Year One Milestone for Skyhigh Security – Gee Rittenhouse, Skyhigh Security

This is texturing TV. Hey everyone, welcome back to techstroke TV, you know, I I was beginning to think we weren't gonna be able to get this next interview done because of so many things going on in my world, but likewise, my guest has a lot of things going on in his world too. So, but every once while it works out, and we get it together, I am pleased to welcome back to text strong TV G writtenhouse.

Who is the CEO for sky high security. He's coming to us today from Maui of all places lucky him. Gee, welcome.

Welcome to Tech strong TV. Thank you so much for the invitation. Looking forward to it.

Absolutely. So I guess we should get out of the way you're not you're not living in Maui you're there for a sales. Event, you have our Champions event.

So we take the top sellers and celebrate together in a nice. I I would guess Sunny clear environment. Although I figure out I've been in the hotel room way too much.

I gotta get outside of it. So it's always nice to Maui. Anyway for those who are familiar with your own story.

Why don't you give him a little background? Yeah, so I grew up in Tech. I'm a long time Tech executive been around a few companies but all of them fairly large and so about a year just over a year ago.

I decided to take a detour in my career and Lead sky high security much smaller company than some of my previous ones but I love the the growth the dynamic in the company. And and so we form Sky High by really taking the cloud assets that were inside of former McAfee Enterprise and and pulled them out and a lot of those assets were through Acquisitions. Anyway, so you the group was used to being by itself, but it was really refreshing to bring them back out again and create Sky High from that and serve our customers over the last year.

Absolutely, and just to refresh our audiences recollection, of course when you know McAfee was spun out of Intel and then it sort of split itself into two one. Which tralex which I think is more of the consumer. I don't want to I'm not insulting anyone but the consumer AV endpoint kind of products and then as you mentioned McAfee had been on a bit of a buying spree and had bought some really some of the leading Cloud security.

Companies out there under their umbrella one of which was called. Sky sky I wasn't yeah. It was Sky High networks.

Yes that we took the name and modified it obviously now it's much broader than the network Journey. So it's by high security. Yeah, absolutely.

Absolutely. And so that was launched about a year ago now. Yeah, we just celebrated our first year anniversary.

Of course the tech has been around for a while. We helped create the Cosby category helps create the web Gateway category. And so there's a lot of Deep Roots in the security space and and of course the cloud Edge, but over this last year, we've expanded the portfolio considerably and and continue to kind of push into this Security Services Edge kind of space.

That's really quite frankly growing as companies move to the cloud. It's a it's a fairly crowded. Space with a lot of vendors kind of creeping in but we felt the need to create Sky High because of our focus on data and data protection while a lot of other folks focus on the packets and the networking and that turned out to be a great choice over the last years customers have seen that advantage and really embraced our approach to the market.

Absolutely. So G as you sit here A year later. You know like the song said regrets.

I've had a few but then again too few Dimension, right? Yeah. What looking over the year kind of what do you what would let's start with this.

What were the things that you've exceeded expectations are but really worked out well. Yeah, I and and anticipation of your next question. I'll compare and contrast so the things that really well were the kind of market and customer Embrace of the company.

There was there was a real celebration that I was back and there was Clarity when you're part of a larger company some of that focus and strategy gets lost. And so the brand the brand identity around Sky High was really refreshing and and really was adapt adopted well inside of the market I think comparing and contrasting that to some of the difficulties a lot of the difficulties were internal as as our employees and whatnot were have long since identified with a larger company a larger motion the processes and all of that as a kind of new startup. We were not afforded that kind of usual run rate of getting a few company a few customers kind of growing with the market and and going along we were thrown right in there kind of day one with with a fairly large customer base, but a lot of the new processes we had to stand up a lot of the new interactions and even organizations.

We had to stand up very quickly. Okay, and that was that was a wild ride for sure. Oh, absolutely, and and you know quite frankly you picked a very interesting year to do it.

Yeah, there's a lot right? How do these macro conditions played into this? You think gee?

Yeah, so we see obviously the security space is still an area an of investment for it organizations all around the world. That's not something that you relinquish easily. But we do find that there's a lot more kind of steps and checks in the sequence.

So some of the the projects that were so readily funded and and excited about starting and executing. We're now reconsidered by Boards or by senior Executives to ensure that the financial return was correct that the business focus was correct. And so while we've always focused focused on security and making sure that we're de-risking the environment And keeping it secure.

We've had to Pivot a lot into the kind of financial discussions and the return on investment and why this is important and by putting it in that Financial language. We had to really expand the buying motion to include much more of the finance side of our customers as well as the security side. a great I think we're all seeing that but I do think you do right what you said right in the beginning of that was was that on which is people can't stop doing security the threats don't go away right here.

Yeah, no exactly right but it is it does focus and actually is it's part of our strength and why we're so fortunate to have joined the market at this time when you think about security and particularly securing data in this environment, it's really complex. I mean data is all over the place where it's going who has access to it quite frankly. You know, what is your risk exposure just keeps increasing and and when you try to secure this with multiple different Technologies and what not it's expensive because you have large operational teams and things like that and so by consolidating it into one platform that covers all of the major threat vectors as well as Positories of where your data is that just naturally lends itself to a conversation around return on investment and improving that and whatnot.

So in many ways, it's really helped us in provided a bit of a Tailwind because it naturally fits into our strategy and and the value that we bring to the market. Absolutely. Absolutely.

She let me not going away. I I know let me ask you to put your your goggles on and Crystal take the crystal ball out, you know, so it's one year in let's say we're sitting here two years from now three years in What do you think you'd be most thankful for or most proud of it at that point? First and foremost almost always it's the team the team has accomplished so much.

I'm here at our champion sales event in Maui as we started off. These are not just our top 10% of our sellers, but they sold in an environment that is changing in a company that has changed like it is is remarkable the team that we've assembled and their ability to just kind of execute through all of this. And so that looking back I always look back even over the last year fondly when we get together and say remember those like first few weeks or the first and that'll continue of course for the couple years, but also secondly the deeper relationships we have with the industry with our customers.

You're right in The Sweet Spot and and it's always those particularly the security space those personal relationships because it's about trust and individual trusts corporate trust and those relationships Run Deep. Absolutely. So Chief, you know from where I said here, I can't take three steps without tripping over an AI story or an AI pitch.

You know, everyone's worried not well, everyone is worried but everyone's wondering how is it going to disrupt my job? How's it going to disrupt my industry? How's it going to help?

right How do you think you know, how does this generate of AI have any effect on Sky what you got what you're doing. It's guy I or you know the industry as all. Yeah, so fortunately in the security space we've been dealing with machine learning to a lesser extend artificial intelligence, but large data analyzing data for patterns simplifying workflows and things like that.

That that's been in our industry for a long time that looking for a needle and the stack of needles and that pattern recognition, but of course threats change and still for a lot of our companies one of the biggest threats Remains The Insider threat with account takeover, even with multi-factor authentication and whatnot as fishing emails become much more sophisticated as polymorphic malware becomes more sophisticated with these Technologies. We have to be as Vigilant. And so we really do leverage and and continue to push.

Reducing the attack surface and we do that through zero trust principles and Frameworks not just in the access piece, but in the usage piece and how people are using data and it's the lifeblood of a company. So you want to make sure it's frictionless up to a point where it becomes abnormal and then you have to start to question whether there's a count takeover or something is going on. And so we definitely see the the kind of impact of it, but it isn't really new to US Security Professionals.

No. Are you things says since the dawn of the laptop computer? Yeah, you know what?

I I was just a guest on someone else's podcast and we were talking about this. First of all eight. You know, AI machine learning has been something we've been working with for years and years secondly.

I would Our whole industry is based on constant new right? We're always Reinventing. There's always a new technology.

There's always a new Bubble, you know so to speak that that's carrying forward. That's the next great. Yeah show my age the Next Great White Hope, right?

Is it? Well, we're all betting. I mean it certainly AI is is Man, the amounted you deals and money being thrown at ridiculous.

It will have an effect. I I think. But you know, it's not putting Security Professionals out of work.

It's not no, I I considerably right after endurance. Yeah, anyways two size of the coin for sure. Absolutely and you know people say the sky is falling it doesn't fall.

I'm looking in a few weeks. We have the largest security conference out there and I'm always looking for the the new vendors that come in particularly the those startups because they always build companies around the kind of latest threat and so I'm waiting to see how many chat AI security companies. All right, I can save you the time because I might my inboxes blooded with pictures, you know, because we're streaming live all week over there at our say conference.

I'm inundated with we've we've Incorporated generator take your pick. Yeah, identity and access endpoint security Cloud security threat Intel attack. Surface management.

Yeah it all has it in there now. So yeah, that'll be like last year was all about zero trust this you I'm sure yeah, are you I I'm sure Sky will be there. Yes, it will be good together.

Yes. Absolutely. Well, we're in where are we we are in my skoney West Broadway live if you want to come by.

I really stop by and say hello. Look forward to it. All right.

Hey, I'm gonna let you get back to the surfing sign in Maui you enjoy it. I bought well, hopefully I'll be back out there Christmas, but good say hello to to the whales and everyone else and she looking forward to seeing you and RSA in the future. Congratulations on one year and We'll we'll be we'll be looking for you g rate now.

CEO sky high security here on textrung TV. We're gonna take a break. We'll be right back.