We Hack Purple Podcast 11 with Anshu Bansal

In this episode our host Tanya Janca (also known as SheHacksPurple), talks to our guest Anshu Bansal of  CloudDefense.ai, to learn what it's like to be a Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of a DevSecOps product startup!

This episode sponsored by Thread Fix! 

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Transcript

welcome to the we hack purple podcast
where each week
we interview a different and very
interesting
guest who has a different type of job
within information security
this week we are going to meet with Anshu Bansal
the ceo of cloud defense because we want
to know
what it's like to be the ceo of a
product startup company
abby aurora was supposed to be here
today but due to
the fires in california he is currently
evacuating
we promise to have him on next year in
the meantime i want to thank our sponsor
thread fix powered by denim group for
being
such a wonderful supporter of the we
hack purple podcast
and the entire we hack purple company i
am tanya janka
i am your host and now i would like to
reveal to you our super awesome guest
anshu
here is anshu oh and i'm going to put
myself on the screen too that'll be even
better
there now we're both here welcome
hey tanya hi thank you so much for
coming i appreciate you making the time
especially considering what's happening
right now where you live my pleasure
yeah thank you for inviting me
oh my pleasure um for anyone that was
expecting stephanie black this week
she has had a personal thing happen and
so we
swapped the two guests so cloud defense
was supposed to be on next year
and so now stephanie black will be on in
february
everything's good she's totally healthy
she's going to live everything's fine
don't worry she's awesome
but she couldn't make it for work stuff
reasons
so and shu
please tell me your name and you know if
you
have a handle or you know and tell me
your job title and where you work
sure my name is anshu pansal
my twitter handle is adbabybash
or you can reach out to me at cloud
defense
my i'm founder co-founder of cloud
defense
and uh right now operating as ceo
plus many other heads
you have all the hats you have literally
a hundred hats
when you're a ceo
okay so i have lots of questions so i've
already explained to him that i'm gonna
just pepper him with questions for a
long time and and she was very kindly
agreed to just let me
ask him a dozen questions and so
i wanted to just be up front and explain
to everyone right away i already know
anshu
and work with him so i am a technical
advisor
at cloud defense and so if you feel
there's bias
that's because there is we like each
other
a lot and so
so people are are wondering that's the
thing
okay so and shu can you describe what it
is like
to be the ceo and a co-founder of a
company making a product
like what is that like sure yeah
so first of all tanya you know i really
love
having you as a technical advisor and
thanks for all of your mentorship
so from my experience this is my second
startup
first one we started from right right
from here where i'm sitting
it was peer-to-peer tech platform car
rental platform
we ended up listing in public market so
right now it's trading in u.s
uh nasdaq it's about the currently
i am working on the b2b product
enterprise security product
it just required a passion you know i
i feel like nothing is hard if your
right side of passion
right set of team on your side and you
are willing to take
risk so yeah that's what my advice is
that is excellent advice can you
tell me what a day in the life is like
doing your job because your job i don't
know how to explain it like because
there's so many hats can you explain
like
what it's like to do your job and i know
with covid things are a bit different
right now but
what is it like yeah so now one thing i
feel like you know
this ceo or when you are heading
something or starting up something
there's no hours or something you know
you are just on the hook for
everything like 24x7 you need to come up
with
things and then you need to just start
you know doing things so right now
we started last year we started very
small with couple of guys
who were not sure what they are doing we
just had some idea
uh we started validating then after that
the product we came up with some first
version of product
uh gathered customers feedback tweaked
the model
multiple feedback loop iteration then
after that we tested it with the small
field testing
so in my job role i think it requires
many different heads you need to be
understanding
some business and you know you need to
be connected with the right mindset
right
expertise and you need to have some
vision so
as long as like you have this and after
that all it boils down to you know
your product product market fit your
customers
and the product and the engineering so
that's what
in my role lies into that i need to
manage and kind of do myself sometimes
go i
need to code myself initially i was
coding but
right now i'm not getting time because
you know getting a little bit busy
busier
so it's a good good problem to have yeah
so that's
that's true that's true would you say
part of like a day in the life of being
a ceo is going to lots of meetings
yeah definitely it can already have your
meetings
and when you are small then you need to
make sure
that you know people who whom you have
hired or whom
are with you they trus means they have
level of expertise
they're right fit for the role right
when you're especially
exposed to the customers and these
customers
currently our demographic of customers
are
large multi-billion dollar organizations
these are you know the organization with
thousand two thousand or
uh fifty thousand people so when
especially dealing with these customers
it requires lots of kind of expertise
yeah so that's that's but it requires
definitely
you know sometimes one-on-one
conversation
with customers so that you are address
understanding their pain point
and also providing your solutions to
them and they're satisfied
do you know everyone at your company
i know everyone by name right yeah
and that's what i feel like
okay so i am briefly supposed to tell
everyone
that i have a book i wrote a book and
it's called allison bob learn
application security
and shu did you order a copy of my book
see he was a brilliant human and he
bought it
so everyone else should and i have now
checked my marketing box
i know and and she's going to teach me
about marketing it's true it's true
but i want to talk about i want to talk
about you more
what types of personality traits do you
feel someone needs to be good at being a
ceo and starting a company
so you said you have to be able to talk
to people so that's obvious but like do
they need to be
a good leader perhaps well yeah
so definitely it you need to be a good
leader
i feel like for a startup startups
and jobs are two different things let's
say if you're working for a large
enterprise
or you go home go to happy hour sleep
even the company's on fire
you know you're still getting a paycheck
second thing is start of mind
i think you my experience and this is
just my experiences be
you don't need to have all the skills
you know you don't have to have
any just vertical and you are too good
to in
too good and but you need to have all
sort of
skills right it requires business
negotiation it requires
engineering negotiation requires product
initially
you need to build it by yourself but as
long as
i feel like you can become a billion
dollar multi-billion dollar company
just by building a candle which is
behind your desk right
candle companies these companies are
multi-billion dollar companies could be
so everything is possible but the
passion
so founders and the employees the only
one
is stretch line employees are very smart
very expert
they can solve xyz these many problems
but
there is a thin line between founders
mentality and employee mentality
founders they have passion that passion
as long as you have passion you know you
will be successful
it's a journey it's it's a step-by-step
process
so that's that's what my motivation is
and
founders they don't work for money money
is not the main motivation
for founders it's the ultimate goal
because
if you're a founder and you are starting
a company
you know and money is the first thing
you will never
start a company because in a when you
start company there is nothing you sure
it's
all ambiguous you are not sure what you
are doing
yeah well and there's just
there's a lot of risk that you're taking
like when i decided last year i wanted
to start a company
my mom was very much so against and
she's like can't you just get a nice job
at a nice company
like you already work at a nice company
why would you leave
a nice big company don't they they pay
you lots like
how much is enough and i'm like it's
because of the excitement
of creating a thing that you really want
to exist and put into the world
yeah so obviously means i think it's a
different side
different kind of thinking right so
for example you know some generations or
some
you know people in my parents they think
that's how they we have been groomed
nurtured in the by looking at movies or
by looking at the books
that you go you study you get a job
you have family you have a nice job nine
to five or something
you know you go on vacation and drive a
nice car
yes founders are full of risk
because you are not sure this is my
second company
you know first one and before that was
not the first one which got successful
before that i have failed many startups
we were
so founders if you're a founder and if
you want to do a startup it's a full of
risk
but you have to just click it once you
know
my past failure and the last success it
just had to click
once right once it clicks then it's all
set
now i'm i have become a tech investor by
myself
i'm investor into many companies like
xlb i love them
reddit robinhood and many things right
so that's the thing if you wanna
with employee you cannot i it's hard to
get that kind of life
right because uh if you are a founder
it's a possible everybody has a shot and
i'm sure you can make it
oh my gosh i i wish that you had given
me this
talk last year before i started my
company because
i was like i can do this but i still
felt very scared and i feel like that's
such a good like pump
up speech so i i like this this is very
good
so so you're a ceo and you said you used
to have to code
now you don't have time what type of
technical skills do someone
need to be the ceo of a startup company
do they need to know how to code
so it depends what's your role is right
or what kind of startup you are doing so
uh having the industry knowledge
which always help you otherwise you need
to look into other shoulders right
so it's a good chicken in the egg in the
chicken problem right who came first
so let's say today you are starting a
company you don't have money
you are taking full risk you not sure if
this will work
or this product is a market trend right
so the first thing
only is get your best buddy which i have
you know abi
he's evacuating or maybe driving today
good luck today
i hope everything is safe and so you
need to
have your buddy with you who is willing
to take
an ideation phase because at that stage
you're not gonna have probably pretty
much money to hire get external help you
can take that
but then you know external people you
are hiring
they will have different motivation they
will have money as a motivation
for if you are starting a company and
money is the prime motive
i would say you know when job you will
be more successful more
richer you know and it's a kind of
guaranteed shot in job
so yeah that's what my advice is
i agree with you i agree with you a lot
i feel like um i've heard i've heard
people say
oh well if you move to san francisco you
can just get a job where you just get
paid tons of money
and like that that's what it's all about
and
um i've actually had some family members
say or
one of my closest friends said when will
it be enough tanya
and i was like what do you mean like do
you think i have some
number that i'm aiming for and it's like
no if i was doing that i would have just
kept my old job
right like because it would be a
guaranteed way to get there
and she's like when are you going to
retire i'm like dude i'm having the best
time in my entire
life what are you even talking about i'm
like i'm
young i'm a kid basically i'm
middle-aged
but yeah i oh i feel
so much of what you're saying and agree
wholeheartedly
i would like to ask the audience that is
watching
if you could click the things if you
could click the thumbs up button
if you are enjoying this video and also
the subscribe button if you haven't
subscribed yet
and right now i am going to put
the link for ann shu's
company cloud defense dot ai
underneath this in case you want to
check it out so you can see it on his
shirt but you can see it also right
beside him on the screen and so um
if you happen to be watching you want to
check that out that would be cool
but back to more questions
what type of training do you think
someone needs to be good
at your job yeah yeah
so you can be ceo of anything
right so right now i'm heading the
security company
to have the job the first thing is you
should be
bought into your vision that's the first
thing
you should believe in us that this is
whatever you are making
you know you really live and breathe
and your customers get the customer
feedback second one
is the openness and those are personal
to me
like these things i have learned from my
experience from my past success
and by making this company as well which
we are building
you need to have open to ideas you
i mean when i go to the room in the
meeting you know i say
i am the you know the most dumbest
person
in this room so please help me in
educating like please guide me what do
you want to see
that's the one that's how people will
open up i
always say i don't know nothing i do not
know this can you help me
then people will give you their 100
second thing is delegate when you start
acquiring customers you can't be
everywhere
so you need to have your trusted allies
or with the right
people in the right skill set into
delegation like so that they can try
last one is the feedback loop
let's say you know consistently
evaluating
how people in the role are performing
how your customers are
providing the feedback what you need to
do and
be open for change right consistent
feedback loop
that is the that is at least that has
worked very well for me
in the past and whatever you see that we
have
it's like as a result of that
i feel like to be a ceo
and to do what you're doing you have to
be both confident but also
humble like you want to hear what
everyone else has to say but you also
feel the confidence that once you have
all the information that you can make
the decision
yes i totally agree so end of the day
it's your ship you know you need to
sail it you know you need to own the
decision
so my my rule of thumb has been i own
everybody's failure and i get credit for
all of the success to others
but end of the day you know you need to
own it you need to you need to sell it
so last decision first when i go and
their complex decision
i go around the table ask everybody's
opinion everything
but the last decision first of all when
you go in this team setting
there will be a decision it will be very
obvious it will be based on data points
but end of the day you are responsible
so sometimes there will be situation
where there will be time there is a
disagreement
then you need to take some decisions it
could be hard decision it could be good
for the company
it could be any kind of decisions
in french they say that you take a
decision
and in english we say that you make a
decision and i've always felt the way
they say it in french is better
because sometimes you really are like
taking the decision
and yeah i i love that we have a
question in the chat
and it's such a good one so it's from
nancy and it's
did you have a hard time delegating at
first
and what made it easier or is it still
really hard
yeah my gosh means when you're starting
up
handing over your baby to someone you
know your vision to someone
you say they're gonna mess up you know
for sure because
even though you feel like they're expert
but you feel
you will get a feeling what if right
what if they're gonna mess up
my whole life is at this stage so it's a
hard
but you know as the company is growing
your customer base is growing this is
the need
right you have to start delegating so
the way
i have done in the past is right you
know talk to people put them in meeting
let them lead
guide them a little bit and then be
independent even my last company hired
car
there were like you know five or ten
layer of management chain i was on the
chairman of the board
so initially right from here i started
coding
you know created the everything then
later on
we ended up hiring 100 people i was just
sitting in the board like a duck
so that's you know because but that's
your achievement that's your success
because other people are handling it so
well
yeah um i am in the same boat as you
because
i started my company just slightly after
yours and i am starting to delegate
things and so a thing we've been doing
recently
is discussing our core values as a
company
when we make a decision so if there's a
big decision coming
sometimes we think about it like someone
wanted to be an affiliate for us
and we talked about it after and um the
person was also a recruiter
and we felt that was a conflict of
interest and so
we thought about it and we're like well
we really want to have integrity and
it's really important to us that we
build trust
with every single one of our customers
and we're like that doesn't really
go with our value of trust so then it
felt like really easy to make that
decision and so
now they go off and they make the
decisions based on the values did you
set
values for your company and do you yes
yeah see you
without value without vision you cannot
be successful
you can get short-term success but in
the long term
you need to have certain level of values
so you need to
have that trust so if you lose customer
trust and i'm in security business right
now
if you know lose trust then good luck
you know
better to do something else so trust
winning customers trust is plus your
team's trust
right they should believe in you then
only you're gonna believe in them right
first they should believe in your vision
so acquiring
earning trust or and the customer
obsession right
you should be crazy about your customer
you should know
what they like what kind of feedback you
provide i think
that those are the values and the
foundation
of a you know of a company successful
company or the key values that
i would highly recommend and those have
worked very well for me
yeah so smart so smart
okay so i have one more question that's
kind of like related to that same chunk
and then i'm going to ask still way more
questions
okay so so let's say someone's watching
this
and they're like and she's awesome i
want to be a ceo too
someday what type of work experience do
you think they should try to get so that
they could one day get up to that
should they get a job at a startup um
so i think you can it depends
what your personal situation is so
having this this is there's a learning
process right
so what uh my last companies you know
is built on last 10 years because i
cannot discount the other failures
right so yes in five years we were able
to
take the company from nowhere to nasdaq
but before that what about that
so you need to this is the process it's
a marathon it's not a sprint
it's the you know what i said
what i believe in like fail is we fail
you can especially
f a i l first is step in learning
you know that's the you know that's the
meaning of fail
so you need to acquire the skill set
how you can ski acquire that there are
many channels right
in your profession in your field you
need to work with
who are really really good into that
really good you need to have like-minded
people
surrounding you you need to have those
kind of friends with you
who are you know for example if you are
a startup word you need to have
startup mentality people not like you
know the
employee mentality is great but they're
gonna talk about vacation
or happy hour or something else founders
they're gonna talk about well let's hear
this
idea and trust me you know no idea is
bad
if you don't believe me look around your
table
pick a product you know whatever you are
using there must be multi-million
multi-billion dollar company right
even the paint you know everybody has
painted house right
look at the companies only couple of
companies multi-billion dollar companies
there are opportunities
everywhere in every field
oh my gosh that was like that's so
good oh okay so i
have to thank our sponsor thank you so
much to thread fix
the most stupendous vulnerability
management system
this side of the galaxy they have been
so
so so wonderfully supportive and we
really appreciate
that thank you
yeah actually i love threads but
i have more questions for you now sure
oh i could totally talk to you all day
and you know this because i have um so
so let's see um okay so actually
here's a good question does your job pay
well
so sometimes we talk about this as it
relates to cheese
um where i i joke that i knew that i'd
made it
as a software developer when i could
afford to buy as many types of cheese as
i wanted at the grocery store
but now as a found up a startup founder
uh i'm living off a lot of savings
because
otherwise i i would not be having any
cheese if
i was just living off my startup right
now
so yeah this is a great question tanya
enough i think
it's my experience my experience or
daily might be different for your
experience or anybody's experience
but as i'm gonna reiterate that founders
are not in for money initially right
if you would be in for money this will
never succeed trust me
because you are starting with
uncertainty
there is nothing you are starting with
your own money
all of my past failures and last exit
they started like this our own money so
much uncertainty
right now sitting right here in 2020 i
look back you know 2014 when we started
i could never imagine this will succeed
right
so founders job and founders
you know it doesn't pay well initially
but
you just have to make it once if you
make it once
all of your friends family you know who
are in employment
or some sort of good job they can i
think it will be hard for them because
you just have to collect it once if you
click it once
all of your past savings you know years
that you wasted
everything really well paid off i think
that's what my experience my guidance is
yeah it's so true sometimes
when um when security people talk about
offense versus versus defense they'll
say you know an attacker only needs to
find one way in
and it's a lot easier to be an attacker
than a defender because a defender has
to defend against
everything and although we see startups
that fail all the time
in a lifetime you can start so many
companies
and especially if you love it and you're
like putting your whole heart into it
and
like yeah as long as you're not you know
starving or something
like you could still go my um one of my
professional mentors her name is kim
and she's amazing and she told me she's
like okay tanya
you have like children that are counting
on you that you're afraid you won't be
able to feed i'm like no i don't have
any dependents and she's like do you
have huge crushing debt and like
collectors i'm like no like do you have
enough savings that you could like just
live for a few months or a year if you
need to and i was like yeah and she's
like
then why are there questions just jump
girl just
jump and then she opened up champagne
and
she's just so awesome um but
yeah like she's like what is she's like
so so
she's like money's for spending and if
you're gonna spend it on chasing your
dream and you have a good plan and
you're not
like you're not like i'm gonna be a rock
star even though i'm like 15 i've never
learned an instrument before so that is
a dream
she's like you have a plan yeah
this is this is so true right this is so
true
means i have let them breathe into it
you know you just need to believe
yourself you know
you don't need much you don't need much
unless you know
you if you have the same mentality it
goes back to employmentally
founder's mentality what gonna happen
you're gonna burn your savings
okay you're gonna lose one year two
years experimenting your idea
you you know for only financially you
might be taking your head
a little bit more slowly as well you can
always get a job
you know you will get a better job
whenever you need
because you have more skill set than the
employee at that level
that's what my feeling is my thought
processes you
you know what kim said she's like tanya
here's the worst thing that can happen
you work on your company for like a year
or whatever
she's like you're not spending a crap
ton of money you live in an apartment
right she's like you just you act
fiscally responsible i'm like okay
that's how i usually am and she's like
so worst case scenario you just get a
job
and she's like you're ridiculously
qualified and she was just joking with
me imagine if you tweeted hi i'm tanya
Janca
and i'm looking for a job she's like the
internet would melt i'm like shut up
that's not true and she's like seriously
it's so hard to hire an abstech
professional
white vans will come up in front of your
house and they'll just shove you in and
take you away
yeah like you're exaggerating
bouncers they'll send bounces to take
you away to the company come
here but yeah so when you think about it
like that it's like oh i just have
all this career experience and all this
technical and leadership experience like
who wouldn't want to hire you and if
that's like your secret
like escape plan is i'll just get an
awesome job
yeah and i would like to add whoever is
listening
believe in yourself what the worst
people can do
they can just take your money that's it
they
cannot take your skill until you die
right
they cannot cannot nobody can see it
government can take
everything but they cannot take your
skill set that is
you that defines you yeah
and someone will definitely definitely
want to hire you as we've seen with
covid
like so many different industries are
dying and tech is still
exploding and yeah
i am i am very confident that us tech
people
when we work hard are going to find
places but
speaking of which that leads me to the
next question which is
are there many opportunities for those
in your line of work do you think that
there there could be another startup
opportunities are everywhere security
especially what field you are in cloud
security all of this
with the evolution of the number of
application number of
hacks there are so many opportunities
if you do some security course like
tanya has some course
we had purple or any kind of course
right
it is so much demand right you need to
have the skill set
there are so many this this field is
exploding
look at you know last recession 2010
people were saying you know cloud is
going nowhere
few people predicted cloud will be
everywhere now we are in
just second recession 10 years
everywhere is a cloud
right same thing in next 10 years
security gonna be the thing because
there are so many
software so many application our lives
are relying on the software so you know
there's
plenty of plenty of opportunity all you
need to
acquire is a skill set oh yeah
i'm within you yep
okay so now now for my favorite question
what do you like the best about your job
yeah there are many things that i like
the best
first is like you know the feeling that
you got
this was your vision your baby one day
you woke up or somehow idea came
now so many people are following and
they believe in you they are just
fighting with each other i want to do
this i disagree
it's a good feeling during higher car
there were 100 people
they were fighting this thing that thing
said wow it's good
right because they are working
for the thing that you laid out this
stone
so yeah that's why there are so many
good thing that you know i cannot even
count on fingers you directly interact
with
interact with customers you directly
deal with the product you
listen to them you deal with the
business you deal with the investors
advisor literally with tanya
yeah so many things that feeling
where you've given your product to the
customer
and it greatly improves their security
and like they see this huge positive
impact
that feeling must make you glow inside
yes that that is the kind of wonderful
moment that you just want to see that
you know if this they would have been
hacked what would have happened
likes and you know their billion or a
multi-billion dollar company will have a
bad stain and they will be paying huge
fines
so that feeling that you are helping
someone
and you know ultimately to your
customers who are have users
you're securing their their data their
software their application
it's yeah oh it's such i feel the same
way
like when you make this positive
difference like for your customers but
again like you said
you make it for the customers but then
that it folds down or it
um trickles down to every single one of
their users that then
gets a more secure experience and then
therefore is protected
yeah yeah it boils down to users these
large companies they have customers
users right
who are the ultimate users of the
product
yep okay so now i have to ask you the
really hard question
what do you like least about being a ceo
yeah that's a really hard question
but based on my experience
being ceo that means like you know you
are responsible end of the day
you know if there is some customer
delivery and you are
you know one of your guys don't show up
there's no excuse right you need to you
will be responsible you need to own it
you need to figure out things however
you like right
so being available in every different
thing and kind of solving the issue
that's kind of you know a little bit uh
yeah a little bit
it gets it gets you at some time but you
know
my experience has been you know just let
it go movement
you know we'll figure out yes someone
messed up
but there's always you know you can
there are ways there are ways you can
fix the things
would you say um
so so my least favorite thing honestly
is just
email like every single thing
i kid you not if i could pay other
humans
twice as much as i pay myself i would be
happy to do it if they would answer my
emails
but i but when i dissect that the real
thing
is decision fatigue so sometimes there
are
so many questions that come to me and
like
your willpower especially because you
only have so much and then you run out
so like if you get asked over and over
again can i have this for free can i
have your product for free
and shoe can i have it for free can i
can i have a raise can i have this
do you ever get decision fatigue where
you're like ow
oh yeah you carried almost every day
oh my gosh what i've got into right
so yes with the evolution of these
technological tools which are
communication tool which are necessary
into a phone you need to whatsapp
telegram
slack skype email and always
own culture so this is this is the way
you know better we get used to of it yes
if we can
find the expert just to manage this it
will be better
but end of the day they cannot take
certain level of decisions as well so
you need to chime in
yes they can just you know filter out
what the most important thing that you
need to take care of it
but it's still you know that's the one
of the things even i don't like you know
i have so many communication tools
nice to be on those yeah no
it's it's so true like slack discord
i have people they're like can i have
your phone number i'm like no
okay okay so on to more serious things
what advice would you give someone who
wants
one day to be a ceo and if possible
some actionable steps even if it's just
one that you feel like someone could
take towards one day becoming a ceo
that's a tough question you got me i
literally
it's the toughest question i'm sorry
yeah
so i think it depends so
even in your job right let's say you are
in job
or you know you are you are starting a
company
so in starting a company then becoming a
ceo is easy
if you're in job you can also
cast yourself or kind of you know create
yourself to be in that kind of role
being ceo means you lead by example
let's say you know wherever you are
working there are other colleagues
you know other colleagues as well so you
need to
you know they must be obviously you guys
must be solving some business problems
some sort of
you can leave them you can leave them
hey you know
cheer them up go for lunch or socialize
plus solve the problem together you
don't have to you know
listen more talk less that's one of the
thing
you know when you want to lead people so
we have two years on mouth
so we need to utilize that we need to
listen more
that's what my advice is and obviously
if you are
if you have a company if you are
starting up you can be ceo
so but that mean you are responsible for
every little thing yeah
yeah i feel like um when i first got out
of school i started my own startup
company
with some other students like literally
one month out of school
i was like this is all i've ever wanted
to do and i did not understand how to be
a ceo
and i definitely needed to fire one of
the other
students but she was my friend and
basically she was like literally the
coolest person i knew
um but she would also show up to
like staff meetings with like a two for
a beer and everyone would get drunk
and so yeah i know right and like she
was so cool
and like no one would do any work
because awesome krista was there
and so like i needed to fire her but i
was just like but she's so cool and so
now that i'm older i've gained a lot of
perspective
and so i feel like maybe you just
also need to have some work experience
as well like just generally before you
can jump into it or
or maybe i just jumped wrong the first
time but
yeah i like your advice yeah i mean
definitely if you are in some trade or
profession
or you know i.t you need to have that
level of expertise
you know you can talk anything people
are going to believe in you you need to
be talking
you know based on the data factor
talking data points
will always help you talking to the data
points
whatever statement you are making it
should be
supported by data you know data is the
key and this going to be
next 10 years as well or 20 years yeah
if you are going to suggest a resource
to people listening so someone's like i
want to start my own product
company in one to two years from now i'm
so excited
like do you have like a book or a video
or a course
or um or anything that you could
recommend that you think
might help them learn a bit yeah so
personally uh what has helped me you
know when you want to start over
so doing some survey that's how i did
you know
gather you know just talk throughout
some idea listen to people's opinion
second is the most important resource
which has worked very well for me is
that
you know hackers news my commentators so
they publish
so many so many articles so much of
advice from
paul graham sam altman so follow that
and it will start opening your mind
opening your brain
it's it's a journey it's not gonna
happen overnight
the more data you digest more people you
talk to
bounce off the ideas i think you will
get more clarity
and trust me no idea is bad you can make
a billion dollar company just look
around
you know wherever you're sitting the
company is the product that you are
using
probably they are multi-billion dollar
companies
that's such a good way to look at
because i am looking all around my room
and
i'm just like there's a hair elastic and
this is literally my favorite hair
elastic company
and i will go from pharmacy to pharmacy
to get this exact brand because it
doesn't like tug on my hair
and i bet these people are very rich if
i will spend time
every six months when i have broken all
of them
it's such a good point because i never
thought of it that way
okay so now i have not hard questions so
do you do things outside of infosec
outside of your job that you want to
share
and if so what do you have like a fun
hobby
uh yes i have weird hobbies i'm a
student pilot
i've been learning flying single engine
planes small
you know cessna a little bit
you know i i say it you know you don't
have to trust me
on this people say whoever fly that
there are more accident happens on the
car not by flight right not by single
engine plane you might disagree with
that
but once you start flying these are kind
of statements that you're gonna start
making
just to satisfy you
there's also way less airplanes in the
sky and therefore the idea of one
airplane
touching another airplane is so much
more rare
there are accidents on the car on the
roads so
you need to justify it so initially it
was very scary but i enjoyed it
after now i got busy and my wife and kid
they lay down on the road they hide my
bag and headphone they don't let me go
because you know even though you
convince them there are you know
i can die while driving the car
next weird hobby which i plan after
cloud defense
and i'm gonna do it i wanna learn
helicopter just a little harder
oh my gosh that's so cool that's so cool
my my uncle used to work for he's a
programmer and he used to work for
defense for canada
and he designed a whole bunch of their
helicopter
simulator software you should totally
check it out because it is hard
he's like i still can't fly a helicopter
after all this
time it's hard it's hard but you know
i want to someday but isn't that the
thing that makes it
desirable is that it's difficult right
it is yeah so initially it is difficult
you know
you there's nothing it's kind of tin
you know like just a 10 box that you are
flying in
but once you are up in the air you feel
so liberated
you can go this way that way you can go
to canada you can go to me it takes time
it's not you know your airbus or you
know boeing
it it just goes 100 mile per hour
and it's like starting a lawn mower if
you have ever started lawn mower you
just pump it up
try it it will start but once you are in
the sky
right the experience can go around there
is no one around
you know have you ever gone skydiving
i guess is sort of the opposite of
becoming a pilot
yeah yeah i think it's a little bit
positive
so yeah i have avoided that but
yeah i did it i hated it
like i absolutely was like this is the
worst thing that's ever happened to me
and i know people are supposed to be
like it was so awesome i was like oh my
god when will this
awfulness be over yeah it's a little bit
of paradox i'm afraid of heights but you
know i still
you know once you're up in the sky you
get a hang of single engine plane
then even though you unless you look at
you know really out of your window it
feels like nothing
yeah that's amazing i wonder
if the reason why you're interested in
flying and then trying a helicopter is
the same reason
that you're interested in starting
companies and being a founder
because you want to have this big huge
challenge don't chase it
yeah i don't know means up i just like
it maybe i have
you know some wiring confusion here some
wiring is wrong in my brain
i think it's so cool i really do i think
it's super cool
okay so the last question for you is
if someone wants to know more about you
or about cloud defense
how can they follow you or find out more
yeah just you can tweet it you can reach
out to tanya
or you can hit our website or you can
email me at
a bandsaw cloud defense or ai there are
many ways
you know yeah twitter
don't give out your phone number don't
do it
i've seen too many people be like yeah
i'm gonna give out my phone no don't do
it you'll be part of 50 000 whatsapp
groups before you know it
oh my gosh oh my gosh
what's up groups with like more than
three people no
oh thank you so much for being on my
show anshu this has been so
awesome i really i love that i got to
quiz you with questions and that you got
to share it with the audience we already
have six thumbs up so
people were watching and if you are
watching
and you missed it click the thumbs up if
you liked it and subscribe
and then go visit cloud defense.ai and
then immediately after
go visit threadfix our sponsor
and denim group who make thread fix so
that's even better
um and then visit wehackpurple.com and
sign up for all of our courses yeah look
at me at marketing yes
um but with that i'm going to say
goodbye to you
thank you so much for being on the show
i really appreciate it and i'm going to
do the wrap-up and credits that i always
do
thank you thanks sonia for having me
appreciate it
thank you bye
so everyone that was wait wait
here's this there we go that was
anshu benzal from cloud defense
and an excellent excellent episode where
i felt he just shared
so many good secrets about how
you can build up yourself until you're a
founder
i really felt like he shared a lot of
really good details and also just like
personal intimate stories that help you
become a part of infosec that's the
purpose of this podcast
is that we want more people in
information security
including you dear listener if you are
listening right now
i'm not kidding i wish that you were
part of infosec if you aren't already
there are so many unfilled spots
of various jobs all around the world and
we need you and that's why we started
this podcast so that you could learn
about what it's like to do all the
different jobs um i want to thank my
friends at cloud defense for being on
the show
i want to thank thread fix and i want to
thank the
amazing team that i have at we hack
purple
i can't tell you what it's like to have
the backing of a super duper awesome
amazing team
it is a pleasure it makes me look
amazing and smart
all the time because i have five
individuals helping me look that way
so thank you to my team and with that
i'm tanya Janca the host of the we hack
purple podcast
and i will see you next week where we
have
let me look at our amazing guest list we
have
oh my gosh i totally memorized this
before i came on and then now i forget
it's embarrassing
and i have it open in like four
different windows there we go
next week we have on tyrone wilson
who is also going to talk to us about
being a cyber security champion
um and president of a cyber security
company they do consulting and i'm very
interested in learning more about that
and the following week we have with
kim crowley
and she is a cyber security researcher
and writer and she's going to tell us
all about that
the following week november 19th we're
going to have shira shamband
of saluto of solo sorry afsalvo
and she's going to tell us all about
what it's like to found a technical
company
and what it's like um from the other
side of the ocean so she's in israel and
there's a lot of things that are quite
different there
following that we're going to have tutsi
and
which i know i'm saying wrong but she is
a security engineer and she's totally
awesome i worked with her at microsoft
and i'm super excited to have her on the
show not
only so we can hang out but also that
you can learn from her
and with that i am out i am tanya Janca
this is we hack purple
podcast thank you for listening