CyberWire Daily - Andrew Maloney: Never-ending thirst for knowledge. [COO] [Career Notes]

Episode Date: January 23, 2022

COO and Co-Founder of Query. AI, Andrew Maloney, shares how the building blocks he learned in the military helped him get where he is today. Coming from a blue collar family with a minimal knowledge of computers, Andrew went into computer operations in the Air Force. While deployed to Oman just after the start of the Iraq War, Andrew said he got his break into security. That's where he learned the components that fit together in order to effectively secure an environment. Andrew's words of wisdom: You've got to keep pushing and you've got to believe in yourself and never sell yourself short. We thank Andrew for sharing his story with us. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to the Cyber Wire Network, powered by N2K. and VPNs, yet breaches continue to rise by an 18% year-over-year increase in ransomware attacks and a $75 million record payout in 2024. These traditional security tools expand your attack surface with public-facing IPs that are exploited by bad actors more easily than ever with AI tools. It's time to rethink your security. Thank you. Learn more at zscaler.com slash security. Hello, I am Andrew Maloney. I am the COO and co-founder of Query AI. I grew up in a very blue-collar family, so it was a lot of tradecraft. My grandparents on my mom's side were farmers.

My father was in air conditioning. My grandfather was an electrician. I enjoyed a lot of those things, tinkering and such, growing up. But I was quick to learn that those were hard professions. I was a mechanic in high school for a while and realized that I didn't want to kind of follow in the footsteps of my father necessarily and work multiple jobs and took an interest early on in computers. But I always liked the military as well

and had aspirations to go and serve the country. So that's the direction I ended up taking, which also led me into a path where I could go into computers. I enlisted at 17. I actually had to get a parental waiver. I was so young to go in and I joined the Air Force. The Air Force was really good for me. And I always thought, you know, special forces would be really cool. Tremendous respect for some of the special operations warfare fighters that we have.

But thinking through that and talking to some of my family, you know, what do you do when you get out? Is there a career after the service if you're trained in combat and outside of maybe being a mercenary? The answer to that is probably maybe not so much. That's kind of directly applicable. Tech and computers were just coming to mainstream. I still dial up modems at the time. So I went and I took what they call ASVAB, which is an aptitude standards test. And I scored pretty well in math and science, which was the two key areas of focus for a lot of these kind of tech fields. And I started actually with the Navy. And I wanted to put me into basically being a

cryptographer. Sitting in a box and kind of decoding things all day long for the rest of my life doesn't sound all that exciting. So I walked into the Air Force recruiting office and showed them my ASVAB scores. There was a couple different courses around computers that were very appealing to me. So I ended up going into computer operations. That's really where it got started for me. So I shipped off to BASIC shortly after, went into my tech school in Biloxi, Mississippi, and I took this curiosity but very minimal knowledge of computers, and they gave me some really good foundational information from there. For me, the military was a good fit.

Once I got into tech school, though, I really found myself thriving because I was very interested in the course material. I had built a really strong and collaborative group of friends that I was serving with. We were all kind of in it together to work through it and do the best we could. But it was a fantastic opportunity to, without being afforded the luxury, to just go into kind of college and take education classes that would give you theoretical knowledge. It was very much a crash course and a deep dive directly into what it takes to really do the job, frankly, which helped me tremendously in, just after the start of the Iraq war, because of just not necessarily having a large pool to choose from, it's like, hey, can you do this? And if you're willing to kind of put the work in and volunteer, that's actually where I got my break into security. So I learned a

tremendous amount in the military, hands-on from what it means to operate at the help desk level, a lot of the kind of physical computer controls around processors and memories and how these things work. And you start to kind of put these building blocks in place, which I think is critical to what I do today and kind of security, right? Because all of these different components really have to fit together in order to effectively secure an environment. The more I learned, the more I realized I had to learn. It was like this never-ending thirst for knowledge.

When I started to interview around and see what was out there, it was very clear to me that there was a tremendous amount of opportunity in the civilian sector doing kind of government contracting work in and around the D.C. area. I landed a job through some government contractors supporting the FBI, and it was the Enterprise Security Operations Center stand-up. It was just after Robert Hansen, the notorious spy, had been busted. So it was really interesting as well, the work we were doing. I very much believed in kind of similar to the mission of supporting our country directly as a service member. I still have to wear a technical hat looking at kind of the market demographics. What do our customers need? What are the problems that we need to be solving for?

Oftentimes, and hopefully before the customers have even identified them or know what the solution is. Henry Ford said it best, I think, if I ask people what they want, they would tell me a faster horse because they can't think far enough ahead necessarily to see the car. So I still wear the tech hat from that side, but I'm by no means hands-on keyboard anymore, actually implementing our solutions. actually implementing our solutions. But it's much more business process, operations, financials, and ensuring that we're putting the right strategy in place, aligning the right resources within the company, and ultimately driving my team to succeed. One of the interview questions I often ask is, what do I need to be able to do for you to make you successful? I've had a lot of different leaders in the past.

I've hopefully taken some of the best of both from them. There's aspects of dictatorship in there, frankly, sometimes, because ultimately someone has to make a decision and be accountable for that decision. But I always want input, and everyone does have a seat at the table. I collectively get as much insights as I can from the team. I think it does take the village to really understand. I think transparency is key. That is an easy-to-use term, but I would say one of the biggest challenges throughout my career,

and I would say kind of military onward, people often shy away from being direct and transparent, whether that's with peers, leaders, or even subordinates. What I find really brings people together, especially in times of struggle, is that everyone is on the same page looking at what the challenges are and we're aligned towards a common goal. So I would say something that we've instilled especially in times of struggle, is that everyone is on the same page looking at what the challenges are and we're aligned towards a common goal. So I would say something that we've instilled in the culture of query AI from the very earliest inception is transparency. Some of the strongest lessons I think throughout my career and advice that I try to give when I have the opportunity to mentor people or talk through this, really regardless of their background, right? I mean, it all starts with you. You have to be driven. You have to be determined and you have

to be willing to put in the work. I think there are no handouts, right? And sometimes it's easy to forget when people are in these positions and you feel like, hey, I should have that job that they did put in a lot of time to get there. It's going to take work. It's going to take effort. But if I'm persistent, I will ultimately get there. And that's the mindset. You got to be willing to put in the work. That's step one. Step two, never sell yourself short. Everyone does this, myself included. And I tell people all the time, the day that I stopped being a director and started becoming a VP is the day that I stopped selling myself as a director. You've got to keep pushing and you've got to believe in yourself

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