From Startup to Rocket Ship: Building Doppel’s Hyper-Growth Sales Team

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[00:00:57] Check it out at strategyofsecurity.com. Now, on with this episode. All right, Mike. Well, welcome to the Cybersecurity Go-To-Market podcast. We're recording this from the Doppel meeting suite at the Palace Hotel at the 2025 RSA conference. And in line with the Palace Hotel, it's a fancy looking room.

[00:01:27] Yeah, not a bad place to have your meetings. Yeah, it's pretty quiet. My interview so far of being in busier places than this, you know, we've got some peace and quiet. We've got some tranquility in order to have our discussion today.

[00:01:37] So, Mike, I was looking at, I think, a couple of weeks ago, I did some analysis. Richard Steenen provides me access to his IT harvest dashboard. And it's all about research industry. And what I did is I looked at companies that had started since 2000, not named Wiz, that were growing fast by headcount. Headcount being the proxy for good business growth as well.

[00:02:00] And Doppel was in the top 15 fastest growing companies, which is a heck of a situation to be in. Now, you just joined as the head of sales. You joined from a bigger company, Big ID, right? So, I was kind of curious as you were coming in about the move from a bigger company down to one that's smaller, but obviously on a trajectory. And what you're thinking about what has to change in terms of go to market to keep this growth going.

[00:02:23] Yeah. Yeah, no, great question. Joining a company at roughly 5 million in ARR and trying to get it to 10 is a vastly different thing than going from 0 to 5 million. And from 10 million to 20 is a vastly different thing than going from 5 to 10.

[00:02:38] And so, you've got to start to put in some relatively straightforward blocking and tackling type strategies relative to the sales team. One of the things that we did very early on is we divided the sellers into mid-market, addressing $2.5 billion in revenues and below account reps and enterprise account reps. And at the time when I joined, we literally only had six sellers, right? And we've more than doubled that already in four months.

[00:03:06] So, the whole team was just a territory-based team. Any size company kind of went? For the most part, right? I mean, with that few people and that kind of revenue growth, everybody was covering everything. So, what do you think is behind the revenue growth? Yeah. So, well, social engineering defense is the most significant threat, I think, in cyber today. You know, everybody's familiar with what's going on, right? Because you yourself probably get three or four scam texts a day, maybe two or three or four phone calls a day.

[00:03:35] We're all very aware of the fact that with artificial intelligence, the threat actor now is able to, for far less money, scale their attacks toward companies. And it's significant. And there's really no technology that has holistically addressed the problem at scale like Doppel. And so, the drive, the market demand for our platform is high and our customers are getting a ton of value very, very fast.

[00:04:03] You know, when I think of what you're talking about, the old way of describing this was digital risk protection. And what Doppel's doing, I guess, is bringing a new approach to that and thinking about, you know, category change and, you know, bringing on the version two of that marketplace. Anytime that happens, though, it gets very messy. You know, you're trying to do things and there's flying lines to draw.

[00:04:26] I'm wondering on the sales side, any of those observations you made about what it takes to do that effectively on the sales side, not necessarily the marketing side. Yeah, no, that's a really, really great question. We probably don't have time for the full answer, but, you know, just basically it's extremely important to get consistency across the team and messaging, right? And to understand, you know, very early on what the required capabilities are to deliver, successfully deliver social engineering defense and align with the customer that those are indeed required capabilities.

[00:04:56] The only way you can possibly defend your enterprise against these threat actors who are using AI at scale and the Internet, essentially dark web and the public web and their cell phones, whether they're making phone calls or robo dialing or fake deep fake calling people or just simply texting and saying, hey, it's the CEO. Can you get me $500 gift cards?

[00:05:21] You've got to make sure that the sellers are audible ready, right, that they are quick to communicate effectively what the required capabilities are for the enterprise in order to defeat this threat. And what gave Doppel the space to do this? What are the older players not doing that meant there was actually a room for Doppel to come in and make such a big difference? Yeah.

[00:05:48] So, you know, Andrew, it's, you know, I guess the easiest way to describe it is the way the acceptable way to address the problem historically without AI right before AI really came to be a powerful tool weapon weaponized by the threat actor was whack-a-mole. You know, fake Facebook pops up. It's not your CEO's Facebook. Someone identifies it. You call the lawyer. You put a bunch of materials together. You have the lawyer call Facebook or meta and try to get that Facebook down. That's the old way, right?

[00:06:18] Whack-a-mole, we call it. The new way, that's just not good enough because by the time that Facebook's down, something else has popped up somewhere else. And so what Doppel does is uses AI to enlarge language models to at scale really see that attacker, see that entire vector of attack across social, across domains, across paid ads, across telco and other places. Holistically see that threat actor and their infrastructure.

[00:06:44] And then what's the big deal about Doppel is we take the entire infrastructure out of the threat actor. So instead of playing whack-a-mole, going after the Facebook accounts or the LinkedIn accounts or these set of telco numbers or this paid ad or that domain, we go after the entire thing, which makes it very expensive for the threat actor to persist. And then move on to another customer. And sometimes you're making that transition from the old way to the new way.

[00:07:09] You're asking your prospects to go on a journey with you a little bit and say, you know, I understand now that the threat landscape has changed. I wonder if you've learned anything as you've been engaging with these bigger companies about whether they actually recognize that as a problem, first of all, and see what the real root cause is. Or if you happen to really kind of shine a light on this in the first place.

[00:07:30] Yeah, all of the data, right, from third parties and other cybersecurity experts is that the human is the most vulnerable vector now that the threat actor is trying to exploit. Right? So I think it's recognized widely. You know, I'm a customer of a big financial institution. And, you know, three weeks ago, I got an email from them and says, do not take our phone call. We won't call you. Do not respond to a text. We won't text you. Do not respond to an email. We aren't going to email you.

[00:07:58] And if anybody ever sends you something, please send it to us so that we can investigate. You know, two weeks after I received that email, we got a call from the CISO of that organization asking for help. So clearly there's recognition in the market. You know, very rarely does a two and a half year old software company get a call from a Fortune 50 financial bank CISO asking for help. And we did in that circumstance. So the recognition is there. The problem is real. It's highly impacting these companies.

[00:08:26] Employees, their executives are at risk. Their customers certainly are at risk. And so we're protecting literally hundreds of millions of people through that downstream from this terrible risk that the threat actors are imposing on these companies. Yeah. I mean, I guess at the enterprise level, you've got, you know, very sophisticated and capable teams. You've got lots of people inside these teams to see more than perhaps mid-market might do. Sure.

[00:08:53] I'm wondering what, as you're making that shift to work with these larger companies, what you've had to think about in terms of the processes and how to go about doing that. I mean, as people have said, and some people still get wrong, it's not a case of just saying, well, it's the same message and same thing, just at a bigger level. There's a whole different way of doing that. Yeah, 100%. So it's super interesting. Listen, we signed on our first enterprise customer just six months ago. So this business was a mid-market commercial business to start.

[00:09:20] And the enterprises are now starting to come to us with these sophisticated problems. And so you have to think about how you go to market differently, right? We wholesale revamped our pricing, wholesale revamped the way we set expectations up front about what the investment is and what the ROI is. Because you have to do that, right? At scale, a, you know, two plus million dollar TCV on a deal is a vastly different thing to sell than a 40K deal in the commercial or mid-market space. So you've got to arm your sellers.

[00:09:50] Again, talk about Audible Red being Audible Ready, understanding the value proposition, you know, really playing the game on our home field, making sure that the customer understands that there's one and only one solution for them. And that's the Apple. And it's natural, I think, as a company makes that shift. There's resistance around, well, you know, is this the right thing to do? Did we done this way for six months or a year? Where were the resistance points that people naturally would have? It's just a human thing that you've had to work with. You know, it's interesting. Not very many.

[00:10:20] To be honest. You know, I think that, you know, six to eight months ago, the recognition was there by our, certainly by our founders, that this was a big problem and that the large enterprise was needed to address it. And so making the investments in enterprise sellers and doubling the team and putting them in regions and really focusing on building partner relationships, right? Because we're 100% channel and highly value all of our channel partners that we work with. Really, that force multiplier in the field was an easy investment to make and an easy one to make a decision on.

[00:10:50] So at the board level, you know, our series A was funded by Andreessen Horowitz, as you know. And at the board level and at the executive level, there was no resistance at all. So you talked about adding to the team, right? So you're looking to bring in people to help support the growth coming up. What are the Mike Ferrari non-negotiables as you're looking to build the team? Yeah. So what do you, in terms of non-negotiables, you mean in terms of talent or are you talking about? Okay.

[00:11:19] Bringing team members on. Yeah. So they have to have, you know, at the enterprise, right? 10 years of experience or more. So they've got experience selling in the enterprise. They've been successful in their careers. You know, I don't think it's necessarily a requirement that they have been in cyber. It's a very interesting sort of debate at the sales leadership level. Is it really that important that someone has had specific experience in cybersecurity or not?

[00:11:46] It's the old, you know, do you want the athlete or do you want the person to be in the market? Exactly right. So it's articulate. It's someone who's willing to get on an airplane and travel 70 to 75% of the time. You know, non-negotiables for us is we've moved all of our internal calls to Mondays and Fridays to enable the sales team to be in the field Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays.

[00:12:04] And I always say to them, if they don't have an appointment with a customer on Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday, they should be sitting in their channel partner's office, building those relationships, gaining that trust, and looking for other new opportunities in the market. And we've been very successful and fortunate because our sellers are regionally based, right? So they're in the major NFL cities right now, in the Northeast, the Southeast, the Mid-Atlantic, in Tola, in the Midwest, in the Northwest, in the Southwest.

[00:12:32] And they're sitting right there in those hubs of our channel partners and in the field with their customers. So the expectation is high to travel. You've got to have a lot of tenacity. We also have a non-negotiable for PipeGen, right? Everybody has to have time on their calendar to generate Pipeline because Pipeline is not someone else's responsibility at Doppel. It's our seller's responsibility, first and foremost. So, yes, the marketing team contributes. Yes, we have SDRs who contribute.

[00:13:01] Our partners are amazing in that equation. But it's still the rep's responsibility to generate Pipe. And I'm proud to say that every single one of our reps that are on board are over 100% in PipeGen for this quarter. And we actually have 5X Pipe, a qualified pipe for Q2, which very few software companies get to say. Yeah, for sure. So how did you instill that level of culture then that that's part of what they have to do? Yeah, it's a great question.

[00:13:30] You know, as a new sales leader coming in, you sort of sit back. I did a lot of analysis and a lot of watching to start, right? And then I hired a bunch of people who I know and trust to join the team. So I watched the folks who were on board, understood their strengths where they needed help, brought on other people who I know have been successful in the past and who I trust. And it's been great so far.

[00:13:55] I mean, I think that, you know, the explaining over time to the sellers that these are non-negotiables and being in a market like we are, we're fortunate to be in where there's a ton of demand for our software makes it relatively easy. As long as you follow the formula, right? Non-negotiable time in your calendar, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday in the field, simple stuff to do. As you look at the rest of the year, what's your biggest concern though? Right? You're bringing all these people in. You've got momentum going.

[00:14:23] Well, I don't want to give up any of my secrets here on Public Forum, but no, execution. You know, I've been asked by the board, by, you know, our CEO, our founders, what's the biggest risk? And it's execution. The opportunity is there, right? 5X pipe generated in 90 days for the next quarter, and our sales cycles are relatively short compared to other places I've been. 110 days on the enterprise side, less than 40 days on the mid-market side.

[00:14:50] Every single one of our sellers puts a deal up in the first quarter that they're at the company. Even on the enterprise side? That's correct. And we had 100% participation in Q4, meaning every single one of our reps put a deal on the board. Every single one, even the new ramping reps. So, you know, I think that's kind of it. It's execution. Do we have the right people in the right place to capture the market opportunity? And listen, we've got to make our customers successful, right? So there's, you know, we have to deliver on our promise.

[00:15:20] When I think about socially engineered defense, I think about why people buy it. Cyber is obviously involved, potentially brand, marketing, legal. There's lots of different groups. Yeah. Who gets it best? When you try and get into those companies. Yeah. It's for sure cybersecurity at the moment, right? And frankly, in the four months, four plus months I've been with Doppel, most, if not all of our opportunities, in particular in the enterprise, have been sponsored by CISOs.

[00:15:49] So, and not to say that there aren't other stakeholders, right? I'll give you an example without naming names, of course. We're working with a large enterprise right now who you'd recognize, and they're very concerned about executive protection. And the CISO does not own executive protection, actually. The chief security officer has a cyber leader, CISO, and a physical security leader.

[00:16:14] And the physical security leader and the cyber security leader are joining, right, at the hip to sponsor this type of an opportunity because it's cyber related because it has to do with the public facing internet or dark web, right? Or telephone. But it's physical security, executive security is owned by the physical security leader. So, there's teams coming together there that haven't historically partnered with one another. I wonder as a rep. For an example.

[00:16:41] Because, you know, security sellers historically are very comfortable in security but struggle to be relevant and credible outside of that. Outside of that, right? I mean, marketing are stakeholders in Doppel. Legal are stakeholders in Doppel. So, like I said at the front, I'm not necessarily so sure you have to have cyber experience, which you have to have experience doing and selling a platform. And when you sell a platform, there are multiple stakeholders.

[00:17:04] And they have different needs, you know, different requirements, different personalities. And so, you've got to be able to communicate the value proposition through those lenses. You're talking, having been there now for less than six months, right? So, you stepped in there and you said you listened and wanted to understand and then think about how you make changes.

[00:17:30] Where do you think in your history, your past stops in your career have you learned the most that's actually allowed you to be ready for this stepping in here? Boy, that's a great question. And I've had the great fortune of having a lot of really awesome mentors, right? And people that I can watch and follow and mold myself after. And strengths and weaknesses, right? Don't do this because that didn't work out very well. Or do do this because that was great.

[00:17:57] And it's interesting because as a seller, having sold, gosh, from early days IBM to e-procurement to pricing software to then cybersecurity, endpoint, data security to now. I've had the great fortune of working with a lot of terrific sales leaders and I've learned a lot from them. And that's given me this opportunity, frankly. And that goes back since the early days of my career.

[00:18:23] I'll never forget, there's a gentleman who's no longer with us, but he was my sales leader at two companies. And he actually took me from one to the other when he went to that company. And he taught me, I didn't know it then, but I was a very young and very impressionable and super hungry salesperson. And he was just an amazing leader. And I learned a lot from him that I applied today.

[00:18:46] Any particular companies that were going through changes, transitions that you go, I see how they did it or didn't do well that you're kind of drawing on? Yeah. I mean, so, you know, we fashion ourselves to be, you know, the whiz, the crowd strike, the abnormal security of our space. Right. And so I'm highly, um, we, we watch, um, you know, what Kevin's doing, frankly, at over at abnormal and, and watch, um, watch what he's been able to accomplish. Right.

[00:19:14] Cause he started in very early days abnormal and has taken the company now to over 200 million. And that's really what I aspire to do here at Doppel. And it's, I think it's unique because oftentimes companies go through sales leaders as they go through different phases of growth. Right. The person that got you from zero to 5 million is probably a different person than can get you from five to 10 or from 10 to 20, et cetera. That that's something I really, I'm challenging myself with every day.

[00:19:40] I really want to take this company to, to its IPO over 200 million in ARR. Yeah. I feel like it's, uh, if you remain the same person as you were, when you took it from one to five or five to 10, I get it. But it really is about, you know, how do you adapt? You look at, um, something like Chris Tegnan is a snowflake. I mean, he was basically the first seller. Yeah. And now he's still there after everything they've been through. Right. Yep. And he's clearly adapted along the way as well. And there's people that we know that are adapted as well.

[00:20:08] You have to, you have to grow and develop and adapt for sure. And be ahead of the changes. Otherwise you'll get caught up in them sometimes. Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. And you got to perform, right? The numbers are the numbers. The numbers are the numbers. Either the puck goes in the net or it doesn't. I don't care how many times you shoot it. So Mike, you mentioned, uh, channel a couple of times now. What role does a channel play in Buffalo's growth? Extraordinarily important.

[00:20:32] Um, you know, the, the channel partners that we work with, um, tend to be trusted advisors of their customers. Right. And so, you know, there's so much noise in cybersecurity. There's, you know, you walk out here in the streets, RSA, there's signs everywhere, information overloaded, cybersecurity tools. We do this, we do this. We stop these guys. We stop those guys. And so breaking through the noise is a critical role for our channel partners. They need to understand what Doppel does. They need to have a grasp of the value proposition.

[00:21:00] And if they have a relationship with their client, which they tend to do right years and years of relationships in some cases, they can impart that message on our behalf. So this is get a lot of overload in inundated with emails and phone calls, right? From people just like us all over the place. And so when they pick up the phone, typically it's somebody who they trust, who they already have a relationship with. And that's, that's the primary value. I will tell you too, just anecdotally, we, I'm super proud.

[00:21:26] And just the, just the, the, the quarter here, we've got over 40 deal registrations from the channel and that may not seem like a big number, um, for a fast growing company like Doppel, but we had 15 all of last year. So one five, all of last year to 40, just in the first quarter of this year. So there's definitely some momentum and some buzz brewing, um, that we're really, really excited about. We're also proud to say that over 80% of our business this quarter went through the channel. That's rare for a young software company.

[00:21:56] Cause you struggle with relevance. You struggle with visibility. Well, and the customer wants to, you know, a lot of customers want one throat to choke. They don't want to be, they don't want to think that there's another party involved in a young potentially ID series a risky cybersecurity company. I want a direct relationship. What, what's an ideal partner? Are you looking at the big ones that they defies and optives all the rest of the world? Or you look up to the boutiques? Yep. What's your, so we're, we partner, we're partnering with a lot of different firms,

[00:22:24] um, from the really large ones, like the guide points and the optives of the world. Um, you know, CDW and SHI are great partners as well. Um, and we're working with several others, Presidio, Ahead, um, Consortium, um, uh, Trace3 has become a really good partner to us as well. So you said guide points. Skip Shaw is the guide point rent in Columbus, Ohio. If Skip was to ask you the question, why the heck should I devote my time?

[00:22:50] I've got 1,300 vendors who want me to sell their stuff all the time. Why on earth should I engage with Doppler and can I go deep with you guys? Yeah, no, that's a, that's a great question. Well, number one, um, Skip would be, uh, hooking his wagon to the fastest growing Andreessen Horowitz cybersecurity company, right? Um, number one, number two, it's a problem that every single one of his customers is faced with right now. Um, and so he has the opportunity to, to be hero, um, to, to introduce them to the first

[00:23:18] and only social engineering defense platform like Dopple. Um, I will also say that we're doing some very large, uh, deals with our friends at guide point. And so there's an opportunity to make a lot of money as well. And that money is, is pure margin or you do deal regs? Is there backend stuff? How does, how does Skip make money? Our approach is pretty much the same as all the approaches, right? If, uh, Skip brings us a deal, right? We register that deal.

[00:23:44] We are committed to working with Skip and he gets the highest amount of margin or discount off of list, um, for Dopple that then he is able to, to, you know, make his earn earnings by adding value to the equation for the customer. And is it sell with the, you expecting Skip to do a lot of legwork right now? It's a hundred percent sell with, um, you know, our, our team obviously is responsible for the demo, which is custom every time. Um, which is really cool.

[00:24:12] You know, listen, the, the, one of the, um, one of the common ingredients in very fast growing, highly successful cybersecurity companies is time to value. Right. So we're not installing agents. We're not connecting to systems. We're going out and discovering publicly available information and sharing it with the customer, um, and then taking action on their behalf against it. So in the space of a couple of hours, we can add tons of value without even having that particular company be a customer.

[00:24:41] So we do the public, we do the custom demos. We do POCs. POCs really the difference between a POC and a custom demo is in a POC. We actually perform the takedowns. Um, so the customer actually gets to see firsthand as those are partner, how quick and different our approach to infrastructure takedowns is and the value that it adds compared to whack-a-mole of the extra year. So that's interesting. So as a, as a prospect, you know, usually in cyber, you get a discovery call, there's a demo that happens.

[00:25:10] There's a, should we do the POC and no point in that process really is the prospect getting much value, right? They're, they're understanding the product and whether it's going to work for them. Sure. They're not actually delivering much value. It sounds like what you're able to do because you're outside the network is you're able to actually give them a whole bunch of value, even for going through the sales process with that. That's right. That's right. So I'll give you an example really quickly.

[00:25:31] Um, we worked with a fortune 50, um, company and they had a LinkedIn impersonation, single LinkedIn impersonation that they discovered. And they brought it to us and said, this is concerning. And because of the way Doppel goes about things, we find all of the, I call it forensics of that particular compromise or threat, um, underneath it, right? Whether it's an email address or maybe a domain or maybe a phone number.

[00:26:00] And we pivot off of those pieces of evidence to go find other threats being performed by the same threat actor against that company. And so in that particular case, before they were even a customer, before they did even a POC from that one LinkedIn impersonation, we were able to find hundreds of telephone numbers that were targeting their customers. We are able to find thousands of other impersonations across X, across, uh, Chinese, uh, websites and

[00:26:26] apps across other LinkedIn's and Facebook's before they were even a customer able to identify that. But listen, nobody wants just a bunch of alerts, right? You want, you, you want to be able to say these are important and these are not right. It's the needle in the haystack sort of approach. And so we'll prioritize those alerts and go after those that the customer sees the most sensitive, um, or the most concerning. And we did that for that customer. And literally in the space of two weeks, we were delivering value and they weren't even a client yet. That's awesome.

[00:26:55] I remember in, you know, 10 years ago now, the Kazi space kind of took off because they basically plugged in and were able to show visibility, but there was nothing that was going to get shut down because of it. What you're actually able to do is show the visibility, but also take down these things before they've even spent a dollar with you. Exactly right. Which must be, you know, when you think about the, this, the world we're in cyber where people are clamoring for, you know, less alerts and more action. They're, they're looking for things that stand out. They're looking for things that are more valuable, reduce the risk of purchasing new stuff.

[00:27:24] Right. You're basically given them what they actually will get before they buy. It seems like it'd be a powerful position. It is. And, and I'll tell you the other thing that's really, really important and differentiated from some of the work that I've done before. They're also looking for a partner. Tell me more about that. Their sock, their sock, their, their, their people are strapped in. Right. There's no, and we've all heard the stories, right? These companies are understaffed and their people are already working, you know? And so when you get to Apple, you don't just have more work.

[00:27:51] You actually get a partner who actually partners with you to help you accomplish the, the goal, which is to defeat the threat actor, um, in this particular space. So if they are looking for a partner, not just a piece of software that provides a bunch of information. Well, Mike, on that note, let's, uh, let's ask you one last question. Sure. You've sold, as you said already, so a lot of different types of tech products over your career. Um, you've worked with the same people sometime at different places.

[00:28:17] If you weren't selling cybersecurity and it was a totally different random product right now, what would you just love to be selling somewhere? Ferraris. It's true. People would never forget that you sold a Ferrari. It's true. I, growing up, my friends always said, you got, you should go to work as a, at a Ferrari dealership. So I'm like, nah, I don't think so. And at multiple times I've gone to the dealership and the answer to the question, no, I don't have one. Um, not yet.

[00:28:46] Um, and, uh, people just get, you know, the win in Las Vegas, right? I don't know if you've ever been to the Ferrari dealership at the win in Las Vegas, but you know, you, you walk in there, they ask you for your ID to go into the store and you show them your ID and they're like, Whoa, Ferrari. That's the, that's the truth. I think if I, you know, in, uh, in a sort of a fictitious world, that would be very cool to do. I want to, uh, break a rule and finish a story about me actually, since you just brought that up. So we're in San Francisco right now.

[00:29:13] Um, there's actually a bar over the Marina called Monaghan's. All right. And when it opened up many years ago, I did the same thing. I went up and, you know, it was quiet Tuesday night or something like that. And, um, the guy, the bar was the ID of me. And I said, yeah, there's my ID. And he's like, okay. And I go, did you see my name? And he just kind of looked at me like, yeah, what's the big deal? It's like, so you're, you're getting an eyebrows raised in celebration as you walk into Ferrari dealership. I don't even have free pint at Monaghan's bar.

[00:29:43] This is not good. I need to change my last name to something worse than like Porsche or McLaren or something. I'm just hoping that one of these days I can get a good discount on a Ferrari. Well, Mike, it's been an absolute pleasure chatting to you. Covered a lot of good grind there. Thanks so much for taking the time and giving everyone some thoughts. It's fun. All right. We got our next person to talk about visionary or smoking crack. Who are you and what do you do? My name is Patrick Dillon. I'm the chief revenue officer for Airlog Digital. All right.

[00:30:12] I'm going to throw out some bold predictions at you, Patrick. About the future of sales and cybersecurity sales. And you tell me, am I a deep thinking, insightful visionary? Or did I inhale a little bit too much walking through the tenderloin on the way to the conference this morning? Okay. You ready? Let's do it. Okay. By 2030, so in five years time, 80% of cybersecurity purchases under 100K will happen without a human seller or a human buyer. It'll all be done by AI. Visionary or smoking crack?

[00:30:40] I think you may just be on a little marijuana there. You're not quite crack. But yeah, I certainly see a lot of business being more automated, especially of the smaller variety. Those deals have to go at speed. A lot of times customers right now are just going through. But yeah, I think you may be just a little weed, a little pot there, but not quite full crack. Well, I'm in Colorado. Oh, that's true. That's perfectly legal. So there you go. Just stereotypical right there.

[00:31:07] So next one, in five years time, more CISOs will report to CFOs than to CIOs or CEOs and sales will shift to finance first as opposed to security first. Yeah. It's visionary or smoking. Visionary. Yeah. I mean, I think right now, I mean, if it's not the CFO, it may be some, the CEO or some board level person. We're seeing it more and more. And we're certainly seeing CFOs making decisions and signing off on things far more frequently than in the past.

[00:31:36] So yeah, you're right on track. In 10 years time, both the RSA conference and Black Hat will be dead, completely gone. Visionary or smoking crack? Wow. You may be smoking crack on that a little bit. I just think, you know, now where they may be held may be completely different. But I think that the security communities will still need large, you know, industry type get togethers, so to speak.

[00:32:03] So whether it is in San Francisco or in Vegas, I think they'll still be around. I may not be here. I may be retired by then, but who knows? Two more questions. By 2030, Shadur Sanders will have won a Super Bowl. Smoking crack. Smoking crack. I think he is a great talent. I think he shouldn't have fallen that far in the draft. But I think for making bold predictions for Super Bowl winners for any new person, nobody thought Brady would have won, you know, as quickly as he did.

[00:32:33] Nobody thought Patrick Mahomes would have won as quickly as he did. I think if you predicted that one, and plus it's the Browns. So, I mean... It has to go somewhere else. My dad grew up in Cleveland. I've been kind of a, not a lifelong Browns fan, but you know, you have pity for him for a long period of time. But yeah, the Browns, it's going to be tough in five years. Recently, Google announced they're acquiring Wiz and some hacks in the industry called it G-Wiz.

[00:32:59] So, within 12 months, Island, the enterprise-browsing company, will acquire the Cyber Heart platform from Deos Technologies. Reading the company, Love Island. Visionary or smoking crack? Oh, that might be a... I'm going to go visionary on there. You know, the Island folks, they've got great tech. They've got great awareness. They've got great branding out there. Who knows what they might do, but I'm sure it's going to be big things. Michael over there is doing a really good job. So, I'm going to go visionary on this. There you go.

[00:33:29] Love it. Maybe the name won't be Love Island, but you know, acquisition may take place. Well, thanks for playing along. Absolutely. Appreciate it. It would mean a lot to me and to the continued growth of the show if you'd help get the word at. So, how do you do that easily? There are two ways.

[00:33:57] Firstly, just simply send a link to a friend. Send a link to the show, to this episode. You can email it, text it, Slack it, whatever works for you and it's easy for you. The second way is to leave a super quick rating. And sometimes that can seem complicated. So, I've made it as easy for you as I can. You simply have to go to ratethispodcast.com slash cyber. That's ratethispodcast.com slash cyber and explains exactly how to do it.

[00:34:27] Either of these ways will take you less than 30 seconds to do and it will mean the world to me. So, thank you.