Guest

We were wondering if you could tell us, maybe, about your background, your childhood, your friends and family, and where cyber security started for you. &gt;&gt; I was doing a PhD program in math, for a year. And it quickly became clear to me that there's not that many positions like Einstein had, where you sit around and do math. Or like John Nash and the Beautiful Mind movie, where his whole job is to basically do math. So it was clear to me that I needed to do something else. And my parents were like, we're only going to pay your bills if you're in school, so you'll have to go to school. So I'm like, all right. So I took computer science. I was doing software engineering, which like I said I was not that great at. We did something called the collegiate cyber defense competition, where you pretend to be the blue team. Basically you do the deployment side of things, the boring stuff. But they had a red team which was penetration testers, and by the end of the competition, I was like, I want to be that! I want to be what they do. &gt;&gt; When you were getting in to the field of pentesting, what sorts of obstacles did you face? &gt;&gt; I think the big obstacle really was, okay, you're a girl, girls don't do this, which, it's better now. I act like this was a long time ago, and it really wasn't. But we're talking like a few years now. I had a boss who when I got my Darper Cyber Fast Track grant, I had to quit my job and do this Cyber Fast Track grant, and he was like that's the dumbest thing ever. Who do you think you are? I saw him at a conference not too long ago and he came up to me and I didn't recognize him. &gt;&gt; [LAUGH] &gt;&gt; I did not recognize him and he told me who he was. I was like yeah, you're the guy who said I'd never be anything. [LAUGH] When people say things that I'm not good, I like to thank them. I'm like yes, you've given me the motivation to continue on. Thank you very much. [LAUGH] 

While getting a degree is helpful for getting that first job and checking the HR boxes, practical skills are way more important in computer hacking than education. So I would recommend higher education but, if you are already computer literate, major in what you what. Don't get stuck in the idea you have to do only computer science if you are interested in other things.

Skipping high school and going straight to college created its own set of problems complete with flagging in internship application systems for not having a high school diploma while in graduate school.

I'm a serial entrepreneur, penetration tester, security researcher, speaker, trainer, and author. Doing all of these things have prepared me well for founding a startup - as a solo founder, I've had to do literally everything that my company needs. 

Founder and CTO

Taking on this grant would be a dumb decision. You don't have what it takes. 

Georgia Weidman

About Georgia

Georgia Weidman

About Georgia

Related Videos