Proactive Cyber Defense - Tony Pietrocola - Channel Security Secrets - Episode #3
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 cannot wait to welcome today's guest. He's an entrepreneur, speaker, cybersecurity leader with over twenty years experience. He's founded and scaled two high growth tech companies and led organizations from startups, early stage startups to high growth firms. He's currently serving as the president of the Northern Ohio InfraGard Members Alliance, and he partners with the FBI to advance security and resilience. Please welcome the president at Agile Blue, Tony Pietrocola.
Lou Rabon:Welcome to the show.
Tony Pietrocola:Lou, thanks for having me, and you you you you got the
Lou Rabon:last name pegged, so I appreciate it. Boom. You know, my fellow Italian brother. So so, Tony, let's just start it off big. What's the biggest secret to your success in the channel?
Tony Pietrocola:If I had to, choose something that's really important, I would say you have to obsess over your customers. I that's not mine. I learned that from reading something from Jeff Bezos back in, like, like, February. But I think in the channel Lou, if you obsess over your customers and that is the thing I I don't see how you can't be successful. I think if you don't, that's where things start falling apart because not only your reputation, but the reputation of your partners obviously can be affected.
Tony Pietrocola:I think if you obsess over your customers, everything can take care of them itself.
Lou Rabon:So customer obsession, how are you doing that? How does AgileBlue accomplish that?
Tony Pietrocola:You know, we're in security. Right? So ours is maybe a tad different. Although, does it really matter across the board? But number one, our customers need to know twenty four seven that everybody at AgileBlue is tirelessly working to make sure they're not hacked.
Tony Pietrocola:Right? That's a big deal. They need to know whether it's 2AM or 2PM, things are going right. So I think that amount of trust and trust only comes with what they see, not how, you know, words look on our proposal. Do I would just say this?
Tony Pietrocola:And again, this applies to any business. You gotta have great people, superlative people. You know, everybody always hears, you know, the a players. Okay. What's an a player?
Tony Pietrocola:What's a b player? But just great people. Right? Great people who work hard, know their craft, care. I don't care what business you're in, whether you're in a restaurant or whether you're in cybersecurity.
Tony Pietrocola:I think that's a pretty critical element to making sure those customers know you're really thinking about them.
Lou Rabon:Yeah. I always admire. It's funny you say that because going into businesses that I always it doesn't matter what kind of business it is. If it's well run, it's got good staff. They concentrate on customer experiences.
Lou Rabon:A restaurant around here, Pasadena, that just is consistently good at all the time. And it's, you know, I know what I'm gonna get when I'm I got people out of town. I bring them there because I know the food's gonna be good. It's not cheap, but, you know, you get what you pay for. Right?
Lou Rabon:So, yeah, customer obsession and and and, you know, one of the ways to do that is to hire good staff. So bringing it back to the channel and TAs, how would you suggest if they are trying to get into security? Because I think security is new to the channel. Right? Relatively.
Lou Rabon:Yeah. You know, it's been around for a long time, the channel, but security is kinda in the last couple years just started to gain traction. What do you talk tell TAs? How do you talk to them if they wanna get into security, but they haven't sold it before?
Tony Pietrocola:You know what, Lou? I'll answer but I'd also like to hear from you because I think you're probably going to have a tremendous perspective. I was having breakfast last week with a top person at Telarus and you know, they said something interesting. I asked the same question. I'm like, why are more TAs not jumping in with cyber?
Tony Pietrocola:And he said, you know, really comes down to one thing and it probably comes back to what I said, you obsess over customers but TAs have spent their whole lives building their business on trust. Their customers know what they need. Trust them. If they go in with cyber and the TA itself doesn't understand cyber tremendously. Can't answer all their questions.
Tony Pietrocola:You know, they literally believe it's going to put them at a disadvantage and and may maybe make them look maybe not as high level as they as they are known for whatever they do. And I think that's wrong. I think you can go in and say, hey, cyber is where everything's going. Everything we do for you is gotta be wrapped around security. Look.
Tony Pietrocola:I am not, you know, an expert when it comes to this, but we have some great people behind us. Let's start the discussion. What are you using for x? What are you doing for y? And let's start the discussion and then bring in experts.
Tony Pietrocola:Like, nobody expects a one man show. You know, nobody just wants Paul McCartney. I think I think everybody just wants the Beatles. Right? We definitely balance.
Tony Pietrocola:So, I'd like to hear from you and what you're seeing the same thing. I think they just need to get started and know they got backup from their partners and from the and from the TSDs.
Lou Rabon:Yeah. That's that's pretty much what we tell them. I mean, it's I think fear has a lot to do with it. Right? Like, something they haven't sold before.
Lou Rabon:Cyber can be a black box. There's, you know, a billion talking heads out there now that pretend to be experts and, you know, maybe point zero one percent actually are. And so, you know, there's an element of intimidation, I think, where it's like, hey. If I open my mouth about this, they're gonna start asking questions, and I don't know the answers out of my depth. So it's easier to sell the stuff that they've been selling.
Lou Rabon:But to your point, we say, hey. That's the time to say, bring in the experts. You're not expected to know. Cyber is a complicated topic. It can be overwhelming, and and the customers shouldn't expect the the trusted advisers to be the experts necessarily.
Lou Rabon:They should expect them to be able to get the answers from the experts. So I think being comfortable saying, I don't know, but I I got a guy. That's that's the way, Stefan Semoroff has explained it to me. I got a guy. That's that's where the TA should go with that.
Tony Pietrocola:Yeah. I I I totally agree, and the ones we've seen be successful have taken down that that, you know, that barrier and they've charged forward with it and they're doing great. And some of the other ones, they just need to probably take that leap.
Lou Rabon:Yeah. And and we also see that it's difficult for them when when you've got a complicated, not complicated, but a cyber cell where you're speaking maybe to a point, a part of the organization that you haven't spoken before, because maybe now you're going from the IT area to if they have a separate security area, if it's a big enough company, then, you know, different set of people, different set of stakeholders. Sometimes they're getting to the c suite, and and they might have been speaking to a couple lower levels prior. You know, it's an uncomfortable area for them, and it's less sometimes the dollar amounts are a little bit lower. Like if you're selling bandwidth, if you're selling data centers, you know, there might be a couple more zeros and it might be an easier sale.
Lou Rabon:But to your point back to trust, you know, and really doing customer obsession, the way that we describe it, it's like you're going to get much closer to your customer because you're you're now you're going to get exposure to everything because cyber has to have a view of the entire organization. Right? And in doing that, you'll be able to hear other opportunities that might lead to those bigger sales potentially, but what you're doing is creating trust and stickiness with the customer, and that's that's where we try to push them.
Tony Pietrocola:I I would agree, and I would also say this, when it comes down to dollars and cents, the revenue in cyber, I think the margins in cyber are pretty darn good. So. Yeah. That's helped the TA help their customer. It's going to help the TA grow his or her business which, you know, we're all capitalists here.
Tony Pietrocola:Let's that's that's the whole,
Lou Rabon:right? A 100%. That's why we're here. I mean, we wanna help people and we also, you know, wanna make money doing it and hopefully have some fun as well. So with the TA that's a non practitioner, do you have any advice for them to kinda open that conversation other than saying, hey.
Lou Rabon:I I know someone. I got a guy. Is there a way for for them to kind of open that conversation even if they're not comfortable with Sabra yet?
Tony Pietrocola:You know, I think it's that real easy question of, hey. When it comes to cybersecurity, you know, is that keeping you up at night? And and look. Question, I really do. I hate when people ask me, like, what keeps you up at night?
Tony Pietrocola:To me, it's an upset customer. It's not necessarily a cyber upset customer but if a TA who is not extraordinarily well cyber secure verse and doesn't want to dive into, hey, what are you doing for cloud security or fire you know, all that stuff. Mhmm. Up at night from a cyber perspective, you know? Do you think about, you know, either you you know, being hacked for data, ransomware?
Tony Pietrocola:Do you do you fear business disruption? I would think every customer would say, yeah, yeah, and absolutely, right? So, starts the conversation going and look, if people are saying, hey, we know you've moved to the cloud. Do you think the cloud is completely protected? Do you understand it's a shared responsibility between you and Amazon, Microsoft?
Tony Pietrocola:I think those questions for intelligent TAs are very simple. You don't need to be extraordinarily technical to ask if they really understand their business can't be disrupted or can't be hacked. I think it's a great way to dive in. And then if somebody goes, you know, and we have been thinking about security operations or we've been thinking about having somebody, you know, being able to respond twenty four seven or look, man, we need we need we need help at 365. All of a sudden, the TA can then hear those those those keywords and now say, hey, great.
Tony Pietrocola:Look. I'm not gonna answer all your questions, but I got someone we work with. They're an expert in this. Let's set up a twenty minute call and kinda dive in. I don't see where that puts anybody in a bad light.
Tony Pietrocola:And especially saying, hey, I I work with someone I trust. I'm a trusted adviser. I trust this person. You trust me. Let's put this conversation together.
Tony Pietrocola:It seems to me to be pretty simple to start the conversation.
Lou Rabon:Yeah. And what about sales cycles? Do you find that that's, are they, longer, shorter with security? Is it variable?
Tony Pietrocola:You know, I guess I don't have anything to to pin it to. I will say this, we've seen sales cycles in security be right around ninety days or so. Even when, you know, back in February, March when tariffs got a little a little, you know, wonky and people didn't know what the heck was going on. We saw it maybe go up to 94, 96, but right now we're seeing it right back at that 90. And that's pretty typical what we see in in what we sell in terms of security and and SaaS in security.
Tony Pietrocola:I think that's great. What what are you seeing? And I I'd ask you also from a consultative advisory perspective. Are you seeing 90? Are you seeing it expand a little bit?
Lou Rabon:Yeah. It's listen. I mean, probably two years ago, even maybe last year, sometimes it was one eighty plus, which was, you know, really painful. Sales cycles have definitely compressed. I think the market's finally getting educated about what they need.
Lou Rabon:I mean, we've gone through multiple cycles, right, of of selling and buying cybersecurity in the market. In the beginning, just no one knew anything, and it was everyone was looking for the silver bullet, etcetera. In the middle, it was, you know, now we need we understand that we need certain components, but they were outsourcing things maybe that they shouldn't have, or they were insourcing things they should have outsourced, stuff like that, maybe buying the wrong vendors again. And then finally, now we're seeing the more sophisticated buyers. They understand.
Lou Rabon:That's our model, you know, at Cyber Defense Group that I run, and it's to to get people in to a program, basically. Not just try to plug the holes with your fingers, but have a strategy, unplugging the holes and making sure the ship doesn't sink. But you know? So the sales cycles have elongated, but now it's I think they are coming back. And sometimes it's an investment, like anything.
Lou Rabon:We might speak. And to your point, when the TA reaches out and says, hey, I've got someone and they might get you on the call, your team or my team. What they're going to do is that we'll speak to that customer and they might not be ready. It might be a six month. It might even be a twelve month down the line kind of project.
Lou Rabon:So obviously, want the ones that are like, hey, we're ready to buy today. Sales cycles like five days. That's usually incident response and that's a whole another thing. But, you know, typical sales cycles, they might be forty five to ninety days if it's a decently quick sale. But sometimes we're just putting in the time to educate.
Lou Rabon:And that's what we find is if we invest and educate, and those are the TAs we like to work with too, that have a long term view, that want to have a, you know, take a journey with the customer and with us rather than just trying to get the quick win and and get free quotes. So I think there's yeah. Definitely something there where investing in that is is important. So TAs just need to reach out essentially.
Tony Pietrocola:You mentioned the keyword. The word was investment. You know, it's funny, like, when it comes to cyber, you know, some folks are like, you know, is that something we need? Is that something that's a must? Is if your business can't be disrupted or your data or your customer's data stolen, I don't see that as a nice to have.
Tony Pietrocola:I I can't see how that's not a critical to have in this day and age. I really can't. But some of that's education. Some of it is it's I understand it's an expense but it's really an investment in keeping your business operating. Like that that's to me is is really gotta be the mindset.
Lou Rabon:Yeah. Listen, the the having a cybersecurity plan and program is basically table stakes. The cost of doing business today. It's no longer, you know, optional. It's funny because I I I'm old enough to remember when people were like, hey, we're not Fort Knox.
Lou Rabon:This is, like, twenty years ago. And and, literally, they really could I didn't have an argument for that because they weren't a target. You know? All the threats were not as, prevalent. We're talking, like, late nineties, early odds.
Lou Rabon:Right? And they could go back to paper because ever guess what? Everybody was still using faxes and paper. So if they're the one computer in the office out of, you know, 10 employees went down or whatever, they they could they could continue. But these days, who's not using the Internet?
Lou Rabon:Who's not using technology? You know, everything we do is wrapped around technology, and the the more efficient and better we are at stuff, the more technology we have. So to your point, that goes down, productivity stops. And you know, you've been part of incident responses. I've been I've been leading these things.
Lou Rabon:It's it's a disaster, you know, but we we try to, you know, to the investment conversation, we really try to steer towards ROI because when we speak about, you know, the sky is falling, all these hackers, hackers in hoodies, people are fatigued. They've got breach fatigue. They, you know, you if you go down that road and that's another real tip for, you know, any TAs that are trying to sell security, I would stay away from the doom and gloom scenarios other than saying, hey, you know, there's a cost here if you don't do something. But but concentrating on it and using that as a tactic, I think, is getting it's not getting the traction it needs because people are saying, you go down that road, they're like, well, listen. Everyone's been hacked.
Lou Rabon:So these huge companies are spending, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars on security. So why, you know, that means it's inevitable and you can kind of get like a defeatist attitude there. So I like, you know, positioning it as an investment. There's an ROI. You invest in security today.
Lou Rabon:You're not going to have a loss of productivity down the road and a loss of customers, etcetera. We've even released a whole, know, security budget sheet that what what is the true cost of a breach? That's kind of stuff that that companies need to look at.
Tony Pietrocola:Yeah. I think we're all tired of presentations starting with, you know, here's how big ransomware is. Here's how many people are getting hacked by the day. Oh, look, someone just got hacked just now. You know, don't let this be you.
Tony Pietrocola:Like, look, we all we all know that. Like that. Exactly. That's not table stakes. That is dead stakes.
Tony Pietrocola:We all know that. Now, here's what we do and how we can help you avoid x, y, and z. That's the proactive discussion. These people are smart enough to understand. No one wants to be hacked.
Tony Pietrocola:It's 2025. We all understand this. Right? This is in 02/2005. That fear also makes people think, look, do they really have something to sell or are they just, you know, preying on my fears?
Tony Pietrocola:So let's talk about the solution that's going to stop, I don't know, ransomware or an AI attack or a deepfake. That's what people are thinking, specific solutions. How can you help me?
Lou Rabon:Yeah. So AgileBlue is one piece of that puzzle. How are you helping TAs? When they come to you and they say, okay. We MDR, you're doing, you know, managed detection response.
Lou Rabon:How when TAs engage with you, what is the best way for them to kind of engage with you? How are you positioning yourself in kind of the whole security stack, etcetera?
Tony Pietrocola:You know, there's two really two big angles for us that do security operations and MDR, managed detection and response as part of security ops or another acronym, sec ops. Right? There's so many acronyms.
Lou Rabon:You see the
Tony Pietrocola:For one is when they're trying to show their customers who are generally mid market, maybe they're they're smaller enterprise but they're generally in that mid market. Do you have a twenty four seventeen? And the answer is invariably, we don't, right? They might go maybe a little later in the day, but they generally don't have a twenty four seven team. So they're looking for someone to bring in the technology and the twenty four seven team to not just monitor and detect, but obviously respond whether that's 2PM or 2AM.
Tony Pietrocola:Someone's gotta do something to make sure you're not getting hacked. That's number one, which is one of the fastest growing pieces within the cybersecurity stack. And then number two, look. I still believe regardless of of the economic conditions, which we think are pretty good and we're seeing being pretty good. It's vendor consolidation.
Tony Pietrocola:Right? Do the average mid market, this is according to Gartner. Mid market companies got eight to 12 vendors and and small enterprise up could be 12 to 20. Do you really have the ability to manage these vendors? Is all the implement all the tools integrated?
Tony Pietrocola:Are they siloed? And the data is not even being shared to correlate the data into into protection. So in our platform, we have eight modules that definitely allows these enterprises or these these mid sized businesses to consolidate vendors. They're going to go with us. Maybe we could take the place of four, five, six, up to eight vendors, one platform.
Tony Pietrocola:I like to say one back to tap. Some people will say choke, whatever, whatever. I'm going to go on the proactive side but that helps them do two things, not just manage, manage less vendors. It does help them bring their their their cost down. Even though it's an investment, still not cheap.
Tony Pietrocola:You know, nobody is in cybersecurity because it's a cheap you know, place to be but it does help them bring their cost down. There's zero doubt about that. So those are really the two big spots where TAs can start ringing the ears of their their prospects in in in terms of what's gonna help them answer that email, return that phone call, whatever it may be.
Lou Rabon:So someone has a t a a TA gets an inbound lead that says, hey. We need security. Would they be able to come to you and say, you you could start that conversation at least, even if they don't have you know, the the customer might have an existing or to your point, kind of a suite of tools, but maybe they just lost their head of security. Maybe they're looking to go in another direction. Maybe they're downsizing, and they're like, hey.
Lou Rabon:And we need to save some money. Are those are all good reasons to reach out to you? Yeah?
Tony Pietrocola:Literally. And or they're moving from data center on prem into the cloud or maybe they're they're hybrid and now totally moving into the cloud. So their security posture which basically people put up endpoints and a firewall and be like, we're good. Now, and since remote work became such a, well, it's everything and people are everything's in the cloud and remote. You have now 5,000 offices, not just two.
Tony Pietrocola:Now your security thoughts have changed. So the it's not even do you have cybersecurity? It's your business has changed. The cybersecurity's now changed. Do you have the tools you think you need for the way that, you know, business is now operating?
Tony Pietrocola:And I don't think a lot of people would say 100% absolutely. I think that's also a great starter of the conversation. Remote works here. We're a remote company now. How do we think about security?
Lou Rabon:And are there any industries specifically that you're seeing more uptake? Obviously, health care and finance have always been the top two for regulatory reasons and and etcetera. Finance, especially, because there's a very obvious cost. They break in. Money is lost immediately.
Lou Rabon:So what about any other industries that you're seeing?
Tony Pietrocola:Yeah. We're seeing two things. Number one, any organization that's selling to the federal government with the new CMMC stuff that needs to be adhered to here at the end of this year and then the the level two at the end of next or however they're looking at their CMMC. If they want to continue to do business with the federal government, they gotta do better themselves because they're not going to be the weak chain or the weak link in the chain with with the with the government supply chain. So, we're seeing a lot of activity there and then as you can imagine, we do a lot of critical infrastructure work, things like airports, things like that.
Tony Pietrocola:That obviously is also within a lot of folks reevaluating state and local governments have been hit hard. They're starting to pay more attention, and the federal government started under Biden, continued through Trump. They're putting money from the federal level into these state local governments to help solidify them. So that's where we're seeing a lot of growth in the security operations space.
Lou Rabon:How about manufacturing? Have you noticed?
Tony Pietrocola:Yeah. I think Nick comes at it from a different angle too. Right? There's less of what we're gonna steal, so to speak, more about disrupting the entire manufacturing process. Yeah.
Tony Pietrocola:So we and it's generally that next level manufacturer, the people doing things with more robotics and software and things like that than it is maybe your typical, I don't know, CNC shop or something like that, right? And and those manufacturers that are really creating high level components and and things, absolutely. Are you seeing that as well since you brought it up? Ended up. Yeah.
Lou Rabon:Yeah. Lots of manufacturing and not only because, yeah, there's the IOT and the OT side but there's also legacy. You've got, you know, some of these machines are, you know, very, very expensive. So, the machines to manufacture whatever it might be, plastics or metal or etcetera. So when you're looking at that, those might be 20 years old.
Lou Rabon:They might be running on an operating system that's no longer, you know, supported by Microsoft or not patched for, like, five or ten years. So but they're not just gonna scrap it and get a new one. It's not like an iPhone. You know? You can you you really have to, like, invest in that.
Lou Rabon:It's a capital investment. It's super expensive, and it's big and heavy. Just to move it around is it, you know, costs a lot of money. So therefore, you know, you've gotta put the the proper segmentation, etcetera, in place. And that's where the strategy, comes together where what you're doing is agile blue.
Lou Rabon:That's the the technology and some of the process part. You do provide the people too. We're definitely providing the people in the process part. So to to kind of attack that. And so manufacturing for sure is is up and coming, I think, and will continue to gain traction as a as cybersecurity consumer.
Tony Pietrocola:I think so. And also, when you look at manufacturing, in my opinion, only second to health care, it has been more investment hesitant as a as a about any industry. So and look. A lot of manufacturing process now are run by software. It where in the past, it necessarily was run by humans.
Tony Pietrocola:It's human. It's really easy to disrupt software.
Lou Rabon:Oh, yeah. Yeah. It's tech and and security debt in a lot of industries. But as we mentioned earlier on the show, no one is immune. You know, no one can pretty much just not invest in security.
Lou Rabon:Obviously, education, you were talking about SLED, so that's part of the the, you know, that stuff. But, yeah, especially, I think education is really sad because they're already dealing with low dollars. They they they don't have enough money to do the things that they wanna do, and now they've got to invest in cyber. And there's a lot of companies that are, you know, vendors that might take advantage of them because they have some grant money and things like that. So, you know, it's a it's definitely still the Wild West.
Lou Rabon:You know, I feel like we're we're not embryonic anymore in security, but we're like, maybe we're definitely not at toddler stage either. We're kind of baby stage.
Tony Pietrocola:Yeah. We we are on the defense, but the offensive guys seem to be a little bit more mature
Lou Rabon:than
Tony Pietrocola:us.
Lou Rabon:Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. That's where the fun is too, but, we're you know, offense, you don't, always have to be right. You can try a couple things, but defense, you you gotta be right all the time. Otherwise, that that's when the bad stuff happens.
Lou Rabon:So definitely more challenging. Speaking of challenges, what what's a challenge that you and your team have tried to solve or had to solve recently?
Tony Pietrocola:You know, I think a big challenge for us is in this industry. I'll speak again very selfishly. And, you know, as a business owner, I'm sure you see this as maintaining and retaining your top talents. Look. At the end of the our team is made up of cyber experts and professionals like you.
Tony Pietrocola:We have a lot of AI engineers as well because we build an AI based platform. Everything I just mentioned is extremely in demand. And because of remote work, you can live in Cleveland, Ohio where we're headquartered and still Google or Facebook or whomever can come drop a lot of money on you and you can work for them and obviously, they're out of California. So at the end of the day, I think retention of your top people or just say your entire team is a big challenge as as the I worry about my customers of course. I worry about our sales of course.
Tony Pietrocola:I worry about everything. But those areas take care of themselves in my opinion. Retention of your top people it could become a battle. And we've had tremendous knock on this fake wood desk I'm standing by right now. We've had tremendous retention in our five and a half year history.
Tony Pietrocola:But things are getting getting crazy out there. Right? People need AI. They need cyber. They're throwing dollars around.
Tony Pietrocola:So we really try to work hard. I think it's one of our biggest challenges making sure our people are are are super happy. See the see what we're building here and see that their careers are developing and growing in a great company. That's tell me about you. I would think and you're in California.
Tony Pietrocola:So you'd probably of that.
Lou Rabon:Yeah. I mean, listen. It was a it was really challenging about, like, COVID around the co even pre COVID, like, 2018, 2019. The salaries that people were, you know, demanding, really, you could be completely useless as a as a resource, but demand these, you know, absolutely, like, quarter million dollar plus salaries, and then expect everything like lunch every day and stuff like that, if you were in an office, etcetera. So, you know, at one point, I I was so clueless.
Lou Rabon:I look back at, you know, the mistakes that I've made. One of them was I I I don't know if it was a mistake, but at that time, we actually had someone dedicated to culture. Like, we had one person that was, an HR person, but also did culture. Now that's a complete luxury. But in that market, you know, we felt that it I thought it was necessary.
Lou Rabon:Looking back, I could have done without that. There were other things I could have done. But being a new business owner and being in a really super hypercompetitive environment for talent, that was that was challenging. Now, you know, I've learned to your point, there's certain things that you do. You provide, you know, an environment to grow.
Lou Rabon:You find talent that's in it not just for the money, but that has passion. You know, if someone's like, okay. How much am I gonna get? And I've got a, you know, an offer that's, you know, whatever, 2% higher than this one. It's like, go if that's what's most important to you, then go get take the other 2% or whatever, even if it's 10%.
Lou Rabon:Because what we're providing and what, you know, obviously, you're providing if you have high retention, especially, it means that it's a good place to work. It's a place that's challenging intellectually, but people can grow. They can develop. They can rise through, you know, whatever career path they they have, and we help them with that. So we've been lucky.
Lou Rabon:We've got some really, really good resources, but, you know, it's been a challenge. There's been some that have been many that have been through. You know, when I look at my my, you know, HR system and I look at former employees and I look at the list, I'm like, oh my gosh, you know, we've we've gone through a lot, and and that's just lessons. So now the team we have, it's taken almost ten years to get, you know, the right mix of people. And so, you know, if I were to do this again, it that timeline would be compressed, but holding on to good talent yeah.
Lou Rabon:And finding good talent, challenging.
Tony Pietrocola:Challenging. And and by the way, if you wanna obsess over customers, one of the easiest ways the customer sees and talks to the same people every day. If they start seeing too much turnover, all of a sudden they're like, what's going on at this company? Right? You might have why do you have so many people in and out?
Tony Pietrocola:So that becomes a challenge. You know, look, I think every company in America is probably facing this right now. It's not just you and I or not just cyber or AI. I think everybody is. I think the labor force is is good.
Tony Pietrocola:Right? I mean, unemployment is low. Economy is pretty solid. We got a lot of great stuff going on. I think, it's just gonna be a battle for people.
Lou Rabon:Yeah. Yeah. Although it has gotten easy, there's a in cyber right now, I know I don't know if you've noticed this, but there are a lot of people that are looking for work. But I think what's happening, too, is A. I.
Lou Rabon:Is the the great, you know, filter in some ways, because now there's people that used to be hired and they they were doing the job that AI can do. And and I'm I'm not saying that it's junior or, you know, what what level they are. I think a lot of people have phoned in their jobs. Let's be really clear. You know?
Lou Rabon:And and especially with cyber, you could hide. You could you could have maybe done some good stuff earlier in your career. That that's the thing that I've made the mistake of, and I'm I'm sure you've done that too in the beginning is you see these big logos, and you're like, woah. You work for all these great companies. You're hired.
Lou Rabon:You're like, woah. You're you don't actually do anything. So, you know, those people are out definitely out of a job right now because anything that they might have like, oh, well, that guy's kinda useless, but at least he knows about x. Now, you know, x being like some ancient technology or whatever. Now you can just go to AI and say, hey.
Lou Rabon:How do you do this? Okay. We don't need that guy anymore. But then also, know, I think with AI and with with people looking, it's just been, companies are leveraging AI for a lot of those more junior positions, but, there is a play for people still looking for a job. So, I mean, you're working with AI, and I'm I'm really proud that it's taken us this long to even say AI since everyone is talking about it constantly and putting it out there.
Lou Rabon:So what does AI mean when when when you say AI, what does that mean to you?
Tony Pietrocola:Yeah. Well, I'll say I I wanna bring it obviously down to agile blue. What we do with our AI is it's able to autonomously investigate, make a decision, and respond. And in cyber, we think both speed and accuracy stop cyber attacks or at least mitigates that that risk and damage. Right?
Tony Pietrocola:So if we can use AI to get out ahead of it, understand everything, make a decision. Even if we're bringing in a human then at the end, we're moving so much faster. So we've automated 90% on level two of what is what an what an analyst does. And here's the the the huge part. About 47% more efficient when responding to a cyber attack.
Tony Pietrocola:So that definitely means faster. 98% accuracy. So is that reduced jobs at Agile Blue? No. We just are those folks are now working on more complex challenges, and we're bringing in more engineers to create more AI that does that.
Tony Pietrocola:So to me, AI, it just means and I I am not one of these people who thinks AI is gonna kill jobs. I just think people are gonna need to how to understand how to use AI to do their job. And that's not a bad thing because if they can make us better, we could work more. You know, there's a paradox called Javan Javan's paradox. And this guy did said this back in the eighteen hundreds.
Tony Pietrocola:Every time technology was created over the years, whether it was the railroad or the printing press and obviously the Internet and computers and now AI, people are like, oh, it's gonna decimate this. It's gonna kill jobs. No. It created more because now we have more companies doing things, whether it's creating AI, supporting AI, building tools for AI, it's gonna create more. Will it reduce old stuff?
Tony Pietrocola:Yeah, potentially, but people will grow their careers, thus hopefully making more money as well. If AI makes us seriously more efficient, that's better margins. That obviously, if you understand financials, makes you a more profitable company. A way to invest more is to then obviously hire and grow your business. So, I do think that I'm a big believer in the Javan's paradox.
Tony Pietrocola:If you don't know what it is, look it up if you're listening to this. But I do believe it applies to AI, and that's what makes me extraordinarily bullish on AI. And both my daughters who are getting through college, they're looking at their careers, and one of them is an investment banker and in her internship, which is she's in her final year. She'll be she's into her internship. They're not replacing investment bankers with AI.
Tony Pietrocola:They're not using it. So now instead of leaving the office at midnight, maybe they leave at 10PM and everybody has a little bit of a life outside of it.
Lou Rabon:Yeah. Big time. I actually started investment banking, not as the banker, but as the IT guy, supporting the trading floor. That's a story for another time. But, yeah, those are can be really brutal hours.
Lou Rabon:So I love what you're saying about, the AI augmentation. It's a tool, you know? And to your point, yeah, the people that had horses were terrified of the car. Has the world crashed and burned since cars were reinvented? I mean, in some people might say, yes, but that's a whole another from a from a, you know, petrol, oils, you know, kind of thing.
Lou Rabon:But, literally, AI is is really, a force multiplier. And it's funny because I just posted something on LinkedIn about this. I'll I'll send you the post. It it's basically about Microsoft Research did, a study, and they said, you know, things that people like tech and stuff will be heavily affected by it, but that doesn't mean those jobs are going away. To your point, you just have to pivot and learn how to use the tools and and then you're going to be more productive.
Lou Rabon:Then, yeah, absolutely. It's not necessarily something that you'll lose your job, but you're not going to lose your you're not going to have a job if you don't know how to use AI, essentially. That is yeah. A certainty. So yes.
Lou Rabon:And it's great. I I'm I'm really happy that we didn't start with AI. There's a lot of people, a lot of, you know, consternation about AI. There's a lot of you know, it's just like NFCs and and and or NFTs and and things out there. When Bitcoin and, you know, crypto came out.
Lou Rabon:Everyone became a crypto expert at one point. And now a everyone's an AI. I was at a at a TA conference. I I forgot what it was like. Channel partners in Vegas or something, like, two years ago.
Lou Rabon:And no joke, this guy handed me a a card about being an AI expert, whatever it was. I looked him up later. It was like real estate, you know, waiting tables, AI expert. I was like, because he could do that at the time, you know, but now, hopefully, we're gonna get past this hype cycle of AI, and and this is the real, you know, the straight dope about AI. It's a tool.
Lou Rabon:We're we're gonna use it, and your agile blue is using it to great effect.
Tony Pietrocola:Yeah. It's you're you it is a tool. Now I think it's extraordinarily powerful tool, one that we've maybe never seen. But if you think that it's just gonna be I really don't believe it's all AI just running everything all day long. Now, if we get there, maybe it's way down the road and maybe I'm dead by then and and Elon Musk robots are are are ruling the world.
Tony Pietrocola:I don't care. I won't be around, I guess. But right now, it is a force multiplier. It's doing the mundane work that we don't want to do anyways. And now as professionals, we can focus on more challenging tasks and let the AI do the stuff that we kinda don't wanna do anyway.
Tony Pietrocola:Right? So I think that's where we're seeing huge gains.
Lou Rabon:Big time. So let's pivot to to personal stuff. You know, like, who is Tony? What got you here? I I know certain, you know, biographical information about you.
Lou Rabon:You're in Cleveland, Ohio. Somebody I don't wanna say there's a not nice way to describe Cleveland. Right? The the mistake by the lake or something. I always think of that, but then I always always think of Toy Story and the department store.
Lou Rabon:Right? What's the name of that place?
Tony Pietrocola:Hippee's Christmas story you're talking about?
Lou Rabon:I'm Christmas story, not Toy Story. A Christmas story. Yeah. And where he's, you know, he's in front of the the windows looking at all this stuff and that's the place downtown Cleveland, right?
Tony Pietrocola:Right. Yeah. Absolutely that and then the house is here. It was all filmed here. So here's what's funny.
Tony Pietrocola:My first company was acquired back in 2008 and was acquired by a company in Boston. And these were all, you know, you know, harbor guys, blah blah blah. And the guy goes to me, this is no BS, said to me, oh, clearly. Yeah. That that's where the the lake is on fire.
Tony Pietrocola:I go, well, first of all, it was a river that caught fire. Second of all, it was 1971. I wasn't even born yet. I was born in '74. I wasn't even born yet.
Tony Pietrocola:And by the way, they put it out, like, immediately. Like, it's not just raging. So, you know, you get these these these monikers of things and today, you're kinda seeing it with other places in The United States. You know, people think California. You just walk everywhere and it's just misery and homelessness and drugs.
Tony Pietrocola:Like, you know, I'm just being honest. Like, it's not. California's gorgeous and beautiful. Now, obviously, the fires really affected the power stage in those areas, which is just awful. California is probably the most one of the most beautiful thing places I've ever been, right, all over California.
Tony Pietrocola:But you get these things in your head and people just go with it. Right? So, yeah, born and raised in Cleveland. I did work for for Apple, in in Chicago and California. So, but came back to start my first company, which, which was great and haven't left since.
Lou Rabon:That's great. Yeah. It's it's funny. The I think what's happening today too, it's interesting when people have these ideas of what the way places are. Like, New Yorkers are all rude.
Lou Rabon:You know, southern southerners only like, you know, cowboys or whatever the weird, like, you know, generalization is. It's like more and more people and especially, you know, we're all getting polarized. Right? So I just hope that that's what I love about, you know, this job. Both of us were traveling constantly, seeing people all over the country.
Lou Rabon:I I love you know, that's one thing I love about America. We you read the news, and you're like, oh my god. What the hell is happening? But you you you go around, and people are just good people. Every place has its, you know, pros and cons, and it's, you know, interesting parts and things like that.
Lou Rabon:And and I think, yeah, it's dangerous to just generalize or, you know, take one or two things. It figures a guy from the Northeast, which I'm originally from, would would give you, you know, grief about Cleveland. But let's talk more about, you know, your past. You you work for Apple. I've I've got things here.
Lou Rabon:Like, you've you've definitely had a a really interesting career doing a lot of investment, a lot of leadership, you know, CRO, president and CRO at at at different types of companies. You know, what you're you're bringing like kind of a life's work here to AgileBlue. What what made you wanna start AgileBlue?
Tony Pietrocola:You know, my business partner and I and cofounder when we started AgileBlue, we looked and saw a huge hole in the market. He identified this. I was done with my last company. He and I have known each other for twenty years, got together. He's like, I'm thinking of this, security operations, autonomous, blah blah blah.
Tony Pietrocola:There's really no huge player in the small to mid market. We really should think about that. And I went back to my house, spent about a month researching it, and it it was. He identified this gap and and we started this company together in 2019. We we went to market in 2020 but the the the point's this, he identified a gap and I think any business owner or anybody looking to create a business or grow their business, man, if you can identify that need, if there's that product market fit or just I see this this gap right here.
Tony Pietrocola:Take it. It's like football. Right? And that running back sees that gap, it hits it. Go on.
Tony Pietrocola:Hopefully, it's an Ohio State running back, by the way.
Lou Rabon:Yeah. No. For sure. It's interesting about the gap too. Right?
Lou Rabon:Because I think business owners, you know, we see the gap. We say we start we start the company. We start with complete enthusiasm. I I relate it to childbirth. You know, if if every woman told other women, you know, how difficult childbirth is, like, bearing a child, giving birth, there'd be no humans left.
Lou Rabon:And and I think it's the same for, you know, business owners, entrepreneurs. We're like, yeah. There's a gap, and we're gonna start that company. If someone tells you the truth, like, do you understand how much pain and suffering? I think you you mentioned Musk before.
Lou Rabon:I think he was coined for saying, you know, being an entrepreneur is like eating glass and staring into the abyss. You know, pretty accurate. So, yeah, I it's it's good that you identified the gap and you you went for it even despite, you know, the the pain. You gotta get through the pain. Right?
Lou Rabon:And you've been around for five years, and it's going strong now. I mean, you're you're definitely gaining traction in the channel. Anyone I speak to, you know, it's like MDR. Have you heard of Agile Blue? Have you worked with those guys?
Lou Rabon:Definitely a good reputation, so you're doing something right.
Tony Pietrocola:Yeah. I think we're just treating people the right way. Right? We got a great product that helps too. And and I think we always have our customers and our partners out ahead of us.
Tony Pietrocola:So I think that's what's what's keeping it grounded. And by the way, the channel is a tough place. If you mess up, it's hard to recover. If you just do the right thing, even when things go bad, like, all in tech. Tech tech breaks down once in a while.
Tony Pietrocola:Right? There's a bug. Long as you recover and you know how to treat people who need that support and you get through it, it's easy to keep your reputation going. If not, it's not. Right?
Tony Pietrocola:And and that might never come back.
Lou Rabon:Yeah. It's it's definitely it's a small war world in tech, smaller world in cybersecurity, and an even smaller, tighter world in the channel. So I think you're you're spot on. Kind of final two questions. One is, do you have a personal story that demonstrates where cybersecurity might have had kind of an impact on your life?
Tony Pietrocola:Not necessarily a business one, but I'll give you a personal one. And I'm supposed to be a cyber expert. A few years ago, my cell phone my my phone had my SIM card swapped. So I was expecting a late gift because obviously, I I stink at getting Christmas gifts on time. Got a text message says, your your thing your Amazon order's delayed, and I'm like, it's like, oh, man.
Tony Pietrocola:This is bad. Click on the button. Nothing happened. Next morning, woke up. My phone's not my phone anymore.
Tony Pietrocola:It's a zombie phone, and that was about a nine hour ordeal to get life back together again. So, that's a little bit different example but that one crushed me personally because nine hours, I'm hacked. Now, I'm thinking, do people get into my Email and my cost? No, everything like that because I have, you know, two factor and this was three, four years, this three and a half years ago now. Still had two factor was was isolated in me.
Tony Pietrocola:But I'll tell you what, getting my life back together again with my phone and everything, that was a nightmare. So I I it it did happen to me. Yeah.
Lou Rabon:Yeah. And it's, yeah, relevant. Luckily, nine hours is better than nine days or nine weeks, which, you know, some people have had. But and it's embarrassing to your point, but been there, done that, you know, where where there's been I I think I was in Miami four years ago, and it was like a some kind of Wi Fi that was that had been hacked. So it was a rogue Wi Fi access point, and certain things started to happen that I saw, and I caught quickly.
Lou Rabon:But still, you kinda it it gives you a little bit of a burn because you're like, I'm a cyber person. How can this happen to me? You know? And finally, you know, what do you do outside of work? What's your I I you're definitely very fit, so you're you're keeping yourself active.
Lou Rabon:Well, what are your your hobbies and activities?
Tony Pietrocola:I work out every day, so I'm a big workout guy, and that's great. Kinda like a clean life type lifestyle type of thing. But I still enjoy red wine, so I'm not gonna I'm not gonna poo poo that. And so I played college football at Toledo. So Toledo's got a got a big season ahead of us here and the Ohio State University.
Tony Pietrocola:One of my daughters there now, out for season ticket people. Champions, national champions. So when it comes to fall, I'm usually out on Saturday on at someone's game. So go rockets. Go bucks.
Lou Rabon:I I hope that we see you in, the top brackets, but I don't know that my alma mater is gonna be doing much this year. They we could be a surprise dark horse, but went to FSU. So we we've had some history, but, you know, Ohio State is definitely on top right now, so that's great.
Tony Pietrocola:Absolutely. But, hey, with all this NIL, with all these players moving Hi. The same teams there, but then you're gonna see a new group of three or four that are gonna pop in and out because they, you know, grabbed a couple guys from the portal. So it's a it's a it is the wild west right now in college football, so we'll see what happens.
Lou Rabon:Yeah. I got mixed feeling. We don't have time. I'd love to have another conversation about that, but NIL, I got mixed feelings about, you know, what that's doing to the sport. So so, where can people find you?
Lou Rabon:You know, LinkedIn, Twitter, agileblue?
Tony Pietrocola:Yeah. Agileblue.com, LinkedIn, Tony Petricola, same thing with, with with Twitter. Twitter, I don't put any profound statements out or anything, but I will retweet good stuff that people should be keeping keeping their eyes on. But LinkedIn LinkedIn seems to be the place these days, But it should be business related. Like, people are starting to inter you know, interweave like personal things.
Tony Pietrocola:Like, I don't I don't need that, guys.
Lou Rabon:Oh, yeah. Yeah. Definitely ignoring those posts when they go go down that road. That's why I'm not on the other network. So thank you, Tony Pietrocola.
Tony Pietrocola:Louie, thank you so much. I had a blast. Thank you for having me.
Lou Rabon:It's been really fun, 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, Tony. And this has been another exciting episode of Channel Security Secrets. See you next time.
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.
Lou Rabon:Partner with experts who build resilience from the ground up.
