Saying Goodbye

by [email protected] (Securosis) on December 2, 2019

Posted under: Corporate

I never thought I would say this, but I am leaving Securosis. By the time you read this I will have started a new position with Bank of America. I have been asked to help out with application and cloud security efforts. I have been giving a lot of thought to what I like to do, what makes me happy, and what I want to do with the rest of my career, and I came to the realization it is time for a change. There are aspects of the practice of security which I can never explore with Securosis or DisruptOps. The bank offers many challenges – and operates at a scale – which I have never experienced. That, and I will get to work with a highly talented team already in place. I could not really have written a better job description for myself, so I am jumping at this opportunity.

12 years ago I sat down with Rich to discuss, “What comes next?” when the demise of my former company was imminent. When he asked me to consider joining him, I asked, “What exactly is it you do?” I really didn’t know what analysts actually do, nor how the profession works. Mike will tell you I still don’t, and he is probably right. When I joined, friends and associates asked, “What the hell are you doing?” and said, “That is not what you are good at!”, and told me Securosis would never survive – there was no way we could compete against the likes of Gartner, Forrester, and IDC. But Securosis has been an amazing success. After a few years I think we proved that “No Bullshit” research, and our open Totally Transparent Research model, both work. We have been very lucky to have found such a workable niche, and had so much fun filling it.

But more than anything I am very thankful for being able to work with Mike and Rich over the last decade. I simply could not ask for better business partners. Both are smart to the point of being prescient, tremendously supportive, and have an intuitive grasp of the security industry. And when we get it wrong – which have have done more than we like to admit – we learn from our mistakes and move on. I recently read a quote from Chuck Akre: “Good judgement comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgement.” We always wondered how three guys with big egos and aspiration could coexist, but I think our ability to work as a team has been due in large part to learning from each other, learning from our mistakes, and constantly trying to improve the business. And we have constantly pushed this business to improve and move in new directions: from pure research, to training, to the research Nexus, to cloud security, security consulting, investment due diligence, and eventually launching DisruptOps. Each and every change was to address something in the industry we felt was not being served. Even the Disaster Recovery Breakfast stems from that ethos – another way we wanted to do things differently. And we have gained a lot of – ahem – experience along the way. It has been one hell of a ride! Thank you, Rich and Mike.

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A hearty thank you to Chris Pepper for enduring my writing style and lack of grammar all these years. Early on one reader went so far as to compare my writing to Nazi atrocities against the English language, which was uncalled for, but perhaps not so far off the mark. Chris has helped me get a lot better, and for that I am very grateful.

Finally, I wanted to thank all the readers of the posts, Friday Summaries, Incites, and research papers we have produced over the years. Some 15,000 blog posts, hundreds of research papers, and more webcasts than I can count. The support of the security community has made this work so rewarding. Thank you all for participating and helping us make Securosis a success.