Navigating the Landscape: AI, Cybersecurity and Diversity – TechStrongWomen EP 26

Hi, everybody. Thanks for joining us for another episode of Techstrong Women, where we feature amazing women doing amazing things in tech. I'm Jody Ashley, executive producer here at Techstrong, and I'm here with my co-host, Tracy Reagan, creator, and c e o of Deploy Hub.

Before I introduce today's guest, I wanna give you a quick update about what's happening here at techron. ai, so be sure and go check it out. We all know AI is a hot topic these days, and we're excited to have this new platform and all this new content for you guys to check out.

We have a couple virtual events coming up you can check out. ai on December 12th. tv for great shows and interviews.

Hey, Tracy, what's on your mind today? Ai, of course. Well actually, um, more than just ai, but investments, uh, you know, I I I try to keep, uh, kind of my, my thumb on the, the, the pulse of startups and investments.

And this article came that, it came across that talked about, um, kind of money drying up for startups, uh, even AI startups. So over the course of the last year, uh, there's been quite a, I mean, the investment money pool has sort of shrunk, uh, and that makes it even harder for startups, especially for women in, in this industry to raise money. But I did see something in that article that I thought was interesting, and this article comes from cyber news, uh, and it's called Where Venture Money.

Where has venture money gone and including for struggling AI startups in the article, even though the top kind of, I guess you would call them investments or unicorns, none of them are around, uh, cybersecurity. And in the article they talk about that the, the fact that cybersecurity is probably the most appropriate place to place ai, uh, because cybersecurity's hard to track. So if you're out there doing cybersecurity and you're, you've got an AI of, of kind of angle to it, or even you've started some AI workflows, this may be an area you could get startup funding in.

Maybe not so much other areas, but certainly application security I would think, uh, would be areas that these investors are looking to invest. Cybersecurity is al always a worthy investment in my mind, and I think it's interesting that this particular article points out that cybersecurity is an area that, uh, investors are looking into, but they're not making big investments in other areas. Uh, so just a, just a thought, and I find it an interesting topic because in application security, as I say all the time, we don't have a big data lake for doing ai.

We don't have a large language model. We don't have a lot of data because we don't share it. Uh, so more to come on this topic because in cybersecurity and application development in general, we see things like chat, chat, G p t, we could actually generate code, but on the other side of the coin, um, we're not doing a whole lot to protect the code that we are generating.

So that's my thoughts for today. That's awesome. Thanks, traces.

All right. Well, I would love to introduce today's guest, Smitha Murphy. I hope I said all that right?

Yes, you did. Smitha, tell us what you're up to and tell us a little bit about yourself. First of all, thank you both for having me on the show.

Uh, I really appreciate it. My name is Smitha Murthy. I'm the c e o of Beagle Security.

Um, I've been a career product person, so, um, you know, done, uh, product management in a variety of companies, uh, large companies, small companies have grown both, um, products. My passion getting, solving customer problems is my passion. Um, and I think it led me naturally to this role.

Um, I've spent about 10 years in cybersecurity in previous roles, and, uh, when this opportunity came up for me to take the helm of Beagle security, um, it felt like the right thing for me to do. Um, so Beagle Security we're, um, vulnerability assessment and penetration testing SaaS platform using AI at the core. So Tracy, your article couldn't have been more aptt that you picked up because I have been at the New York Venture Summit the last couple of days, um, and have been talking to a lot of people.

We're doing our first capital raise. Um, so lots of interest in cybersecurity, lots of interest in ai. I'm happy to talk about that and what I learned, um, at the summit.

Um, so yes, um, I, I, I think, you know, just, just on the article about ai, I think hackers are using ai. So if the cybersecurity products that are supposed to protect us are not leveraging ai, then there's, there's a huge gap. Um, and thankfully our product, our platform, when we built it, it was built with an AI core, and, um, that's how we believe we're differentiated and our customers are seeing that.

Let's dive into that a little bit. This the concept of building a product on an AI core. Um, describe that to our audience because I don't know if many of you know, we have, we have a pretty broad audience and not everybody is really understanding of what AI is and what the core, what an AI core is.

Sure. So, um, so the way, um, I explain how we are leveraging AI at the core, um, in our product now platform is imagine you are a hacker and you're looking at a website or a web application. You are essentially looking at what are all the different entry points through which I can get in and potentially with malicious intent, right?

You and I are not doing that, uh, with malicious intent, but the hackers are. Um, so what we have done is we have leveraged ai, um, to essentially mimic what a hacker would do. So we're leveraging image processing, natural language processing, using those models.

Um, we have a supervised learning, uh, system in place that's learning from looking at all of these, uh, different websites, different, um, web applications and, and continuously improving. Um, and, and therefore being able to a figure out what's the tech stack on which a particular web app is built and what's the best way in which we can log in, um, uh, to with the different entry points that that web app may offer. Um, and we also have protection for public facing APIs because as we know, that's the way in which information is getting exchanged, um, in today's world.

So that's how we're, I think, I think the a p I issue is, is broader than most people understand, especially, um, with access, getting access to data. I mean, I just saw, I just saw a, uh, I think it was, um, what is that company that has the golf where you can go play golf from a, like, you, you can drive, I can't think of the name of it. This is Topgolf Top Golf.

Thank you. Top Golf Topgolf. I just saw like something that Topgolf, uh, had a security breach and that, uh, exposed a million names for Topgolf.

So, you know, I don't know how that, that security breach occurred, but if it got to access to the names and emails of folks, more than likely it was through a p i. Well, and they also have, like, I hate Topgolf just saying there's one down the road drives us crazy, but they also have these, you know, monthly accounts you can sign up for a membership. So who knows how much payment data got stolen in that breach as well.

It said That they didn't have payment data, but it was mainly, um, that's why it, so in it, when you have a a P I ba when we're talking APIs, you can have an a P I that just goes out and gets a name and an email. You may have a a P I that goes out and gets, uh, financial information. So the, when you build something that's more service oriented, it may be that they just got the emails and the names, but a million people is, that's a lot.

For something like Topgolf, I, it surprises me. Um, but in terms of application security, I know there's a lot of discussion around protecting, um, and secure, uh, building more secure APIs. Yeah, yeah, abs absolutely.

Uh, did you want me to talk about that a little bit? Uh, Tracy, I think our, I think our audience would be very interested in that, if that's a, if that's a core place where people are getting in, you know, how do, how do application security tools work in this a p i, uh, security field? What are they, what are they actually, Um, so, so I think it just depends on where in the lifecycle a hacker's able to get in, right?

So, so if we think about AppSec overall, I think it's important to understand application security refers to like the umbrella term. It's been around for a long time. Um, anyone who's done software development, um, understands that you want to follow secure coding practices, and if you're writing APIs, it has to be secure at that level before it gets to the point when it's a public facing a p i and someone's actually able to use it.

Um, so, so I think AppSec as a, as a whole has multiple different pieces to it. Um, there's static analysis, which is at the code level. That's not something that we do.

There's plenty of very good players in the market that do static analysis. Then you have software composition analysis, which is talking about what are all the different pieces that went into building your software? Are you using open source software and how secure is that?

Um, and then, then you get to what we do mostly, which is from a third party perspective. So we're outside the firewall hitting it from the outside. So it's black box, we don't have access to the code.

Um, and, and essentially we're looking at what is exposed and how can we, how can we emulate what a hacker might do and therefore get access either through a web app, which is through a login mechanism or whatever you have, or through an a p i by using the a p I call to penetrate. So if the a p i is not built securely, then you have a potential vulnerability there that can be exploited. And it's important to understand in this our new modern, what we like to call cloud native architecture.

If you're building microservices and you've really decoupled your application, you literally have, you have literally thousands, you could potentially have thousands of, of APIs. Now we're getting to a point, we're talking about an application security by having a deco decoupled databases as well. So if one A a P I is exposed, it only can access the data of that particular A p I, which I think is an interesting concept.

It's kind of like a, I saw, I saw a kind of a meme for this, and it showed, um, I think it was Warren Buffet and Bill Gates playing pinging pong. And one of 'em had this massive, massive pinging pong paddle, and one had a tiny one, which really described the, the pin where you can penetrate. So if you penetrate at the ginormous, uh, pinging pong paddle, you can get into everything.

Yes. If you have a tiny one, the penetration is, uh, you know, the space of the, the, the surface of penetration is, is, is much smaller. Uh, so, you know, in order for us to start building more secure applications, many things must happen.

However, one thing that's important is understanding the use of microservices and why, and potentially decoupled databases and understanding how that actually improves security, even though it makes it very, a much more complex system to build. It makes it a, a harder one to, um, to break into A Absolutely. But one comment on that is that's, that sounds like a great idea, but to your point, it's more complex to implement.

And we know there's plenty of legacy software, uh, plenty of web apps that won't have that architecture, that won't have that ability to break the database into smaller pieces and APIs only being able to access what they need to access. Um, so I think the problem of a p i security still remains a fairly sizable one. Um, and I think, I actually think that that would be a fantastic architecture if it could be implemented where you kind of break it down to little bite-sized pieces.

So your exposure is limited versus this is like the whole thing. We're getting there, I think. But to your point, the legacy applications are gonna be around for a long time.

Think about the US government. Yeah, they have massive legacy applications that's gonna take quite some time before they can get off of those systems and build newer modern systems. Um, and they need, uh, they need help.

They really do. They, you know, they're looking for it. In fact, I'm right now, um, busy responding to an, a request for information from the cybersecurity director, uh, just giving them information about what areas could be improved upon.

And there are so many different areas that can be improved upon in the US government, I think is pretty serious about it. Um, and in your experience, I'm sure that government is a target for you, for, uh, for your, your new startup, but who else is out there really serious about securing? I mean, I beagle security must be looking for particular personas.

Who do you think is right now super interested in this problem? So, uh, thank you for that question. Actually.

This is, um, this is the heart of why we started Beagle Security. Um, you know, if you kind of go back about three years, when we started, um, AppSec was a known space. Uh, static analysis was well known.

Dynamic analysis was starting to pick up, um, because you wanted security at every stage of your product development lifecycle. Um, however, the AppSec tools cater to the large enterprises. The large enterprises were like, oh, we gotta do this, and it has to be, uh, a core part of secure coding and secure application deployment and all of that.

So they actually got hold of partners, um, and the partners, uh, looked for the best in class security solution. So we're talking hundreds of thousands of dollars, right, for each of these contracts. So what that essentially did is the small and mid-sized businesses who also have websites, who also have web applications, who also do data exchange with APIs, they were left with, oh my God, I can't afford that.

Right? So let me try and do, let me check a box once a year to meet my compliance or regulatory re requirements and run a pen test. And I say, why bother?

Right? If you're doing this once a year, you may as well not do it because the rest of the year you are exposed. So yeah.

So our mission was how do we, um, how do we educate and secure and make something like AppSec really affordable and accessible to all size businesses? That was our mission. Um, and when we, so, so when we built the product, we made it SaaS-based.

So it's subscription model. So if you're a small or mid-size business, um, it can be, Hey, I'm gonna do monthly to manage my cost, right? You don't have to do a multi-year contract.

Um, so we made it monthly, annual, what have you. There's a discount if you do it annually, but if you do it monthly, you manage your expenses a little better. Um, and our, the traction we have today in the market is with the small and mid-sized businesses because they love what, what they have got.

So it's not just a cost advantage. I, I try to, I try to tell the story of why we started, but I'm also trying to say it's not only because of cost that people buy our product, they love our product. I can tell you the number of competitive displacement we've done over the past three years is astounding.

Um, a lot of, there's, there's very few S M B focused AppSec players. Most are large enterprise focused upmarket. Mm-hmm.

And, and for the large upmarket competitors to come downstream, uh, to SS M B is a challenge. A lot of them have been trying not very successfully. Um, we, on the other hand, we started in SS M B, uh, that's kind of our core focus.

Um, we do have a handful of large enterprise customers who have seen the value that we can bring to, to them. Uh, in fact, recently I was talking to a ciso, um, who has had the usual, uh, suspects in the large enterprise space. Um, he's gone through all of them and he's like, I don't know what the difference is between each of these vendors, right?

I don't know if I'm more protected or less protected. I just know I'm cutting a check off a very large sum every year. So I said, tell you what, I'm gonna give you my product for free.

Try it if you like it better, the con you can give, give me the contract. So, so it, it's, it's interesting, and I think the mindset has to change a little bit, um, in the enterprise space from SMBs have no option but to have its self service because they have to run that business. But for enterprises, I think the product has to be 10 x superior, 10 x, uh, more affordable to, for them to see that and say, oh, here's a better alternative.

And maybe that's when the shift will happen. Well, you point, you, you, you hit a point that I've always complaining about too, and the, it's the checkbox. Security has always been such a checkbox.

QA and testing in some way has been that way too. Um, and you know, there, there's this fuzzy area between getting a product ready to deploy out to production, uh, and having it sitting on of a developer's machine and it's running correctly and they wanna push it out quickly, then this, all the security and testing just becomes a checkbox. And it's, that's the case with software bill of material reports.

SBOs, okay, I generated an sbo, but it's sitting in a bill directory in a text file someplace. I did it, but I don't, I can't do anything with the data. So what's the point of me using it?

What, what's the point of me doing it? It's just a checkbox. And so much of security has become that over the course of time.

It's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, I did this, I did this, I did this. So somehow in the software factory floor, we have to build good habits of brushing our teeth from the beginning to the end. That's Right.

That's right. That's absolutely right. Um, and it surprises me.

So as, as I mentioned, I've worked in very large companies, very large software companies, um, that, you know, I was actually, uh, fairly surprised when a recent, um, product release was getting ready to get out of the door and oops, we haven't done our penetration testing. I'm like, what? This can't be real.

Um, so it, I, I think that education needs to happen throughout. Um, and, and to your point, the hygiene of making this a habit throughout the lifecycle is an important part, um, of, It's just such a push and pull between get this out to the customer as fast as possible and making sure it's quality and secure. It's always going to be a push and pull.

And it's hard to, it's hard. It's a, it's definitely walking a tight, a tight rope. And I think developers do the best they can, but sometimes people like us as users are like, but I want it now.

I want it now. It's broken. Please fix it.

I gotta get this done. Yeah. And I think that's where, sorry, just to do another little plug.

Um, I think that's where the AI core helps from our product perspective, because we've seen, we're able to run, let's say about 3000 test cases very quickly. Like we did a comparison between h how, how much would, how long would it take to take the same code through a manual pen testing process, the number of test cases that could be run. And the amount of time it took was, um, about two weeks or three weeks to do the manual testing.

And the same thing was done in two or three days using our product. Yeah. There's nothing that's left in the, I would say the DevOps pipeline that should not be automated.

If we don't automate this stuff there, it's never gonna get done. It just does it, everything. It has to be automated, you know, maybe co even coating's becoming more automated.

Yes. But automation is required because you cannot deliver fast with any manual steps. So the whole pipeline has to be, um, automated.

And that's another problem, um, which I'd love to chat about, but we're gonna run out of time, and I would really like to get a little bit of about your history. How did you get back, how did you get into software? How did you end up where you're at?

I mean, you know, starting from, you know, young college graduate to being a c e O of a startup, what, what does your journey look like? All right, let's, let's go back about, oh, I don't wanna say how many years. No, No one's asking you to give years.

So, uh, so my background is, so my undergraduate degree is in computer engineering, uh, computer science minors. So I started my early career as a software developer, did that for about six years. Um, and I realized like, what the thing that I enjoy most, uh, in that role was, this is way back when, when we used to have those beta calls, um, our software product would be getting ready to get out of the door.

So prior to that, we would have a beta period when customers would use your product, critique the product, um, give you feedback, find bugs, uh, things like that. And, and I really, really enjoyed, uh, being able to solve that customer problem and have them say, wow, that really works. And that really solved my problem.

So that kind of led me to, uh, going to B-School, uh, got my M B A, um, one of the, so the product that I was a software developer for, we happened to have a product management role open for it. So I raised my hand, took it, not knowing what the heck I was doing. Um, and I've been a product manager since I've, um, worked in, like I said, very large companies.

Um, I've worked in places where product management was not an understood function, and I've had to establish the function and, and really build the processes around the discipline of product management. And, uh, so worked in a variety of domains. I actually pride myself in that because it, every domain teaches you something new and you bring that arsenal of learnings to your next role and hopefully add value in your next role.

Um, so I worked in, during, when we had Waterfall. Now Agile, I've been an agile champion in several of my previous roles. Um, whether I voluntarily became the Agile champion or not, that's a different question, but I ended up there.

Um, so, but, but so large companies, small companies, different, um, development methodologies, um, different, um, different size companies. Um, but I've spent 10 years in cybersecurity, uh, in companies like McAfee, Juniper Networks, ca, ca technologies. Um, so it's, it's always been in, in my, um, in my headspace.

And, um, I was most recently, uh, running a healthcare portfolio. Um, and my colleague, my ex-colleague from McAfee, he's the, he's an advisor to bele security, and he came and asked me, Hey, I think this would be perfect for you. And I was like, what?

It wasn't what I was thinking, but, um, I did my due diligence on Beagle, like I would as a product manager. Um, and I said, how big is this market? How big is it growing?

Who are the people who are, will I like working with these people? Um, and all of those good things. People often tend to forget that it's so important, the people that you work with.

Um, really smart, really energetic, uh, set of folks, cybersecurity engineers, AI engineers, um, and who built a product, and it's something, one of my co-founders, he used to be a pen tester, so that's kind of how the whole idea was birthed. Um, and for me, um, this was, this is a little bit, um, non-traditional where the two co-founders founded the company, and I've joined them earlier this year. So I'm sort of like a new person that's brought into the mix.

Um, but I think, you know, they wanted me to, um, come in because they see, we have, our customers are distributed all over the world, uh, with over 50% of our customer base here in North America. So we needed a North America presence. Um, and that's why I'm here, You know, uh, we asked that question to most of the women we have on, if we, we remember to get the sneak it in.

And one thing that's usually, I'm dragging it out at the last minute. Yes. And one thing that that's common is that every single woman we have spoken to, I, I don't think without, I, I, I think every single one has said that they started out as a programmer.

And if we ask them if what if they, what they would, uh, suggest to a young college graduate, how they get started, they always say code, start with coding. You need to be a programmer first, as you pointed out. You learn, you, you, when you start at the programming level, you learn many, many disciplines.

Yes. Which you can then apply to as you did product management. Yeah.

Yeah. Abs absolutely. And, and I think, um, having the technology background has served me well personally throughout my career.

Um, because whether we like it or not, oftentimes we end up being the only, uh, females in a room, whatever your role might be. Um, and, and then you need to be able to engage with the rest of the room at the level that they're engaging in. Yes.

And in, in the case of, um, technology, it's technology, um, there, there are people in, in my past who would say, oh, I'm really intimidated to talk to this architect or whoever. And for me, I, I kind of take that on as a challenge. I'm like, I will engage that person in a conversation and explain my perspective and listen to their perspective, and we're gonna have a happy marriage here.

Um, it, so, so I, I really do believe having a strong technical background will serve any person well, and especially women in, in a, in a domain that is, uh, still traditionally more, uh, male dominated By far. By far, yeah. And what I try to tell women that I speak to that may reach out to me from a mentoring perspective, is that it's okay not to know everything.

Um, yeah. We as women wanna have the answers. We wanna solve problems, we wanna, oftentimes we're very focused on, you know, helping and to, in order to help, you have to have knowledge.

And I think it holds some woman back. Um, I've never, I've always been, I, my curiosity has probably overridden my need to help somebody. So I've always been the person who says, wait, wait, wait, back up.

What does that acronym, I have no idea what you're talking about. You know, what does that mean? Because there's so much to learn in this, this tech field, you can't know it all only way.

You're Absolutely right. You're absolutely right, Tracy. I think so many times as women we're afraid to ask the questions because we're afraid someone will think we don't understand, we don't have the knowledge, we don't belong in the room.

And I think that's like across the world, right? And I was always, I was always taught, and I was very fortunate, um, my whole career to be like, if you don't, if you don't know something, ask, and if I can't, and that, that's the same approach I use with the staff I work with, was, if you don't know, ask me. And if I don't have the answer, I'll find someone who does.

And I think so many women especially are afraid to do that because of, you know, how it's perceived. But you got to, I think it's more important because then you, people understand you're trying to learn, and that you don't think you're the smartest person in the room, and you don't think that you know everything and you're trying to gain, like, some of that you're, the way you described how you approach it, it's like, tell me what you've got, you know, to contribute. And here's what I have to say.

It's a conversation. It's not a, you know, more, I know more situation. It should be balanced.

We need it. And I would say it's okay to say, I don't know, right? Let me get back to you.

Let me find the answer out. Uh, and I run into that all the time, uh, in, in this, uh, in these investor conversations. Um, so we're doing our first capital raise.

Um, I'm, I'm deliberately outside my comfort zone. I have absolutely, um, I have absolutely raised, um, well, I should say internal approvals and budgets for new product areas within the company. So I'm used to writing business cases, um, pitching for it, making a case, getting approvals and deploying, building the product.

I'm used to all of that. But this is, you are going externally. Yeah.

The intention is very clear. You're trying to raise money so that you can grow your business. Um, and the investors you speak to, and there are different kinds of investors.

Some are very knowledgeable about cybersecurity and some not so knowledgeable about cybersecurity. Um, and you have to meet them where they're at. Um, and I happened to meet one investor who was so deep in AI that, um, you know, I was talking about the AI core in my product and the fact that we use large language models in our contextual reports and so on.

And he's like, what do you use for large language models? And, and I said, well, it's, it's a proprietary model, but, you know, kind of like chat G P T. I said, I didn't use chat G P T, but kind of like it.

He's like, well, but that's open source, and then there's gotta be problems. You're a security company. I said, it's our own model.

So it's, it's very interesting the kind of conversations and curve balls, um, you get, uh, as part of this fundraising process. And, but that happens through your entire career, right? Yes, Yes.

Absolutely. And I think that, you know, I, I, and I see women don't necessarily, they, they don't always wanna walk on that razor's edge. And it's important, it's an important skill to learn because it's the only way you can push yourself to the next level Yeah.

To go beyond your comfort zone. And if it, women really need to be comfortable with going beyond their comfort zone. Yeah.

Whether it's learning a new language or pushing for a new job. Um, I, you know, I, I've, I've worked with, with both men and women on resumes, and I'm always kind of blown away by how much a man will put in his resume and how much a woman will hold back. Yep.

Yep. So we, we, there's, those are areas that I, I think that we have to understand that we don't have to feel that we are completely an expert in an area, uh, but we can sit down and learn. Um, yes.

That, and that's the beauty of this industry, right? You never, you never know everything. So you can always learn.

So if you're curious, that's a really good space for you to be, but to be, be okay with pushing yourself. Yeah. And I'm glad that you're beyond your comfort zone.

Yeah. Because that's what gets you to the next level. Yeah.

And I, I love that the, the comment you made Smith, though, was at one part, in your point in your career, you just said, I just raised my hand. I had no idea what I was getting into. Women don't do that as a rule.

So I applaud that. You know, we we're like, we have to be prepared. We have to know what we're doing.

Oh, wait, I can't, and it just holds us back. I do it. Yeah.

Yeah. And I think it's amazing that you just went, Hey, I'll try it. Let me dive in and see what, what's going on.

So, and, And trust me, that was a time when product management as a function was not well understood. It was often mixed to be thought to be more marketing. Product marketing has its own space, right?

It's a complimentary, uh, field to product management. I have worked very closely with my product marketers, um, and it's, it's a beautiful relationship there. But it, these are two distinct functions and Very, very distinct.

Very distinct. Yeah. One's, one's more technical, one's more developer outreach.

And I think for, for women considering going into product management, um, it is a very interesting area. I always loved it. Um, because you're working with end user end users, you're working with the roadmap, you're trying to keep the developer's ideas out of the way, because sometimes they'll be like, yeah, that would be really cool.

We should just add it to the product. And you're like, but the customers are asking for something else. It's a very interesting role to play.

Yeah. And I think for women, it's a very good place for them if they wanna leave the development world. Um, product management is a better space to get into, I believe, than project management.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. I can't tell you how many times people have said, oh, Smitha does project management.

I said, well, well, yes, I do have to project manage what's going on. So my roadmap is actually honored, But What I am doing is defining the product strategy and a roadmap on how we can achieve that strategy that will meet the market's needs and the customer's needs, and therefore we shall all make money. How's that?

Right. Well, and we're all project managers 'cause we're all exactly managing whatever goals we're trying to achieve, right? So, yeah.

That's funny that, you know, just Tracy and I have had this conversation a ton with people that women get pushed into, well, why don't you be a project manager? Well, no, I wanna write code, I wanna be technical, I wanna do what Smith is doing. I don't wanna be a project manager.

But we get put in those more administrative, solely administrative roles. And I have a funny story on this in a recent, uh, role a few roles ago, so nobody knows who, what I'm talking about. Uh, I was, uh, I was the head of product, um, brought in new, uh, the announcements made.

Um, and I was in the kitchen getting a cup of coffee or whatever. Um, and um, this person walked up to me and said, Hey, are you new? I was like, yeah, I'm new.

Um, and he goes immediately jumped to the assumption, are you marketing? Are you hr? I said, no, I run product for this company.

He's like, oh, I'm so sorry. Don't be, don't be, I'm really happy doing this. Yeah.

That sums it up pretty well. Yeah, Tracy. Yeah.

Oh yeah. It doesn't ever, You must be in HR or marketing or communications. Are you in the communications team?

Right? Yeah. I haven't gotten that.

I haven't gotten that one. I've worked for some really big companies, so, you know, well, Believe me, believe me, most of the time nobody can, nobody, they, people struggle stereotyping me into any particular role. You know, this blonde California girl working in tech.

It just, I have no, I'm not expected. So most people would probably not be able to, to pin, uh, kind of put me in a, in a, in a block of any kind. Um, they probably would think I was a visitor.

I don't know what they're That's great. That's funny. True.

Goes to show that we, uh, we gotta make sure that our role is clear and people know what we're up to and, and, uh, that we're good at it and that we're just part of the team. Right? Yeah.

And boy, we have had some women on this call that are really, really good at what they do. And Smitha, you fit right into that. Absolutely.

Into the club quite well. Thank you. Thank you.

This is a, this is a good place for me to wrap. We're, uh, as usual, we can go on forever and ever and I would get yelled at, but we would do it anyway if we, if we could. Yeah, Tracy, Absolutely.

We would. This, this has been a wonderful conversation, Smitha. Um, thanks for reaching out to me and, um, having a conversation ahead of this.

Um, it's been great spending time with you and learning about what you're doing. Good luck in your endeavors and what you're up to right now. Um, we'll be, uh, looking forward to seeing what you, what what comes of, of this opportunity that you've taken on.

Thank you so much. Thank you. I really appreciate, um, both you and Tracy really enjoyed the conversation and hopefully I provided some insights into what I'm doing and, um, looking forward to that, uh, capital raise at this point.

Yeah. Alright, well Tracy, thanks for another great episode. Um, everyone, thanks for tuning into another episode of Techstrong Women.

Look forward to seeing you next time, and please tune in to Techstrong TV and watch a lot of great content. Uh, we'll have another show coming up right after this. Thanks everybody.

Thank you. Thank you.