I Quit Being a CISO to Write a Newsletter | Mike Privette, Founder of Return on Security

Most cybersecurity professionals spend their careers trying to become a CISO. Mike Privette got there, decided he was more interested in something else, and eventually walked away to write a newsletter.

Which sounds like a terrible career decision until you hear how it happened.

This week on Random Access Memories, I sat down with Mike, founder of Return on Security, to talk about why he traded a successful cybersecurity career for something he'd originally started as a hobby.

Mike spent years working his way through security engineering and leadership, but somewhere along the way became fascinated by the business of cybersecurity. Why were investors throwing money at certain companies? Why did some startups succeed while others disappeared? And why was nobody properly tracking what was happening?

So he started collecting data, writing about it and sharing what he learned. His first personal blog post took six months to get through corporate communications. Six years later, he'd built something valuable enough to become his full-time career.

But this conversation isn't really about newsletters.

We talk about the fear of walking away from a career you've spent decades building, why people become trapped chasing the next promotion, and how moving his family from America to the UK changed Mike's perspective on money, success and what actually makes a good life.

There's also a fascinating discussion about the financial side of cybersecurity. Where the investment money is going, whether we've created too many AI startups, why Mike wouldn't rush to invest in application security, and whether founders are building businesses to solve problems or simply hoping someone will buy them.

We get into something I think a lot of people struggle with, particularly when they have young families. The years when your career demands the most from you are often the exact years your children need you most.

Mike's decision to build something of his own wasn't just about doing work he enjoyed. It was also about having more control over his time and being present for his family.

It's a conversation about taking risks, finding curiosity again and recognising that the career you've built doesn't have to be the career you finish with.

Because sometimes success isn't another promotion, a bigger salary or a better job title.

Sometimes it's having the freedom to do something completely different.

In This Episode...

• Why Mike walked away from being a CISO to build Return on Security
• How a personal hobby became a cybersecurity market intelligence business
• Why his first blog post took six months to get approved by corporate communications
• The fear of abandoning a career you've spent years building
• Discovering that building a business was more interesting than running another security programme
• Moving his family from America to the UK and reconsidering what success looks like
• Why the American obsession with bigger salaries, houses and cars isn't necessarily a recipe for happiness
• The uncomfortable relationship between career ambition and spending time with your children
• Why Mike wanted more control over his life rather than another senior leadership position
• Where cybersecurity investment money is flowing and why Europe is becoming more important
• Whether AI cybersecurity startups are solving genuine problems or simply wrapping existing models
• Why Mike would be cautious about investing in application security
• The problem with founders building companies purely to get acquired
• Why a profitable business might be worth more than a billion-dollar exit
• Mike's advice for anyone who's lost interest in their career but is afraid to try something different

What is Random Access Memories?

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.

Hello and welcome to another
episode of Random Access Memories,

Stories that Byte with me, Jake Bernardes.

And today I have a fascinating
co-host or interviewee,

however you want to look at it.

And I think this story is going to be
really interesting for a lot of people

who think about different
transition points in their careers,

both geographical and in terms of what
they do and finding their passion,

finding their love.

I don't know where it goes. But let's
start with a pretty simple one, Mike.

Introduce yourself to our audience.
Who are you? What do you do?

And then the two questions I ask everyone
is who is your hero and what is your

hobby?

Good question. Okay, so
my name is Mike Privette.

I'm currently the founder
of Return on Security,

which is a cybersecurity market
intelligence company where I track all the

financial activity in the industry
worldwide for public and private

companies, services companies,
product companies, you name it.

And then I write a newsletter every
Monday about everything that happened in

the industry last week.

And then I have a data platform as well
where you can kind of visually track

and play around with that data.

But previously Obviously CISO, previously
security engineer by trade and sort

of worked my way up through the ranks
that way and just kind of fell in love

with the financial side of the
market and took a career pivot.

And then in terms of heroes,
I'd say probably my mom.

She's like endless
energy, endless optimism.

And always as somebody, you're like,
man, I wish I could be more like them.

Them uh she's probably a great one and
then you know hobbies obviously spend a

lot of time with the family as well but
i enjoy coffee i working out um those

kind of things are always fun uh for me
as well and just kind of learning about

like history did you say golfing no
definitely not terrible at golf i

Thought you said golfing i was thinking

Oh coffee coffee it's probably Oh,

Coffee.

Are you like one of those people who
can trace back to single farms on random

Islands? No, I'm not quite that advanced.

I just enjoy making it and drinking it.

And, you know, that's,
yeah, exactly, yeah.

All right, interesting.

I'm going to start with something you
said, and I'm going to tee off from there.

Tee off after I just
bit my golf statement.

You said that you spend your life work
or your time working up the ladder,

security analyst, engineer,
CISO, et cetera, right?

You built yourself to what most of us
is is the pinnacle of the success of a

career in security.

And then you walked away to write a
newsletter. Yeah. Talk to me about that.

Why?

Yeah, well, so it wasn't a
hard cut over, I would say.

It was a very long time coming, probably
about six or seven years in the making.

Was something that I started as a hobby.

Like I just found interest in that part
of the industry and I thought it would

be useful to collect some data on
it and then share it with people.

And then I also wanted an
avenue to write my thoughts.

So I wanted to create a blog and I
wanted to share just some things I've

learned over the years that I thought
either would help other people or perhaps

the non-obvious things that I'd observed
through my own career working at many

different banks and companies like that.

And over time, there was a kind of a
gradual pull towards, you know, hey,

this might actually
become a real career path.

This might, maybe this isn't
just a fun side project,

like this can actually make money.

And then I found kind of a passion in
kind of chasing something that I could

build on my own that
was created on its own.

And after a while if you've been to a
lot of companies and a lot of security

programs you kind of see the same sets
of problems over and over again and

sometimes that can be a bit draining
and so then I had that faced with the

other side of the coin like completely
greenfield completely brand new had to

learn not just like the industry itself
but then like the business of running

it and building it and what that meant
and I just saw that to be a greater

challenge and that's kind of
would send me down that path.

Interesting. Let me double
click on two things.

So the first one, you said it just
kind of appeared as a passion.

How did you get interested
in cyber market analytics?

Because you don't, I mean, you
come from financial sector,

but not from an investment
background originally.

So why suddenly interested in companies'
investment profiles and portfolios and

stuff?

Well, so to be honest, most of that
was driven from the security engineer

aspect because in most
places as I've been,

security engineers were either tasked
with going to find what was available to

solve problems in the market or to
compare what new startups against the

incumbents you already have
then test them, you know,

see which ones actually
make the right fits,

see which ones can really
solve your use cases,

building out the systems like once
you did make a decision and then most

importantly like living with that
decision after you rolled it out in the

enterprise.

I found that fascinating just how many
startups were arriving on scene and how

many of them were solving problems that,
one, either you didn't know you had,

which I found fascinating
by itself, or two,

that could solve a problem you already
had much better than an incumbent.

I thought that was really interesting
how they could be very quite nimble and

move around and then kind of reframe how
you were thinking about the industry.

Then add on to the complexity of that
that it's really hard to make sense of

what these early stage companies can
and cannot do and then with marketing

changing at all times to shift to go
around their customer profile it's hard to

know what they're doing so I thought
well I need a way to compare apples to

apples so to speak I need to understand
a way that I can say like if I really

need some DLP or data loss
prevention solution solution.

Need to be able to know the top
10 or 20 people who can do this,

including new startups and incumbents.

And then so I thought, well,
I'll just start writing it down.

And then good engineer, I
overcomplicated it very quickly.

And I was like, I need a database and I
need taxonomy and I need categorization.

And then it just kind
of blew up from there.

And then I thought, well, hey, maybe
somebody else would like this too.

And much to my surprise, it works.

You ever think it would end up becoming
a full-time job at the time when you

started it

No no not at all um i thought it would
just be an interesting thing to do um

but then kind of quickly i realized like
well i think i could make some money

doing this i just didn't exactly know
how to do that yet and then i'd say

probably about two years in i'm like
okay actually this this might become a

real thing i think i'm a long ways from
making that real and it took it took It

took almost four years to make that work.

But I did not realize that
it could become something.

And I also had the benefit of the time
where newsletters and that sort of

personal-driven person who's been in
the industry for a while now wants to

share what they've learned about
the industry or a piece of it.

That was on the rise as I
was getting into the space.

So there was a lot of luck component
that I can't take credit for.

There's always a lot of luck in the
world, right? It's an interesting point.

You talked about this like concept of
like you know pulling a ball of yarn

right and pulling the thread and you
thought it was interesting so you pulled a

bit more and before you know you'd
written like this complex back end db and

then you thought about sharing and then
commercializing it's kind of this idea

of just keep on pulling right do questions
or composite questions do you think

that a people become too busy themselves
to find time for the things that

interest them and the second part of
that question is do you think that people

are scared sometimes times to keep pulling
on that thread and explore different

passions because they kind
of feel like, oh, look.

This is my career. This is what I do.

And the idea of going
sideways scares people.

Yeah, I think both of those are true.

I think it's hard to break out, dig
your head out of the sand, so to speak,

and think, well, do I even find
what I'm doing interesting at all?

I think I was very lucky in that it
kind of aligned with what I was already

looking at.

But obviously, no one was doing that
sort of analysis before and sharing the

information about it.

So I kind of made it for a
future version of myself.

I'm like, oh, this will be useful
for me in some day, some way.

Probably other people too, hopefully.

But I think it is hard to
break out of that space.

And it's also hard to try
something, especially publicly.

Because I started doing this at a time
when in, I guess, my world of cyber,

especially in financial services, you
didn't share things on the internet.

I was not brought up in the bug bounty
hacker culture where you share things on

Twitter. I didn't even know what
Twitter, InfoSec Twitter was.

I didn't know any of these people.

I was in a completely
different world from them.

So it was very frowned upon to share.

I remember I was working at a large
company and my first blog post took six

months to get approved
through our corporate comms.

Just a personal blog post,
nothing about my employer,

but it took a long time to get through.

And I think part of that was just
like to deter me from doing it.

Like, don't waste your time doing this.

And I'm like, hey, I'm going to write
this at night, like off of work,

like it's got nothing to do with you guys.

But I just want to write something.

And so after that, it was okay. But
it's really like kind of frowned upon.

And so I had to like lean into that
side of things, which was not easy.

It makes sense.

You also said the kind of security
programs or security leadership becomes

kind of the same over and repeat, right?

It's boring, right?

So what did, I guess, following your
passion or becoming a full-time creator,

have you want to contextualize that?

What did it teach you about yourself
that you didn't know when you were a

security professional?

Well, that's a good question.

You know, I'd say that anything
can be an engineering problem.

I didn't realize I thought that way
until I found myself thinking that way

outside of that domain.

And I realized that I kind of had more
of a passion for growing a business than

I did security in general.

And I kind of enjoyed knowing,
obviously, about the business of cyber,

which was something that I felt
like wasn't really talked about.

And, hey, this could be
a way to get in on that.

It's obviously not a
VC-backed thing I'm doing.

It's not like a traditional, it's
all self-funded and self-financed.

I thought, hey, this could be good.

And also, I didn't realize I enjoyed
contributing to the community itself.

Self and then finding that
people really like that.

So then in my mind it was
almost a flip of like,

hey what I'm doing is more of like a
public utility like a power service than

like a personal Mike Privette thing.

It's a, people are using this,
they're making decisions off of this,

this is awesome, this is great, they
find value in it so now I've found value

in being able to provide that.

Does it ever scare you that people are
making financial decisions based off the

information you provide?
I want to use that.

Yeah, only what scares scares me is they
don't involve me in the transaction,

I think.

But no, I think, you know, obviously
I'm not giving investment advice or

anything like that.

So it's like, it's more just,
hey, I'm bringing you the data.

You can kind of draw your own conclusions
and I'll make some own, you know,

opinions as well.

But I always kind of make sure
people know that it's opinion based.

But I have been a part
of a few things like, oh,

we did this because I
saw X in your newsletter.

Like, okay, that's good. That's
great. Alright thanks for that it was

After you went full time newsletter
you moved your family to the UK right

So actually a little bit before so I was
still full time CISO when I was still

part time when we moved to the UK and
then it was kind of a great jumping off

point to go part time CISO so I worked
for the same company I was just part

time and then I went much harder on
the newsletter itself and it was it was

also kind of a good timing point where
the market had picked up and And I was

able to kind of make that switch about
a year and a half later into like

full-time newsletter stuff.

Why did you move countries?

Why change from the US to
Europe or to UK specifically?

Oh, it was mostly just for fun.

Like I got a great visa program,
family wanted to travel,

the kids were the right age.

It was like, hey, it's kind of
now or never, let's go do it.

And the fact that Return on Security
helped me get the visa was kind of the

icing on the cake there.

It was one part, have like
some credentials in a career,

but then also one part what have you
done for your industry so it was great to

be able to show that I had done that
and so then it felt like hey it makes

sense to go even harder on it

Has living in Europe or the UK
changed your definition of success?

No not as much I don't think to be
honest like you you probably realize just

how much more some of these intrinsic
things of where you're brought up like

actually impact your thinking more like
you realize you're more of a capitalist

than you thought when you moved to Europe.

If you're an American,
you're like, hold on,

why can't I just pay money for this?

In some cases, then other
times you realize, actually,

we shouldn't just have
to pay money for this.

This should be an expected thing.

So I think it's changed the success in
terms of what does a good life for a

good thing look like.

But I think from a business standpoint,
it's been pretty consistent throughout.

Out and I think being in Europe or
in the UK has helped a bunch too just

because it's been able to kind of bring
it to a different audience who also

I've learned has the same sets of things
they want to learn and have access to

but maybe it just wasn't as top of mind.

So it's helped me expand and make a lot
of new contacts that I wouldn't have

otherwise but I still want to be
successful by all measures from a business

standpoint.

You did say though it's changed what you
think a good life looks like like not

a good business success.
Explain that to me.

Well, I think it just shows you, like
obviously London, where I live now is,

you know, a melting pot
of every kind of culture.

It's probably one of the most
international cities in the world.

So you see and then, you know, make
friends with people who have come from all

over the place.

And you see, they kind of learn about
their journey and what they do at work or

what they do in life and like, you
know, where their family's from.

And you just see that, hey, there's
many actually paths to like good.

It's not just like, make more money, buy
the bigger house, buy the bigger car.

Perhaps some of the American paths that
I've personally been afflicted by over

the years, I think many people have.

And then you realize, maybe I could do
a bit more less on some front and then I

can focus that time, energy, and money
on other things that maybe I'd get a

different value out of that
I couldn't have in the US.

More travel to Europe, more trips and
fun things like that that would be

possible, but much more
financially difficult from the US.

Interesting. What is
your stance on balance?

I'm asking because you're one of the few
people I've had on the pod who's done

America to UK the reverse way around.

I've said openly and probably a lot,
I think Americans are workaholics.

I don't understand how to take vacation
or to find balance or to unwind.

And to your point, it's always about
working harder and more to earn more and

buy bigger things.

As being in the UK, do you want to
change your opinion on balance, vacation,

recovery, any of that kind of thing?

Oh, vacation, yes. So I lean into it.

I'll say to my American
friends, oh, sorry,

I'm taking a page from the Europeans.

So I'm also going on vacation yet
again, which kind of cracks them up.

Like, oh, sorry, I'm traveling again.
Or sorry, there's a bank holiday.

I think balance is a funny thing because
I never see balance as like in terms

of like a balance on any
given day necessarily,

or even like given like timeframe.

It's more like there will be times
where you cannot balance at all,

but you do need to have intense
periods of focus and growing things,

whether that be life, relationships,
business, family, whatever it may be.

You have to pick the thing
that you want to focus on.

This is my personal approach
on it. So I may want to...

When I first moved to the UK, I went
intently on trying to grow Return on

Security and making as many
connections as possible,

traveled as much as possible, went
to as many conferences as possible,

including back to the US several times
to just try to continue to build that up

because I had nothing when I landed
except for a few people I knew through the

newsletter.

And so I focus a lot on that travel,
probably a lot more than I wanted to early

on. So then now I've got those
established a few years later.

I don't have to go to every single
conference and every single BSides event

that I don't want to go to.

So to me, it's more like picking when
you balance versus when you turn things

up and down.

Yeah, it's interesting.

I think one of the hard points
you've got, I've got kids too.

I think the hard point is often the
times that require our most input are the

times when you'd want to
also be at home the most.

I find watching my own career, I've
committed a lot of time simultaneously to

build the network, build
credibility, build brand.

And as it starts to taper at some
point, it'll be as my kids get older.

I think that's the problem
we have in our lives, right?

I agree entirely there's balance over
the course of a generation or decades or

whatever, right?

But it always seems to fall in that
horrible bit where kids are young and you

really want to be there.

And that's the bit when you have to
dedicate to building your career.

And that's the hardest
problem them to solve.

It is true.

And I'd be lying if I didn't say that
was a big piece of the drive to kind of

do my own thing.

The idea of, well, before I did Return
on security, I was traveling every week,

even just regionally for
a large bank I worked at.

We just had many different
places we had to go.

And I'm like, this is really
draining. The kids are super young.

I'm not going to get this time back.

Maybe they don't remember it as much,
but I will. Was a big drive to do it.

How much more can I control now so that
way I can and have some better future

success.

Yeah, kudos. I mean, I
think that makes sense.

I think that comes out to
the original point, right?

If you're going to start pulling on the
thread, you want to know where it goes.

And I think people often have this
lack of ability to see into the future.

Say, if I start doing this, maybe
it's going to be more for me now,

but maybe in the future, this gives me
the freedom to be or to do whatever I

want to do, right?

Let's pivot to our original
security a little bit.

So you Where is the money flowing, Mike?

In security right now, where is the money

Flowing? It's everywhere.
Obviously, it's in the US mostly.

That's the world's biggest buyer
and seller of security in general.

Funny because every year I track and
write these annual reports to roll up and

summarize what the year was.

And you've seen, obviously, the big
headlines of massive funding rounds or

massive acquisitions.

And things like that.

And that's usually kind of obviously a
very noisy part of the industry and very

visible, but there's so much that
happens under the surface that is either

never disclosed, like terms of
price tags, or it's just really low.

And you don't realize that
it's even worth your time,

like a $2 or $3 million seed round.

But then you realize most of the industry
is kind of those things sprinkled in

with these giant events.

But there's been a shift, I'd say over
the past like two years where more more

nations and more like kind of regions
are keeping more money at home than they

used to so they used to it used to be
all roads and cyber led to Israel and US

for funding and acquisitions and that
is still a large part of the story but

most of that it's no longer the only
story so I'd say like there is you see

like especially in In Europe, there's a
lot more capital that is staying home.

There's a lot of investors who used to
only invest in the US and Israel who now

also deeply invest in Europe and the UK.

So there is a shift along the lines of
how do you grow local cyber ecosystems

and economies themselves.

So that's been a noticeable
change, I would say,

over the past three or four years.

Makes sense. And you've
got some in the UK, right?

You've got Henry Comfort
and Geordie, for example,

who are UK funding to UK
company and doing really well.

So yeah, you're starting to get a
model where it stays inside of itself.

Let's, well, when I call it an AI
company, let's ask the AI question, right?

So are we investing in AI companies or
are we investing in all technology with

AI wrappers?

It's a question I ask everyone.

Would say we're doing less
wrappers than we used to.

I'd say those first 2023, 2024,
and then a little bit of 2025,

it was like pretty much
wrappers all the way down.

Like there was really, and that's why
you see a lot of these companies who

started then and raised money then like
kind of pivot strongly into different

domains.

Either they realized the
cost was like untenable,

meaning like they were just absorbing
the cost of what their customers would

use.

And they had to either change the
billing model or their entire strategy to

bring your own keys so
customers could pay the bill.

And then you've seen a lot of
consolidations or a lot of capability

consolidation or just fewer companies
are trying to solve all the things at

once.

It used to be like a browser agent and
a DLP thing and an AI firewall and all

these other things that you would try
to shove in at once because market was

trying to figure out what was happening
and then many of them were just API

calls in the back end to one of the lab
providers whereas now I think there are

many more options both open weight and
closed weight companies are it's now not

as cost prohibitive to roll your own
models or do your own GPUs so I think

companies have pivoted around that and
they've also realized that the answer is

not just be a wrapper, the answer is
solve a problem using AI that is hard to

solve today and it's okay
if you bring your own keys,

it's okay if you do it yourself but
it can't be something that changes

fundamentally every time a
model changes to a new version.

Like you, just spent time at
multiple conferences this year,

including Black Hat most recently, and
there is a very busy floor with lots of

very brightly colored
neon, very loud booths.

Are there just too many
companies in the space right now?

Are there too many companies inside that?

Well, there is always a lot.

And I think if you look at other
industries, like HealthTech or FinTech,

there's an even bigger number of
companies in those industries as well.

But I think having a lot of companies
is probably a good thing because I've

always kind of equated the
industry, at least cyber,

as kind of like an accordion.

And of course, I don't play the accordion,
but stick with me on the analogy.

But you can press the top
and that makes acquisitions.

And then out of that, acquisitions
pop new startups at the bottom.

So new ones pop up all the time.

And then you compress the bottom, they
get rolled up and the top expands and

they acquire things.

So it's always moving. And I think that's
actually just a pretty healthy sign.

Will never be one vendor to do it all,
despite what CrowdStrike might want.

It's just not going to work.

And nor do I think that would
be good for the industry.

That's just not good for companies.

And in my mind, it's the same reason that
the AI model, like the frontier labs,

can't solve it all.

Like I can't have the AI company that
writes my software saying the software is

also bug free like that just won't work
eventually so I think while there are a

lot and it is moving quicker like
there's been more company formation these

past couple years than there have been
in previous years it's still I think

it's a healthy sign

Okay so you obviously invest as well so
I'm seeing and aware of if I gave you

50 million dollars today today, where
would you absolutely not invest in?

What domains and

What areas would you definitely

Not put any cash near right now?

Yeah that's a tough one I'd say I try
to avoid categories kind of wholesale

that have a lot of like competition and
that is changing quickly so I'd say you

know it's both a great time but also a
very challenging time to be in just the

application security world in general
yeah you've got people from the bottom

moving into that space who never did
application security you've got the pen

test firms moving into automated pen
tests and moving down into that space

you've got the autonomous ones kind of
moving down the stack or up the stack to

the application layer and the
same with the cloud players.

So I think that's probably where I
wouldn't invest now until it shakes out a

bit more just kind of avoid like,
you know, investing like that,

it's never it's always like a power law
game and the chances of these companies

making it is always slim.

That's just investing in general.

There's a greater chance that they won't
be successful than they are successful

but you hope you can make enough smart
bets and contrarian kind of spaces

almost or at least less crowded
spaces and go from there.

Let

Me follow that. And you said
that most fail, which is true.

So since you've seen a lot grow and fail,

what do you think is the single mistake
that most founders misunderstand about

trying to grow a valuable
cybersecurity company?

Well, I think even the definition of
what valuable means means can be probably

misleading for some because I think the
path of what valuable used to mean was

like go IPO or become acquired
by like a cloud provider.

And that's just like increasingly not an
opportunity for most companies and nor

do I think it's a smart route
for most companies at this point.

Like the public markets have been pretty
unforgiving for the past several years

and the bar to ride that ride is
much higher than it used to be.

It comes down to like would you you
rather have a company that raises a little

bit of money but is highly profitable
and provides good return to the founders

and the investors and the and the
employees or would you rather raise a lot

of money get acquired for the biggest
amount and maybe keep less money than you

probably would have once you pay back
all the investors um both kind of uh you

know lead to a similar kind of outcome
perhaps like you may get an acquisition

or you may uh you may have some
a good secondary market sales,

but it all one mistake is just assuming
that the IPO route or be acquired by

the largest provider is going to
be the best route as opposed to,

let's make a good profitable cash flowing
business that customers love and that

kind of sells itself.

And then you'll have a good outcome
kind of in a different manner than just

purely the exit focused kind of manner.

That is such a brilliant piece of advice.

I told a lot of founders, obviously, and
that's one of the comments they always

have is, build a company with
no intent to get acquired.

Build a company that you intend
to grow for the rest of your life.

And you'll probably build one that's
far more acquirable than the one that's

built for acquisition because
you focus on the same things.

Let me ask you a final question.

You have taken multiple
risks in your life, right?

You have changed career entirely.
You've changed country entirely.

They both paid off, but
they were risks inherently.

Are you happier from the risk that
you took in the way they went?

Yeah, I think so.

I mean, I'm super jazzed every day until
I kind of wake up to do this stuff.

I think about it probably to the point
of obsession on some of these things,

but I'm still excited about it.

I think, you know, you have to take some
level of risk kind of no matter what

you do.

If you want to do something that's
perhaps outside of what the average or

normal is.

And, you know, always kind of one
of those persons who thinks like,

this thing I'm doing now will absolutely
work until the moment it doesn't.

And then I'm like, oh well. And then
I just move on to the next thing.

And like, I think part of it's like
being comfortable taking a few of those

over and over again and then realizing,
well, that didn't make any sense.

That one was pretty good,
but I don't like doing it.

And then being able to just
continue to roll with it.

But I say, yeah, that's being able to
kind of get outside yourself for a bit

and say like, yeah, let
me try to take this risk.

And in a controlled manner,
you know, and, you know,

there's no good time to
take some of these things.

Like, it's kind of no good time to
uproot your family and move to another

country.

But there are better times than
others since you try to hedge on that.

Interesting.

To people who are not stuck, but in
the career of cyber and not sure is the

right place for them and
thinking about other options,

what's your one to three short, sharp
piece of advice that you'd leave your

kids if they're asking you the
same question in the future?

Yeah, I'd say if you have the ability
to and with your life situation,

then you should definitely try to focus
on whether or not you're still kind of

excited by what you're
getting to do every day.

And I'm not saying you have to
be in love with every decision,

every part of your job,
every part of your field,

but does it still interest you in a way
that you have some of that curiosity?

And if it doesn't, then I'd probably
say it's time to start looking at other

paths, whether it be inside
the field or outside the field.

You know and there's there are more
there are many many ways to to find um

things you're interested in in a given
field like it doesn't you don't just

have to become the manager or you don't
just have to become like the the top

technical lead you can you can try your
hand at products you can try your hand

at sales you can try you can find ways
to kind of tip it around um or you can

leave the field entirely like you know
it just depends on you know what what

will work for you what will
what will you enjoy doing?

And I try not to be so naive
to say, do what you love,

because that's just really not
where you can start in all cases.

I think you have to be realistic
in what your own life situation is.

But that could be a thing, if you're
interested in a hobby or interested in

something outside of work that can fill
your cup, so to speak, in that manner,

whereas the job can be a means
to the ends, I think that's good.

But I'd say you try to find you see if
you have any curiosity so if not try to

find something that does make you curious
and that you do want to go deeper on

and then just kind of realize that you're
on your career for a very long time

so like what you're doing now or today
or the next five years is not the

entirety of it like you've got you know
30 to 40 plus years of work time a lot

can happen Like I did you know 10 years
ago I would not would have thought I'm

doing any of this stuff now it wouldn't
even you know cross my mind so like the

thing you maybe most I was interested
in or excited about may not even exist

yet.

Like you may have to either
manifest it or like it may be,

feels are going to change.

So I think just keep an open
mind on that front as well.

So what I took from that was be engaged
and be excited and be patient and be

open-minded. They're the key to finding
a career fulfillment, if not peace, joy,

and happiness. Mike, thank you.
It's been an absolute pleasure.

Anyone who wants to know more as
an investor myself it's well worth

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otherwise thank you mate and I will
speak to you again soon but for now thank

you for listening and I will
speak to you all again soon