AI Has a PR Problem | OpenAI’s Promptfoo Deal | Why Cybersecurity Still Struggles to Retain Women

Hey, everyone. Welcome to Wednesday here on The Gang. Man, this week I, I gotta tell you, I've been writing so much and reading so much and AI-ing so much.

It's just so much. And here we are at hump day. But you know what?

It's, it's, it's a great time to be doing all those things, 'cause there's a lot to write and read about and talk about. Glad you're here to talk to us today, along with our crackerjack gang line up. Let me introduce you to them.

First of all, we have ... Well, she's in front of the brick wall again, Terry Robinson. Yeah.

Our man out in Silicon Valley, John Swartz. Our man, well, he's high in the mountains, Mitch Ashley. And then our man in the high castle, Mike Brozard.

Hey guys. Welcome. How are you?

Good. Good. Great.

Hey. Good morn- good day. Good day.

Good day. It's noon. Good day.

Well, it's noon Eastern Time. Mitch, it's 10:00 your time, I know, but- Yeah, we're just finishing breakfast here. No, I'm joking.

Hey. Good. And John, for John ...

Well, John, John- It's perfect ... out of everyone on the gang- Well, this is- ... John likes doing this at noon better than anyone ...

the beginning of the day, so this is heaven for me. Yeah. 9:00 AM is great.

It is a pleasure. Um, but guys, as I said, it's, it's ... Wow, it's crazy times.

There's so much going on out here. You know, AI still sucks a lot of the oxygen out of the room, but what's interesting, and I see this now, seeing a trend on my LinkedIn comments and stuff, I don't know if it's equally divided, but there's certainly a vocal minority of people- Mm ... who are, not happy with AI.

They don't believe in AI, they don't believe the hype. Or they do believe the hype, and they do believe in it, they're just frankly afraid it's gonna be so damn disruptive that it's gonna be the end of human civilization. Um, it, you know, it's probably not gonna ...

It may still win Time's Thing of the Year or Man of the Year- Mm-hmm ... whatever you call it, but they're not winning Miss Popular in the sorority contest this year. Mm-hmm.

Mike, what do you think? Well, I would just point out that a, a number of dictators have made, you know, Time's Person of the Year too. Mm-hmm.

So, you know, you don't have to be good necessarily to win. Right. But- That, this is also true ...

but, John covered this, survey that NBC did, and basically it suggests that people think less of AI than just about anything else out there, including the president and, even ICE. And part of the issue is the question is, well, does AI just have a bad PR wrap around it? Because, you know, even your LinkedIn comments probably if it's 50/50, well, you know, I know your LinkedIn feed and it's, you know, made of mainly of technology people, but the general public seems to be having, you know, an issue here.

John, what's your take and what's your read here? Okay, so I'm looking at the survey and it ... What jumps out at me is that Americans, according to NBC's poll, hate AI more than they, they hate Trump and ICE.

And o- on the flip side, within that same poll, there's, there's also evidence that they kind of love it. So there's like this love-hate relationship, but- Mm-hmm ... th- the hate, the hate out- angle always gets the attention in the press, right?

So the more negative, the better the story. The more c- the conflict, the more tension, that's what we all thrive on in, in journalism. So there's this finding that 46% of those who were polled had a negative feeling or outlook about AI, and 26% had a positive out- outlook.

This was called an unpopularity crisis, and there are a litany of reasons, and I think Alan wrote about this in a ... We're gonna probably talk about this during the segment because he wrote a column on this, but it h- has to do with employment, AI addiction, data center expansion, and consequences with energy and the environment, government use for surveillance and au- autonomous weapons, which ties into the Pentagon and what it's doing to Anthropic and how it's being abated and aided by OpenAI. So everybody in a sense is using AI as the whipping boy, so to speak.

It's interesting to me because this is kind of in direct contrast to what happened with social media. Social media initially when it first came out was con- considered a, in a sense kind of a fantasy of all the possibilities of what we could do, this pie in the sky idea, and now we've learned there are a lot of downsides to it. So I think that in a sense made people more attune to what technology can and can't do.

And I also think one of the things that's hurting AI is that there's a lot of history. I mean, the, the, the technology's been around, there've been a lot of novels and films, television, popular culture that warns us about the, the, the robots turning against us. So there's that whole kind of bias that was already baked in before the poll came out.

The poll just kind of reinforces that. Plus a lot of people, a local, a vocal minority, haven't used it, so they don't know what it's all about, so they're terrified of something that's different. Now, the one ...

I'm gonna ... Just before I pass it on to y'all, there's one thing that I do find ironic, and there's a popularity aspect of this all. So in the same poll, which was done through March, they saw a significant increase in ChatGPT usage.

Now, this was before the, cancel ChatGPT movement that relates to the Pentagon, but there was this, this curiosity. So there were a lot of people who were adopting it and trying to figure out what it is because they've heard so much about it. But for the most part, when something new comes along, something that's Earth-shattering or technology, people tend to be afraid of it until they start trying it and they embrace it and they, discover that it can do a lot of good things.

So that's kind of where we are right now. We're at, we're at the story point of the narrative-Where the public is wary of this and terrified of it, and treating it like a boogeyman until they get to know it, I think Well, to qu- to quote the great philosopher Cool Hand Luke, what we have here- ... is a failure to communicate.

Yeah, exactly. Great quote. And I have no sympathy, I have no sympathy for, for the tech bros and the high tech companies.

They've done this to themselves. I mean, let's- Mm-hmm ... let's create a technology, who already has plenty in our, in our psyche and in our pop culture around what AI could do to the future.

Let's have every, tech executive talk about the elimination of all these jobs, the, how this is gonna change society but gonna make the rich richer, essentially make them richer. The, the, we're gonna put this data center in your backyard. You talk about a PR, a messaging failure.

It's a catastrophe. These companies have done it to themselves. I have no sympathy for them.

I also am very bullish on, on the technology and what it can do for us, but you know what? I- y- y- you can't have both sides of it, of where why are we getting- Mm ... the bad popularity when you did it to yourself.

You're- So, I was gonna say, Mitch, you're so right about that. Now, the guy who I think is as guilty as anybody was Jensen. I mean, he's the godfather.

He's everywhere. He's speaking at every event. And, and he did this at the beginning.

He's, he's, he's kind of stepped away from it, but he was the guy who advocated this idea of millions of agents doing the work, changing industries. But he never really told us beyond replacing, allegedly, I mean, he didn't even say, he inferred that we were gonna replace people with robots, and he got ahead of himself, and I think Benioff fell into that same trap. But they never kind of pivoted away from that and explained the story a little bit better.

They were, they were so exuberant and almost greedy and gleeful about what it could do. They didn't think about the long-term message they were sending. Mm-hmm, right.

I think AI too is sort of a victim of the company you keep, right? It's what it's been mentioned with in the, in the news, so you, you know, you have AI and you're talking about the Pentagon and this big, you know, dust-up. You're talking about, you know, you've got a, a trial where sort of AI is on, you know, a trial too, I think, you know, in terms of its influence on people and their, and their actions.

Um, and, and of course the, the jobs thing. And I think, you know, it gets mentioned side by side along, I mean, alongside all of these other things, and then people develop this sort of negative attitude. And I had a friend of mine one time say, it's like people get...

And I think people are more, inclined to do that these days too, when you look at the super sleuths on, on, social media and whatever. They have a lot of pieces of a puzzle, but they put them together wrong. It's like the wrong picture emerges, if that makes any sense.

Or they have all the dots- Mm ... and they connect them the wrong way. I...

Look, someone should get these guys that book. What's the book? How to Make Friends and Influence People.

Yes, yeah. Dale Carnegie. Yeah.

High school- The AI agent read that one already, though. Yeah. It didn't pay for it either.

But, you know, who's the most sympathetic character in the AI universe today? Probably, what's his name? Amodi from- Dario.

It's, Anthropic ... yeah, Dario Amodi from Anthropic. But even he shot himself, I guess in the foot or somewhere else.

You know, even he shot himself. He's got all this goodwill because, y- you know, he's the whipping boy from, from the god of war over there. Um, and what does he do?

He releases a thing, these are the jobs that I think AI's gonna take away in the real near future, right? In the, that blue and orange graph with the radar, radar graph and stuff. And immediately, because guys, make no mistake, yeah, no one wants the data center in their backyard.

No one wants to pay more for the electricity. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But when you start take, talk about taking my job away, well, now what you talking about, Willis?

You know what I'm saying? Well, not, not everyone out there is gonna know what I'm saying. Difference in strengths.

Wow. Yeah, historical reference. You know, when you start talking about taking away jobs, that's serious.

And, and unfortunately, too much of what we talk about with AI is about taking away jobs. And right or wrong, that's what we're stuck with. " Right.

They don't fill in the blank. They, they never provide... They say, "Well, we- we'll, when we get there- No ...

it'll happen," which I believe is true, so they really can't answer truthfully where it's going. I get it. Right.

But- Right ... but for, you know, that creates a lot of FUD for people. You know?

There's also- Right, especially when there's economic uncertainty like there is now, right? Yeah. People are pretty ratcheted up about losing jobs, not having the money they need to meet the soaring prices.

You know, just everything. Yeah, maybe paying $4 a gallon for gas. All that good stuff.

I think there's, there's another aspect to this, though, and I'll just put this out there, but AI's kind of annoying. And what's annoying about it is, like, i- it's like, wow, I can do this thing almost, man. It's almost there, and then I gotta, like, spend, like, an extra 20 minutes just getting it over that goal line.

And it's like- Mm ... why couldn't you just do this one little thing extra that I need you to do? And I gotta go back in and reshape and redo this thing, and it's like- Pretty much describes my morningBut it's annoying I just had a, I just had a flashback of Mike should do an Andy Rooney segment.

You know what's annoying about AI? That, that was another historical reference by the old guys- Yes ... on the panel tonight.

Andy Rooney. Look it up. Hey, there was, there was a panel that- Are we gonna get to the rest of the story?

Are we gonna hear Paul Harvey now? Oh, yeah. There's, there's- That, that...

Yeah, Paul Harvey. So there was a, a couple years ago, there were like about... There was a, the panel, we had a, a journalism panel.

There were too many of us, there were like eight of us on stage, and there was one guy from VentureBeat who I think accurately in hindsight predicted where things were gonna be by now, and he stood out as the contrarian, and we all beat up on him. Mm. He said, "You know, we're gonna be using journal- we're gonna be using AI more than we ever have before.

" And we all poo-pooed this idea, and we were all incredibly negative about it, and it turns out he was right, you know, because we hadn't used it, and we didn't see where it was going. And I'm gonna say I was one of the people who was most critical of him, and now I, I think it's indispensable. So are we reaching a point now where, you know, AI is the technology we're all gonna hate to use but we're gonna use it anyway?

Yeah. Short answer, yeah. Or maybe it's just popular to hate it, even if we don't.

Right. I don't think it's- You know, all the cool kids'll hate it, and then, you know, by the time the mainstream hates it, the cool kids'll love it, and- Well, that's- ... you know, that's how these things go.

Well, all I know is when you- Who wants to bring up... Go ahead, Mitch ... when you, when you go to the doctor and say, "You know, it hurts when I do this," the doctor's gonna say, "Well, then, don't do that.

" So that's the message to the AI industry. You know, come on, give me a break. Let's get real.

You're doing this to yourself. Stop it. You're being s****d.

But I, I do wanna... I feel compelled to, to... You know, John mentioned this article I put that the first victims of AI are graduates.

I, I think it's very true. People- Are- ... in spite of what the tech bros say or what excuses they use to lay people off, people aren't losing their jobs necessarily to AI, I don't think, but I do think for the, the kids coming out of school, recent graduates, a lot of these entry level jobs are just not being created.

They're not being posted. Those are the kinds of tasks that AI is capable of doing today. Mm.

No. And so it, you know, hard... My heart's out for all these kids who, you know- Sure ...

put their four years in college and coming out with $100,000 plus in debt, um- Well, it, it- ... and, and can't find jobs ... it's twofold too- Yeah ...

because it's not just the kids, right? The kids are doing something other than what they studied for, and they're probably generally not happy about it, but so are their parents who are not happy about it because they're living still in their same bedroom that they grew up in in the parental home. Weren't we supposed to be out of the house by now?

Well, it's interesting dynamic because with AI, the people who are actually probably most skilled to be able to use it, not that they always do, but are the more experienced folks, right? 'Cause that's, they can guide AI- Mm-hmm ... to do the work and define how they want agents to work or what work.

I, I think the p- the issue with entry level is the puck is moving, right? And so if you learned how to code in college, yes, those jobs are still out there. Are there entry level jobs to doing that?

Yes. May- people may be holding back not knowing where this is going yet, but the skills you're gonna need in the job are also changing too. So the, the answer is jump in the pool.

The water's fine. Learn AI. That's what you're gonna need to know.

That's makes you marketable to hire. So you may have been trained on one set of skills, but those skills are also transitioning, so don't just hang on to what was true- Right ... that isn't necessarily anymore.

Mitch, Mitch- No, I- ... I just gotta ask you, did you say the, the puck is moving, like a hockey puck? Yes, like a hockey puck.

Okay. I thought you said something else. " I have been known to stumble and use that word occasionally- Yeah ...

but not today. All right. Well, you know, you know, you know, with AI, you can make anything happen, so...

This is also true, but you know what? We are, we are beyond our 15 minutes of time we allocated for this one. I'm sorry.

Uh, we, we gotta jump to the next thing, and, you know, in the case of, I guess, pigs have wings here, OpenAI, am I reading this right? OpenAI bought a security company? True that.

And is that named for real Promptfu? Yes. Wow.

Yes, that's how you say that. Wow. But- No ...

but let me jump into this because- ... I'm looking at Mitch's thoughts a little bit. So OpenAI, you know, if you look at them, they're not behaving the same way traditional platform companies have behaved where they're kind of like, "Here's my thing," and then we're gonna see an ecosystem, evolve around it.

Early on, they are buying everything and anything that touches them, including this new security tool, which is on the face of it a good thing, but I can also argue conversely, and Mitch, correct me if I'm wrong, but so now I get a security tool from OpenAI that only works with OpenAI, so what's the point of that? 'Cause I kind of have a lot of different AI platforms. So how is all this stuff gonna evolve in your mind?

Well, it's, it's, it's a really good point. They're, they have done a lot of acquisitions, and I keep wanting to say Foo Fighters, Promptfu. Which by the way w- you know, l- love them for the name.

It makes a great sh- great shirt, a T-shirt, right? Like, do you, do you prompt fu or fu prompt or whatever? So anyway, it got, got Promptfu.

Lots of things you can do with that. So it, it's a recognition as a couple things. Um, there are over 25% of the Fortune 500 companies are using them, in part because they also are open source as well as, as well as a, a for-profit company.

So they, they've made their way into the enterprise, and there's only one reason why. Because the biggest thing standing in the way for AI to get out of experimentation and prototypes, early stuff, is to meet security and con- co- compliance and governance and accountability requirements that enterprises have. And they're, that's what they're addressing.

So not a very old company, only been around a couple of years. They're only had product, I think, in six or nine months in market to something like that, John. Um, but they're hitting the right point.

Now, will they main- they've said they will maintain the open source. They'll maintain sort of independent, you can use whatever model you want with us. We'll see.

OpenAI has been known to, to say some things that, that backfired on them or they took a different direction and changed their mind. But you know the open source community, Alan. They will jump on that like a hot potato if they do anything counter.

I think so. So but I still don't know if that'll stop OpenAI. I, I, I think, you know, when Sam Altman's moves his lips- ...

you gotta look around. Um, I wonder is, are they gonna put this in the same foundation they put OpenClaw in? Good question.

Why not, and why not push the open source over into the Agentic AI Foundation, which is part- Or something like- ... of the Linux Foundation. Yeah.

Yeah. I don't know if they'll do that. Or, or, or is it gonna be some quote unquote foundation but there's only like four governing members and they all- No, no, that, that is.

That, that's the OpenClaw Foundation. Remember they hired the guy who started it- Mm-hmm ... and he donated the, and they funded a foundation for it.

But it's their foundation. But is it a legitimate foundation, or is it one of these fake foundations? I said it's their foundation.

I don't know, you know? What, what's legitimate to you is someone else's bastard. What can I tell you?

All right. Um, but that being said, that being said, let me, let me, let me say, you spoke about an ecosystem before. I'm, I'm reminded of Docker.

When Docker first came out, they had a crazy ecosystem that sprung up all around it, and Docker did eat a lot of its young. Right? Docker bought up a lot of the ecosystems, or the eco- you know, of the ecosystem players.

But what they would do there is they would give it a little while to germinate to see what was the best security, the best prompt security company, what was the best of this class, the best of that class, to bring that into Docker. That's sort of an old school VC kind of play, right? Pick the best company.

Mm-hmm. This strategy that Slippery Slam, Slippery Sam follows is a different strategy. What he says here is, "I'll buy the first one, or one of the first ones, make it part of the official OpenAI," and that puts a chill on any other- Mm.

products out there. Mm. On any other competitors.

You know, this is a page out of the Andreessen Horowitz book. You don't have to pick the best company. Which by the way, Andreessen Horowitz, and by the way, you're, I'm glad you mentioned that, Alan, because Andreessen Horowitz led the investment in this company.

That's what they do. Their, their investment strategy is, don't pick the best company. Give one company so much more money than all the others in their space- Mm ...

that whether they're the best or not, they'll rise to the top because of the s- the, just the sheer rocket fuel they got. But see, I think that strategy's gonna backfire on, on them, if that's truly what he's trying to do, because it is a seller's market. Anybody and everybody is looking for a way to get to market faster to do something to help AI get into production.

Security tools, developer tools, operations tools. So I, I don't think this is gonna quell the market at all. I think it, matter of fact, it sort of raises the flag of, over here, folks.

This is what you need to be buying is these kind of companies. We shall see. We shall see.

I don't know. But you know what, you know what I am looking forward to, though? Is at some point there's gonna be a security conference and Christopher Walken's gonna come out and introduce the Prompt Foo Fighters.

Foo Fighters. You gotta say it right. Foo Fighters.

I had s- Mitch and I were joking about this. I, I thought the, I, I thought it was, this was like a, a borderline hoax. It's like, there's no way a company's called this.

I thought it was Proofpoint. I kept tripping over it. But then when I looked into it, it was like, this, somebody's got like Foo Fighters.

Well, no, they were, they were securing prompts, and then, you know, foo is a, is a common term for- Yeah ... in tech stuff, and I, I could, you know, I think it, who, I think it does make a nice T-shirt. I love the name.

It's hard to remember which way to say it, but I love the name. Yeah, me too. Yeah, exactly.

But it was like, just the, the, the success that these guys came across as quickly as they did made them a really likely candidate to be acquired and, and, and Slippery Sam, as you call him, Alan, he's, he's on top of these things. Oh, absolutely. They don't call him Slippery Sam for nothing.

Um, you're t- you're right. Well, I'm glad to see that they will strengthen security possibly and apply some governance to AI, but- We'll, we'll see. You think?

I, I got a feeling OpenAI's gonna just try to create their own soup to nuts. So, so, so, so, so hold on a minute. Y- do we seriously think that the people who are creating the thing that needs to be secured are gonna be the ones that we should trust to secure the thing that has already been sh- shown to be somewhat problematic?

No. No. Are you questioning Slippery Sam?

No, I- Well, as y- meanwhile at the same time, there, there's an exodus from the, from the, the, the chatbot. 5 million. I mean, these are hemorrhaging people like crazy.

Um, so there's a dis- there's a huge distrust of this company. Let's put it, put it mildly So I don't necessarily trust them, but I think to, to sort of elevate security and governance is really important at this stage of- Mm ... of AI.

And maybe this will get it some of the publicity it needs and some action. I don't know. I'm, I'm sometimes forever hopeful and then I'm sometimes super cynical about this.

Well, Terri, let me just give you one more idea that'll really put this over the top You know, that... So I, I will tell you, I, I spend a lot of time on Claude and Open AI. 4, you pick auto and it picks what version it's using, I guess.

And then I, you know, have obviously the newest version of Claude. I... You know, you see the differences.

And, and it's funny, I use certain things for cer- I s- I use certain of the models for certain tasks that I do. But, you know, in many ways, ChatGPT is the slickest- Mm-hmm ... of them.

It's slick. For sure. It...

Like Sam embedded his personality in there or something. Hmm. Um- Oh, dear.

But that doesn't necessarily make it the best. No. And, it, it's interesting.

And when we talk about unpopularity, I wonder if we'll start seeing, you know, strata of unpopular... Like, well, you're not as unpopular as ChatGPT, but- Mm ... you know, I'm still more popular than Claude or, or what have you.

Like, if people will start distinguishing between them- Yeah ... or do we all lump them together? Will we lump them together?

That's interesting. I think that's true. Yeah.

I think that's happening because we... It's kind of like the whole Apple versus Microsoft argument- Yeah ... versus Meta.

You're starting to see that breakdown between Claude and Gemini and, and Open AI. Yeah. That's a good analogy.

Oh, that's great. I thought the same thing, of they're taking the Apple route of we'll protect you, right? Right.

We're gonna take a stand on- Yeah. And it's... I, I actually- ...

privacy ... I mean, but it's not on today's docket, but you know, this amicus curiae brief that was filed by 30 engineers from Google and, and Open AI, not from the companies themselves, in support of Anthropic's- Yeah ... lawsuit with the government.

Lawsuit, right. Yeah. Um, it is, you know, 'cause we've always had that in the Valley, right?

Apple versus Microsoft, Sun versus... Sun versus Microsoft, Oracle versus IBM, right? There's always been these heated competition.

It's what made tech, it's what makes tech, tech. But another thing that makes tech, tech is at the end of the day, the workers, if not the companies, do the right thing- So- ... or have a moral compass.

Mm. So does this create an opportunity for somebody, I don't know, like, you know, a, a French company that provides an alternative AI model? Will they suddenly get more popular?

Or- Funny you mention that, Mike. Another article that I have, I just finished this morning. So a, a EU consortium, think of, think of this as Airbus, like, is putting together for an EU-based search engine, a Google replacement.

Right. And that the information it gathers will be used for an EU-based AI training system- Mm-hmm ... as an alternative to the Wild Wild West here of the US search and AI systems.

Sounds like he who controls the algorithm controls the universe, the spice. The spice must flow. Sounds like trust still matters.

That's what I'm hearing. We'll see. Well, that, that's almost everything it seems now.

Yeah. Yeah. Whether you, whether you trust it or whether it, it trusts you, I mean, it goes circular.

Absolutely. Anyway, all right, we've gotta hop... Yeah, it's about that time.

We're ready to hop into our third segment. You know, this past week was, what was it? International Day- Women's Day ...

Women, Women's Day. Mm-hmm. IWD, I guess, right?

And, you know, not one of these made-up Hallmark kind of holidays. It, it really is a day where I think, especially in the tech industry, we, we should take pause and acknowledge, women. Y- you know, especially, a- and I don't mean to sound old or ageist, but women of a certain age who, who really had to fight up...

Not that all, not that the path is smooth today, but when you look at, you know, I... Like, you look at the Mad Men days from that TV show of the '70s and '60s, all the way through into the '80s and '90s, it wasn't easy. It, it, to say the least.

Um, and, and so I, I really enjoy highlighting women who, you know, broke the glass c- ceiling, who, who came up kind of in a man's world and made their mark. Um, and that's true especially in cybersecurity. Mitch, you and I have had the pleasure of knowing a lot of women- ...

not enough, in cybersecurity. I didn't mean it that way. Just wondering where you were going with that, Terry.

Yeah, you had to put that last part on there. No, no. Um- But a lot of women in cybersecurity- Careful ...

who, who've made their mark. Seriously. Yeah.

We've worked with a lot of great women. I'm gonna, I'm gonna stop right here because I'm getting myself in trouble. You guys take the rest of this.

All right. So, so Terri, this is your story over on Security Boulevard, but I just gotta ask the question. Are, are we making progress here, or does it feel like- Oh ...

we keep talking about it, but I'm not sure we're getting anywhere. I know. It, I feel like sometimes we're just...

It's, it's just over and over the same thing. When you look at the numbers, right, the 22%I mean, women make up 22% of cybersecurity. That's really low.

And i- if you look around at, you know, any of the big cybersecurity shows, you see a lot of female faces, you know, right? And you might think that it's kinda gone the other way, but it's, it's, it's not true, and they are only 7% of, leadership. I mean, I wrote a story years and years ago about getting more women at the dais, right?

Because- Mm-hmm ... that's, that's been a, a huge problem in making them more, visible. But I, I think the bigger issue here is, you know, we're still fighting to get, you know, women into leadership positions.

We're still fighting to get more women in the cybersecurity, industry in general. But, the, the bigger issue is they leave. They leave, like, mid-career.

Um- Mm ... and that has always been true in the last, you know, seven, eight, nine, 10 years, but it was especially true after the pandemic hit. We lost a lot of women for some of the obvious reasons, you guys.

You know, the women picked up the slack at, at home, you know, with the children or whatever. Um, and they, they didn't necessarily come back. And, so you know, it's a valuable resource.

I mean, j- you know, put aside for a minute that women are awesome and should be in cybersecurity. Um, it's a... You're losing a valuable resource and a brain trust when, people, anybody, but especially these women, leave in mid-career and, and they go do something else.

You know, and quite frankly, they go do other things where either they can get, better salaries, more recognition, you know, less, blowback from, company, company cultures or male counterparts. Although, I think, you know, a lot of the women that I've talked to over the years, and even for this story, will tell you that the way that they had been able to advance, like in the past, has been because they've had male advocates. You know, I call them the gal guys.

You know, the ones that are, you know, interested in promoting people who are talented and, and, and advocating for them, whether they're male or female. But in particularl- in particular because they women... they realize that women, have had an uphill battle in a way that some men have not.

So, yeah. So that's the, you know, that's the disturbing part is, you know, lo- losing that brain trust and then, you know, how do you get women back and, and how do you, you know, keep them there? So- And some of the...

Yeah. Go ahead. I was gonna say, yeah, Terry.

Well, I was just gonna say, some of that obviously is, you know, companies just have to do it. I mean, come on now. There shouldn't be a differential, or a difference in, in pay based on gender.

Yes, by merit, you know. I mean, people will say, "Well, it's not DEI. " But think of it this way.

I mean, women, for years have not had the same opportunities within companies to advance, so maybe they don't get the merit bumps that, that men, you know, do. And I, I think that, you know, companies can do a lot more to even that off. That'll go a long way in keeping women pleased, right?

You're making decent money, the same money as your male counterparts, for the, for the same work. Um, th- that's just, to me, it just... That that persists is very disturbing.

Mm-hmm. You know? But I, I don't think that's a cybersecurity-only issue.

Oh, it's not a cybersecurity- I think the disparity, you know, a dollar's a dollar, an hour's work is an hour's work, is something that has been plaguing certainly the American labor market, you know, back to Rosie the Riveter- Yeah ... and beyond and before. It's not just cyber.

It's not just cyber, but the thing is, cyber and, and tech in general have been such male-dominated industries- Mm-hmm ... that I think it, it really shows. That's, that's- Yeah.

I mean- Justin, how many years have we been doing these stories, Terry? Like, the same story. I mean, this, this is, like, decades of like life.

Well, yeah. I, I- Like, we do this, these STEM stories, these, uh- Yeah ... it's just, the percentages are so pathetic.

" W- what I remember. Yeah. Well- Well, no, I, I think it was worse before.

I think 22%- Oh, sure ... has improved a little bit. It's still pathetic.

I wonder if it's still legal, right? Yeah, it's still legal. But it's better than the 15% it was- Improved ...

you know, 15 years ago. You know, I, I- You know, just my, my own experience in, in hiring is, is, is, you know... We, we always had the excuse, you'd hear managers say this all the time, is, "Well, we just don't get the resumes.

" It's like, "Go f- go find people that are talented. Look for people. Don't just rely on who's coming to us.

Go seek those people. You will find women in that population- Well- ... " In other words, don't rely on the old excuses.

Those are BS. Well- But you as a hiring manager have to take action to find the best people, including women from that pop, from the population of talent pool that we have available to us. Well, but- Well, I would agree with that too, but I would also say, you know, I've written about this over the years.

Women have been less likely to submit a resume or whatever for a job because they don't feel like they check all the boxes, right? Mm-hmm. A guy will say, "Well, I got one of those talent.

I can do that. You know, I've got one skill out of the 12. " Now, maybe that's changing, you know, in this day and age where you can just, you know- ...

apply pretty- ChatGPT a re- a resume. Yeah, e- yeah, exactly. Well, there's the other thing.

You have to get around all that. But, I think that, um-There was a lot of conversation even four or five years ago at RSA with some of the women's sessions that, you know, come on, let's, let's coach young women especially, who are coming into the, industry, and then those who are there. You know, to go on and apply for some things that on the surface don't look 100% like you're qualified, but you know what?

You might be able to, to do it. Can I use my... If, if, she's not in cyber, but I'm gonna use my daughter here for a second.

'Cause Alan, I know your son graduated from law school at the same time my daughter did. She took on a, a job at a, a firm that she really liked, but she has had this other interest and saw a job for, and I'm kinda proud of this, privacy and data protection, at a, at a law firm. Which I think is, is great.

They wanted three to six years experience. She had three months. But you know, she put herself out there, and by God, she got that job.

Wow. Yeah. You know, that's another thing that hiring managers make a mistake, and I see this over and over, is constructing a job application or a job description of which there are three people in the univer- verse- ...

that might actually have all those skills. I call them the w- there are no pur- purple unicorns that, out there- ... that can do that job to meet those qualifications.

So as a, as someone applying for jobs or looking for, for work, don't let the, don't let the job description stop you. Exactly. That is the ideal candidate- Mm-hmm ...

of which there may never even be people who have all those skills. You know, I want 25 years of generative AI experience. Well, okay, that's really nice.

It's not been around that long. Right. But people do stupid like thing- things like that in their job descriptions.

Yeah. Don't let the d- job description stop you. I'm not saying just apply for things you would never, ever be qualified for.

Oh, right. But, but guys, guys- Unless you're a nuclear scientist here, you know you can. I, I, I, I feel compelled to give you all a dose of reality.

Let me give you some Shimmy straight up. You're ignoring the elephant in the damn room, that big gray thing over there in the corner, the elephant. We live in a country where DEI has become a woke word- Yeah ...

and we have gone 180 degrees the other way. Not only are we not hiring women, we're firing them because they're women or Black or something else. Right.

And when you live in a, in a, in an oppressive regime like this, how can you sit here with a straight face and blame the hiring manager, or blame the women themselves, or blame anyone else? You know? I mean- Well, I'm...

But I'm not. Okay. Harry, Harry, the way it is- Here's the, here's the Mitch version of Shimmy here, Alan, is you can't rely on HR.

You can't rely on- Well, that's- ... recruiting to solve this problem for you. You as hiring managers have to take the init- No, but hiring managers cannot- That's the only way we're gonna solve this ...

do you know a hiring manager- Yeah, you can ... who does that and doesn't hire the white man gets sued for being one of those DEI woke guys? No, not- So if you're- Yeah, yeah, yeah ...

well, name one that's ever done that. If you're a candidate- That, that doesn't happen. No.

But when you're a- Yes, it happens, Mitch No. Especially in government jobs. When you're a candidate, you have to understand this hostile, environment you're working in in this country, and you need to...

It's not fair in some ways, but you have to push yourself out there as a candidate, you know, to try to overcome this. You might hit your head against the wall. You might get shot down.

And I mean, I'm sorry, maybe literally these days. You, you have labs' research grants being pulled because they do have a DEI policy. I know.

So, so, so to Alan's point, there's not a lot of companies that wanna get called out by the president for this issue, so they are not pushing these agendas as aggressively as they did. But I'd also point out there's a, just a lot of inherent bias that people have when they hire somebody. They kinda look for somebody who looks and acts like them.

Like them. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

And, and I don't... And I think this applies more broadly, and I, and I don't think it's conscious as much as it is unconscious, and people just don't step out of that behavior. And by the time, you know, you get up to the top of the food chain or the hierarchy, everybody starts to look alike.

Right. I think even- Look, we, we made progress in the last 20 years, and a lot of the... And, and we're, and we're slipping downhill now.

Well, and what really bugs me about this whole anti-DEI thing, or, or one of the things if you want me to be, is this assumption that because people got in through some DEI initiative, that they're inferior candidates. That is not. All this stuff c- came about for the most part because the superior candidates were not getting selected, right, over the maybe slightly less superior white male candidate.

No, no. I, I saw, I saw this meme the other day comparing the, the latest, the Supreme Court justice that Biden appointed, Jackson- Uh, Jackson ... Ketanji Jackson.

This is a woman, you know, Harvard Law Review, summa cum laude undergrad. She has a, a s- 20 years as an attorney, 10 years as an appellate judge, eminently qualified to sit on the bench of the Supreme Court, versus the guy they just picked to lead the Department of Homeland Security who t- does have an associate degree from c- two-year college and ran a plumbing business. Mm.

And if that's not qualified to run Homeland Security, what else is? Well, I mean, it's- And that's the world we live in ... it's making a, a Sean O'Brien put up his dukes during that, that Senate hearing too, right?

I mean, I think that qualifies you for, you know- He was a former Marine. I hear he did stay at a Holiday Inn Express though, so I'm not so sure. Yeah.

Yeah. That's right. Exactly.

He stayed at Holiday Inn Express. He's qualified. But even during the- Before we close, can I just give a shout-out to our friends over at RSAC that are debuting a women in cybersecurity documentary at the show?

So you should all check that out if you're gonna be there because, well, you can also get a promo of that is on our Textron group feed. But, that might be one of the best things at that show this year. We'll see But I want to mention something that, that Alan said earlier, and I totally agree with this, is like even during the DEI heyday, so to speak, during the Obama administration, we...

I remember t- we, we did a panel at Stanford when I was at USA Today with Jesse Jackson, and they had from Apple, Google, I think it was Twitter, these new DEI heads, and the progress they made in hindsight was glacial to be charitable, and they were all replaced within about two years. Intel was another participant. So I think even back then there was a hesitation to, to ramp up hiring or to, to kind of do the right thing.

It, it's just this kind of institut- institutional bias that's just baked into some of these companies. Agreed. Yeah.

Oh, yeah. Institutionally, we're about to... Uh, we have to pull the plug here, otherwise we- Oh, no.

I thought you were gonna say we're get- about to be submitted to an institution. Yeah, we're all being institutionalized. Yeah.

That's true. I thought we was the institution. What are you talking about?

At this point, that might be a better place to be, but... Yeah. So Terry, John, Mitch, Mike, thanks for joining us.

Thank you for watching Techstrong Gang today. Um, another cathartic episode where- ... I gotta learn to not hold back so much.

Um- I'm worried about you. Hey. We'll work on that.

Yeah. We, we've got Techstrong TV immediately, the replay of Techstrong TV immediately following. We'll be back tomorrow with some, Techstrong Gang at noon, and we've got a fresh Shim Says at 2:30 tomorrow.

Um, we will be at RSA, I guess it's in two weeks now, i-in, RSA. So stay tuned for that. But until then, thank you for watching everyone.

This is Alan Shimel. I'm out.