Today Laura and Kevin chat with Tom Hurd the CEO & Co-Founder of Zeki Data. Tom first details his time overseeing intelligence and law enforcement operations serving as the senior Homeland Security Advisor to four British Home Secretaries. We learn about the importance of practicing your cybersecurity procedures. Tom talks about what really goes on in a cyber crime lab and dispels some of the myths around James Bond and MI6. We hear about his team's efforts to locate the COVID virus (and Laura's possible direct involvement 😬) and tracking the virus in the same way you can track cocaine. Tom gets into building big data projects around human excellence and finding people who "break the pattern." We learn about "Moneyball for Scientists and Engineers," and how Zeki Data uses AI to find the best talent. Finally Laura does a health check on Tom. This is a really interesting and entertaining episode!

Tom Hurd, the CEO and Co-Founder of Zeki Data, served as the senior Homeland Security Advisor to four British Home Secretaries, leading efforts against state Tom Hurd Horizontal threats, cybercrime, and terrorism, and overseeing intelligence and law enforcement operations. He played a key role in producing the Prime Minister’s Daily Intelligence Brief and was part of the UK’s Joint Intelligence Committee. Tom advocated for using science and technology to enhance operations, leading to his establishment of the UK’s Joint Biosecurity Centre to improve the accuracy of COVID-19 outbreak detection. He was honoured with an OBE in 2011 and a CB in 2020 for his contributions to national security. Tom has transitioned from government intelligence to co-founding a talent intelligence start-up.

At Zeki Data, they specialize in pinpointing the most advanced and innovative minds in science and engineering—individuals who are not just pushing the boundaries but are redefining them. These top deep tech innovators are driven to create groundbreaking solutions, refusing to settle for the status quo. Their sophisticated time series data empowers us to develop a comprehensive view of an individual’s record of innovation and accomplishments, allowing Zeki to accurately forecast their future potential. To identify this elite talent, Zeki meticulously crafted a dataset encompassing 10 million individuals employed at over 40,000 companies across 94 countries, spanning over a decade.

Today Laura and Kevin speak with Cybersecurity Expert Craig Petronella and founder of the Petronella Technology Group. They speak about cybersecurity and disaster recovery after events such as Milton and Helene and how you should test your cyber practice with table-top exercises. Craig shares some scary ransomware stories. He also gives tips on how to get into cybersecurity in 2024. We get into some of the overlooked compliance risks and new regulations. Craig is a true expert!

Craig and the Petronella Technology Group have helped 5,000+ businesses stay safe from network attacks and fully comply with their industries' regulations, including CMMC and NIST for defense industrial base contractors, HIPAA and HITECH for medical practices, GLBA for banking and finance, FTC compliance, Sarbanes Oxley and more. Craig is also the author of 8 cybersecurity and compliance books, including the Amazon #1 bestseller How HIPAA Can Crush Your Medical Practice.

With 30+ years of experience, Craig is well-known and highly regarded in the U.S. cybersecurity industry. He has served as a compliance consultant and conducted onsite risk assessments for over 500 medical practices, hospitals, and business associates, across the country, protecting them from hackers halfway around the world in places like Ukraine, Russia, and China. Craig holds MIT certifications in AI, blockchain, cybersecurity, and compliance.

With Laura out sick, today Kevin talks with Wyn Elder, the Managing Director of Global Public Sector at Box. They chat about Wyn's work and the difference between the public and private sectors. Wyn explains why he chose Box and what separates them from their competitors. We talk about DIUx, cloud cyber security, shadow IT and what keeps Wyn up at night. Lastly we talk modernization of government infrastructure and the TMF. Give this one a listen!

Wyn is responsible for revenue growth, strategy, business development, product roadmap, partnerships and channel distribution throughout this industry for Box.

Prior to Box, Wyn was at Deloitte Consulting where he led their Public Sector Innovation practice and helped Federal agencies transform their digital enterprises. Before Deloitte, Wyn worked at Apple where he served as the Director of Business Development, Partnerships, and Strategy for all of Apple’s Government & Public Sector business. He was responsible for crafting Apple’s government strategy and integrating associated changes into Apple's products, contracts, manufacturing, and distribution channels to support this innovative approach. Wyn also served as a Partner at the DoD’s premier Innovation Hub, Defense Innovation Unit (DIUx), helping transform the way the DOD works with advanced technology start-ups and accelerating the adoption of commercial technologies into the military services.

Prior to working at Apple, Wyn served 26 years as a pilot in the US Air Force and commanded at the Squadron, Group, and Wing levels and logged more than 3,000+ hours flying in the process. Wyn capped off his career by serving as the Senior Executive Assistant to the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He is a graduate of the National War College and holds an MBA from the University of Florida and a degree in Mathematics from the University of Virginia.

Today Laura and Kevin chat with Wesley Beary. Wesley is a tech wizard who has been reshaping the developer experience for over 15 years, turning complex API and open source challenges into solutions loved by developers worldwide. We talk about how do you think organizations can prioritize APIs tools better to enhance internal developer productivity. We hear about Wesley's philosophy on balancing the need for speed, security, with simplicity when building tools and platforms for developers. As an angel investor, Wesley explains how he identifies promising startups that are building for developers or focused on improving the developer experience. We learn the differences between Salesforce and startups approach developer tooling and internal processes. We also learn what’s next for developers. Lastly, we find out if Wesley really likes all this. Check this one out!

Wesley Beary is currently shaking up the tech world as a Founding Engineer at Anchor, a dev-friendly platform that provides private CAs for internal TLS encryption. It is making HTTPS certificates easy to get on servers, allowing developers to focus on building rather than managing security. Here’s a blog Wesley wrote about how Anchor developed a CLI and the tools that helped.

Wesley’s many career highlights include his maintenance of Ruby’s excon gem (over 485 million downloads) and suite of fog gems for cloud services. He also led the design of the Heroku public API and played a key role in publishing the pioneering HTTP API Design Guide. Wesley’s insights have guided countless developers in building better APIs.

Wesley is more than an open source expert; he's a community builder, having organized dev meetups and delivered keynote addresses at conferences for Upstream, ArrrrCamp, and Ruby.

Today Kevin and Laura speak with Dana Samuelson, the Founder and President of American Gold Exchange (AGE), a leading national precious metals and rare coin company specializing in dealer-to-dealer trading and direct-to-consumer sales. We talk about the precious metals market, the US economy and interest rates hikes and the effect on precious metals prices. We also discuss precious metals and rare coins as investments and hedges against financial uncertainty and inflation. Dana give us investing tips on the best ways to own precious metals both in modern bullion and in vintage, pre-1933 US gold and European gold coins. We touch on the best practice do's and don'ts when buying and selling, and the best ways to store and insure your physical holdings. We discuss if bitcoin or gold or the stock market is the best investment in 2024. We also learn whether Kevin should harvest the gold off his the circuit boards in his vintage tech collection and Laura talks FOMO.

Dana Samuelson has been active in the physical gold and silver markets for 43 years and is a nationally recognized expert on vintage, pre-1933 US gold and silver coins. Dana is also recognized as an authority in the precious metals industry and has been interviewed by major media outlets, including Forbes, Market Watch, and Fox Business.

Because precious metals market prices are impacted by the US economy, the global economy, interest rates, currency fluctuations, international events and especially inflation of late, Dana has become very knowledgeable in all of these areas and can speak in depth as to what is happening and why in all of these markets, especially as to how they affect precious metals prices in dollars and in other currencies.

This year marks the 25th anniversary of AGE. Their business model is based on repeat business and referrals, and they enjoy the continued endorsement of a host of nationally recognized investment newsletter writers, financial advisors, and hard asset proponents. AGE also has an impeccable national reputation for honesty and integrity with their peers and clients, holding an A+ Better Business Bureau rating and almost perfect Trustpilot customer reviews.

Dana began his career in the early 1980s as a personal protege of James U. Blanchard III, one of the great industry giants and the individual most responsible for the re-legalization of private ownership of gold in the US in 1974. Did you know gold was illegal to own in the US between 1933 and 1974?

He is also a past President of the Professional Numismatists Guild, the premiere organization of US rare coin dealers, whose principal goal is to uphold high standards of excellence among dealers so that trading in rare coins is risk-free for investors and collectors. As president, Dana conceived of and contributed to the establishment of the Anti-Counterfeiting Task Force, which today collaborates with Homeland Security and the Secret Service to identify and seize counterfeit bullion coins and bars (over $100M in street value thus far).

Today Laura and Kevin speak with Marcus “Bellringer” Bell about using generative AI in music. We learn about Marcus' past as a child prodigy who started playing the piano at age two, wrote his first songs at eight, and started his own record label at 12. Marcus talks about the 100 Day Impact Challenge and how losing his voice led to his decision to use AI to clone his voice - that’s when the potential for creative innovation through AI tools blew his mind open. Marcus is pioneering the next era of creativity with his photorealistic AI Music Artist Character, Ravyn Lyte. Ravyn Lyte was created to impact societal issues for the better and her music has been designed with neuroscientists to embed sounds of peace and healing to soothe the soul. We also learn about Marcus' mother Carolyn Williams Bell, a pioneer in the American Tennis Association in 1961. The two co-authored the book Bellringer Branding Bible: The 5 Musician Branding Principles for Singers, Rappers, DJs, Music Producers, Composers, Writers, and Recording Artists. Finally, Marcus tells about using tools to create podcasts and Laura and Kevin sign-off for the final time as they decide to use AI for the pod going forward (just kidding!), Marcus is a true AI evangelist. You don't want to miss this episode!

Born in Norfolk, Virginia, Marcus “Bellringer” Bell was a child prodigy who started playing the piano at age two, wrote his first songs at eight, and started his own record label at 12. His journey began at Berklee College of Music, where he honed his craft and graduated in 1996. Since then, Marcus has continuously pushed boundaries in music and entrepreneurship, embodying a legacy of innovation and empowerment in the entertainment industry.

Today, Marcus is a multifaceted American music producer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, singer, social media influencer, activist, and entrepreneur. As CEO of Bellringer Productions LLC, he oversees a powerhouse in music sync licensing and production, boasting a catalog of over 10,000 songs and nurturing more than 300 recording artists. His credits span industry giants such as Nicki Minaj, Snoop Dogg, Timbaland, and collaborations with major brands including Sony Music, HBO, Netflix, and Amazon.

As a technophile exploring technology throughout his career, he decided to use AI to clone his voice to complete the last of the project. That’s when the potential for creative innovation through AI tools blew open. Marcus is not only shaping the industry with his billion-plus music streams but also pioneering the next era of creativity with his photorealistic AI Music Artist Character, Ravyn Lyte. Ravyn Lyte was created to impact societal issues for the better. In a world where emotions of hate and rage through music and lyrics are targeting young children, Rayvn Lyte’s music has been designed with neuroscientists to embed sounds of peace and healing to soothe the soul.

Today Laura and Kevin speak with Jared Russell and James Dobberstein about their innovative idea to revitalize Baltimore's real estate market. We talk about abandominiums, food deserts and how tech is impacting their plans. We learn about their crowd-sourced funding plan and their revolutionary supermarket idea. While this one is a little less techy than usual, its still an interesting coversation!

Jared Russell, a lifelong resident of the DMV area, has developed a highly sophisticated and multidisciplinary approach to real estate, encompassing a wide range of transaction types and strategies. With over a decade of experience as both a realtor and investor, Jared has honed a unique ability to creatively explore and implement alternative transaction methods, tailored to meet diverse needs and scenarios.

Throughout his career, Jared has been deeply involved in the investment and development of various property types. His primary focus has been on serving lower-income communities, where he has pioneered innovative programs and housing solutions designed to promote equitable opportunities and foster community growth. His commitment to these underserved areas underscores his dedication to creating meaningful, impactful change through real estate.

James Dobberstein was born in Baltimore City and was adopted by his aunt and uncle who lived outside of DC. For nearly a decade, he has been actively engaged in the realms of real estate and development within Baltimore City, with a specialized focus on affordable housing. Throughout James' career, he dedicated himself to the development of both single-family and multi-family properties, targeting areas affected by urban blight and the challenges posed by abandoned properties. His efforts have been driven by a commitment to revitalizing these neighborhoods, aiming to alleviate the impact of property neglect and contribute to the overall enhancement of the city's housing landscape.

Today Kevin and Laura speak with Jennifer McIver, the Director of Legal Operations & Industry Insights at Wolters Kluwer about GenAI being just one of the tools in your tech toolbox. We discuss whether GenAI should be treated like predictive coding or MS365. Jen reminds us to remember the data and traditional AI tools. We talk enterprise legal management, spend software and legal analytics solution, e-signatures, legal prediction tools, case management tools, chatbots and e-Billing apps. We also hear Jen's divisive take on "tech she hates." This is a fun episode!

Jennifer McIver is an attorney turned legal technologist with extensive experience helping corporate legal departments improve operational efficiency, spend management, and collaboration with outside counsel through the use and adoption of technology. As Director, Legal Operations & Industry Insights at Wolters Kluwer, Jennifer represents ELM Solutions at industry events, develops thought-provoking content, and dives deep with LegalVIEW to surface valuable data insights about rates and other industry trends.

Laura and Kevin also chat about The Advocate Next Door, a new podcast from friends of the pod Kelby Ballena (our guest on pod 29 from 2021) and Margarita Rosa Arango. The Advocate Next Door is a podcast that covers genuine, in-person conversations with individuals from diverse backgrounds. Kelby and Margarita welcome guests who delve into their life and career journeys, exploring the passions and hobbies that drive them, and uncovering the stories behind their career choices. Each episode aims to reveal the personal side of professional paths, sharing inspiring tales of resilience, dedication, and the unique experiences that shape who they are today. They recently dropped their first 3 episodes. Check them out here.