed him the other day about it.
ADAM A.: But yeah, so books like that will
give you that kind of starting journey,
but then you have to think about it. It
has to be on your mind.
You have to interact with people for an
entire day and at the end of the day, go
back and think, how could I have done that
differently or better based on what I
learned in this book, podcast, or blog?
JAKE B.: Like, it almost becomes, in the
same way that we study and we learn
technology, we play, we sit on Claude
Code, we try and build things, we iterate,
we see why it doesn't work.
You're basically giving the same approach
to people.
You try things, you find out that you
pissed that guy off, that probably wasn't
a great idea, or she didn't understand
what the hell you were on about, so you
should probably figure out how you explain
that and iterate and practise until you
make things work.
It's almost like a technical study of how
you interact with humans.
ADAM A.: Yes, because at the end of the
day, what you're doing is you're creating
pathways in your brain, you're creating
permanent learning in your brain that only
comes through thought, study, and
practise, and so it's technical or not,
it's the same actual process.
JAKE B.: Is that the logical route, or is
that inherent and specific to you
or to certain people?
I always try and give people an
opportunity when we talk to work out what
their career path or their journey is.
Who sits there and goes, you know what, I
should be a field CTO or a field CISO, and
who sits there and goes, oh, hell, that's
never gonna work for me?
ADAM A.: I mean, there can only be so many
redheaded weirdos who aren't great at
finite task execution, but are really good
at communicating the big picture.
You can only have so many of those on a
team before the team just turns into a
bunch of futurists talking about how AI
will change the tennis
shoe industry forever.
What you should do is find your niche in a
group, and then search for people who are
not like you to fill out the rest of that
group.
JAKE B.: That's so fascinating, because
the often lesson we're told in life,
right, is to find people like you.
ADAM A.: Oh no, I think that's the biggest
mistake.
JAKE B.: And yours is like, find somewhere
that you stand out, that you complement a
group, but that you are not assimilated
into being everybody else in that group.
So that's really a lesson to kind of find
where you can add value.
Because if you're different from the rest,
you can do something which they can't do.
Whereas if you find your like-minded
people, well, you're all the same.
So what's your actual USP at that point?
ADAM A.: Yeah, and you'll be agreeing
violently with each other on a point while
missing, you know, half the picture.
One of my favourite working relationships
I ever had was with this Marine that he
just is like a serial certification
person, which is usually a red flag, like,
oh, got so many certifications, like, how
could you possibly?
ADAM A.: But it's actually because he was
not only learning technology, he wanted to
prove it, and it was just his little
Pokemon collection of
certifications he wanted to get.
But he had a really hard time making big
decisions because he would get
lost in the details.
ADAM A.: But he and I together actually
ran an entire cybersecurity shop for a
4,000 person organisation by ourselves.
And it was because I kept the big picture
rolling.
ADAM A.: I kept him feeling safe and
productive while he was doing a lot of the
technical lift and didn't have to spend
time with the other silliness.
And it was an extremely effective pair.
I've tried to work with him again for
almost a decade now because that feeling
of having such a good symbiosis was so
good.
JAKE B.: You think disagreement's
necessary?
ADAM A.: Always, 100%.
ADAM A.: If you can't disagree
passionately and then work together on the
solution, then you're missing part of it.
There's some part of the equation that's
not apparent to you because
you're not disagreeing.
JAKE B.: It's interesting.
I think, like, we have some really deep
conversations or borderline counselling at
times, I feel. But we fundamentally
disagree on many things.
ADAM A.: Oh yeah.
JAKE B.: Particularly around religion and
various things.
We fundamentally have very polar opposite
views of how we see the world.
But I think that that's probably what I
like is that I like to be challenged
because it makes me question some of my
intrinsic views about whether I'm right or
wrong. But also it makes, when I know I'm
right, it makes me question why I'm right.
ADAM A.: You know what's interesting about
that is that to effectively explain
concepts to other people is not enough to
understand the concept and know
how you think about it.
Actually, the key to it is understanding
how someone else is thinking and feeling
in the moment so that they can actually
receive that information.
That's more important than your
understanding.
JAKE B.: And that's a really core skill
that most people don't get because most
people open their mouth and not their
ears.
And if they can see my message isn't
resonating, my message isn't getting there
— I should say it louder. It's not even
just that, right?
It's more emotionally intelligent people
who will go, let me change my message.
Let me change the way I'm saying it. Let
me change the volume, the pitch.
Let me change the analogy. Let me try to
relate it.
But the reality is they're not actually
stepping like that old school saying of
getting in someone's shoes.
They're not actually stepping and saying,
why is that person not receiving my
message? It's why am I not giving it in
the right way?
They're not receiving it in the right way.
And that means you have to understand how
they are coming to the conversation.
Like, what are they bringing with them?
JAKE B.: anything that I should have asked
or that you want to say or that you have a
time to tell people who are trying to
learn in our profession what they should
do next. One core distilled thought, skill
or tip.
ADAM A.: I would tell you now, something
that I taught a good friend of mine
recently is that your emotional or anxiety
driven concern for what you're trying to
accomplish is working against you.
The sooner you stop caring about success
and start caring about yourself while
participating in that process, the better
off you'll be.
And I'll say a little bit more about that.
ADAM A.: Of course you want to succeed,
but the more anxiety you feel about
success, the worse you're going to do.
So you have to let go of that, do
everything you can to be successful.
And then what happens, happens and you
have to just let go and understand that
you actually can't control the entire
world.
JAKE B.: My days, that might've just been
something I needed to hear personally.
Gosh, you do always mess with my head.
JAKE B.: That is a deep thought, but I
think one that's really relevant that I
will unpack in a short video summarising
this.
I think there was some interesting
concepts in the fact that we — and I
definitely are always chasing control and
success, but what you
chase you'll never catch.
ADAM A.: That is correct.
JAKE B.: Interesting.
Right, I'm going to finish with a question
from my eight year old daughter Izzy,
which is what we're doing at the moment.
She gave me a whole bunch of questions and
this one is so appropriate for you that it
almost hurts me. Who's your favourite
Disney princess and why?
ADAM A.: Oh, my favourite Disney princess.
ADAM A.: My favourite Disney princess is
Maui.
JAKE B.: Okay, expound.
ADAM A.: Maui from Moana is my favourite
Disney princess.
I don't think Moana ever was a princess. I
think that Maui was actually the princess.
He was the bullheaded, way too confident
centre of the universe that then had to
learn humility and love for other people,
which I think is the proper path.
JAKE B.: Oh my gosh, in the same moment
you just disrupted my entire thinking
about Disney now as well. Adam, thank you.
It is always an absolute pleasure having
you here.
I'm sure we'll have you back at some
point, but thank you for the time, for the
thoughts, and for just being you in a
world where so many people can't be, you
are setting a path for those who want to
be.
ADAM A.: Thank you. So thank you, my
friend.
JAKE B.: Thank you all for listening. We
will be there soon.