The Future of Cybersecurity Careers: Human Skills, AI Disruption & How to Stand Out Now

Aaron Crow (0:0.842): Awesome. Thank you for joining me on another episode of protected all podcast. this is a little bit different one. I've had a couple of these before, but I really liked diving into this. We talk about a lot of technical, deeply technical things on this podcast, everything from AI and, and, and tools and products and capabilities. And, there's, there's, as we know, there's a lot more, there's a human element, there's people process and technology and any of things that we do. I like diving on those things. And honestly, a lot of the questions I get from people that listen for when I go to conferences.

Aaron Crow (0:30.094): A lot of the things are people that are trying to get into the space, whether they've had a different career and they want to pivot into cyber, or maybe they're, they're, um, uh, students and they want to, you know, they're, trying to get their first job as well as executives that are like, Hey, I'm looking for this type of role. I'm having a hard time filling these roles. So I like bringing on people to have those kinds of conversations.

Aaron Crow (0:49.006): I know things have really drastically changed in the, in the, in the marketplace and how we find jobs. So Mark, thank you for joining me today. Uh, Mark, why don't you introduce yourself? Tell us who you are a little bit about your, your background, the company, all the different things, and then we can dive into, into conversation.

Mark Sasson (1:4.622): Thanks Aaron, it's pleasure to be here. I am the managing partner at Pinpoint Search Group. We specifically focus in on partnering with cybersecurity vendors to fill their searches, to build their teams, right? Lots of startups in the cybersecurity community and they need to be able to fill these gaps, make sure that they're innovating and delivering the best technology to market and our aim is to help them out on the human side of it.

Aaron Crow (1:30.488): That's awesome. Yeah. You know, startups, I work with a lot of startups as well and startups are constantly looking for that, that, that, you unicorn of person that can fill multiple roles. They can, they can wear multiple hats. They have experiences and, and, know, they may not always have the same funnel that, that a larger company may have where people, everybody wants to go work at Google or everybody wants to go work at Facebook. Well, I've never heard of this company. Like what, what is this thing? So what are,

Aaron Crow (1:58.062): Today, you know, this is November of 2025. What are some of the top frustrations or difficulties you see in the space? Maybe it's from a person trying to find a role or even a company trying to fill one with all the technology. And we talked about it a little bit off camera, but I'm sure we'll dive into it. But what are some of those difficult things that we're seeing in the space today and recruiting and just job finding?

Mark Sasson (2:26.766): So as it relates to cybersecurity, it's a really timely question to ask because it's cyclical. I just put something out there on my LinkedIn profile the other day about the transition from an employer-driven market to a candidate-driven market. And what that means specifically is that an employer-driven market, the employers have more leverage over the people because there's just less opportunities around, more people are looking, it's just more competitive.

Mark Sasson (2:55.220): I truly believe that we are jumping into a period now, I don't know how long it's going to last, that we're going back to a candidate driven market. I've been recruiting in technology for 15 years. Most of those 15 years, it's been candidate driven. Past two years, it's been employer driven. We are starting to see a shift. And some of that is just raw data, right? So one of the things we do is we track cybersecurity vendor funding.

Aaron Crow (2:55.352): Mm-hmm.

Mark Sasson (3:23.982): to date today, November 12th, we have already exceeded all of 2024 cybersecurity vendor funding from last year by 20%. And there doesn't seem to be any end in sight. Maybe some of the AI stuff that's coming out and the required innovation in security that's taking place is driving that. I don't know for certain, but I know that we are busier.

Mark Sasson (3:50.670): Some of the publicly traded recruitment firms are forecasting or producing really great results for their businesses. And those are typically good indicators. So one of the things is just the math. The past couple of years have been a little light from a funding standpoint and from a startup perspective, right? When you talk about what's a good place to look at, you want stability, hard to find that at a startup.

Mark Sasson (4:17.144): But roughly 60 % of all funding has gone to seed and series A companies for the past three or four years consistently. So that's where the innovations take place. That's where the opportunities are. Being able to navigate who those organizations are, how to communicate, how you can be impactful in those organizations. Those are key items that can really kickstart a job search if that's what you're looking to do.

Aaron Crow (4:44.066): Yeah, you know, it's so different. You think about getting a traditional, when I say traditional, a job at a Fortune 550 or 100 or whatever, you know, a sock analyst or a sock manager, a tried and true job that they have that job description across 50 different companies. And you know what the role is. And I've been that role for five times. I have that job history. You know, it's easy to fit in a box. But when you're going to a lot of these other ones,

Aaron Crow (5:12.736): Nobody's ever done this before, right? It's a new product. It's a new thing. You don't have that experience. So you're looking for something different, right? It's not, I want a sock analyst. I'm looking for somebody that has a different skillset. Something can build something. It can be part of a team. How much of that is more on this? Obviously there's technical requirements and you have to be able to code and or whatever the thing is requirement for the, for the job. But how many of that do you see in these startup type roles that are

Aaron Crow (5:39.672): that are beyond a technical lead or a technical qualification and more of those soft skills to actually, you know, be the differentiation that gets you the job over, over somebody else that may have the same credit, you know, credentials that you do as far as like skillset, right? On the technical side.

Mark Sasson (5:58.210): Yeah, you know, at the end of the day, it's cliche, but you do truly have to be willing and able to wear multiple hats. Like you said, you might be a technical person, a resource in that company that's gonna be technical in nature, but everybody's an ambassador to the brand. There's no hiding it, right? So you'll have to be at a conference or you might get pulled into a customer call. And that is one thing that people will have to be comfortable with.

Mark Sasson (6:24.302): right, especially as a lot automates or gets taken over by AI. How do you differentiate yourself, the value you bring to an organization and how is it tangible? Right. Cause we talked a little bit of offline Aaron about, you know, what, what do you do to make a difference and how do you attract the people that are going to be hiring and it's showing tangible value.

Mark Sasson (6:46.582): to what you bring to the table. And whether that's from a sales or a marketing or an engineering perspective, you got to look back at your accomplishments and what you've done previously to be successful and figure out a way to communicate that. And that's what in this innovative startup environment that we find ourselves working in cybersecurity, that's what tends to be a difference maker.

Aaron Crow (7:10.412): Yeah, that's awesome to hear. know, it goes to show, you know, throughout my career, I know we don't know each other, we just met today, but you know, through my career, the first, probably more than half of my career, I was very much hands on technical. Like I didn't want to get out of that. I wanted to be that technical resource. I wanted to be the smartest guy in the room and the thing that I was the best in or whatever, right? And I always was, at least to a point,

Aaron Crow (7:36.993): And I got to a point where I realized I was hitting these ceilings, right? I was, I couldn't, I couldn't grow in my company. I couldn't, there was no place else to go. So I'd, I'd add a certification or I'd add a, you know, a skillset, you know, whatever. And maybe I'd have to leave the company to make that next jump. But at some point I realized that the softer skills, the sales side, the conversational, the podcast that I'm doing today, right? The, the soft skills really enhanced my, I'm still technical.

Aaron Crow (8:5.827): But I'm not usually the one hands on keyboard anymore. That doesn't mean I'm not helpful. It doesn't mean I don't dabble and do those things. Of course I do, but it's not the best value for me, for the organization that I'm walking into. it was painful at first for me to leave that. Like I thought I was gonna lose something by letting that go. Like I thought I was giving up like something that I was gonna regret coming back and.

Aaron Crow (8:33.421): What I realized after the fact was that it opened up other doors that I didn't even know existed. And I was able to have higher and more honestly, more impactful conversations and have more impact in the organization or the project or whatever it was that I was looking at. Like I was a CTO of a company. Like I would have never been CTO if I'd had just been a technical person. Like yes, the CTO is a very technical role.

Aaron Crow (8:58.713): But honestly, most of the job that I did as a CTO was more on the relationship and conversation and driving innovation. And it was more on those softer skills than it was coding, right? I wasn't the coder. There were engineers that did that stuff. I was more talking the vision of where are we going to go? What are we going to build? And I had to be okay with letting go of that technical stuff and giving that over to somebody else that's way better at that thing that I was. So I don't need to be the best technical person.

Aaron Crow (9:26.687): You have to be able to have other people. it's interesting, especially in the startup space, I'm guessing that's probably another conversation you have with people, especially if they've never been in a startup type role and they've been in these more traditional type roles of what that fear factor of getting into a position where they may have to do sales, engineering type stuff, be customer facing, which before they've just been stuck in a basement somewhere.

Aaron Crow (9:52.067): coding or configuring or something like that in the past. It's not that they can't do it. It's just something they haven't really had to do in their current roles or in previous roles, right?

Mark Sasson (10:1.454): It's so interesting you this talk track and I mean it, Aaron. Um, so I'm having a conversation with a client on Friday. had a quick chat and we're going to dedicate some more time on Friday for a couple of searches that they need. And one of it is, Hey, our sales engineers are not doing well here. And it's not cause they're not good sales engineers. It's because this product is so technical.

Mark Sasson (10:28.832): We need somebody that's got fresh coding capabilities to come into this role. Is that realistic, Mark? That's what he asked me. I said, anything's realistic, right? We got to find the right person that is wanting that, has that skillset. There are some engineers and you guys engineers, have something that I don't have for sure, but some of them are just pure introverts, right? They carry a conversation is not a strong suit.

Mark Sasson (10:56.142): And, you know, what I said was, hey, it's just going to take longer for us to do this thing. We might get lucky, but we're going have to to a lot of people. We're going to have to understand what are their motivations? What are they comfortable with? What's their willingness and ability to take some risks in life? And, you know, I'm curious to get your perspective, Aaron. You mentioned you weren't sure that you wanted to do something like that, right? There was a point where like, I don't know.

Mark Sasson (11:25.738): Were you an introvert? Because you don't sound like one now, right? Again, we're just getting to know each other. But were you an introvert or was social and conversations easy to you? You just weren't sure you wanted to get out of the technical component.

Aaron Crow (11:40.163): I wasn't an introvert. I'm very introverted at times for sure. but I wasn't introverted as much as I was, I had always been, that's been the thing that made me successful, right? As being the best whatever, you know, Microsoft person or Cisco person or, or whatever the skill set is. And I had this mindset that, you know, if I lost that being the best at whatever the technical capabilities that I have, then I wouldn't.

Aaron Crow (12:8.323): that way I wouldn't be able to get back in. Like if I ever let go of that, that boat, then I would lose my, my raft and then I'd be stuck here. And if I don't like it, then I don't know where I'd go. Right. and I wasn't sure because I'd never done any direct sales. I'd never done any of that, those softer type things. I just didn't know if I wanted to do that or if I would be good at that. Like it's always easier to stick with what you know and what you're comfortable with.

Aaron Crow (12:36.279): and what you've been, what you've done in the past, then it is to step out of that comfort zone and to step into a role that you haven't done it. Like I was talking with a company not too long ago and they were looking for a particular role and it was like a product marketing type role and they had some struggles to find that type of role before and they keep looking for the person that has had the credentials and the pedigree of the role that they've had before, but they haven't had success.

Aaron Crow (13:3.513): filling it that way in the past. And I'm like, well, have you thought about getting somebody from a different place that maybe has the skillsets that you're looking for, but maybe doesn't have the pedigree because maybe they're going to bring something different than what you've gotten the last six times or eight times or whatever that didn't work. Right. So for me, was, it was, I was forced out. And what I mean by that is the organization that I was in, I'm very excited now that it happened, but I never would have probably done it.

Aaron Crow (13:32.131): They put us into this, they built it, they brought in a third party contractor that put together this thing and they called it leadership circle. So they took engineers from different parts of the company that they saw as the potential to become future leaders. And they brought us into this thing and it started out with like a hundred people and we did like book reports and we did public speaking and we did use cases and things like that. And then they took the best of those, the ones that got the highest grades or whatever. And they had a second year and it was a full year program.

Aaron Crow (14:2.231): And this went on for four years that I was part of this thing. And in the beginning, I hated it. I despised it. I'm like, I'm not in college anymore. I don't want to read books. I don't want to do book reports. Of course. Now you see behind me all the books on the shelf. you know, it's, I was so frustrated. I would tell my wife, like, I don't understand why I have to do this. This is, and it was in addition to my job. It's not like I got time away from my job. It was like nights and weekends. I had to do all of this extra work and I was super frustrated with it. But again,

Mark Sasson (14:6.860): Thank

Mark Sasson (14:12.876): Yeah, look at that.

Aaron Crow (14:30.541): I didn't realize it, but that was the thing that led me to becoming, you know, senior manager at an EY going to becoming a CTO at a software company. Like I never would have made those paths if somebody hadn't kind of helped force me out of my comfort zone. I would have been still successful if I had stayed in that technical role, no doubt about it, but I wouldn't have been able to get as high, I believe is what I've, I've been able to in a different path and trajectory because I was able to step out and focus on some of those softer skills. So to your point,

Aaron Crow (14:59.587): I've worked with a lot of folks that those introverts stuck in the basement and can't, you you can't talk to them or they're not comfortable talking to you at least. Those may not, those are harder ones to transition to a more customer facing type role, but there's a lot of people that are fully capable of doing that. They've just never done it before and haven't, you know, been pushed out of the, out of the nest to say, Hey, give this a shot. Cause I think you'd be good at it.

Mark Sasson (15:26.894): Yeah. I mean, there's so many elements and facts of life too. Right? I don't know what your typical listener is here and it doesn't matter. We'll talk about it. Right. But you know, for, for people coming up in their careers relatively early, um, and in life in general too, when I've been forced into things, but when things, when I was certain I was on a path and that path got cut off, it was a dead end for one reason or another, all of a sudden, you know, you're forced to go out of your comfort zone.

Mark Sasson (15:57.070): And the best things in my life, and I'm so serious about this, the best things that have ever happened to me in my life is when I was forced to make tough decisions, get out of my comfort zone, and do things in order to get to where I wanted to be or where I thought I wanted to be. Those are the best things to do. so sometimes I, even today, and this is sincere, I talk to...

Mark Sasson (16:21.550): candidate that has longer term aspirations. He is considering a fairly risky proposition right now that could really just propel him to where he wants to go at a much faster rate. he's, and I don't blame him, it's tough decision. He's sitting on the fence wondering, okay, well, what do I do?

Mark Sasson (16:48.066): Do I take this risk? And you know that that's not a question for me to answer for anybody but if you are in a position where you can you can change something now and say well You know if this doesn't work, I'll fall back onto that would be good Probably Aaron something along the lines of what you were thinking right and you made that change like hey I'm a good technologist I can go back and get a job if you feel that way and and you you have

Mark Sasson (17:16.322): You're at a point in your life and your career where you can make an easy decision and say, well, I'm going to take a risk. Do it. Because you don't know what's coming ahead of you. usually, if you're motivated, good things are going to happen.

Aaron Crow (17:30.659): Yeah, I hundred percent agree. And, and, know, I think, you know, it's, it's, I've changed the mindset. In fact, I looked, I had a memory come up on Facebook or something the other day, and it was like 10 years ago, you know, different things have happened. And, know, I did a coaching program where I went and did all this different stuff. And then the next year I went to Japan and drove drift cars and like, I've gotten out of my comfort zone because I've done some of these things and I've gotten comfortable being uncomfortable.

Mark Sasson (17:53.792): Yeah.

Aaron Crow (17:57.421): Right. I've gotten comfortable putting myself into different places and all of this to me lines back. know listeners may be like, what the hell are they talking about? But it's, all about like in our, in our, in our roles, you know, my, my dad worked for a company for 48 years, right? He worked for the same company, graduated from high school. He went on a Friday. He went to work for them on Monday and worked there for 47, 46, whatever the number 40 plus years. And he retired from there. And he basically had the same career.

Mark Sasson (17:57.496): Yes.

Aaron Crow (18:27.609): throughout, like he just kind of, you know, progressed up, but he worked for one company. And he had a great career and you know, did his thing had his fun, all the stuff. My career is my my my trajectory has been vastly different than that, right? My my, you know, I've, I've hopped around, not hopped around, but you know, it's a year contract here. It's a it's a two year contract there.

Aaron Crow (18:51.759): It's moving and adjusting. And I've been able to do that in my career. You know, I've had some long stints. I was at AT &T for 10 years and I was at, you know, EY for eight years and I was at Lumen at a power company for 10 years. I've been working a long time. Um, I got some grays in my beard, but that's right. But you know, I've also had some shorter stints, but all of those things, I didn't look at them as negative. Like some of them worked out. Some of them didn't, but

Mark Sasson (19:7.729): we're aging ourselves down here. Yeah.

Aaron Crow (19:20.407): I was able to take that risk, but I was, every one of them gave me an opportunity and I learned something that helped me get the next position. They all helped me to learn, you know, how to interact with people or, or I learned a technical skillset or I was able to work on an engagement or project that I wouldn't have been able to if I'd have just stayed where I was. So that experience, the funny thing is, is it's very similar to being a consultant, right? When I was at EY, I worked at a hundred different companies because

Aaron Crow (19:49.473): Yeah, I worked for EY, but I worked at all these other companies because I was doing all these projects all over the place. So it was like having those many careers in all those different spaces because I got to experience the different the difference. that but again, I would have never stepped into that EY role if I had to just stayed in that technical place because I would have been scared to do that. I get out of my rut and all that. So all this to say, folks, like I believe, you know, taking that step, learning the

Aaron Crow (20:18.563): the different thing, obviously AI is coming and everybody is concerned or what, how's that going to impact whatever I'm doing? And I definitely want to talk about AI and recruiting, but you know, all of this comes back to, know, what do you want to do? And, and, and what are the things, you know, I tell my kids, so I've got three kids and I tell my kids this all the time. Like you can't just do the things that you're good at before you can, know, you look at Michael Jordan and you hear this all the time, right? Is, know, Michael Jordan wasn't

Aaron Crow (20:48.557): you know, Michael Jordan, the first time he picked up a basketball, like he had to, he had to practice and put in a lot of time and sweat and blood and equity and, all that before he became the Michael Jordan that I remember from my childhood of seeing him jump through the air and all the things that he did. But it's not like he just picked up a basketball and he was a natural superstar, right? He had to work at it. And we all do, you know, when, when my son started jujitsu, same thing, like, so we have to be willing to step out of our comfort zone. And if we're not reading, if we're not learning, if we're not growing,

Aaron Crow (21:18.561): Eventually it's going to pass you by and you're going to be the best person in this technical field that nobody cares about anymore. And nobody wants to be there.

Mark Sasson (21:26.936): No, and you know, this is just my opinion, but I think growing doesn't only have to be within the field or path you're taking from a career standpoint. Right, I'm doing stuff right now and we can talk about it that, you know, beyond recruiting and running a small business, I found myself in a world that I never thought I would be in my personal life and expanding my knowledge in certain areas that I'm telling you I could have never imagined doing.

Aaron Crow (21:35.599): 100%. Yeah.

Mark Sasson (21:55.166): Even five or six years ago and that invigorates me it gets me excited about doing things and gets me excited about going to work and Just get gets everything separate. But one thing I want to know on the topic of not being scared to make moves is that there's some nuance there, right and so You can't just always make moves when an opportunity comes or

Mark Sasson (22:23.016): when it seems right because things aren't going well in a current situation, right? There's going to be a balance between making a move and being able to stick things out, know, punch through some walls from time to time, because if you are jumping every year, and I know there's been a lot of reduction in forces and we're not holding that against anybody, but if you're the type of person that finds yourself saying, you know what, this sucks.

Mark Sasson (22:49.478): and I'm going to go find something else. Every time something gets a little difficult, that's going to have a negative impact on your career. So there is some nuance there. There's some personal introspection that needs to take place before these decisions. Don't be scared to do hard things. Don't be scared to do new things. Also don't jump every time things get kind of hard because in tech and in cybersecurity and when technology innovation is going at the speed of light,

Aaron Crow (23:10.884): That's right.

Mark Sasson (23:17.484): things are going to get hard and if can't cut it there, you're not going to cut it in.

Aaron Crow (23:21.773): Yeah, 100%. Yeah, that's there. There's that fine mix of of, you know, take taking opportunity and then just, know, back in the day, it would be a flip flopper, right? It'd be somebody that couldn't keep a job or they'd be on a six month contract and they they'd never make it to the end. And then they get on the six month con the next six month contract and all those types of things. So, yeah, that's that's the other side of that coin. So what are what are some

Aaron Crow (23:47.573): some tips that you have for folks that are trying to get into cyber. Maybe they've had another career. They've been technical or maybe they're just changing completely and they've gotten certifications or they just went to college and got a degree or something like that. Like what are the ways that people are getting in? Because I know a lot of the requirements are you got to have some entry level jobs. There's requirements like four or five years experience. Like how's an entry level job if you need experience? But that's a whole nother conversation.

Mark Sasson (24:17.934): Yeah, no, it's a super frustrating topic. We deal with more senior level searches, but I do mentor people that are trying to get into cybersecurity or pivot from a previous role. And there are a couple things I would say. First, ask yourself why you want to do it. If you're doing it because it sounds cool and you think it might just be like a...

Aaron Crow (24:18.117): So what I said

Mark Sasson (24:44.992): a good and cushy career or maybe safe path, I can assure you that that's not the case, right? Nothing about the cybersecurity ecosystem is safe. just ask yourself why. Yeah, so you know, right? You are better than me, Aaron. Ask yourself why you really want to do it, right? And if you talk to people, mentors or friends, and it seems like the right move because it's logical,

Aaron Crow (24:57.027): Agreed.

Mark Sasson (25:14.892): then you know, there's going to be different ways to go about it. If you're going on the go to market route and you've been marketing or selling or doing some sort of customer facing customer engaging role, you know, if you're really senior and you've been doing it in a different type of ecosystem, you might have to take a step back. You just might. You're not going to come in and get some senior level role in cybersecurity if you haven't been exposed because the customer set

Mark Sasson (25:43.694): is very unique. You have to understand the customer problems. The office of the CISO has a lot of different people underneath that person. You need to understand who goes where, how to interact with them, what the pain points are, et cetera. So you're going to have to learn. You're going to have to start from the ground up. You're going to have to go be a sales development or business development person first or take a lower level marketing type or whatever the case may be. You have to take a step back to take two step forward.

Mark Sasson (26:13.806): Or you just get lucky and you have someone in your network that's going to give you a shot. But it's, um, it really is unlikely. It's super hard to break in if, if you didn't get started here and haven't been in the game for a long time. And then on the technical side, it is, if you, if you're a technologist, right. Maybe focus more on the networking side and I'd love your opinion on this, Aaron, but I would coach someone and say, Hey, listen, stay, start, start going to an adjacent place.

Mark Sasson (26:43.468): Right. Network security, firewalls, whatever's coming up on that networking ecosystem. First leverage what you have and then compliment it with, you know, courses or interning or whatever you can get your hands on just to get some practical and again, tangible experience. Because if you can put in a year or two of sacrifice and get that hands on technical experience and knowledge at that point, you become extremely valuable.

Mark Sasson (27:13.368): and that again, take one step back to take two step forward, you're gonna sacrifice some income probably for the first year or two. But if you're getting into it because you see a lot of security engineers making way more money than whatever else, then you know that eventually is gonna have some ROI. So ultimately it is a commitment and it is a little bit of sacrifice to break into the industry.

Aaron Crow (27:38.883): A hundred percent. And it's funny because that, that, that was a lot of my career, especially in the beginning. Like I would take two steps forward and one step back. Right. I would take a job paying less with less title. I never cared about titles too much, but I would take a job that paid less and less responsibilities to learn whatever thing that I wanted to learn because I wanted that in my quiver. Right. And I wanted to have that experience and that what better, like, I could go take a certification.

Aaron Crow (28:7.351): or take a class or whatever. But to me, it was always better to just go get on the job training in the thing. And then I come out of it with not only do I have a year or two years of experience supporting that thing, but I have use case and I have, you know, customer satisfaction and all those types of things, which as a hiring manager in the past, and many times I would much rather have somebody with actual experience with the thing instead of somebody with a certification and no experience, right?

Aaron Crow (28:36.619): always take the experience, even if they have no certification, no degree, no nothing, I'd much rather have somebody that has actual experience, real world experience that I can actually check that that's worth, you know, a thousand times what a piece of paper is like, because unfortunately you can only learn so much out of a book. It's it's the what's the I can't remember the show. I'm drawing a blank now. But, know, the really smart scientists guys that and they try to learn how to swim by reading a book.

Aaron Crow (29:4.973): Like, yeah, you can learn a lot of things from a book, but it's really hard to learn how to swim by reading a book or learn how to drive by reading a book. Like, yeah, you can understand the concepts of it. You can understand the concepts of cybersecurity, but until you've actually done it and you've defended it or you've implemented a firewall and you've seen the struggles from, you know, supporting it and all that type of stuff, it's just not the same, right?

Aaron Crow (29:29.057): It didn't, you don't, you don't see all the problem. There's no way they can write a book that will talk about every single possible scenario that you're going to come up to, when you're implementing something or you're designing a firewall or you're, you're segmenting a network and you're doing any of these things. The only way is experience, right? That's why I get on here and talk. And that's why I like having conversations with people like you and others from all these different perspectives, because your experience is unique.

Aaron Crow (29:56.194): And you've seen and done these things from, from the perspectives and the knowledge that you have that I will, I've never experienced. Right? So hearing from you and others, that's why I do this podcast. It's why I'm so passionate about having dialogues and conversations like this, because I think all of these perspectives are so valuable. If you take these little nuggets, if you get one thing out of this conversation today, then it was worth your time listening to a 45 minute long podcast where we're sitting around talking about.

Aaron Crow (30:24.644): HR and, and recruiting and resources and, and, and job stuff, right? It's that's, that's all it really takes to get value and you learn some.

Mark Sasson (30:33.858): That's right. And again, you try and learn from people who've been down that path and hear what their experiences are. You know, even I got a recruiter that's been working for me for several years now. And the best thing about him isn't his ability to recruit necessarily, it's his willingness to just learn from my experience, right? Because, you know, there's definitely going to be more experienced people than me, but he and I are obviously on the same team. We're working towards the same goal. And

Mark Sasson (31:2.958): You know, I've just fought those battles before. And if you can connect with somebody that's been in very similar situations, right? We're in a knife fight every day, whatever career you're in. If you know how to handle that situation through someone else's experience, you're just, you're not going to have to make the same mistakes. You'll still make your own mistakes, but you're better prepared going into that if you didn't, compared to if you didn't have anybody to guide you.

Aaron Crow (31:31.087): Sure. All right. So I'm going to ask them some pointed questions around going back into the, job market and the difficulties. how much are you seeing or how, how difficult is it to find good resources and how much is AI negatively impacting that search? Because people are using AI to write the resumes or, or, or whatever. we talked about it before we started recording. I know people that are, that are using AI tools and they're there.

Aaron Crow (32:0.174): you know, applying to literally hundreds of jobs a day and getting almost no response, which tells me what they're doing. Is it working? Right? So yeah, it's making it easier to apply, but they're getting no results. So they're just beating their head against the wall. And I also know from internal recruiters at the, at the consultancy I work at it, Morgan Franklin, you know, we have internal postings for jobs and the recruiter will be like, I'll turn the job post on and, within, you know, minutes I've got 2,500 applications.

Aaron Crow (32:29.679): Like I can't go through 2,500 applications realistically, right? It's impossible, right? So then they use tools to try to narrow that down. So you're, you're hurting yourself. So that's a long winded ant question to how, how are you guys able to, or what are you seeing and what recommendations do you have for people that are looking for that role? Maybe they do have the experience, but they're also getting, they're in competition with people that are using these AI tools to, adjust their resumes. It may even not actually be applicable for the role.

Mark Sasson (32:33.912): Yeah.

Mark Sasson (33:0.014): Yeah, so I'll start with finding talent. People will utilize the term finding talent to think like, okay, well, we're gonna hire this person, right? Well, finding talent is finding talent first, right? That's identifying the prospective candidate. And I use that term deliberately, prospective. They're not a candidate yet. We haven't talked to them yet. They haven't agreed to interview. They are a prospective candidate that we think might be a fit.

Mark Sasson (33:28.142): And it's simple. mean, LinkedIn is a fantastic tool. Most cybersecurity professionals have a presence on LinkedIn. You can kind of get a sense for what they're doing. And it comes down to talking to them. At the end of the day, you you can look at people with certain titles and kind of get a grasp of whether they're on the level or not. You're not going to talk to, um,

Mark Sasson (33:51.734): a global VP of sales engineering, if you need to hire an individual contributor sales engineer. So, you know, all the AI in the world, at least that I'm aware of, has not replaced the need for human conversation, right? So understanding the need of my client, understanding, okay, for this person, they need X, Y, and Z types of experience. So for example, just today, we...

Aaron Crow (33:56.719): Sure, sure.

Mark Sasson (34:18.070): an existing client of ours asked us for two sales managers, one in the central, one in the west. And it's not like, well, have you a sales manager before? You have to understand the business, which is why you need to have a niche in recruiting. So understanding, okay, what's the average sales price that you have today? What is the sales cycle? How many people are they managing? Is there expansion hiring to do or are they inheriting the existing team?

Mark Sasson (34:47.790): If someone's got an average sales price that they're used to selling and they're managing teams that are selling $40,000 average sales prices, and you have a client that's selling to the enterprise where they're selling at 250,000 average sales price, you know that's not a person. Not everybody's going to list that kind of data on their resume or their LinkedIn profile. So you need to have a conversation, right? So conversations are key in terms of identifying proper talent. And then you get an opportunity to say, okay, well, things line up here.

Aaron Crow (35:0.164): Yep. Yeah.

Mark Sasson (35:16.654): What are your motivations as a human being, right? That so often gets left out of the conversation. What's your motivations? What do you wanna do in life? Some people, you might just assume, well, they're a sales leader and they wanna jump up to a second line or do... Some people will tell you, man, I am tired of babysitting. I could go out there and crush it, make more being an individual contributor rep.

Mark Sasson (35:41.582): And I want to go back to that. Well, your whole worldview of that person and their background and their experience and whether they're a fit has just collapsed. Right. And so that's why I don't know how much we can rely on AI, at least as it stands today, to accurately identify, maybe identify profiles, but identify fit is a different conversation. Right. There's, you can't do this by filling out forms. It's just not going to work.

Aaron Crow (36:10.768): Yeah.

Mark Sasson (36:11.758): I don't know, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'll be proven wrong, but today that's why I still have a job. When I first started recruiting, LinkedIn was just get going. And the recruiting market was just, oh my God, all our jobs are gonna be taken. What did it do? It made things easier. Cause you could find everybody, right? I mean, people are just there now. AI is the same thing. Maybe there'll be some sort of AI solution.

Aaron Crow (36:28.206): Yep. Yeah.

Mark Sasson (36:37.282): that I can input specific requirements and they can somehow figure out a way to match it to a grouping of profiles where we can at least say there is a reasonable chance that these conversations are going to produce something of value. So maybe there's some potential there, but just to say, well, AI is just going to take over the function of recruiting, not yet. Now, if you're an internal person or a hiring manager,

Mark Sasson (37:6.302): I always say there's a difference between hiring and recruiting, right? It sounds the same, but hiring is, you you're giving somebody a job basically, right? Whereas think about what recruitment means. Whether it's in the context of what I do every day or, you know, people talk about military recruiters. They send people to high schools.

Mark Sasson (37:30.706): to MMA matches, I don't know how old your son is, but I know in Jiu-Jitsu tournaments, you've got army and marine recruiters, things like that. They are trying to identify the right talent in the right ecosystems and convince these people that X, Y, and Z would be a good path for them in life or their career. So hiring and recruiting are very different, right? So hiring is a passive action, recruiting is a proactive action.

Aaron Crow (37:36.324): Yep. Yep.

Mark Sasson (37:59.522): And so when you put up a job post and you see this all the time, well, we did it, got thousands of applications and literally minutes. Well, maybe you should take a more proactive approach. I don't post anything when we recruit. There are zero posts. We don't do job posts. We pick a target pool of prospective candidates based on whether we know them, we know where they're coming from, right? We'll often target.

Mark Sasson (38:29.510): competitive segments of security compared to what our client does. And we'll find people at the same level that they need them and we'll just talk to them. We'll reach out and say, hey, what are you guys doing? Not interested, no problem, right? But it's more of a deliberate, direct conversation. It is more labor intensive, but the results speak for themselves, right? I wouldn't be in business if technology was gonna take my job and I've been doing this a decent amount of time.

Aaron Crow (38:58.702): Yeah, it's amazing how all these new things. I love the fact that you mentioned LinkedIn. Everybody was afraid it was going to put you out of work and it just made your job easier. Made it more, more available to see. Cause everybody, I remember again, I've been in this business a long time. I remember you had to have your resume with every recruiting company, like tech systems and you know, all the, all the big ones, right? So you, your resume would be in each, each of these databases. The irony of that is that I still get today phone calls.

Mark Sasson (39:7.406): Yeah.

Aaron Crow (39:27.972): from recruiters, from those things, from my resume, from probably 20 years ago saying, Hey, are you a Unix admin? We've got a job for you. I'm like, my gosh, that resume is so old. Like it just says the word Unix in my resume. I haven't been a Unix admin in decades and you're calling me for a job that I am not qualified for. And you have, you obviously have done zero research on me.

Aaron Crow (39:53.577): So it's funny to see, and I'm not naming a company that does that. It happens a lot. But, know, it's to your point. I can absolutely see how AI can help us in that space where it can bridge that gap between the potential candidates of people of, this is the type of person that has this type of experience and has been at this type of level here.

Aaron Crow (40:19.928): LinkedIn to show me the people that may fit in this space so that I can have a conversation with them. Cause to your point, I may be the perfect fit. Like you may have a job. Somebody may call you today and say, my gosh, I just talked to Aaron yesterday and he, he could crush this position. And then you call me be like, yeah, I'm not interested. I don't want to move. I like where I'm at. I don't want to move. You know, I don't want to work remote or I don't want to work in that vertical or whatever that thing is. Yes, I could crush in that role, but that does not mean that I'm interested in taking it.

Aaron Crow (40:49.485): and that's, that's, that's where a lot of these things are to your point, you know, the only people that are applying for the open jobs are people that are diss satisfied in the positions that they're at and are actively searching, which is only a perspective, a small percentage of the people that may be interested. Like, you know, I'm not currently looking for a role, but if you called me tomorrow and this unicorn position that was open up.

Aaron Crow (41:14.964): Does that mean I wouldn't consider it? Well, of course, everybody's going to consider it. That doesn't mean I'm going to take it, but I'm at least going to have that conversation. But I wasn't out there looking on the website. I wasn't out there looking on, you know, LinkedIn jobs or monster, if that's even a thing anymore, or any of those types of places, I'm not looking for anything active cause I'm content where I'm at. I've got things going on. I'm happy with my role, et cetera. And there's a lot of people in that position. There's been a guy that worked for me. He's worked for me.

Mark Sasson (41:29.730): Yeah.

Aaron Crow (41:43.995): four times, I think four times, three or four times at three to three or four different places. And, I, I, I come in and then I hire him and then I ended up, you know, a couple of years later leaving. And then I hire him and bring him along with me. And this has happened three or four times. The guys, know, glutton for punishment. continues to accept the positions, but he would, he's the type of person that he will stay in his role forever.

Mark Sasson (42:2.382): Yeah.

Mark Sasson (42:8.334): Yeah.

Aaron Crow (42:8.748): Unless somebody almost forces him out. Like every time it's been, it's been a jump up for him, and experience and role and title and financial and all the different things, but he would have stuck where he was if I wasn't pulling him out, like kicking and screaming. No, I don't want to do that. No, I don't want to do that. And then he comes across and now he's happy where he's at. you know, but you know, sometimes we need somebody that at least gives us something to consider. Hey, here's an opportunity that you should at least consider.

Aaron Crow (42:38.020): I'd have you consider and then that way they can consider, you know, that, that type of thing. So again, going back to, to recruiting and folks, know, it, no matter where you're at in your career, to your point, wherever you're at, you know, I remember my grandfather used to tell me, and obviously there's lots of folks that have talked about this. goes, I don't care if you're cleaning the ditch, if you're cleaning a toilet, if you're, if you're mopping the floor, do it the best that you can.

Aaron Crow (43:4.118): It may obviously you're not going to necessarily enjoy it. It's not your dream job, but show up and do the best. Like that's all you can control is showing up and giving it your all, giving a hundred percent, showing up with integrity, you know, all that type of Those are things in your control. And you, from my perspective, it's been hugely impactful in my career and how that's gone. You know, when, when you, when the recruiter or, or the job, the, the HR person is asking for

Aaron Crow (43:32.921): you know, references when you can give those references and you can give them as many as you want. And they all say glowing things. Now, obviously you're not normally going to give a reference from somebody that's going to say bad things about you, but still, you know, I've gotten references. Well, that's, that's probably true, but you know, I give references and people, I give glowing reviews for people that would give me a reference or that I give references for, but that's because they showed up.

Mark Sasson (43:45.430): You'd be surprised,

Aaron Crow (44:0.069): Right. It wasn't because they were necessarily the smartest. wasn't necessarily that they were the best employee I ever had. It's because, when they showed up, they did their job. I could ask them to do things and they always deliver. weren't complaining. Like those are the things that you remember 10 years down the road. I don't remember what Bob did on the contract, but I remember how Bob showed up every day. I remember how I felt about Bob from 10 years ago. That's what I remember. So if, if somebody puts me down as a reference for Bob and they call me, those are the things that are going to stand out for me beyond.

Aaron Crow (44:29.936): Did he submit his time report or did he, you know, do whatever sales job or whatever the thing is. Those are the things to me as a hiring person or as a manager that's going to stick out the most about the people that work with you and for

Mark Sasson (44:43.406): Understood. Yeah. And I agree. And listen, you get used to doing the best job you can possibly do. If you're cleaning a floor and you get an opportunity to take a next level up, that's ingrained in you. You're going to do the best job you can do and whatever that is. And that stuff comes, comes back, right? It might not be tomorrow or next year, but man, has that paid off for me, right? Just go in and just whatever it is I'm doing, it's going to be awesome. I don't care what it is. Um, and, and good results come from it. Um,

Aaron Crow (45:5.040): 100%.

Mark Sasson (45:13.964): But ultimately, I think with these AI tools, as much as we talk about them helping us, Aaron, there are downsides, right? And I'm not even talking on the security side. You security practitioners, you got a lot to deal with now. But it's also, as you alluded to, you have these programs writing resumes, identifying things that...

Mark Sasson (45:40.972): these programs or you program them to think you're important and they make you look like something you're not. And I get it, right? You're competing out there. There's so much noise. You gotta figure a way out. But that is overburdening, the traditional way of posting a job and thinking, all right, these reasonably qualified people are going to apply. We're gonna choose one. that's why we are busier than we've been.

Mark Sasson (46:9.338): in probably 18 months because it's not for lack of resumes that our clients are saying, hey, we want to bring you on board and pay you money to go and find these people for us. It's because they're inundated. They don't have the time and they want someone who knows the business, someone that can qualify these folks. And, you know, it's not just about qualifying them upfront, right? This is me maybe being a bit preachy, but recruitment doesn't stop.

Mark Sasson (46:37.964): when you send a resume, recruitment goes until an offer letter is accepted, right? Hey, after the first conversation, what do you think, candidate? Like, what questions do you have? Hey, client, what do you think? yeah, this person's really interested. Here are a couple questions they have. Great, thanks for telling me that. We're gonna address that in the next interview, right? And so making sure that there is an alignment, some sort of liaison.

Mark Sasson (47:6.560): that is able to walk candidates through, whether it's an external agency like us or internal talent, people that are walking people through because so much gets lost throughout the course of these conversations. And again, you are not going to deploy an AI that can build a rapport with a candidate that's in process that takes a really human approach, right? I've never tried and sell anybody anything because I've learned, trust me, I've made that mistake early in my career.

Aaron Crow (47:24.132): Yep.

Mark Sasson (47:35.278): or it's like, okay, you're, coming off like a used car salesman. instead you just try and understand like, Hey, is this a fit for you? Like, I know you've got three kids now, Aaron, what type of lifestyle do you need to have in order to maintain some sort of relationship, meaningful relationship with those children? What are you willing to do? Like now you know a little more about this opportunity. Is that fit?

Mark Sasson (48:0.492): with what you've got going on. Some people have kids with health issues. Some people have spouses with health. Some people have their own. I mean, there's a million different things that you're not going to tell an AI system that eventually you'll tell a good human who's doing a job that is looking out for everybody's best interest because they want to help their client and the candidate make the best hire the best placement they can. And when you bring that genuine component to the conversation,

Mark Sasson (48:28.706): That's why I'm not scared in the short term of what's going to happen to my job and my business with AI.

Aaron Crow (48:35.184): Yeah, I, I, I a hundred percent agree. You know, I, I, think AI has a place in, in, in a lot of things, but I think that human element is, is, is the thing that is a differentiation. Um, and, and yeah, AI can help us be more efficient. And that's what I tell people, you know, I do a lot of things with helping people with automation and enhancing their, their business and all that kind of stuff. And people like, Oh, I want to, I'm going to see, can I replace this, this, and this person or this role with AI? And I'm like, I mean, possibly.

Aaron Crow (49:3.652): But you should be looking at how can I enhance these people to do a better job instead of replacing them? How about if I just don't have, they don't have to worry about the minutia and they can, they can be more effective. What else could they do? How much more productive could they be if they didn't have to do these other things? And I think that's going to be the superpower when people really start figuring out. I think the bigger problem is, is AI is just going so fast that people don't know how to implement it. So they're just, they're just throwing stuff at the wall and seeing what fixes.

Aaron Crow (49:33.190): And I think that's what's happening right now with resumes. And to your point, I a hundred percent agree with you on the, on the recruiting side being different than, than a job posting and why so many companies are so frustrated because as soon as they post a job wreck, they just get inundated with, with resumes. And, know, maybe 10 or 20 % of those are actually applicable. Maybe, the others, they look applicable because they, they say all the right words that they would, all the keywords are there.

Aaron Crow (50:1.010): Um, it looks like all of these people are a perfect fit. Like how did all of a sudden we get 2,500 people that are a perfect fit for this very unique role. Maybe it's because they're adjusting their resumes to fit the job description. Hmm. Interesting. Um, but maybe possibly no, no accusations for anybody there, but, to your point, like I get it, but you know, so all this to say next five to 10 years, like what are the things that you see?

Mark Sasson (50:14.498): Maybe, possibly.

Mark Sasson (50:20.482): No.

Aaron Crow (50:27.857): that are going to be helpful in this space and maybe some of the things that, and we probably already hit it, maybe it's just doubling down on things where we talked about, but what are some of those things, maybe one thing that's exciting and maybe one thing that's concerning with recruiting and job search and just employment overall in the cyberspace?

Mark Sasson (50:48.702): I won't go as far as 10 years, man. mean, I have young children, right? Seven and four years old right now. And I think in 10 years, my son will be 17 and getting ready to figure out what you might want to do after high school. And I thought, you know, when he was three, four, right? Hey, let's get this guy into coding when he was a kid.

Aaron Crow (50:54.565): Yep. Yep.

Aaron Crow (51:13.403): Yeah. Yeah.

Mark Sasson (51:13.934): And now you have AI generated code. And I know that human coders are still necessary and will be around, but I think that that market has lost a tremendous amount of market cap in terms of the humans that will be supporting it. And so I have no idea what to expect from the future in that far along, which is I wanted to qualify why I'm not going to talk 10 years. You know, what's really exciting.

Aaron Crow (51:36.891): Sure. Yeah, it makes sense.

Mark Sasson (51:42.606): is that being in a technology, I mentioned this early on in the conversation. I think innovation breeds growth. with all the things economically we got going on today, growth, I don't know if it solves all problems, but it's going to solve many. Because when things grow, you have jobs, you have things to fill, you have production, you have...

Mark Sasson (52:8.078): GDP, right? Everything happens there. And so I'm excited about the innovation. know, cybersecurity was getting a little flat for the past couple of years after the booms of 2020 through 2022, that huge amounts of money was invested. It went flat. And then you see all this AI coming out and it's sparking innovation requirement for innovation. People can't be flat footed. So I think that's going to open up a lot of opportunities. Some we're seeing right now. Some are unforeseen.

Aaron Crow (52:9.733): Yeah. Yep.

Aaron Crow (52:20.911): Yep. Yeah.

Mark Sasson (52:38.534): and what concerns me, honestly, again, it's tech technology associated with you have, I'm not that old. I'm 41 years old. maybe that is, I don't know. but you start to see some of the younger generation that we even call on the phone. It's like, Hey, can we just text? It's like, no, we can't text. We're like, I got to talk to you, person, right? I need, I need to talk to you.

Aaron Crow (53:0.103): No!

Mark Sasson (53:7.550): And there's this dehumanization that I'm starting to see. And again, maybe it's generational. I don't know. But that, you know, I hope we get back to more human, more humanization from both a humanity perspective, right? How we treat each other across the board. But on this side of the house, on this topic, I hope that

Mark Sasson (53:35.342): we don't lose that because all of a sudden it's going to justify replacing you. If you're not showing up and having conversations and doing the human side of everything that we're supposed to be doing, what's the reason of keeping humans on the payroll, right? So I think we just gotta hopefully overcome what we're seeing from...

Mark Sasson (54:0.928): a technology perspective, keeping us from socializing and communicating effectively verbally. And that's a concern, but we'll see what happens.

Aaron Crow (54:11.921): Yeah, I agree. And it's so funny you say that it's my kids are 10, 13 or 11, 13 and 17. And you know, they're

Aaron Crow (54:24.763): different than many of the kids that they're at their same age, just because of how I've, you know, we've raised them and the things that we require, they can have a conversation with an adult, you know, they're comfortable doing those things and many of their age and their friend groups can't. And they only want to, you know, their other friends only want to text and all that kind of stuff. Like communication is going to be more important as we go forward than not.

Aaron Crow (54:51.521): and, and those, and those interpersonal skills, those softer skills we talked about early in the podcast of, of, know, being able to have those conversations do more than just code in a basement. Cause again, imagine you're the coder in the basement and that's all you do. And you, don't like talking to people. Well, now they just replaced you with, with, with AI. So now what are you going to do? Right. So you have to be able to talk to people. You got to start getting out of your comfort zone and practicing other skillsets.

Mark Sasson (55:12.397): No.

Aaron Crow (55:18.717): that help you, that doesn't mean that you're gonna just replace all coders with AI. I don't think that's gonna happen anytime soon at least, but that is the path that we're on. So we all need to be focusing on how do we maintain relevancy? And it's always been this way in everything that we do. It's just like, I don't still work on Windows XP, right? I used to be a Windows XP guy.

Aaron Crow (55:42.694): Back in the day, I had a certification for it and everything. But if I had just stayed with that, then where would I be today? Like no very few people use Windows XP and only in very unique scenarios. I wouldn't have a lot of business. Let's put it that way. I wouldn't have a lot of demand for people knocking down my door. Recruiters giving me a call saying, Hey, you have the skill sets we're looking for. You've got it. You've got to maintain relevancy. So no knowing what's coming is really important. So

Mark Sasson (55:43.054): Yeah.

Mark Sasson (56:4.940): Yup. No.

Aaron Crow (56:11.545): Anyways, man, hey, I, this has been an awesome conversation. I know it, it, kind of went all over the place, but this is the type of thing that to me brings so much value. And, and that, that, that it's not all about technology. It's not all about the certification that you have. It's not all about, you know, being the best firewall guy or AI guy or salesperson or gal or any of that. Like these, these, these conversations matter because you know, nobody

Aaron Crow (56:39.289): Very few people take my father's role of getting in a job and staying there for 48 years. So all of these things matter. What is my next step? And you should be planning, even if you're not intending to leave your company, you should be planning what your next step is. Where do you want to go and what is it going to take? What skills do I need to learn to get to that next step? Like I'm going to, obviously I don't have the skillset to do it or I just do it now. So what do I need to be able to do that next step? Whether I want to be the CISO, the CEO,

Aaron Crow (57:8.663): an individual contributor, whatever those things are, what are the steps? What are the skills? What am I missing from being able to do that next role that I want to do? And you should be working on it. Read a book, go talk to find a mentor, like do a side gig, like build a lab, like whatever those things are, but we need to take control over over our destiny.

Aaron Crow (57:29.671): so that, know, when, when somebody like Mark gives you a call and says, Hey, I've got this great opportunity. You could say, yes, that sounds awesome. And I've been practicing and I have all these other things that are not on my resume that I could talk about that make me even a better fit than you even knew about.

Mark Sasson (57:44.472): That's right. That's right. Last thing I want to throw out here for anybody who is looking for more information on cybersecurity from a vendor standpoint. I think I referenced that we track every funding round and acquisition that takes place in the cybersecurity vendor community. All that information is free on my website. You don't got to sign up for anything. We don't charge any money. It's information that we utilize that we put out there to help people.

Mark Sasson (58:13.400): that we can't help directly, maybe we don't have a search that aligns what they're looking for. Hey, here's a list of all the cybersecurity companies that have raised money for the past several years. So, you I guess I can just, you can post that wherever you want here. Yeah, I'll show you a link, but that's to help people out. Yeah.

Aaron Crow (58:26.213): Yeah. Shoot me the link. We'll put, we'll post that. We'll post that in the show notes guys. Yeah. Yeah. A hundred percent. We'll put that in the show notes. So definitely checking the show notes. We'll have that link there for everybody. Definitely reach out to Mark. If you are interested in, and maybe you're looking for a role or you have a role that you're looking to post, right? And you've got those.

Aaron Crow (58:46.757): those higher level cyber leadership roles and you're trying to find them and you're having a hard time. Maybe you got 5,000 applicants and you're not sure what to do with them. Sounds like that's the time you need to give Mark and his team a call.

Mark Sasson (58:59.564): Yeah, absolutely. This has been awesome, Eric. Thank you so much for bringing me on.

Aaron Crow (59:3.863): Absolutely. Thanks for taking the time today and bringing another perspective. All of this matters. It's all part of cyber. It's all, you know, we it's easy to dive into technical. Most of my, my topics are on those things, but I think this is a really important one to really make sure people are thinking about from their career and their future. And, know, maybe they want to build a startup or whatever. They're going to need people like you to help build out their teams. So thank you again so much for the time. I really appreciate it. was a great conversation and hopefully it wasn't too painful.

Mark Sasson (59:30.862): It was awesome. Thank you so much.

Transcript lightly edited for readability.