Leading with Integrity - Stacey Horne - Channel Security Secrets - Episode #4
Welcome to Channel Security Secrets. I'm Lou Raban. On this show, we expose the untold secrets and critical insights from the people shaping the future of cybersecurity sales in the trusted adviser channel. If you're looking to up your game around selling security, stick around. Channel Security Secrets is brought to you by Cyber Defense Group on a mission to shift cybersecurity from reactive to resilient.
Lou Rabon:I'm thrilled to introduce today's guest. He's a serial entrepreneur, thought leader, and trusted adviser with over forty years experience driving business growth. As a founder of multiple companies, he's led global expansion and built powerful distribution and reseller networks worldwide. He's also a featured speaker at major events, including the Cowtown Business and Capital Summit. A recognized channel leader, he's created an ecosystem of trusted partners to address the evolving landscape of cyber risk.
Lou Rabon:Let's welcome the president at Stillwater Ecosystem, Stacey Horn. Stacey, welcome to the show. Thanks, Lou. Great to be with you today. Looking forward to it.
Lou Rabon:Yeah. So, Stacy, just to get it kicked off, what what would you consider the biggest secret to your success in the channel?
Stacey Horne:Great question to kick it off. So, you know, I'll address it in three ways. My gray hair gives away the tenure of my career and, you know, behind the desk, prechannel by that, I mean, direct relationships with the providers and then obviously our more familiar model now, the TSDs and channel. But I will tell you this, the secret to success is equally shared among all three stages. And it really starts and the key for me is relationships.
Stacey Horne:I find that people want to do business with people. And confidence grows with being known, and the ability to be known allows for trust to build. And that's one of those key things that I've tried to base my relationships on. This one is getting to know folks and then, earning their trust over time. And, Lou, for me, it starts with something that I think is often overlooked, which is some humility because, you know, it's pretty clear that in this space that we're in, there's a lot of this chest thumping, and I know more than you know.
Stacey Horne:And I will freely confess that I try to get with people who know a whole lot more about the details of cyber, it's depth and breadth than myself. I like to focus on business impact, business outcome. Tell some stories to the c suite and those responsible for risks so they can, have some awareness to make informed decisions. And so that's been my model when I was convincing the CEO of something in the early days. And, and, again, relationship business to me is where it begins and ends.
Lou Rabon:Yeah. That that makes a lot of sense. So those relationships are with the c suite, but all throughout the org as well, I imagine. It
Stacey Horne:is. And and, again, you know, in in the complex nature of cyber in particular, you know, when we think about that, some of the smartest people in the room are the c suite, but that's not their forte 95% of the time. Therefore, condensing it and and and delivering it in a way that doesn't cause them to wanna draw back or acronym. You know?
Lou Rabon:Yeah. Heavy. Yeah. Heavy. Heavy.
Lou Rabon:Yeah. You know?
Stacey Horne:They actually really like to understand, you know, what's the risk profile and, what's my outcome? And, you know, we can make a cost benefit justification around it.
Lou Rabon:Yeah. So the secret is to have those relationships, but it's also to understand how to speak to them, especially when it comes to cyber, because cyber can be a complicated topic, and it can be you know, very acronym focused. It can be very technical. But, you know, for trusted advisers, you've got the advantage of having come from an IT background. You've got a tech background, so you're comfortable, you know, kinda getting into the weeds a bit when it when if it if it goes there.
Lou Rabon:But you understand how to pull yourself out and speak at a higher level so the executives understand that, basically.
Stacey Horne:Yes. Yes. I I would call myself a snorkeler in today's world. One time, I might have been a scuba diver that could go deep. But, again, with an ecosystem and and relationships are both client facing as well as partner facing.
Stacey Horne:They're all equally important. And, one of those other key features of relationships is empathy, I think. You know? Yeah. Try to place yourself and, you know, understand if we think about that word, really, it means to stand under, be standing in the shoes therein, and then addressing things from that perspective.
Stacey Horne:And so, I like to use that approach. And, you know, often, the, IT folks, internally or the hybrid situation that they may find themselves, the C suite, may be hearing the same thing from them, so it's very confirming or validating. Or it may give them some business case emphasis around a technology presentation. So all those things, I'm happy to be a bridge and a conduit and a facilitator of those types of things. And you know, that relationship with the the channel partners really is the key there, and I invest just as heavily in those relationships.
Stacey Horne:Frankly, Lou, I wanna get to know them. And if integrity and a do what do the right thing isn't there, then I wanna explore the value of the widget and the offering. If they aren't there, they could have the best widget, but it won't matter in the long run. So that's my that's my secret if there is such a thing. It's not really a secret so much as just trying to stay consistent.
Stacey Horne:Not that I am, but I aspire to be more consistent as I progress.
Lou Rabon:Yeah. I mean, it's a big one. Listen. Being, having integrity, you know, doing what you say you're going to do, you know, establishing trust. Things can go wrong, but, you know, in ensuring that you're always trying to do the right thing by the customer, also by the suppliers.
Lou Rabon:That's how one builds a relationship or basically a reputation as well. For those TAs that are trying to get into cyber that maybe they haven't dipped into it yet, they're interested, but they're not technical, they don't have your background, how do you speak to them? How would you help them trying to get into cyber? Maybe they've sold telecom or bandwidth or data center, and they know cyber is a a really good thing, but they they just have kind of this intimidation or wall getting over it. Any any advice for them?
Stacey Horne:Yeah. Great question. You know, I think there's some very simple phrases that can help, help folks get introduced, to cyber, and and a couple of them happy to share is, you know, cyber's agnostic to industry, location, and size. That means there isn't a client or a prospect on the planet who doesn't have to address cyber in some shape, form, or fashion. And if anyone ever told someone getting into this space, 100%, I know it all, I have one piece of advice.
Stacey Horne:I want you to run fast as you can the opposite direction because that isn't true. And even if it happened to be true, before the sentence is complete, it won't be true. That's the evolutionary and expansive way that the threats are evolving, and that's one of the reasons there's the number of ecosystem partners that I have, the depth and breadth of that. And so lean into those relationships. Again, my advice would be to do it relationship wise.
Stacey Horne:Get to know your partners that are gonna be there with you, and articulate things that raise awareness to the prospects and clients that you're going to see. If you've already, got a relationship with them, there's a level of trust there. And, you know, I like to think about things. Can can we explore this? And and often there there's some great thought leadership that can be brought by by a partner if you're in the child and allow that.
Stacey Horne:And if you trust them and have relationship with them, you know the right ones.
Lou Rabon:Yeah. So kick that door open. That's that's what we say. We say you don't have to have the conversation. Just know the right questions to ask and, you know, which is what are you doing right now?
Lou Rabon:Do you feel comfortable with your cyber posture? What what are some of the questions you ask to kind of, you know, scrape up, break loose some of those opportunities?
Stacey Horne:Yeah. I often ask them, I say, how do you feel about cyber in this in their silence? So it's like, how about we try to remove the we don't know what we don't know from the equation? And that's usually a great starting spot. I ask them things like, what's your road map?
Stacey Horne:And again, if you hear crickets, go, well, let's work on what it might look like to create a road map. And if they have one, well, where are you? Because it's often in the early days of a journey with cyber, there's this I've checked those boxes now.
Lou Rabon:Mhmm. Exactly.
Stacey Horne:And this is a journey, and the journey is the destination. And I often work I have the privilege of working closely with a significant insurance brokerage group. And so for their perspective, when you when you get around to things like cyber insurance, there's boxes to check. And the mantra was, can I check those boxes? And yet the truth is, as much as they really need that policy in their drawer, you don't wanna ever pull it out.
Lou Rabon:Mhmm.
Stacey Horne:It is not the be all end all, and I would advise folks that are would come back and say things like, I'm in the cloud. I'm fine. I've got cyber insurance. I'm fine. I've got third parties that handle that.
Stacey Horne:There's some stats that will raise your eyebrows around how many how often either internal humans are doing this or a supplier or a vendor. It's a cause. And so, you know, it's again, there is no one size fits all, and it's evolving and ongoing. Frankly, I would say it's been the number one business risk, and maybe AI may bump it for a year or two, but still cybersecurity rides over the top of that.
Lou Rabon:Yeah. Well, as it we're we're gonna speak about AI in a second because I have the obligatory AI question in there. Don't get But, to you know, AI, just to, you know, kinda put a point in that one, AI is like, AI security and AI governance is data governance and data security because that's what you're concerned about. You you're happy that AI is helping you out, but you just don't want it leaking company secrets because you know, to the public, basically.
Stacey Horne:Indeed. Indeed. You know? And I think back, four or five years ago, you know, and and we were really, really and still are greatly concerned by shadow IT. But, frankly, shadow AI is is is running very fast and and furious toward the front of the line.
Lou Rabon:Oh, yeah. For sure. Yeah. So, you know, there's that again, just to kind of, you know, look back at what you were saying that the silver bullet approach of a vendor is like, yep. We can solve all your problems.
Lou Rabon:Just sign on the dotted line. That's definitely, oh, you know, run. Be be be afraid. But also for TAs that are trying to get into the channel, you know, bringing in the experts and then trying to figure out what, will will speak to the you know, how you're going to get the customer to start to speak about their cyber program and feel comfortable about it.
Stacey Horne:Yes. Yes. And and often ask for just one thing that they might need. You know? Right.
Stacey Horne:The idea of the magnitude of cyber across the platform of of risk. You know, discovering where they are in a road map and where they are on their journey and and understanding how their budget and and things interact with that journey. You know, often you can find an opportunity to be another set of eyes. Yep. Or perhaps one of your partners is willing to maybe do a courtesy review just to give them some awareness, and that often leads to, oh, well, there's some things here that have been discovered.
Stacey Horne:Would you like some help in addressing them?
Lou Rabon:Yeah. As much as it's a red flag for vendors to be like, we can solve all your all of your problems, it's also a red flag for a customer to say, hey. We have cyber covered because, you know, we both know no one has cyber fully covered, even at the highest especially at the highest levels of spend and headcount and all of that. So speaking of size of of company and industries, what are you seeing? What are some of the trends you're seeing, Especially, you've got a long career doing this.
Lou Rabon:Are you seeing certain industries come online with cyber that you haven't seen before? Certain company size, what's that look like?
Stacey Horne:Yeah. Again, I go back to my statement about, being agnostic, and what I'm saying is the head is pulling out of the the the ground, you know, the ostrich buried head scenario that used to be, I'm just gonna hope we're fine, and that truly isn't the case. And that can that can no longer be your answer is, I hope we don't get hit. That's just not an effective strategy anymore. So, you know, I'm seeing that moving all the way down to the lowest level companies.
Stacey Horne:Unfortunately, I'm working one with one now who literally told me that, and now I'm helping them because they've decided it was so devastating. They're gonna sell their company. Oh, wow. But the acquirer wants to know the same things that they wouldn't they didn't address. And so we still are gonna have to go in and just show that on behalf of the acquirer.
Stacey Horne:So, you know, there's tremendous damage for not addressing at the lower levels. What I'm seeing is the the multi tiered vendor supplier chain risk is just exploding, and we we all know this if we're in the space for any length of time. And when you think about it, people that rely I think about automobile dealerships as an example from not that long ago, about eighteen months ago, a couple years ago, almost half of the industry was specifically connected in one shape, form, or fashion to one supplier. And guess what? The the bad actors are very keenly aware of the multiplied attack vectors if you work your way up the supply chain.
Stacey Horne:And so mid tier companies that are relying heavily and have said, no. No. We're good. Need to realize that there's no 100% guarantee at any level regardless of the quality of the folks that are in charge. It's certainly a risk to address.
Lou Rabon:Yeah. Well, yeah, you have your internal team where they might be solid and be able to catch stuff, and it might be an environment, you you know, maybe they don't have 15 global offices or something. Maybe they've got just satellite offices in a local area or something that's not a huge footprint. And maybe they're in an industry that doesn't expose a lot externally, like, you know, a SaaS platform is a lot different than perhaps manufacturing or something like that. But all of that considered what you're talking about is the supply chain risk, third parties that are in there, like the manufacturing device, the the the big machine that has an out of date operating system that the third party has been charging a fee perhaps to maintain.
Lou Rabon:Right? But guess what? They haven't been maintaining it. The the operating system's end of life. You know, they didn't give guidance to the customer that you need to segment this off necessarily.
Lou Rabon:And then all of a sudden, you know, they've got an attacker in their environment. Even if their team was top notch, there's no way they could have prevented that because they they have no control over the third party.
Stacey Horne:Absolutely. And I've actually gone to calling it nth instead of Nth. Third, nth level.
Lou Rabon:Yeah. Because it could be fourth. There's actually fourth party risk, which is the the suppliers to your third parties. So
Stacey Horne:And your suppliers have suppliers that are also you know, it really just is more like a spider web looking thing than a in a cascading thing these days. It's so interconnected. You know, the other thing I'm seeing in particularly in construction and and energy and where there's a a just a preponderance of these new industrial Internet of Things and other sensors and things of that nature. You know, I was in some discussions around operational technology versus IT and this this this belief that OT is pristine and fully protected. And, you know, the reality is after a lengthy debate over that, I conceded that he can say this person could say OT is fully protected, but it has ingress and egress points, that interact and a lot of data that's captured at the OT level is very important for business case decisions.
Stacey Horne:Therefore, let's agree that your perimeter needs some protection.
Lou Rabon:Oh, yeah. Well, listen. OT, that's a whole topic, and we won't dive too deeply into that. But I you know, one word, Stuxnet. You know, if they could have gotten that kind of malware on and, of course, it was a nation state that or a number of nation states that created it.
Lou Rabon:That was an air gapped system, etcetera. But we've worked with with customers with these OT environments. The OT environments still need to be updated, and we found out that the processes that they were using to update, you know, when they would it's it's a completely air gapped closed environment, and then they would connect an Internet connected computer to that environment to update it. It's like right there. There's the hole.
Lou Rabon:So it's really yeah. An interesting conundrum. And and so, yeah, to your point, Stacy, there is no 100% protection. There's no, you know, silver bullet, and there's so there's always risk. It's just the the organization's appetite for risk.
Lou Rabon:Yeah?
Stacey Horne:Indeed. Indeed. You know, another area that's really popping right now is is the combination of the man in the middle web website combined with access broker capabilities where you can just go grab, you know, for for hardly anything, grab thousands of credentials and and do some man in the middle activities. And and folks that have a quality looking website may not have a quality protected website. And then
Lou Rabon:Yeah. Oh, yeah.
Stacey Horne:Guys are notorious about finding those gaps.
Lou Rabon:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, one of the things that we like to speak about, rather than because there are so many ways to get in.
Lou Rabon:I think a lot of customers have and a lot of people in general have breach fatigue. I mean, if you're like everyone else, you know, I know I have at least four or five different ID protection free ID protection logins because of all the breaches that have happened across the multiple, you know, companies. So we don't speak about breach as much. We that's almost to your point earlier a given. So it's more about an ROI because you, I'm sure, have been part of those incident responses.
Lou Rabon:We obviously do those all the time, and we see the impact that it has on companies when they don't do you know, they have that security debt or they make those assumptions that, hey, we're we're good to go, And then all of a sudden, they're down for two, three weeks. Even if they get their data back, even if they don't have to, pay a ransomware, they they have a productivity hit. And some you know, that has a a a follow on effect with customers and things like that. So, you know, I think the ROI Yes. Yeah.
Lou Rabon:How do you feel about that?
Stacey Horne:Yeah. No. I I think you're spot on there. And, you know, the other part of of it is often, would ask, c suite folks, what do you think your reputational risk would profile would look like in an instance like that? I don't know how to quantify that.
Stacey Horne:I don't know that we fully can quantify that aspect of it. And I agree with you. Reach fatigue is real. I like to always come about conversations with the prospect of let's do some proactive measures and let's build that stack, if you will, of proactive measures. Really, what we're trying to do is harden the target so that at least at some level, there's gonna be less interest in your your infrastructure and your company if you look to be a harder target.
Stacey Horne:And so, you know, try to reframe that from being fear, uncertainty, or doubt. Let's raise some awareness. Let's talk about what's possible. There's some very no cost and very low cost things that start the journey going, And that's one of the things I have found in trying to build trust is just to give some courtesy advisory to folks that I don't know what I don't know. And where where do I start?
Stacey Horne:And and, you know, if you already have a relationship with an organization and and you can bring some some expertise to bear either through their channel or if you if you have that already, I would say that's, that's like spreading, broadcasting seed. And it's also, frankly and I I certainly am a commercial oriented organization, but I also aspire to try to finish well and make a difference. And I have, I would love the opportunity to continue to try to help folks, particularly when I think about nonprofits and school districts.
Lou Rabon:Oh, yeah.
Stacey Horne:It's just, oh, what can we do? What here's some things you might wanna consider.
Lou Rabon:Yeah. They're hit hard, especially the I mean, the school districts. We've we've done some some responses at, educational institutions, both large ones and and, regional local ones. It's it's not pretty. And and the fact that, you know, it's an open environment, they don't have the resource to protect them themselves.
Lou Rabon:I mean, there's a play there to say, I I believe that they're they're eventually, I think it'll evolve to where there is an, kind of a police force for, you know, at least state and local at the state and local level for organizations like education, utilities, things like that. We kinda have that, but not quite. The FBI jumps in when they need to, for some of the bigger hacks or some of the more critical ones, but almost like a national a cyber national guard. That's been an idea that we've spoken about a bit. So it's we'll see.
Lou Rabon:It's inevitable, I think, unfortunately, that we're gonna have to get there because as you've seen, the industry can be really behind. I mean, you've been doing this for forty plus years. I've been doing this for thirty plus years. You know, nothing has really changed with the way that we've spoken about this stuff. Like, hey.
Lou Rabon:You need to protect yourself. Thirty years ago, even, I don't know, maybe fifteen years ago, you might have been able to go back to paper or, you know, 2025, you know, like but now, yeah, you're not going to paper. Everyone is a tech company to what, you know, you your point earlier, every company needs some kind of protection. So, you know, go pivoting a bit to, like, what excites you about, kind of what's going on in the industry and and the future?
Stacey Horne:Well, I think one of the things that excites me is now that there's more visibility and and emphasis on it, we can do more good. We can get into the conversation easier. We could bring value that can be justified, and we can be alongside organizations helping to de risk and mitigate risk and also transfer risk. All of those things are available, but you have to make that commitment and there's a lot more listening ears and inquiring minds wanting to know more than ever before. And so from that standpoint, someone had asked one time, you know, what's your lead gen plan?
Stacey Horne:And frankly, sad to say in some respects, but happy in others, that it's so prevalent now that it's really about trying to do the best you can and build the right relationships and partners to be able to address proactively is the preferred way. Tried to get this released to me and I wasn't successful. But if you're old enough to remember commercials when we didn't fast forward to them and or or pay paid to not stream, you know, without the ads, a Fram oil commercial, and they were they would hold a can of oil. And behind it was a car on a rack, and it's a difference of, hey. Let's get some oil in the engine and get it running smoothly and and protect those vital things that make your company grow.
Stacey Horne:You know? And the obvious in the background was it's it's more difficult if you, you know, if you're reacting.
Lou Rabon:Yeah. So so being proactive excites you, being able to help. Yes. Yeah. Which is you're speaking my language, obviously.
Lou Rabon:We that's what we do.
Stacey Horne:Yes. Yes.
Lou Rabon:Yeah. It's always better to do it proactively than reactively. And and you brought up the the acquisition before too earlier. You know, during due diligence, there's gonna be a price bump drop, basically. They're going to say, hey.
Lou Rabon:And they're always looking. You know? You sign the papers. You you've been through a couple exits yourself. You know how it goes.
Lou Rabon:Like, woah. Big number. Everyone's excited, and then they start to do diligence. It's like, well, wait a minute. What about this?
Lou Rabon:What about this? So, yeah, when it gets to the cyber part, you're actually there's the ROI for for owners that wanna have an exit. It's like, oh, you actually we've been part of this. We actually have one of our clients that just got acquired and they're actually, this happened a couple times. Their security program, because they were working with us, is tighter than the acquirers program.
Lou Rabon:And so that was a a strong point during the negotiations for them where they're like, okay. We're going to adopt what you've done and apply it now to the greater entity. So you can that there's there's the proactive pitch that will, you know, a c suite person or an owner founder will understand. Yeah?
Stacey Horne:Absolutely. I actually that's a great point, and I've I've advised a number of companies that go ahead and dedicate themselves to taking the proactive model. I said, Nylon, take that and use that as a business differentiator. Let your clients and prospects know we care about this. We're doing things about this to try to preempt those things from happening, do the best they can.
Stacey Horne:And I and some of my advisory is is more business slash cyber, but in due diligence and talking to people that are considering making acquisitions, always tell them to have a a model that says we're gonna do the investigation of cyber. We'll give you the opportunity to address it. We will have a two phase transaction and we'll withhold x amount for contingent liabilities and it's never a full payment anymore unless you have agreed to and adhered to the criteria that's laid forward. And so it really highlights the fact that, how can you address risks that you're unaware of? Right?
Stacey Horne:And we we both know the amount of time that bad actors can be dormant. And so it's just one of those things, again, being proactive in in the acquisition space. And and so, yeah, that's a biggie. Yes, sir. I'm glad you brought that up because that that's a big one.
Stacey Horne:Both Yeah. Both sides of the equation.
Lou Rabon:That's right. That's great advice too to hold on and have that that bucket for, okay. We're gonna wait. You know? This is a year out.
Lou Rabon:We're going to see. You get this if nothing bad happens after a year. We don't you know, there's no surprises, which is typical for the tax, liability as well. So tax and cyber liability. Yeah.
Lou Rabon:Interesting. Yeah. So so on on to the obligatory AI question. You know, what how are you using AI today? Is it something that's part of your workflow?
Stacey Horne:Yeah. Great question. So there was a time probably, from about '78 1978 to 1983, I felt like I was on the front lines. And, now I can talk about the front lines of days gone by, and I have a a very close relationship and a relationship with with equity share with a young man in his twenties who is amazing in automation and AI and then others wrapped around him. And so we are addressing that, both with agentic or the agent workflow type model and then also exploring generative but very carefully there because my belief is you can still see something that's generated artificially.
Stacey Horne:It's gonna get better, but at the end of the day, you can do some curation and things like like that. And from that, then distill and then put the narrative around it to share cyber bullets, if you will, or cyber conversations can be led around starting with gathering more more efficient gathering of intel from different sources and then you try to again, turn that into a business impact, business outcome discussion and tell some real world stories around that. So, yeah, more on the automate automotive side than an agent side than the generative side. I'm kinda old school. I like to write my own narratives, but I do like to, get the research done a little faster, a lot faster, three times faster.
Lou Rabon:Oh, yeah. Prospecting. Right? If you're prospecting for a new customer, you're, I mean, that's that's just brilliant to be able to type it in, give a couple URLs, and then all of a sudden, you've got a good kind of a good overview. So it's saving time.
Lou Rabon:AI is saving a lot of time.
Stacey Horne:Yes. You know, we we have a I've had relationship with New Zealand to a smaller degree, Australia for for many years. If I move my head this way, you can actually see New Zealand.
Lou Rabon:Oh, there you go. Yeah.
Stacey Horne:I've had twenty twenty plus years now of interactions with New Zealand and still work with some of the organizations there, and one of them has a particularly innovative product and service. And the interesting thing is now with with AI and the curation ability, you can customize their service quite easily. And so it's it's really propelled them forward in that. So I'm aware of companies that are using it to their advantage. I'm aware of companies that are using it a bit, I would say, loosely.
Lou Rabon:Mhmm.
Stacey Horne:And I I would certainly give a give some advice that you wanna be very careful and you wanna have clear communication across your organization about what is allowed, not allowed. I would suggest sandboxes for testing. They're on a totally segmented network away from everything else. And use some innovation to play around in the sandbox and do all your curating there. And and frankly, you know, particularly with so many companies that have trade secrets or their IP and things of that nature, I would never advise for that to go into any AI prompt or any type of questions that you're gonna post to AI, at least at this stage.
Lou Rabon:Yeah. Agreed. I there's privacy policies that say, hey. We're not training on this data, but guess what? They're hungry for data, and, you know, we're we've already seen the way that they've treated data.
Lou Rabon:So I think, yeah, do not trust, you know, for any of the the really sensitive stuff. I would say, yeah, spin up your own LLM. Makes sense.
Stacey Horne:I think the other thing I'd throw in just just to maybe a final point on it would be, you know, there's a lot of hesitancy for folks that may think their jobs are at online. So offer some training and prompt engineering or some other other tools that could allow, your employees that may be at risk to find new ways to be valuable to the organization. That's another thing that I'm seeing is a little bit of headbutting and resistance, from those that think they're threatened by it rather than embracing it and maybe finding a way forward in a in an altered but still a productive career path.
Lou Rabon:Yeah. I mean, this is the, the the transition from the horse to the automobile or, you know, like, really just a a major change. So being afraid of it or being you know, assuming that it's not going to be big or even on the other side thinking it's gonna be something that you need to avoid completely, not a good strategy at all. Yeah. Yeah.
Lou Rabon:For sure. Yeah. So so is there a story, Stacy, that you have that, like, a personal story demonstrates where cyber has had, like, a direct impact on you personally, on your life or someone you know?
Stacey Horne:Definitely some people that I know. You know, from my own personal story, I'm thankful to say I haven't had a a scar there of any magnitude. My wife and I, I think one of her credit cards once was, for a short time in play
Lou Rabon:That's true.
Stacey Horne:But those are easily resolved and and all. And and so, from the perspective of, an organization's third generation, Lou, And their grandson was as old as I am. And they had, all they did was move dirt. That was their whole business. And they moved dirt and their grandfather had signed up some clients back in his day that would be you would up and comers.
Stacey Horne:And they now occupy tall buildings in major cities. And so that client asked them to do some things cyber security wise, And I was asked to speak to the grand the grandson again who's quite and and actually met with him twice and he said, you know, I believe you, Stacy, but we're our grandfather was a risk taker. We're a risk taker. All we're doing is moving dirt. We're too small.
Stacey Horne:Now, unfortunately, that that up and coming business being a highly sophisticated business stopped the attempted cyber attack that came through that organization. But that organization lost that third generation client and severely impacted their company. And that was one of the last things I remember was his remorse in not wanting to go from the risk taking model to what's an acceptable risk. What's the impact and what's the outcome? And so I I think about that stories.
Stacey Horne:I often share, you know, the risk and the reward and how you how you equate that in today's world.
Lou Rabon:That that's a good one. I mean, it's a it's a powerful one, a powerful story, and it definitely illustrates, like, this person, it's interesting. Like, being a risk taker, that's like, okay. I'm going to, you know, bet on a new technology or I'm going to, maybe, pivot the business to a new, you know, area or something. Not okay.
Lou Rabon:I know that that that to me, what you're telling me just blows me away because it's like, okay. I'm driving a car on the Autobahn at a 150 miles per hour, and I know the brakes don't work. And I don't have airbags, and I'd I'm not I'm just wearing a seat belt. And if anything bad but I'm a risk taker. It's like, well, there it's I don't know.
Lou Rabon:There's good risk and there's bad risk, I guess.
Stacey Horne:Exactly. There's a difference between taking risk and being reckless.
Lou Rabon:Yeah.
Stacey Horne:They they they don't they aren't the same, but they can be equated as the same.
Lou Rabon:Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. I I mean, this this might be, divisive, but I'm I feel the same way about motorcycle helmets. You know?
Lou Rabon:I'm my family lives in Florida. I go down there. I don't know if Texas has the same laws where I mean, it's pure freedom. If you don't wanna wear a helmet, you don't have to. Is it the same there in Texas?
Stacey Horne:You don't have to wear a helmet. And, I always I always tell people, I said, you're just a meat shield for the helmet.
Lou Rabon:Yeah. Speak to Unfortunately. Speak to an EMS person. Speak to the people that respond to those. They're like, you know, if you had a helmet, yeah, you might be, you know, have some major damage, but you'll survive without a helmet.
Lou Rabon:It's just like you're you know, the odds that you're playing. So if you've watched squid game, yeah, it's there's a funny scene at the end of squid game about odds and them calculating certain odds. But I'm not a huge fan of that show, to be honest, but that popped in my head. I just watched it recently. So so let's talk about you personally, Stacy.
Lou Rabon:I mean, you've had such a a a great career, long career. You're in Texas. You know, obviously, you you've been running Stillwater ecosystem for for a long time now. Before that, you were in it looks like the oil and gas area, which by the way, they have had their own issues, right, with, hey. We're just pulling die you know, old dinosaur remnants out of the out of the, you know, ground, So we don't need to be protected.
Lou Rabon:Right? It's
Stacey Horne:like Yeah. Yeah.
Lou Rabon:Well, how are you communicating with those wells that are in Papua New Guinea or, you know, somewhere else? Exactly. Yeah. But so you've been you've been around the the oil and gas industry and went to Ole Miss. You know, I I hope you guys Got
Stacey Horne:it done.
Lou Rabon:Yeah. I hope you you beat Florida this year. That that'll be good because that's our archrival. But, yeah, what, you know, that that's a good kinda, like, summary. But where when you started Stillwater, what was, like, the the impetus for that?
Lou Rabon:Were you like, hey. I'm just done with IT?
Stacey Horne:Or Yeah. Yeah. No. No. No.
Stacey Horne:I'm I couldn't spell oil and gas when I left Mississippi. I worked on the only computer in my hometown. And so MIS education at Ole Miss and working on the Olin computer in my hometown, it was 18 miles away from the school. And a good friend of mine who had moved out there sent me clippings in the paper. That's how long ago it was for everybody that's listening.
Stacey Horne:And so came out to the Texas area, and everybody said oil and gas is where you need to be so I jumped in. I didn't know what I was doing and most of the team that was in IT there was some of them were about my age now and I'm 22 years old rolling into there and utilized some of the new tools and and gadgets that I had learned and others were working on. Many people, you'd have to go Google it or go to a museum to see some of the tools and Fortran and COBOL and all those languages. And so, a friend of mine, a dear friend of mine who who taught me everything about oil and gas, and I gave him all the keys to that I had for the new methods of relational databases, and I told him what SQL stood for and things like that. And so we leveraged that and and had a great long run, and I stayed in there, and I thought I'd spend my whole career in the in that industry with that company.
Stacey Horne:And as often happens, we made acquisitions and treated people like people, And then we were acquired and it was spreadsheet analysis on how I was supposed to cut a team that was my family, not just coworkers. Relationships matter. They always have. They always will. And so that's really where Stillwater was born.
Stacey Horne:And back in the days when long ago, you you know, I went to Barnes and Nobles, bought an Instacart book, and had one of those floppy drives that you put in it. And a friend of mine said if you take an extra $35, you can get incorporated pretty quickly in Texas. Buddy of mine and I drove all the way to Austin, and I had my $35 and walked in, and the lady across the counters said, how can I help you? I told her I need to get my company started because I'm gonna do my whole thing. I've got my money here, and I understand.
Stacey Horne:She said, slow down. Slow down. Said, young man, you know, you you keep your $35. You go around three blocks away and have you a nice, you know, brisket taco breakfast and come back after a few hours, and I'll I'll take care of you. So Stillwater literally started in a converted breezeway from my detached garage.
Stacey Horne:I enclosed it, put a t one at the back of the house, and all my kids' friends are coming over because back then, that was that was crazy.
Lou Rabon:Huge. Oh my god.
Stacey Horne:Yeah. Yeah. It was big time. And so from that, it started from there, and and and Stillwater's been around since the late nineties. And, you know, it's had iterations.
Stacey Horne:We were an MSP before that was a three letter acronym. And we were very fortunate, as I mentioned, in working with New Zealand for a number of years. And there's fiber that runs all the way from New Zealand and Australia to the West Coast. And one of my my really cool relationships was with someone who was a chief technology officer at Weta, which is a New Zealand film company that made The Lord of the Rings. And we took those same computers that made that third movie, and we used them to process seismic processing software from a Texas based company who had New Zealand holdings.
Stacey Horne:And my one and only time to make it to the Houston Business Journal, and it had my picture, But, unfortunately, instead of my face, it had if you've seen the movies, you know, the orcs and the and they had the white No. So the good news and everybody's teasing me. They say, I really love that picture.
Lou Rabon:That's hilarious. Did and you had no idea they were gonna do that.
Stacey Horne:No. No. No. They they actually just interviewed me, and I think it was, like, lord of the rings meets energy capital or something like that.
Lou Rabon:That's hilarious.
Stacey Horne:So that was a surprise to me and everyone else. But I would say this. I I've enjoyed, building relationships at Stillwater. It's, the name comes from two things. He leaves me beside Stillwater, And then a high school friend of mine was introducing me to someone and said kinda one of those and said he Stillwater runs deep.
Stacey Horne:And so that's where the name came from. It's been a journey that I will continue because I really enjoy what I do. Trying to be a little more philanthropic on the advisory side as I move forward and well positioned with these ecosystem leaders or trusted leaders. Happy to say that your organization, we met because of relationship, and you guys are are in that in that camp. And I really appreciate the opportunity just to share with you, and, hopefully, one or two things that were said might be useful to others.
Lou Rabon:Yeah. Yeah. Thanks, Stacy. Oh, what are you doing in your spare time other than philanthropic stuff before we, we close-up?
Stacey Horne:Well, I got 10 grandkids.
Lou Rabon:And Oh my gosh.
Stacey Horne:Yeah. Yeah. And and they're all in Texas, so I've got my loop that I make, and I enjoy golf. I actually played Tour eighteen a couple days ago, which has replica holes, and I I parred this the Sarbreast 17, the Island Green. I parred that one, and I was won over in Amen Corner Nice.
Stacey Horne:From the Masters group of holes there. So I enjoy that, and I do a little fishing from time to time. But I put them in the right order. Grandkids, golf, fishing.
Lou Rabon:Yeah. Fishing. That sounds good. Always the grandkids first. That's I'm I'm not far from that.
Lou Rabon:I don't think well, hopefully, I am because my boys are still in high school, but Mhmm. Couple years from now, I think, maybe. Nice. So yeah.
Stacey Horne:One one last thing there. The the good news is the beauty of being a parent is when you when they're the grandkids, you spoil them and hand them back.
Lou Rabon:Right. Yeah. It's and then they the the kids get angry at you because they're like, you can't do that. They're not allowed to do that at home. It's like, well, that's what being a grandparent is about.
Lou Rabon:Right? Exactly. Exactly. That's great. That's great.
Lou Rabon:So so where can people connect with you online?
Stacey Horne:Well, certainly, I'm on LinkedIn.
Lou Rabon:Mhmm.
Stacey Horne:And that's the best way. And, you know, you won't find any fancy smancy website because, basically, we have one that's pretty basic because it really is someone said, well, can you give me a one pager on cybersecurity? And I said, no. I don't know if I can give you a novel that could cover cybersecurity. And the the the additions of it would have to be updated so often that it it doesn't make sense.
Stacey Horne:And so I really try to stay current, and, you know, I'm I'm more likely to put something out on LinkedIn that's gonna be a pause and reflect, and it's gonna be the latest widget that I've discovered. And, you know, those are really the platforms. I mean, we really are trying to get philanthropic around thought leadership, and and that's back to my my friend I mentioned that's a young man with automation. We're trying to get some things we can share on a regular basis, and we hope we're hopeful that's gonna help everyone to some some degree raise awareness and maybe take some action that they hadn't considered.
Lou Rabon:Good. Well, it sounds like there's a a release coming out soon, so stay tuned for that. You know, when you're ready, pop it on LinkedIn. So best place to find you LinkedIn, stillwaterecosystem.com, but don't you won't be blown away by that website. That is intentional.
Lou Rabon:You know? Somebody said, are
Stacey Horne:you gonna we'll start putting stuff out there once we start this cadence of of thought leadership with a little more regularity. It's usually a little bit more like this, or I I actually enjoy speaking live and in person because there's an essence of being in person with folks and that dialogue that happens afterwards that sometimes my granny used to say it's better felt than tilt. It's almost like you look someone in the eye, shake them, have a conversation over coffee or a beverage or whatever. You know? There's there's something there that's just hard to replicate, in the virtual world.
Lou Rabon:100%. That that's becomes more important in the world of AI, and and all of these manufactured everything online, you know, well overwhelming news that we we really don't need news as much as we're getting it. So, yeah, it's, it's I think the face to face human interaction is is is becoming even more important. So, Stacy Horn, thank you so much.
Stacey Horne:Lou, it's been a pleasure. Thanks for the opportunity and then invite.
Lou Rabon:And and thank you to those that are watching and or listening. If you learned something today or laughed, please tell someone about this podcast. Thanks again, Stacy. And this has been another exciting episode of Channel Security Secrets. See you soon.
Lou Rabon:That's a wrap for this episode of Channel Security Secrets. Thanks for tuning in. For show notes, guest info, and more episodes, visit us at channelsecuritysecrets.com. Channel Security Secrets is sponsored by Cyber Defense Group. When it comes to protecting your business, don't settle for reactive.
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