Creating a Cyber Empire with Brian DeMuth

Today on the pod, I've got my good friend, Brian DeMuth. Brian is an executive, he's an investor, and he's a hacker. And on this pod, we discuss how at an early childhood, his parents helped foster that creativity and curiosity that kind of pushed him into the successes that he's had now. That encouragement that he experienced in early childhood. We discuss the portfolio of companies that one, he has to figure out how to keep track of because he's all over the place. If anybody knows him and try

ing to keep track of him is very difficult, but also in particular, one company called rapid ascent. who is giving hands on cybersecurity training for people in transitioning military or transitioning from a different career so they are ready for their new job on day one. So enjoy my conversation with Brian as we discuss cybersecurity curiosity, portfolio management, and entering cybersecurity workforce and closing the gap. Nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two one. Brian, appreciate y

ou being here today. You got a whole ton of things going on. And for anybody, I'm not going to put the list up on the screen, but if you saw just the partial bullet dots list, you would go, how does anybody in their right mind came up with all of this stuff? But before we get into all of the fun things you're doing currently, can you break down a little bit, you know, you've got a big hacking background and kind of your pathway to working for an investment firm and identifying new and upcoming c

yber related technology. Absolutely. Um, yeah. Thanks for having me on. Um, I guess I'll start by saying it was, uh, it was, uh, uh, a number of reschedules to get us here, um, snow day here in, in, uh, Virginia. And so, um, just down, uh, playing with the kids. So, you know, in addition to that long list I sent you, obviously I've got, you know, kids at home and kids that are moving out and all kinds of And if you're, and if you're just listening to this, there's all kinds of like puppy and pri

ncess pictures over his shoulder. Oh, yeah, that's, uh, from my youngest, she, uh, just got another one. She's, she's Oh, nice. Hopefully she will not interrupt us with yet another one to stick up there, um, until after we're done, but, well, yeah, so, um, like you were saying, my background, uh, you know, I. Was always inquisitive, right? Always be curious. Um, I think, uh, some of those, some of those quotes about being curious are my favorite. Um, and, uh, you know, it coming up on Ted Lasso

was, was good to, you know, him quoting the be, be curious. Um, I was always curious and I was always driven to learn. I was driven to figure out how things work, how they tick. Uh, so even from the time that I was a young, young kid, I would take things apart. Um, one of the stories my mother likes to tell is when I was four, I She had, uh, saved up money for, I don't know, a year. Um, and she was really looking forward to buying this Kirby vacuum cleaner with all the attachments and all the pa

rts, you know, basically did everything. It was, uh, a floor mopping device and it was a really high Super expensive, super expensive device. when I was a little kid, uh, those things still were three, 4, 000. Right. And, uh, You know, you could buy a car for that. Like not a really junky used car. Like you can barely buy, you know, that, that doesn't get you much today, but you could get a decent car. So, uh, she got this Kirby vacuum cleaner and it's like I said, they, they didn't have. Uh, th

at kind of, uh, um, wealth at the time. So they, you know, they, they saved up, you know, son of an enlisted Marine and a part time tax, you know, tax, uh, uh, filer. Um, and so they saved up and they like to tell the story that after they got it and they were all proud of it, primarily my mom was all proud of it. Uh, I took it apart, like all the way down to the brushes and the motors. Um. And, uh, was pushed to, uh, put it back together again. So that was, that was fun. Um, I honestly don't re

ally remember it all that much, but, um, it's a story they like to tell. So, uh, so yeah, that kind of, I was like that throughout my childhood. Right. Um. Early computers, gaming systems. I was more interested in like, while I played the games, I was more interested in figuring out how the system worked, taking those things apart, had Commodore 64s and one 28 and all the tape reels and the eight tracks and all the stuff that went with them back then got some computer equipment through what my f

ather was doing for work fairly early in my life, which, you know, just further, um, Uh, cause me to be curious, right? Like gave me something else to think about something else to dream about. Um, and, and when we get to, you know, this part later, you remember when I said this, because those kinds of opportunities and yes, you know, despite the fact that my parents really did not have much for money at all at the time, you know, they, they did find ways to put me in front of things that just f

ed my curiosity, that fed my interest. So. That, you know, we'll, we'll talk about what I'm doing about that later. Um, but, but that kind of kept me going. Right. And so my father had, uh, old trucks and boats cause that's most of what they could afford with five kids and on Marine Corps enlisted salary. So. Uh, you know, I, I learned to play with mechanics and he was into radios because he was a signals intelligence officer in the Marine Corps. Um, and so he, uh, he always had CB radios when I

was a kid and, you know, um, AM radios and, and different types of equipment that he, he was playing with. And so I got very interested in, I think. Six, seven years old, I was building those transistor radios that you could buy the kits for from like radio shack or wherever back then, um, mail order catalogs, because that's about all we had before the internet. Um, and, and, and I had a lot of fun with that. Um, later on, you know, a little bit older in middle school days, you know, there's Pe

ntium computers coming out, right? Um, I actually had a, uh, what was it, a two 86 for a long time and, you know, three 86 and went up through the process. But I remember around the time that Pentium computers come out, uh, there was those, um, those early software definable radios. It was like this brick. It looked like a cinder block that had a big parallel table. You could plug into the computer. My father got, got to borrow one again because of stuff he was working on. And that got me really

interested in, in, uh, radio, um, even more so. And again, all of those things are just opportunity to be more curious. If, if you had put like 3d printers, if they existed back then in front of me, and if you put, you know, uh, detractive, um, printing in front of me, think like, you know, the lathe beds that you can, you can do. Um, You know, that would have, that would have fed my curiosity as well and, and, and pushed me forward in, in probably one of those tracks. But, but essentially, um,

you know, fast forward a bit, there's a lot of other opportunities like that, that, you know, while, you know, most would look and go, Oh, you know, you can't afford that. Or my parents would look and say, you can't afford that. Um, they found a way to. Borrow or, you know, take me somewhere, go, um, sit with other people. They did the same with music. Um, also when I was four, they, they put a, put a acoustic guitar in my hands and sent me off to music lessons to actually learn music theory, u

m, and then violin and a whole bunch of other instruments afterwards and all of that. What's that? that's still stuck, right? Some of it, some of it. Yeah. Um, there's an interesting, uh, concept around, uh, the intersection of music and information management and how our information analytics really, um, and how, if you have a musical brain, um, you are. Much more in tune with understanding information analytics. It, I mean, we could do a talk, That's a whole different thing, yeah, yeah, yeah.

that I've got to experience early on in my career and then, um, have given the talk since. Um, but in any case, yeah, so when I was a kid, um, you know, I kind of had a bunch of these, these opportunities, even if they were short windows of opportunity to put my hands on something right to, to, to put my hands on a new piece of gear, a new piece of technology. Um, and that, that kept pushing my, um, curiosity forward. And so I got into, you know, around that time, you know, early middle school,

there were the LAN parties were starting to happen, you know, people were doing the Doom, uh, game LAN parties, and while I would play them and had fun doing it, you know, I was having fun just with simple stuff, like simple hacking, um. You know, making my friends PCs that they've carried over to the house, making their CD drives open and close while they're trying to play the game, right? Just annoying things, making the graphics display flip upside down inside the old CRT monitors that they w

ere using. Right? Um, I had fun with that. And I was like, Oh, wait, this is even more fun because I can beat them in the game, or at least, you know, stay up to their level. Um, But, uh, it was much more fun to just mess with the environment they were trying to play in to make it harder to play. That was funny and, and, and, and, you know, a blast. Um, I'm also the oldest of five kids. So like I had built in people to mess with too, which was a great fun. I'm sure they have a different version

of the story, but, but regardless, um, you know, that kept me, kept me curious. Right. And so then I was like, Oh, wait, like. It's during a gaming LAN party. You're not supposed to be able to like, make your, your competitor screens flip upside down, you know, like virtually inside of the monitor. Um, and we're talking like, this is when we're in middle school, right? This isn't recent. Um, and you could do stuff like that then. And then I started looking at, oh, well, Wait, this is because som

ebody didn't, like, make it secure. Somebody didn't protect it from, you know, little jerks like me that can go and cause that problem. Uh, what else didn't they protect from me and other people like me? And then I started, you know, looking into more and more. Um. And, uh, you know, was on a lot of the early dial up bulletin boards and, you know, uh, reading, uh, messages. I probably shouldn't have been at that age, but was figuring out how to get to them. Um, and so, yeah, it was, it was, uh,

again, um, those experiences, they drive curiosity, they drive interest, they, they grow into passion potentially. Right. So. As I went through that process, um, you know, I got very interested in the security of things and ultimately, um, started pulling, uh, data off the airwaves, um, that, uh, was encrypted, figured out how to decrypt it, um, and, uh, that kind of led to my first, uh, job, or not my first job, but my first job in the industry, I ended up going to work for a defense contractor

, um, at the behest of some people that they worked for, um, Um, and, you know, ended up, uh, launching kind of this path in this career and where I've, where I've, you know, gone. Um, so from that point on, um, I worked, um, signals intelligence work, I did, uh, counter Intel. Kind of stuff, uh, mostly on the equipment, on the equipping side, um, providing, um, input to the systems they use and how to transmit, uh, uh, imagery that they'd taken behind enemy lines back across, you know, HF or sa

tellite or whatever, uh, to try to try to maximize the bandwidth usage and get their imagery back or get their, you know, critical intelligence reports back or things like that. And so I spent, I spent a bunch of time working that and then ended up. Um, because of my passion, um, about, well, how did I get to where I kind of got at that point? You know, probably thinking 15 years ago or so, maybe a little more in my career. Um, I, it, you know, I started thinking about, well, you know, I hear ab

out all these other people who don't get other opportunities and a lot of people who do and squander them. Like, how do we just. Make opportunities available for more people. Um, so I spent a lot of time just taking stuff, computers, radios, projectors, other things to schools all around the region here, you know, up into Maryland. Um, you know, flying to some other places and, um, just talking to kids, you know, schools were inviting me out to talk to kids and, uh, show them something, show the

m something that was cool. You know, um, sometimes that was a hack. Sometimes that was, um, you know, uh, early drone, you know, whatever it was, something cool and technology, um, Matt turned into me getting involved with several nonprofits, co founding a couple of nonprofits, um, all kind of focused on. Um, trying to help with that, uh, availability of, um, things that push curiosity. So there you I don't know if I ever told you this story about me as a kid. So it was awesome. Your parents saw

that you had the spark and feeding into that type of stuff. Um, never that was something I don't think I really experienced in the same way. Not even that I even had something that I showed a spark in at a young age necessarily. Um, but, you know, grew up where, you know, my 1st. Papers in school were on typewriters, you know, this is back when you had the family computer room, you know, family computer room, there was like one computer in the house and share it. If you got on the internet, you

tied up the phone line because you have the phone line in the house, you know, Absolutely. We had a party line, uh, with one of the neighbors and then we had two extra lines in the house. Oh, no. Yeah. The 2 extra lines. That was that was a no go. I do. I do remember that growing up. Arrow's internet. But I remember you. trying to like, hey, you know, we finally got, you know, it was a 286 or 386 Packard Bell. It was a Packard Bell computer and I was sitting there trying to figure out, you know

, I'm in 9th or 10th grade. Maybe didn't know anything about it. I have the manual, the manuals like, you know, inch and a half thick of stuff trying to like, format a floppy disk. That was my goal, format a floppy disk. In the middle of trying to format the floppy disk, I formatted the C drive, the main hard drive with the operating system, and immediately panicked when you turn on the computer and if you've never done formatted a computer before and it just kind of blinks a black screen at you

. You know, me being the, uh, the 12 or 13 year old that didn't know what I was doing panicked because I knew how much my parents spent on a computer that now none of us could use. That was pretty, my dad was not very happy with me and ended up getting a friend of his to I am certain that I had done that at least once or twice. Oh, yeah, no, that re, I distinctly remember. once on purpose. I forget how long it took because at that point I wasn't allowed to touch it anymore after I had broken the

new machine that they had brought into the house. But so, so now with, with what you've been doing, you know, I know, you know, we've been through the Cybervirus Foundation and. Talk about that some, but more, more curious with some of the investment companies that you're working with there in the tech sector. Um, you know, 1 in particular, uh, with rapid ascent where you're because, you know, we've talked about there's this whole big gigantic. Gap in the cybersecurity workforce, and some of th

e new methodologies and training programs that you guys are trying to put in place. To kind of shore up that gap by all, but also bringing, you know, new blood into the industry, maybe from other job sets. What can you talk about with some of the advancements that you guys are doing in that, in that arena? Yeah, Rapid Ascent's, um, um, an interesting one for me. Uh, one, because like I said, um, I'm passionate about trying to find a way to, to, uh, push those opportunities out to others, but thi

s one is a for profit, um, company. And really, uh, myself and a few other people, um, we. We talked about, um, like how do we solve this workforce shortage, right? This goes back to 2019, I think, and there's a lot of talk about, um, certifications as a solution to training. There's a lot of talk about. Um, you know, University XYZ is creating a cyber security specific program. Um, there's a lot of talk about, um, you know, all these training companies out there that'll get you up to speed in o

ne week or three weeks or whatever. And. You know, sounds great. But when have you ever seen that actually happen? Right? Um, if you just take a step back, and I know it's needed, but if you take a step back and you look at it, you know, objectively and realize what you're really talking about here, you're, you're talking about how to train someone to do. Um, essentially what is new blue collar work? Um, you, you need to know what a known good configuration looks like. What is a table that is pr

operly built look like, and how does it measure out? And what are all the, you know, um, measurements and weights and everything that that. That's what a table should be. And what is a wrong? What does wrong look like? That table that's lopsided, the corners are shaved off and, you know, it's not quite square. Um, and then how do you get to write? How do you, how do you walk through the day to day, uh, tasks to, to keep things right? Um, and that's, you know, you can apply that general thought.

I'm not saying that's all there is to entry level cyber. There's a lot more, right? But at a high level, um, that framework. Kind of what there is. Um, so, you know, whether you're a, uh, SOC analyst and you're sitting in a security operation center and you're watching, you know, you're the junior and you're watching the logs, you're listening to the systems, you've learned how those appliances that sit in. Or with the sock that are used by the sock, you've learned what, what it is to look at th

em and understand an alert. You've learned what, um, you know, the basic analysis of those lines, you know, like, look to this part and see if it's flagging on a certain signature or a certain something. And then, you know, who do you report that to? And what do you, what do you do to fix it? And if it's something simpler that. You know, a junior person can work on what do you do? Um, you see, you see this in entry level it as well, but, um, you know, in general, I'll just call it entry level cy

ber. And so what we started doing is we went around to realizing that, um, and then realizing that there's this, this shortage that it just doesn't seem like what's available in industry is going to really solve it. Um, and there's all these, you know, newspaper articles, magazines about. Um, you know, Oh my God, like we have to do something because we have such a huge shortage. We need cyber people here, right? We hear it a little less, but we're still hearing it. The numbers have only gotten l

arger though. So, um, ask something on that real quick. yeah, before I do, I definitely want to go down the rabbit hole of your methodology with the training and being job ready when they, when you're done. But how much of some of this is these companies don't know how to hire for cyber? That these companies that's part of it. they don't know what the requirements, they don't know what they're actually need when they get into there. And so you see these mismatch position descriptions, um, that t

hey're just making up or the term itself cyber security means. Different things. So many things. It means so many things. It covers so much stuff and there's a, Absolutely. and it's getting to me. I mean, the organization I work with when you're talking 25 years ago, I'm not sitting there saying that we had sock analyst. There's somebody sitting there looking for threats coming in, but you were looking for, you know, you know, I came from the network engineering background side. So you were tryi

ng to harden your perimeter. You were trying to do those types of that was the, that was the thing. It was keeping things out. And I've seen this push. Yeah. of trying to disassociate a lot of the, you know, cyber operations, that threat hunting piece, that configuration stuff, trying to find your vulnerabilities away from ICA. I see those conversations online. I don't know how much that's contributing to, hold on a second, you're a different silo, but you guys are still together, you know, beca

use if you find the vulnerability, you're not patching, you're not fixing the configuration, you're just raising your hand saying, hey, we, we see this. Um, how much do you think that's contributing to some of the workforce gap? It definitely is. Um, you know, and this fits right into where I was going. Um, the, uh, Most of those, so we went and talked to Fortune 50, Fortune 100, um, small businesses, government agencies. Um, there was several of us that did this for over a year, right? Collecte

d all the data and talked about it as an addition to everything else that each of us was doing at the time. Um, and essentially found that. Just like you're saying, uh, they knew that they weren't putting out good, you know, job recs. They weren't putting out a very good job descriptions. And that's a problem in a lot of companies. Um, a lot of times you have managers who either newly promoted to managers or, um, their managers, they're good at management, but they're. They don't understand the

specifics of what they're, you know, the deep, the technical details of what they're managing. Um, and so there are some good resources out there for those technical managers to, um, to help build out what good job recs should look like. Um, so I'd highly advise, you know, people in those, those kinds of roles going and looking for those, but, um, We definitely found that that was part of the problem and by and large, you know, and, and again, back to your point, it could be part of it, but by a

nd large, what we were told, um, the data that we collected was. That when the people came in to sit down and take over the keyboard doing whatever their job is, sock analyst one, for example, that they couldn't start day one, they couldn't start day 10, they couldn't really even start day 45, right? It took a lot of on the job training to get them to the point where they understood, um. You know what it was they needed to do. And now there's a lot of excuses for it. Um, you know, sometimes, uh,

there's a lot of, there's a lot of different types of appliances and infrastructure and software that are used at different places. And so it's totally possible, you know, that some of them had unique things, but, but like across the board, no matter what, we heard the same thing over and over again, right. That like the majority of their. Entry level or close to entry level folks would come in and not know how to do the tasks. And so we started thinking about that. I got it. Well, like. What d

oes that mean? And what, what did they have for training? You know, that college degrees in cybersecurity or computer science or information management, like something like that. Did they have certifications? Like, what did they have? Did they have any years of experience? And so, you know, it ran the gamut. Um, and I don't remember all the percentages off the top of my head, but essentially, um, You know, it kind of didn't matter. Um, the only thing that really seemed to make any difference was

the years of experience, but once the years of experience got up there, generally those candidates cost more, right? And that was one of the, is a business. And yes, you want to, you want to cost more as the, as the labor force, right? You do, you learn and get there through experience and training. Right. But the, the folks that have been through college that had a year or two experience, they weren't meeting the bill, um, they weren't meeting the requirements. They weren't able to start day o

ne. The folks that were going through multiple boot camps and starting, they weren't, they weren't able to, you know, start day one, um, on all the things. And this is as assessed by those managers, right? So I'm sure there's some nuance and some, you know, favoritism, some, you know, bias based on who it is that was providing us this data. But, but the reality set in that, Those that were really, really, really hard chargers and set up all the labs at home to do all the things, um, you know, pa

id to get into the virtual environments in various places, like the ones that really spent that extra time, they were closer to being able to start the job. Um, and there's a lot of good, you know, um, small pro by small, I mean, short programs that you can learn from for relatively decent price. Um, But what we decided we would, we would try to do with Rapid Ascent is put together, you know, a no kidding, like blue collar style. And by that, I mean, methodologies, um, apprenticeship program. Um

, and that's turned into what Rapid Ascent now calls their job readiness program. So it's four months full time. And it takes people, you know, from zero to hero, right? It takes them from zero to hero. You know, not, not having any training. Maybe, maybe they have some background. Some people come into it with background, but come into it with, uh, with no background in, in cyber defense and they leave getting a job and, uh, represent has very high placement. Uh, rates, uh, right now and as it,

as their program grows more, um, I'm sure those will drop just naturally, but, um, they're doing a really good job. Um, the training program is expanding, um, the, I'll do a quick, uh, kind of overview on the training, uh, or at least the way it's delivered, it's all virtual, but one of the things that was really exciting for, for me and for the investment firm and the other investors in it is. Today they do attitude, aptitude, and psychometric testing, and they're, they're pushing forward with

expanding what that looks like. Um, and so you go into what the, what Rapid Ascent calls jumpstart, and you basically go through some cyber defense training. Um, and it's anywhere from a few hours to a few days, depending on how long, you know, you take to do it. And the system monitors you, monitors how you respond to things, monitors how you respond to questions. And then ultimately gives a score about, you know, your path for training. What does training look like for you? Um, you know, what

's the best path for you? What things do you need to work on? What other areas do you need to test on better? And when you're accepted into one of the programs, um, through there's an application process on their website, you just go to the, um, rapid ascent. com and click on, get started. And you can. Find out everything. Um, but once you get in there and you get accepted into the program, uh, the core program is a four month program, um, that goes through everything from start to finish, um, r

eally big with, um, um, transitioning military right now. That's a large, um, a large number of our current students are transitioning military, um, because they can. Use skill bridge and other things to, you know, continue to pay them, get paid a salary while they go through it and they jump, they go through jumpstart and they jump into the platform itself when they're accepted, um, and they're able to, um, you know, spend that 3 to 4 months in pretty in depth training and come out the other si

de with, um, job offers. Um, which is really cool. It's really exciting to see. It's something that makes me feel good. I want to see it expand and it's, it is a startup. So it's, it's going through, you know, normal startup woes and challenges and, um, but it's doing. involved in on a day to day basis. I believe It's one of, uh, there's two that I'm pretty involved with day to day, um, that one, that one I've stepped into assists and so I'm, I'm heavily involved in it, but, um, you know, it's,

uh, as it grows, that won't be the case, um, I'll kind of step back again, but, but yeah, right now I'm helping them. Helping them one of the things and I've heard this from a couple other places. I know the dues. I don't call it the same thing, but, you know, cyber readiness, you know, trying to fill that gap. a lot of, there was focus on the aptitude. What, specifically are you finding when, when you're saying aptitude are good fits for people that may be doing a career transition or that tran

sitioning military? What, what is, what are those, how are you testing that? And then what is the sign? It's like, oh man, yeah, you got, you got what it takes to continue Yeah. So I've got a little, I've got some anecdotes for you around that bit. Uh, Craig, uh, Schultz, our CTO, uh, would be the best person to talk to for that. Um, so we're testing in a variety of ways. Um, we have some question based pop ups in the front end of the system. Um, the system is, uh, all virtual. I mean, we can do

it in person if there's a company or organization that wants that, but, um, we, we generally do it all virtual and we've got, uh, some. You know, AI is a big deal, right? Everyone's talking about AI, everything's AI. So I'd be remiss if I didn't say something about or at least say the word AI. yeah. AI. word. Train training my devices here to, to, to try to sell me AI tonight. Um, also another topic, uh, but yeah, so, uh, we have, uh, this concept of an artificial intelligence instructor, um, t

hat sits in with the real instructors through the program to allow us to scale. Um, so that's exciting. We'll be some exciting things this year. That'll come more into fruition, but, um, you know, it's been, it's been really cool to see, um, see people go through the program. Um, And, uh, and, and find their way into new jobs. Um, on the way that we're testing, uh, AI is going to play into that a lot in the future. Right now there's the system, which again, integrated platform. So it tracks you

throughout the platform and instructors can drop into different sessions and, um. So during that process, we, we almost have like a jumpstart is almost a mini version of the course, right? So we have some training lessons. Um, there's some front end, uh, lessons, there's some quizzes and, and some of those are attitude or aptitude related questions. Um, and there's a couple of organizations that have been putting together some really cool data, some large models on, on, you know, what different

things linked to what, and it gets. You know, highly technical pretty quickly, but, um, it's kind of exciting to watch. Um, Craig is definitely the right person to talk to on that one, but, um, well, So this is probably 1 of those things. If you had a question on there, it says, do you like computers? And somebody says, no, you go, probably not for you. I didn't you know, I think there are. it got. There's some basic questions, but most of them are, are more about math or more about what you lik

e to do in your life or how, you know, uh, certain types of technologies might make a difference for you or whatever. And there's, there's, there's questions you might not necessarily assume are related to, uh, um, cyber career interest or, you know, assessing whether you'll be successful in cyber that do in fact play a role. Right. Again, some of it, I mean, there, there are questions that, that really do go back to your curiosity, right? Like, are you curious? Are you driven to learn more? Are

you, you know, and it's not directly asking those questions, but they're, but that's what it's getting at. That's where it's going to, um, because you're looking for a candidate that is going to commit a lot of time. I mean, we do have shorter programs, um, and this quarter we'll be announcing some new shorter term, um, Opportunities, um, some, we'll be announcing some partnerships with some companies that want to offer a shorter term opportunities. But, um, but the reality is the full blown pr

ogram, the zero to hero program. That's like. It's a commitment. And so we want to know that the folks going into it are really up for that challenge. And sometimes the challenge is, can you make yourself get up and do it every day? Right? And so that's, that's kind of built into those questions to just to make sure that people are truly committed. And for that 1, for anybody that was interested in more information, you just say go to rapid ascent dot com. Absolutely. All right. So out of your w

hole gigantic list of things that you are. Working on what would be the next thing that you would like to discuss that is top of mind to you. I will leave that open because again, for anybody that doesn't know, I've got like four pages of notes in front of me and I'm not going to pick, yeah. So I've known John for a while and, uh, and you know, he, he knows a lot of stuff about me and things I'm up to, but I, I realized in the last week or so, it's like, Oh, wait, John probably doesn't have a re

al handle on everything I'm up to. do you have a real handle on everything you're up to as a better question, whether I do or no, Of course I do. Um, no, I've got, uh, great people, um, around me that I work with, , I've got a bunch of different things going on, um, but they're all interconnected in some way. Um, you know, so I, you know, let me touch on that if I can first, uh, which, uh, you know, like we were saying, I sent you over a list of just all this stuff and I didn't even cover everyt

hing on it. Um, cause when we were I looked at him like, hold on a second. There's things missing that I already know about. the stuff you do know about that aren't on there, yeah, um, plus some budding opportunities. Um, one of the things I wanted to touch on though, you know, cause you joke about, do I know what all am I, am I on top of everything I'm up to? Uh, yeah, I am. Um, the different companies and firms have, uh, some great people. Um, and I've got a great ecosystem around me, partners

and, um, you know, business partners and nonprofits, nonprofit partners. Um, and, and that really helps to, you know, keep me sane. Um, but one of the things that for my own sanity, I always need to keep pushing and doing something new as well. Um, you know, I'm one of those. Um. I think it's probably something they might diagnose as a problem, but I think it's great because it helps with business. But, um, but yeah, one of the things that came up recently, I was talking at an event and the aud

ience asked a question about like, wait a minute, you were just talking about like all this nonprofit stuff for election related things. Then you switch to talking about like nonprofits for kids and small businesses. And, uh, and then you switched over to talking about some, you know, investment firm, like what do you do? And, you know, and I had given a, they read a short bio. I don't, I think at most of those events, people don't pay attention to bio reading, you know? Um, and someone asked to

wards the end, they're like, wait, how are you doing like all this stuff? And I was like, well, What do you mean? What do you mean how? Because it just seems natural to me. And it, I realize that when I'm talking about all the different things I'm doing, why it seems crazy. Um, but it's really not for me because I'm not spending that much extra time when things go wrong. Yeah, it takes a lot of my time. So, you know, if, if, uh, customers don't pay one of the companies, you know, in time and the

y're small businesses, cashflow is king and they need, they have payroll due. Then, you know, I get a call like, Hey, we need help. And, you know. I naturally want to know what went wrong, and then it turns into a bunch of work. Um, it's, it's time, but just maintaining the majority of the growth, um, a lot of these things are interconnected, right? Like Cyberbites Foundation that you mentioned earlier. Um, so co founded that, but it's around cyber and tech and helping kids and helping, you know

, local businesses, small businesses grow and, you know, um, bringing in large businesses and public entities to work with all of the other said people. So well, I go and talk to a lot of small businesses all the time as part of what I do for the investment firm. Um, I work. With growing the small businesses in my portfolio of companies. Um, and so I kind of already do that a lot. And so if I get a phone call from one of the directors at cyber bites saying, Hey, we really need help by providing

some advice to this small business. I go, okay, well, like I could probably give you my standard advice in 15 minutes. It's right. And it's just kind of all interconnected. Um, I go to conferences and events, um, so government, uh, contracting events like FCA and IT and all the four letter government, um, associations, um, that you do in that industry. I go to investment conferences, they go to cyber and tech conferences. I go to hacker conferences, um, been going to DEF CON since I was like 13,

um, But all of those things I like everything in my kind of my set of endeavors, I'll call them, um, somehow has connectivity to each other through kind of that ecosystem and, you know, I happily. Bring in other people, um, you know, once I've obviously trust them and, and, uh, like working with them. Um, cause I, I am at that stage in my life where I don't want to work with people I don't like, no, creates too assholes allow, no assholes allow no asshole policy. Um, I can't a hundred percent g

et that, you know, cause I do have to deal with the vast, like wide variety of people. But, um, you know, I just, in general, I feel like people don't need to be jerks and like people are too, the human condition makes us, you know, Uh, frustrated and angry individuals, uh, as a, as a people, as a human race. So it's not about any specific, you know, race, creed, color, nationality, religion, whatever it's, it's none of that really matters. All of us could be nice. Um, well, yeah, nice, kind. Um

, you know, all of that's a possibility. Um, and. Choose not to because they're so wrapped up in what we're doing, but, but yeah, so I want to work with people I want to work with and have collected, uh, a really great set of people in the ecosystem. And not all of them are business partners. Some of them are partners to companies. Some of them are friends. Um, But we all kind of jump in and help each other and we're always adding new people to that ecosystem. Thankfully, rarely have had to kick

people out of it. But, um, but yeah, um, it, so going back to your point, like there's a lot of stuff going on, but it feels like it's all interrelated and then the ecosystem makes it all kind of work without feeling like it's going to fall Unlike, I mean, I know some people, they're like, hey, I'm going to do, I got a music thing over here and I got this other thing that's over here and I got none of them, like, nothing from 1 relates to the other. So, at least in your case. That's Yeah. yeah,

you know, you've got, you've got the tech, you know, the cyber basis for I, I tried to argue with myself that my homeowners association was somehow related because it was related to my own sanity in dealing with those people. Um, and so I joined and was quickly elected by the rest of the board members as president. And that lasted for about two years. And I was like, okay, this has got to go. This is not interconnected with the rest of my life, um, at all. And. Discovered, you know, well, here'

s what the actual like Virginia homeowners, uh, association act says, and here's all the legalities of what they're doing. And I'm not, I'm not 1 of the people that like, they have a lot of problems with, but at the same time, I you don't. want everybody else's problems heaped on you on that crap. Yes. So I quickly had to drop that 1. For example, there was another nonprofit. I was, I was part of for a while, but it had nothing to do with anything else I'm doing. So when you look through that li

st of stuff that I'm up to, and the other things, you know, that I'm. Doing or about to do, um, you know, they're all interrelated. And so it doesn't take that much more time because I've already kind of like run into the people in, you know, like while working for the investment firm or working for the cyber firm, I ran into the people I needed to introduce to the training firm. Right. It, it was just kind of like, it all fits together. who I heard this from, because I actually say this to myse

lf now, if it's not a hell, yeah, it's a no. And, uh, you knew I was on the technical advisory committee for Stafford County schools last year, and they were reworking their policy. And it was super cool because we had drafted the first AI policy for a school system in the state of Virginia to the point. We could see that the governor's team had actually taken. Our language for their use in what they were rolling out later in the year because we were so far ahead and what was then, um, in their

reapplication process. I got hit up to like, can you do the transportation committee? I mean, the transportation school transportation stuff I'm like doing. Early access things over here, like, to the point, you know, we were trying to keep the team together as much as possible for another cycle and it didn't happen. I didn't get reappointed for whatever reason. Never heard back. And it was 1 of those things. I just go through my head. I'm like, that was I thought about it. I'm like, oh, I can b

e the team player. You know, it's community support and all that kind of stuff that rolls through my head. And then at the back, it was. That wasn't a hell yeah, that was me trying to justify this some other way. It does not fit anything else I'm doing, nor do I want to have to learn. School walking policies are around the school. That just doesn't, I would probably get irritated for a two year commitment if that wasn't there. I'll wrap, we'll wrap with this. Part of a lot of what you do also is

with fundraising to Yep. So how, um, how do you identify or what are you looking for for anybody that hears this? That may be interesting going. Oh, man, you're, you're doing some bleeding edge stuff with new companies and things of this nature, um, to get, you know, potential interested investors into what you're working on. Yeah. Um, I have to be careful here just because, and, and, you know, for the group, for everyone, uh, listening to this, um, SEC regulates a lot of things, right? Um, and

so they regulate the type of fund that I run, uh, at Riffian investments, uh, with my partner, Joel over there and my lead, uh, executive Victor. Um, So we're a 506 B fund, um, which means it has a number of meetings. I won't bore you with the details, but I can't like market it. Um, talk about having it. Right. Um, and so, you know, essentially, uh, in a broad sense, um, we're. We, my ecosystem, not just Riffian, uh, are investing in, um, cyber and tech. Um, we look for dynamic leadership, you

know, all the, the, the general blocking and tackling on the business side. Although sometimes, uh, we're good with taking on a company that doesn't fully understand the business side because. I will, or, you know, under the context of just me doing it or, uh, Riffian or, um, you know, whatever it is, whoever it is I'm working with, uh, we'll get. Um, we'll get involved and help them understand the business side, help to teach them, help to provide that level of experience that we've had, uh, b

eing operators and running businesses and getting them acquired, et cetera, or acquiring other companies. Um, so conveniently, um, for me, this is back to that ecosystem thing. I'm going off and talking to executives. I'm going off and going to. Like tech conferences, like CES going off and going to, um, sitting with, um, small business, GovCon owner groups, um, you know, all that kind of thing. And a lot of those folks are getting to the point where they're trying to figure out like, well, how

do they, you know, they're making really good money and how do they figure out, um, or how do they decide what to invest in and what kind of opportunities are out there? So I do a lot of, um, partnership work. Um, Personally, for my businesses and with, uh, you know, my fund at Riffian, we do a lot of partnership activity with, um, angel groups with investment syndicates, um, with, uh, with a number of different, um, groups that are all kind of looking at opportunities, vetting them, sharing dea

l flow, sharing, you know, for invest in investor speak deal flow means pipeline. So those of you that know what pipelines are in business, That's what it's for investors, but, um, we share our pipelines, um, of potential companies to invest in and kind of what, what, uh, what things we found interesting or didn't. And so, you know, we're, it, it's great to have that ecosystem, um, you know, to, to reach out and share new things I'm doing. I don't directly market fundraising, um, like, or I will

individually market fundraising. I won't like publicly, a beer a cigar. out. Yeah. Well, yes. One of the rules is for a 506B fund, I have to know you. I have to get to know you. Um, so it's individual. Like, so if we'd never met before, John, and you wanted to invest, um, I'd be like, oh, okay, well, let's go to dinner. You know, let's um, you know, a week later, let's go have scars together. Let's, you know, talk, tell me about your family. Tell me about your financial situation. situation. Te

ll me about whatever you already have to be an accredited investor. Um, I won't bore everyone with the details here, but a lot of the middle class meets the standard for accredited investor at this point. Um, so to come into a fund like mine, you have to be an accredited investor. Um, and we do have. Um, for a fund like, uh, ours, we, we have a pretty low buy in, um, there are syndicate groups, um, and angel groups that I work with that, you know, for them, you might be able to invest less, uh,

when you come into something and then, you know, back to your question on fundraising because of the nonprofits. Also fundraising for three different nonprofits, Okay. Mute. my sphere of influence, if you will. Um, and that's kind of worked out really well. People have been really interested in all the different things we have going on. And then my partner, Joel Griffin on the Riphean Investment side, um, he and I came together and founded, uh, Riphean Investments late 2020. Um, and that's where

the investment fund is. Joel has a bunch of other investments, uh, uh, opportunities available in restaurants and other hospitality and some really interesting things that, that all fit into our ecosystem. So it's great to be able to use all of those in the ecosystem that we built. Um, in the Fredericksburg area and you want to talk about, Cybersecurity startups, you go to Rebellion on William street in downtown Fredericksburg, and then you pop across the street and go, talk cybersecurity at th

e Rifian office. there you go, there you go, there you go. Or, you know, go across the street to, uh, Italian food with Consigliere's of Yeah, pretty soon, pretty soon the, the, uh, Port Asterio will be open with, uh, oysters, um, fresh seafood and, uh, uh, there's a micro brew in there too. So there's paired beers now. awesome. Deal So yeah, we, we run the gamut. deal flowed. The deal will be flowing through. exactly. cool. Anybody wants to reach out, what's the best way to, to hit you up to ta

lk about any of your, any of your many interests? yeah, I think, um, what's the safest way for me to give that out? Uh, LinkedIn. I'm I was going to say LinkedIn. When you say it that way, I'm saying LinkedIn. I'll because it filters fairly decent, uh, on LinkedIn. Um, so yeah, hit me up there. Send me a direct message. Um, the other, the other thing you can do is, um, I guess the filtering is pretty good on my, um, immortal group, um, email. So, uh, info at. Immortal. pe. make sure I put all th

at stuff in the show notes. Cool. I appreciate the time. Absolutely. It's fun as always, especially when I get to stay dressed down after playing outside in the snow,