Latest / Career Catalyst / Episode 3: Mike Silverman Curating Your Career Through Curiosity

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Episode 3: Mike Silverman Curating Your Career Through Curiosity · Career Catalyst

• Rory: All right, welcome everybody to Career Catalyst, episode two. Thank you for joining. With me as always is Derek Lozaro, the mayor of Palos Verdes or the pro tem and the CIO of Nassim and Walfarm. Hey Derek, how are you? Derek Lazzaro: Doing well. Good to be back with you, Rory. Rory: Absolutely. And I'm Rory Devine. Today we have a really great guest, Mike Silverman. Mike Silverman was a Chief Strategy Innovation Officer at FS-ISAC. And he is joining us in the studio in person. So you're not only our second episode guest, you are in person first person. So thank you so much. Mike: Well, I'm honored to that designation. ⁓ Rory: Oh, thank you. Yes. And I'm not there in person. I'm sorry. Death taxes and your toddler getting pink eye at preschool are just things you can't avoid in this world. uh, thank you. If you know, um, so Mike, um, you know, chief strategy, innovation officer, you know, uh, we heard you, Derek and I both at the Invercard annual event. And we just thought you had an amazing ability to make complicated things sound simple. You were very relatable in the way you could explain things and just where your position was. Mike: If you know, know. Yes. Derek Lazzaro: Thank Rory: at a government think tank really kind of jumped out to us. And how does, you know, I think the people listening to this who may be interested in getting into something like that from a strategy standpoint within technology would be very interested in how you get there. So ⁓ us, ⁓ question is, could you tell us what FS-ISAC is, ⁓ origination of it, and then kind of tell us, you know, how you kind of landed there, if you can. Mike: Well, let me start with the first part of what FS-ISAC is, and then how I got there is a more convoluted story. It always is, right? So FS-ISAC is the Financial Services Information Sharing and Analysis Center. ISACs are not-for-profits that are recommended by presidential directive in 1998. Most industries have an ISAC. Derek Lazzaro: Well, let me start with a quick report on what that is. And then how I got there. Rory: Right. Derek Lazzaro: Hold on one sec, guys. I'm sorry. His mic's cutting out a little. Try pulling it a little closer. Yeah. probably going to be better. So sorry, why don't we start over with the question. OK. Mike: How's that? Better? Okay. Rory: Are you going be able to fix this in post, Because, ⁓ okay. All Derek Lazzaro: We can fix this part in post, yeah. Mike: So that studio group, ⁓ presentation group, we had a speaker make a major faux pas and I go, don't worry, we'll fix it in post, even though it's live to a thousand people. We'll fix it in post, it'll be great, don't worry. Rory: Oh, okay. I will get back to. All right. So, so Mike, we heard you and then I say we Derek and I were at the annual InfraGard event a couple of weeks ago and we heard you as the keynote speaker there and we were really impressed at your ability to make very complicated things sound simple. The information relaying was, was very layered and nuanced, but you were, you did it in a very relatable way. And you know, working at a government think tank for strategy is Mike: Yes. Yeah. Thank you. Rory: It's such a cool thing. And I think a lot of our guests, our listeners are interested in maybe how that path happens. So I'd love to know what is FSISAC? Can kind of explain it to the layman who doesn't know and kind of talk about it. Mike: Yeah, sure. So, ISACs were started in 1998 by a recommendation of a presidential directive. industries have an ISAC. You probably don't know they exist unless you're in the security function. Think of it this way. At financial all institutions are to compete for more revenue, more accounts, etc. But there is a shared responsibility for security, right? One institution wants to another one in the marketplace. ⁓ but they need the other institutions to be there for trading on markets or whatever it may be. So when one institution sees mostly, let's say, a cyber attack, let's say they'd want their competitors to know about this. Before ISACs, there really wasn't a great or trusted way of disseminating that information. Could be considered an SEC violation, could be any number of things. Now, FSISAC is the Clearinghouse for Financial Services institutions. the institution that's seeing the attack tells FSISAC, FSISAC's teams validate, anonymize, and broadcast to who needs to know that information, and also updates their banks on what are the threat actors doing. This way, everyone gets aware of the information, and not all attacks rise to the level of needing government intervention. This is before law enforcement needs to get called. Someone doing a phishing campaign is probably not going to... raised to the level of needing the FBI or other institutions needed. So this way, without that government interference, we can still share and get ahead of the threats. Then when something does rise to the level of needing and financial services, know, a treasury or a central bank intervention or a sector wide intervention or law enforcement intervention, we would then share what we need to those institutions at that time. keeping the anonymity ⁓ Derek Lazzaro: Then we'll go to next Mike: respect the confidentiality of what's going on. So that's ISACs in general. My job there was the forward-looking threats. How is AI going to change? How do we work with regulators and how do we work with policies and institutions to get ahead of the downside threats, ⁓ downside risk threats that AI can bring? Post quantum cryptography. ⁓ Quantum computers, if you don't know, may be able to break asymmetric cryptography as we know it in the next seven to 10 years potentially. So how do we get ahead of that and not get caught off guard by, okay, your cryptography is broken, need to fix everything right now. So it's concepts like that that I was helping the industry get ahead of. Derek Lazzaro: That's really interesting, Mike. are some of the other, I'm just going to jump right into it, kind of some of the quasi-technical What are some of the other kinds of threats that you guys saw emerging? And maybe not even just specific to financial services, but just more broadly. Mike: So we saw a lot of threats, one from the financial side, because that's where we focused the most, would be on fraud, fraudulent bank accounts. But we saw spam, we saw things like sea level impersonations. Fraudulent activity of any kind doesn't necessarily limit itself to just financial services, right? So we saw a lot of that. where data is going, data sovereignty, data in clouds, where is the ownership? A lot of that was really convoluted. And so that becomes a threat as well in some regards. So I'd say that. Now, of course, we're seeing potentially nation state activities and ransomware and DDoS and that kind of bad activity. There is some that specifically target financial services. There are some that specifically say target national infrastructure. We saw a lot in Russia-Ukraine war that the nuclear and energy facilities were getting compromised, operational technology, know, water and other sort of things were getting attacked, but financial services saw very little of those attacks. So it all just depends on what's going on at the moment. Rory: So was there an inflection point or an event that caused the creation of all these ISACs? Because you said they just are kind of fairly new inventions. Mike: So think they saw, the ISACs were created in 1998, like I said, by presidential directive recommendation. Derek Lazzaro: So. Rory: I think I remember you mentioning the coal was one of the attacks. ⁓ Mike: Yeah, do we want to go there? So I'll say, Yeah, I'll say, so let me start over on that one. So presidential directive in 1998 recommended that every industry create an ISAC. And specifically in financial services, that was one of the earlier ISACs that got together because while banks or financial institutions see them, have money, they see the most attacks, it makes sense that they would spend the most and think about security the most. I think people really woke up to the ISAC's concept when the USS Cole was attacked in Yemen in around 2000 or so, right after that, where some shipping companies, I heard, had gotten word of an attack but really couldn't share that information. It could be considered an SEC violation. Your competition just wouldn't believe you, et cetera. And so... When the Congressional investigation came out and they realized that there was just ways of, there was already, there was information to be shared, but had no way of being shared. The mechanisms, they realized this ISAC concept probably could be that solution. And that's when I'd say more and more ISACs took off from there. Derek Lazzaro: That's really interesting, Mike. So you reached a senior level with a ⁓ pretty scope and ⁓ really industry. Tell us a little bit about the career path that sort of took you to that point. Rory: That's the. Mike: It goes back a long ways, you know? If I'm being honest, it feels weird that I'm the one giving career advice to people right now. I still feel like I'm just starting my career out, and ⁓ not. I guess it started, I'd always had a passion for computers, and high school, we had a program that, a research program as we called it, that... had you doing level academic research in high school to prepare you for competitions. At the time, it was called the Westinghouse Competition ⁓ the International Science and Engineering Fair. And 10th grade, I had already had a computer programming background. I self-taught myself ⁓ as kid. And I said, ⁓ now I need to really apply the computer science side to problem solving. And first, I started with mathematics. I wasn't finding that interesting. And then said, well, what are some other cool new emerging things that I could just start to learn? at the time, it was artificial intelligence. And so this was 1996, where I started to dive into self-teaching myself how AI worked and what we knew about neural networks and genetic algorithms at the time. Now, mind you, computing power in 1996 ⁓ nothing compared to what it's. on the phone in my pocket right now, right? I mean, it was very, very limited. But the techniques were still being honed then. So senior year, summer before my senior year, I'm sit or before that, actually, I'm sitting in ⁓ sailboat. I'm a sailboat racer. It's my main hobby. And I'm doing what's called dogs in the house, which means it's a very light air day, we need all the weight in the middle of the boat. And so the youngest one on board gets to sit down below in the heat and just keep your weight central. And I had nothing to do but stare at the GPS. And the GPS was reading sea level in addition to our latitude and longitude. And the sea level kept jumping, up 300 feet, down negative 200 feet. I'm like, this is crazy. We're not leaving sea level. We're on a boat, right? So I started to look into why GPS has so much error, and I'll spare the story a lot, but... you really need four satellites over your head in order for GPS to get a good fix. And at times there were gaps. So I said, why don't I have artificial intelligence try to theoretically replace the satellites so that there's more efficient coverage? And that began a year long of artificial intelligence and trying to solve this very difficult problem. Through it, I actually... was accepted to the ISF, the International Science and Engineering Fair, and took fourth place in the world in the computer science category. The guy who won computer science won the whole thing overall, so I didn't get the $100,000 scholarship that he did. But that started me down the path of really looking at how do I apply technology to common world problems? It's not just learning technology for technology's sake. Rory: Wow. Derek Lazzaro: But that started. Mike: So I went through college. My thesis was another artificial intelligence and digital signal processing project. And I was talking to my thesis advisor at the end. And I said, should I go for the master's? I was a computer engineer. And he said, don't you dare. I was confused, because most professors are trying to encourage you to stay at their institution and continue. They do. And he went, you are not going to do well in a master's program. Rory: Academia loves themselves in academia, yeah. Derek Lazzaro: They do. Mike: wasn't doing bad in school, right? But he said, you think so differently than most other engineering students I have. And this is what I want to encourage from anyone who's watching this podcast is you look at a problem and you go, here's the tools that I have in my tool belt and how to solve the problem. Engineers are trained to go, here is the textbook way to solve this problem, right? And you don't do it. You will get to this right problem. but you may go down very different paths or use different formulas or different techniques in order to do so. And he said, I really want to encourage you to keep doing that, exploring, innovating, thinking for yourself, not just repeating the rote things that we're teaching you. But in a master's program, you need to be able to do that rote memorization. And that's just not you. Go off, go into the real world, you'll do wonderful things. Impressed but also hurt at the same time because now I got to find a real job, Luckily I had been interning so I was able to go full-time with the company I was interning with and There the same problem happened. I would be doing R &D of new technology I could figure out how something without a manual worked and you know things that the programmers didn't even know at times that developers that were bringing us this stuff But I had to keep going to my boss the senior vice president and go hey, here's what this technology can do and he would say Here's the business problem we need to do a proof of concept in order to resolve. And I said, you know, I really want to be doing that. Yes, I have an engineering background, but I want to be doing more than just technology for technology's sake. Going back to those research projects, I want to be able to solve the problem. So I said to myself, I don't have a business background at all. I was an engineer. I'm going go take some continuing ed courses. And I look around and I find that the number one part-time MBA in the country at the time was at NYU. I was living in Manhattan, New York at the time. And I said, huh, what is this MBA thing? And so I learned you need this GMAT score and this is what an MBA is. And I study, I get the score I need, I apply and on the first try I get in. I go, I guess I'm getting an MBA now. You most people have a whole thought out plan and you know, for me it was just a, I just wanna continue learning. So I start that program as I'm learning strategy, I'm learning organizational design, I'm learning marketing, and I'm learning finance, leadership. And I'm like, this is what I need to be doing more of. It's not the hands-on keyboard anymore. It's really look at a problem holistically. What do I need to do to solve it? Technology is just one tool in that belt, although it's a big tool. And through that, I found management consulting, where I go to different businesses, look at their problems and figure out ways to help them solve those problems, whether it be growing, cutting, transforming, et cetera. And the way I equate consulting is when you work at one firm, you sharpen the tool. Let's say it's a screwdriver. I know all the different ways to use a screwdriver. But when I go to a new firm, they may not need or use screwdrivers, they may need chisels. And so now I have to learn the chisel. And at management consulting, you're going to so many different situations, so many industries, so many whatever, you really build a huge toolbox of different tools that you have. Now, I may not be the sharpest or the most expert in any one of these tools, but I have way more breadth than I ever did before through consulting. After living on the road for seven years, I decided there was enough travel for me, and I found a job at a company called SunGuard which makes software for financial services firms. I was basically a deputy of the right hand to the CTO there. And again, thinking strategically, the role there was how do I help the company innovate, go faster at what they're doing with less bugs, more security, less defects, and innovate not just the coding, but the product set themselves. And that was several years and we got acquired and I still did it there on a much bigger scale of innovation, security, et cetera. And I'm getting to your answer soon, Rory. I promise there's an arc I'm going to get there. Yeah, there's a real thin line. Again, solving problems. when I joined up with FIS, I'm sad to say FIS had a major breach in 2011 you can read about. the path out of that was to pivot to nothing but security. They really became a security first culture. Rory: ⁓ There's a through line, I'm hearing it, yes. Mike: More so than what SunGuard had ever been, although SunGuard was FFIEC regulated and all the other things too. But they just had such a security culture, I really had to learn way more than I ever knew about cybersecurity, security concepts in general. That then married with my financial services knowledge, that toolbox from consulting, my technology backgrounds. It was just a perfect fit for FSI SAC of, Where is the industry going? What are the emerging trends that are coming there? And how do we get ahead of these things from a security perspective? Derek Lazzaro: So Mike, first of all, that's a fascinating story. It's always interesting to hear the different twists and turns ⁓ I think ⁓ of us have in our career paths. Mike: meanderings and yes, yes. Derek Lazzaro: For me, I think I'm curious if a 22 or 25 year old is listening to this and kind of interested in a similar career path, right? They're interested in cyber security, maybe in financial services, maybe not. At this point, would you recommend? Do you even need a college degree? Do you need a master's? Should it be computer science or more of that kind of business first, MBA kind of thing? What's the path for somebody who's relatively at the beginning of their career? Mike: I can answer that a lot of different ways, but one I'll say is don't jump into an MBA. I was thinking of actually getting an engineering and MBA combined degree from my undergrad in five years as opposed to four for just the engineering degree. And I had a friend, a family friend who was a professor at a business school, and he really quickly talked me out of it. specifically for business, for MBAs, you need a few years of real world experience to understand why they're teaching you the concepts that they do. Organizational, why are companies organized this way or why do they send out messages about whatever? And so I did join the real world, ⁓ the workforce, ⁓ was interning so that gave me some credit, but then joining the workforce after undergraduate And then I was going part time, so I would learn something in class and I'd go, aha, that's why we're doing this this way. Without that background or that experience, the lessons from an MBA wouldn't have translated or made as much of an impact for me. I probably would have forgotten a lot of them. As to getting started today for a 22 year old, 23 year old, I'd say college still has a place. I may not know, we were actually having this conversation last week with some peers. I may not need to know just how a Fourier transform works, for example. There's a lot of math and a lot of other things. But I need to know what a Fourier transform does if I'm gonna be working in data signals or data analysis. those are concepts that you probably won't be exposed to on your own without a formal. ⁓ academic plan. And that's where a university and undergrad education really can help, can accelerate that growth. Yes, computer science, computer engineering, data science, those are all good techniques that are going to help you in realm. Economics also teaches you a lot of math, et cetera. So I think I'm getting at some of that there. But another part I'd say is don't forget the practical ⁓ experience too, right? Going to do internships is really important of how do I take these theories that I'm learning in academics and apply them? And I got a lot of people asking me, well, how do I get into AI? Just teach me AI. want to do some cool stuff with AI. And one of the best sources I say is go to a site called Kaggle, which is now owned by Google. And there's plenty of videos that will show you how to analyze one of the most used cases from there, which is the passenger list from the Titanic. and your job is to decide based on the attributes of their ticket and manifest if you can determine or predict whether they're going to perish or survive the horrible disaster. based on their gender, their age, where they embarked, their class on the ship and whatnot, you can get to about 85 % accuracy, I think, based on that. But it's not so much about the problem you're trying to solve here. It's... What are the techniques you need to learn in order to do that data analysis, real world data analysis? And there's plenty of videos on YouTube, just go and find it on whether it be an R or Python or other sort of languages, right? But those sort of use cases and that practical experience of taking the theoretical to the practical is really important for any early careerist. And I'd say, do not skip that path. Do not try to shortcut that aspect of it. Derek Lazzaro: That's really great advice. Kind of in a similar vein, what about certifications? Do you think that certifications are important? Is the practical more or are certifications a way to gain ⁓ a set that is relevant? Mike: Certifications can be a in to an organization, right? They're looking for people that they know have this background of knowledge, right? Whether it be a PMP certification, an agile certification, a security, a CompTIA, whatever it may be, right? They know you've had the academic training, but it doesn't necessarily translate to success unless you've had the practical experience alongside that certification. Now look, there's the CISSP, which is needed for a Chief Information Security Officer, right? You gotta have that if you're gonna be in that role. I've met, when I was hiring for PMPs in a program management office, that ⁓ certified PMP and could recite the PIMBOK left and right, but they had no practical knowledge of how to apply the PIMBOK, right? I'd say, well, what is the first thing you wanna do? And they'd say, well, the PIMBOK says you do this, this, this, and this. ⁓ anyone who's actually run a real project. Yeah, in practice though, there you go, Derek, right? Is that the true answer to running a project? The answer is no, you don't do that. You do. I'm not going to go into a project management rant here, that's where so certifications do help improving the point, but you've got to have the experience layered on top. Derek Lazzaro: I think I've met a few of those people. ⁓ Rory: You Derek Lazzaro: You're Yeah, you know, I've got a CISSP and I think one thing I've heard about the CISSP is it's like a mile wide but an inch deep, right? And in my own experience with it, studying for it and taking the exam and everything, I did learn things, right? And it did fill in some gaps. It was almost kind of like a mortar or a of a smoothing of my knowledge base. Mike: Mm-hmm. 100%. Mm-hmm. Derek Lazzaro: But I also don't think it translates particularly well to the practicalities of securing an organization day to day, the operational side, et cetera, right? So I think that's aligned with what you're saying. Mike: Yes. Yes. Just because I have a CISSP or a PMP does not mean I'm going to succeed in that role without really being able to use what's above your neck, right? What's up here and translating the theory, whether it be from an undergrad or a certification, into practical hands-on experience using those different tools that you have in your toolbox that you've learned over time. And there really is no shortcut for that, right? You don't just go buy a toolbox. Those are ⁓ sharpened, and learned over time. Derek Lazzaro: One more question, and I'll let Rory jump in. We had another guest who mentioned that some of the internships are sort of drying up. And even for pretty accomplished computer science students, data science students at good universities, there's just that pipeline, whether it's AI, post-COVID, there's maybe a few different factors there, but they're all kind of this sort of season here. Mike: you Derek Lazzaro: Any advice or thoughts for folks? Like how do you stand out? How do you of differentiate yourself and get that first internship or get that first job? Mike: I'd say we wrote a paper at FSI SAC about two years ago about how AI would transform the And one the things we knew it would change is entry-level jobs. Because whether it be investment banking who has to ⁓ copious hours pouring over Excel spreadsheets to learn the techniques and hone those techniques, AI can do that stuff now for them. computer programming, you go build this function, go write this, go write that, by and large, especially as of last December 2025, excuse me, the AI tools are phenomenal at being able to do those things now, right? So yes, it does change the entry level path. Before you were just a hired grunt almost, pardon my words there, but the value you were able to provide as a junior developer was minimal compared to the senior. The seniors had to do the architecture, they had to know how to structure the project, especially to work over multiple people, they had to set the right security controls and technologies and implementation and deployment and other things that take years of tradecraft to learn. and experiences to learn and mistakes. And there's always the joke of can do task myself in 30 minutes or I can give it to a junior person and they'll take two days. But they still need those two days to learn why I did things and mistakes, I'm gonna learn about doing it. And so next time I can do it in 30 minutes, right? And you make them and help them elevate. I'm getting to your answer now, Gary, ⁓ because changes that dynamic. But what AI allows you to do now as an entry level person is to provide even more value upfront. I can take a plan, not just, go build a function or go build a little module, but I can say, go here is the project concept or the part of the project we're trying to do. Go work with AI and use your fundamentals of programming to go and execute and build this. You're actually going to providing real value rather than just nitty gritty little aspects of the project. So having done pet projects, going to solve the caggles, doing your own apps, whether it just be for personal use or whatever, but practically knowing how to use modern IDEs, languages, approaches, that's gonna really help you translate into entry-level jobs at a firm and help the firm derive more value very quickly. Derek Lazzaro: So having. It sounds like it's possibly narrowing the number of opportunities, but for the people who are able to leverage those technologies, their value kind of quickly and ⁓ right? That ⁓ some respects, it does make you even more valuable as a junior, right? Mike: It does, and I think this is a more theoretical or philosophical debate now than ⁓ my own career, but AI, because how easy it is now to write code and deploy code, it actually... in some regards, we'll have new projects created at a rapid scale, right? There will be more things to be done because we can now take advantage of these things with AI. can, oh, I had an idea for 10 different projects, but on my current budget, I only had time for two. Now that I can scale this out, I can actually maybe do all 10 things. Derek Lazzaro: Those barriers to entry are kind of falling away. Rory: Mm. Mike: Hugely, hugely. Now, one thing I did right earlier this year is, yes, we'll be able to do way more, especially in 2026 than we have imagined in 2025 even. What it's going to do though is it's going to introduce more bugs because we're going to be doing more vibe coding or we're going to just go quickly and just probably over trust the AI more than we should be at this point. Although over time, I think the AI will get better and resolve those things. But we're going to have more bugs and more and then we're going to have security holes. We're going to have functionality holes. Now we'll quickly be able to remediate those things with AI. But this 2026 year may be a little rocky until we get over that hurdle as AI adoption solidifies and matures a little more. But the scale and the idea and the desire of companies wanting to grow into different directions will be enabled more by AI and people can bring more of that value to the company earlier in their career. Rory: Yeah, I think you bring up a good point for the listeners. Um, and I can take a step back there, uh, practical applications of AI when people are creating the resumes or doing jobs. And this goes all the way up to the highest level C suites up into entry level grad. They all make the same mistake. Um, business impacts, problems you solved practical applications, get that on your resume. Don't just add a model name or a thing or a certification with no background or context. That's how it's going to stand out to you. So I really appreciate you saying that. Mike: Mm. Yeah, no. If you don't have a lot of work experience, especially out of college, put a projects thing on your resume. What are the cool projects that you've done? Explain it from a business or just a use case, whether it's an app to help. control cleaning robots in your home or home automation or whatever it is, demonstrating that you've applied techniques and you can use them and you've learned the process of developing and refining and fixing bugs, et cetera, that demonstrates value to me. Yeah. Rory: Mm hmm. Exactly. know we're coming up on time. I just I did kind of want to get back to the beginning here. And as you as you mentioned, I jokingly said off camera before we started ⁓ people hear think tanks, it's in my head, it's they you right out of high school and hey, kid, ⁓ like getting black bagged and brought into a government installation. It's not, you know, from what I'm hearing about what you were saying was, you know, didn't choose a because I first saw Gen A. I in 2020. Mike: Mm. Rory: to one hitting the market. It was between that and mathematics. I was chasing my passions. had practical applications or wanted to solve problems. You didn't even get into the cybersecurity part of your career until about, you know, was that 10, 12 years ago? I mean, you were already into consulting and management consulting. So what we're hearing is like, you didn't have this a forethought of this is what it's going to be like in 15, 20 years. You were, this is what interests me. This is my passion about this one. I'm curious about. Mike: No. Nope. Rory: And that kind of led you to where you were going. Is that fair to say? Mike: ⁓ 100%, I'd say, you know, anyone that's at a think tank or a not-for-profit or an ISAC or any of these sort of institutes. And there's plenty of peers and there's really good people across all these ecosystems. Having some expertise of how does the industry work and the challenges and the pain points that those firms that you're helping are having, I think it makes you even more successful in your roles. But going back to your thesis yeah, I picked AI because I just thought it seemed interesting and cool. And that was in 1996. And for many years, I'd say there was almost an AI winter where it was considered this niche thing that a handful of people knew and maybe in financial services, some quants would use it, maybe some articles, sentiment analysis, and maybe social media analysis. It really take off until this chat GPT thing came out. And at first, within the ISAC, people were really scared. It's going to create all this new malware, and it's going to be destructive, and it's going to be end of our ecosystem. And I went, wait a minute. No, it's not. know the basics here of underneath the hood, it's these things called neural networks, and they're deterministic. And if you don't know what those terms are, well, go research. I think that's some good terms to know here about these things. But the GPT is only going to rehash what it's been taught on. It's not going to necessarily invent new things. There are forms of artificial intelligence that can create new things in a very niche or specific way, specifically the tools that play Go or chess and can explore new directions that humans would never choose. But back to this, the GPTs of the world, the LLMs of the world, they're going to just rehash what we've known. So we're going to see ⁓ attacks, phishing attacks, malware attacks, we're going to see more of them. We're going see a greater volume and variety and velocity of them. But we're not going to see revolutionary new things either. And so that was the calm that fortunately my expertise was able to bring to the industry. But the only way I would have been able to do that is if I had that experience behind the scenes. If I took the time to do the research. I didn't just jump in in January of what was it, 2022, I've almost got those years blended now, and say I'm gonna learn AI. No, no, I had to have come with that. And yes, you can quickly learn these concepts, but having a broad expertise and broad background. Rory: Yeah. Derek Lazzaro: Yes, you can. Mike: You have no idea the serendipity that comes from some of these opportunities. It's just amazing. And I really encourage, keep learning, keep exploring. You never know what's gonna pay off someday. Rory: That's a great, great point ⁓ perfect way to end it then Mike. So where can we find you? What's the best way to get in contact with you? ⁓ If are listening to this, I'm gonna follow up with you. ⁓ Mike: Yeah, the best way is going to be LinkedIn. Mike B. Silverman is my handle. Yeah, I got off of social media a few years ago. ⁓ I some bad things happening. I said, you know what? I got some young kids. Let me just go focus on them. But LinkedIn is still a professional network. And that's the best way to find me. Derek Lazzaro: Yeah, the best way. Rory: Smart man. All right, Derek, anything else? Derek Lazzaro: No, I think we covered a lot of ground. was great having you here in person. yeah, excellent. Really glad we did this. Mike: No. And I'm gonna say if Rory or Derek ever tap you on the shoulder to come do this, come do it. It's a great experience for you too from my side of things. So thank you gentlemen. Yes. Rory: All right. Appreciate that. Yeah. can find this at itcareeracademy.com. We have all of our different podcasts are up there. You can find this on Apple if you just want the audio side, but thank from everyone. This is Career Catalyst signing off. Thank Derek Lazzaro: Thank you. ⁓