Radialpoint talk at #cusec09
Lost my notes due to wifi failure. Here’s what I remember.
Marty is the speaker. He’s from Radialpoint formerly known as Zero Knowledge Systems, was employee #1 and helped build up from startup to medium sized enterprise. Zero Knowledge based off the crypto proof.
Learning is essentially unlimited at the beginning of the career.
Innovator’s dilemma: the more successful a company is, the more weighed down it is by its own success. For example, Microsoft exists because IBM was too distracted with enterprise customers to worry about a personal OS.
Every engineer should have the opportunity to create a 1.0, create something original. Get working on that 1.0 as early into your career as possible.
Takes an awfully long time to go from an idea to a product.
Innovator requires determination.
Skunkworks departments: Big companies organize development into two departments. Maintaining a product that’s already into market. And creating a new product for products and concepts that are allowed to fail because they’re on the edge.
Or, go venture capitalist, it may be cheaper than having your own R&D department. The drawback is it’s really hard to integrate companies when you buy then, especially when you have little history of innovation and pick up a startup. Most talent will jump ship.
Or, manage a company differently at different times. This is like Radialpoint. See a saturation point for certain products, when it happens to core products, switch back to startup mode.
Cost of being on the edge: If it doesn’t bring in revenue at such and such a frequency, that arm will be cut off. This is what happens now during the recession. Doesn’t usually allow for internal transfers.
Microsoft is tied up and gives Google a crack at market leadership now. Take a look at Android versus Windows Mobile.
Strengths of recent graduate: Have an ability to absorb risk. Family won’t starve if you take a pay cut to create a startup. Much closer to the edge than you’ll ever be again. You _will_ be out of the loop eventually.
Questions!
If I wanted to be an intern at a security company, what are you looking for?
Not domain expertise. General knowledge about networking and security is fantastic. Read the Bruce Schnier books. Applied Crypto is very dense, but check out his other books. Principles of security are all in there. Design principles. Never give up on the technical questions. They never expect you to get an elegant solution, they want to see people work and create a hack, then refine it. Don’t worry so much about domain expertise at the intern level, it’s a general interest in software development. Ask yourself “Would I do it for fun or for free?”
Austin Hill co-founded Zero Knowledge Systems!
