YouSaid · the spoken record

Tim Junio

lines on the record: 21
first: 2017-02-03
most recent: 2017-02-03
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“So we are intending to be the brand for Internet of Things analytics. And so, what we mean by that is we're sensing everything connected to the public internet on a regular basis. And our first product that we have launched is related to security and helping companies monitor the entirety of the public internet for their assets. But our data lets you do many, many more things, including market research, business intelligence, really understanding the contours of the Internet in a way that nobody has before. One of our advisors, Dan Bonnet from Stanford, he's a professor of computer science there, remarked that he has never seen anything like our data, and they have entire academic conferences attempting to approximate what we have running in our commodity cloud services from what KDM has gathered. So really, I see the future as being the possibilities opened by what else can we do in terms of large-scale internet analytics from our perspective doing active”
2017-02-03 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why I Do Not Regret Taking 'Peter Thiel Money', What Is The Difference Between Leadership & Management & What Conversations Are For The Founding Team Only with Tim Junio, Founder & CEO @ Qadium · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think I would try to be the CEO of something that seems absolutely abysmal from the outside, like Amtrak or United Airlines, because I don't understand externally why it is so hard to make their products better. And I think it would be fascinating to try and understand from the inside.”
2017-02-03 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why I Do Not Regret Taking 'Peter Thiel Money', What Is The Difference Between Leadership & Management & What Conversations Are For The Founding Team Only with Tim Junio, Founder & CEO @ Qadium · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I will admit it is completely unrelated to my job, but I love the points guy. So just in pure pleasure reading, love reading the points guy in terms of cybersecurity and my area of expertise, Bruce Schneier has a fantastic blog called Schneier on Security. That is probably the best in class for the right balance between thoughtful, technical, and focusing on the social implications of technology. And in terms of large-scale data analytics, I'm a big fan of flowing data.”
2017-02-03 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why I Do Not Regret Taking 'Peter Thiel Money', What Is The Difference Between Leadership & Management & What Conversations Are For The Founding Team Only with Tim Junio, Founder & CEO @ Qadium · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I am absolutely amazed at some of the shit that is funded out here, to be frank. It just blows my mind. I think the TV show Silicon Valley captures a lot of this in a way that is so painful that many of my close friends can't even watch it. I really think that there is enormous human talent being wasted here on highly unproductive activities. So when there was all of this doom kind of at the beginning of 2015 regarding the VC market and startups failing, not being able to raise new rounds, I was very excited. I thought that that was absolutely great news. And the reason for that is”
2017-02-03 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why I Do Not Regret Taking 'Peter Thiel Money', What Is The Difference Between Leadership & Management & What Conversations Are For The Founding Team Only with Tim Junio, Founder & CEO @ Qadium · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So almost certainly the kind of edge cases of how I improve as a manager is what worries me the most. I feel like the product and the technology are spectacular at Kadium. And what I'm most worried about is how things break at different scale. So we'll be crossing 50 shortly and then hopefully 100 by the end of next year or soon thereafter. And what worries me the most is our ability to execute at that kind of scale. And that's a very, very typical problem, but it's one that never goes away and for which there is no formulaic solution and is always determined on a case-by-case basis. And so we've tried to assemble the absolute best possible team, including the people management side, to deal with that. It still makes me nervous more than anything else going on right now.”
2017-02-03 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why I Do Not Regret Taking 'Peter Thiel Money', What Is The Difference Between Leadership & Management & What Conversations Are For The Founding Team Only with Tim Junio, Founder & CEO @ Qadium · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Snow crash by Neil Stevenson. I think the university constructed is absolutely amazing. True visionary in what virtual reality could be like, as well as the political dynamics of kind of the highly fragmented United States, just absolutely incredible. Love the interwoven narratives between technology and politics. Absolutely amazing.”
2017-02-03 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why I Do Not Regret Taking 'Peter Thiel Money', What Is The Difference Between Leadership & Management & What Conversations Are For The Founding Team Only with Tim Junio, Founder & CEO @ Qadium · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Service in the White House. A lot of these initiatives are suggesting that on the East Coast they recognize we have something out here that is special in Silicon Valley and what we have been able to create. And there is a strong interest in kind of doing an update on the federal government across the board. And companies like mine focuses presently on cybersecurity have a lot to offer in that dimension. So I think eschewing the next four years of Washington because Trump is a controversial figure would be a bad choice for tech companies and for founders in particular. I would add to that since I started with kind of a compliment regarding Peter. He is also just on paper one of the best tech investors in history period. And so regardless of what he is doing with his politics, the value that he has added for his companies, both as an operator and an investor, I think is unquestionable. And if you talk to other founders from Peter Company,”
2017-02-03 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why I Do Not Regret Taking 'Peter Thiel Money', What Is The Difference Between Leadership & Management & What Conversations Are For The Founding Team Only with Tim Junio, Founder & CEO @ Qadium · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Could be interpreted as such. And instead, the candidate who he is supporting has, and those are very different things. And so the fact that nearly half the country voted for Trump suggests to me it is a very dangerous, slippery slope to go down to start saying this particular Republican candidate, a major party nominee and now the president-elect is unacceptable and therefore we should not do business with anybody who supported him. I think that, frankly, is an immature point of view. And one that misses a huge potential opportunity to continue what has already begun in improved relationships between Silicon Valley and Washington, DC, where we've already seen multiple initiatives where we have gotten the Defense Department under Secretary Ash Carter interested in bringing in new tech companies from the Valley to help the Pentagon with innovation, as well as the private sector helping with Obamacare and the Office of Science, Technology Policy, having the digital”
2017-02-03 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why I Do Not Regret Taking 'Peter Thiel Money', What Is The Difference Between Leadership & Management & What Conversations Are For The Founding Team Only with Tim Junio, Founder & CEO @ Qadium · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So Peter is one of the most brilliant and interesting minds I have ever met, and certainly the most so since moving to Silicon Valley. And I personally have no regrets about having taken his investment and I would do so again in a heartbeat and I would work with him in the future on other companies if that were ever in the cards. So I don't share the perspective and I'll explain why and I realize that his political controversy has really resonated strongly in the valley and I'll say I think Sam Altman's blog post on this subject got it exactly right about why Peter shouldn't step down from YC. So what Sam wrote is essentially we can't have a sliding scale where because somebody is a little bit too controversial as a candidate, they should not be backed even though they have the nomination of a major party. And Peter hasn't made racist or misogynist remarks or remarks”
2017-02-03 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why I Do Not Regret Taking 'Peter Thiel Money', What Is The Difference Between Leadership & Management & What Conversations Are For The Founding Team Only with Tim Junio, Founder & CEO @ Qadium · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“They were surprised to hear wow, you're generating extremely impressive revenue and a customer base in the federal sector and you need 100% of your focus there because any moment you're not spending on that, you're probably losing opportunities. We don't care about investment banks. We want you to get the intelligence community first. There is an obvious coherent point of view there, but it was not one that we ultimately decided to follow for lots of different reasons. And I think I screwed that up a little bit in fundraising, where I think we could have done a much better job of speaking with them in advance and making sure they were giving their perspective and we had enough time to reconcile and have them bought in. So everybody exercised available pro rata for the round, but at the same time we had some conversations that I would have rather have sooner because the fundraising process is very, very stressful in itself and it was not great to be arguing with people who are some of our biggest backers.”
2017-02-03 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why I Do Not Regret Taking 'Peter Thiel Money', What Is The Difference Between Leadership & Management & What Conversations Are For The Founding Team Only with Tim Junio, Founder & CEO @ Qadium · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, during this Series A, we had a bit of an uncomfortable conversation with some of our existing investors because we were charting our course when asking for more money. And so one thing that I think we could have done better is communication with the existing investors and having them bought into the vision a little bit sooner, where we have this parallel track for Cadium between government and enterprise. And some of our existing investors felt strongly that we should focus almost exclusively on the government business because it has been going so well and that enterprise would distract us and it would be difficult to have both products simultaneously. It ended up being a much more contentious issue than I thought for us to explain that part of what we wanted to do with the Series A fundraise was launching and scaling our enterprise software product. So I'll say I wish I had handled a little bit more strategically some of these investor relationships where I think”
2017-02-03 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why I Do Not Regret Taking 'Peter Thiel Money', What Is The Difference Between Leadership & Management & What Conversations Are For The Founding Team Only with Tim Junio, Founder & CEO @ Qadium · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“For this is how we're going to launch a product and make revenue, optimize for how is this going to be one of the most impactful brands of our generation. And I think he was absolutely correct. I changed the tenor of the pitch, and that is the structure that I ended up using. And I really hate the formula of it's the Google of, it's the Uber of, et cetera. So I tried to avoid using that exact formulation, but basically oriented around what is the bigger vision for the technology and for the business and what is this technology make possible.”
2017-02-03 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why I Do Not Regret Taking 'Peter Thiel Money', What Is The Difference Between Leadership & Management & What Conversations Are For The Founding Team Only with Tim Junio, Founder & CEO @ Qadium · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“When you do the partnership pitch, you need to achieve a consensus very quickly in that room of people, and they're not going to get into the nuance of why you're tackling security first. They're not going to get into the nuance of your perspective that we need to start ignoring firewalls as a way to think about perimeter security. All they're going to fixate on is what they associate with the brand, and you want them walking out of that room thinking Cadium is the Google for the Internet of Things. And so you need to completely change this and start with a presentation where the vision for the company is the truthful vision, which is actually a lot more ambitious. It is we're going to continually index everything on the internet and provide analytics associated with that, and then get into the product because when the partners walk out of the room, you need them to think, oh my God, this is going to be one of the most successful companies of the decade and not just another incremental cybersecurity play. And so don't overoptimize.”
2017-02-03 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why I Do Not Regret Taking 'Peter Thiel Money', What Is The Difference Between Leadership & Management & What Conversations Are For The Founding Team Only with Tim Junio, Founder & CEO @ Qadium · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Of the best pieces of non-intuitive advice I got during fundraising, which I think I used to our advantage, was from a friend of mine, Adam Getty, who's the co-founder, CEO of Ionic Security based in Atlanta. Great company, by the way. When I did my practice series A pitch with Adam, he sat back and said, your entire problem solution statement is about network security. And I said, yeah, absolutely. That's the first product that we're selling. It's all about enterprise network security. And he said, yeah, but the core technology for Kadium, the core platform is sensing everything connected to the public internet, right? And I said, yeah, absolutely. And he said, what you need to do is communicate that vision. What is the company doing on a multi-decade time horizon? Because when you go and do VC pitches, you're going to have one partner who completely understands what you're doing through all of the nuance of the product that you are launching and why and who the initial customers are, et cetera.”
2017-02-03 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why I Do Not Regret Taking 'Peter Thiel Money', What Is The Difference Between Leadership & Management & What Conversations Are For The Founding Team Only with Tim Junio, Founder & CEO @ Qadium · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The company are what are the ones that are not up for debate that no matter who is coming through the company and how things are changing, you're not going to alter the course because that's the identity of the company. So while the culture changes over time based on people who you bring in and you can kind of nudge it in different directions depending on what you choose to reward and punish, the kind of ethereal notion of what is it that we're doing and why are we here is something that I was surprised to hear a lot of different people articulating needed to come just from the top. So I guess that was one bit of advice that has resonated with me because I didn't like it when I first heard it, but over time have come to understand the value of that perspective and why as things sort of change it's important to have those common roots.”
2017-02-03 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why I Do Not Regret Taking 'Peter Thiel Money', What Is The Difference Between Leadership & Management & What Conversations Are For The Founding Team Only with Tim Junio, Founder & CEO @ Qadium · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, some of the advice I've gotten that I've been following, even though it makes me a little uncomfortable, which is why I mention it, is I hear often there are some non-negotiable things that are just co-founder decisions, and you shouldn't discuss them as a group. It filters through the company by following your vision, your intent for the business. And that's not something that should be up for group discussion, and you just kind of have to impose it on others. And that's something that makes me a little uncomfortable because in our corporate culture here at Kadium, we tend to be extremely deliberative and data driven. And I don't think by virtue of being the co-founder, I am most likely to be correct about a wide range of topics. And I really enjoy the process of drawing on expertise and data to come to better decisions. And so part of what was most useful in at least thinking about the degrees of things that you need to have as global decisions.”
2017-02-03 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why I Do Not Regret Taking 'Peter Thiel Money', What Is The Difference Between Leadership & Management & What Conversations Are For The Founding Team Only with Tim Junio, Founder & CEO @ Qadium · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I'm sure you hear all the time from people who come on the show and who you talk to that it's very, very difficult to understand the job of being the co-founder, CEO of a startup. And I mean, this is trite at this point, right? It's in the Benton Harowitz book all over the place. It is repeatedly hammered into you before you try to do a startup how hard it is. It is as hard as everybody says, and you cannot actually understand it until you're in the job. It is impossible to empathize, in my opinion, until you're doing it. You can try, but really to have weight on your shoulders of giving absolutely brilliant people this very, very high-risk choice and convincing them to follow your path is one of the most stressful things that you can do. So basically the people who work at Kadium were about 40 are extremely technically skilled, mostly out of MIT, Stanford, Caltech, that kind of background, along with multiple PhDs, people.”
2017-02-03 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why I Do Not Regret Taking 'Peter Thiel Money', What Is The Difference Between Leadership & Management & What Conversations Are For The Founding Team Only with Tim Junio, Founder & CEO @ Qadium · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“To having some specific ideas of things that I was interested in testing out. So, sorry, I realize this is a relatively long answer to your question. The last chunk of it is while I was in grad school and doing my postdoc at Stanford, I was also doing consulting work helping build cyber capabilities for the defense department via DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. And so the co-founders of Kadia met while we were all in grad school, and we had some ideas on technology that we wanted to prototype. And so we didn't start CADM with a specific product idea. We had some prototype ideas and we applied for grants from the Defense Department to begin working on them. And so we didn't take VC money from the beginning. We took military money from the beginning to test out some ideas. And when one of those started being particularly successful, we all doubled down. And essentially I never applied to academic jobs, never applied to be a professor anywhere because I was sufficiently happy with the progress of the tech that we were building here at Cadium.”
2017-02-03 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why I Do Not Regret Taking 'Peter Thiel Money', What Is The Difference Between Leadership & Management & What Conversations Are For The Founding Team Only with Tim Junio, Founder & CEO @ Qadium · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“In DC, and I felt like I understood the government in academia pretty well, but I didn't have a good grasp of technology related to security in the private sector since I had never lived in California, my social network was largely dominated by people on the East Coast and the fields that they would go into. And so I ended up going to Stanford for that postdoc, and it completely changed the trajectory of my life to some extent because of the social environment. I immediately made a lot of friends who work in tech, who work in BC, and it really opened the possibility in my mind to a different kind of career that, in my view, was a lot more meritocratic than things in academia and government, where it seemed like if you are very smart and hardworking, it's almost impossible to fuck up in working in tech in Silicon Valley. You will have a good outcome if you are a smart and hardworking person. And I value that very deeply. In addition,”
2017-02-03 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why I Do Not Regret Taking 'Peter Thiel Money', What Is The Difference Between Leadership & Management & What Conversations Are For The Founding Team Only with Tim Junio, Founder & CEO @ Qadium · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Games that people play who are interacting over the course of 20 years, it's a highly politicized, very charged environment and wasn't something that I thought was going to be satisfying when I was hitting kind of what I would consider peak points of my career in my 40s, 50s, et cetera. So I decided to explore other options and I resigned and started my PhD and I later did a postdoc at Stanford. And in the course of my PhD program, and then when I was going to start my postdoc, I was intending to be a professor and focused on cybersecurity, which was just emerging as an issue area. So now you hear about it in the media all the time, but going back to around 2011 and 2012, when I was making decisions about next steps for my career, it was still a pretty risky field to go into. And ultimately, I made my decision because I had options between doing a fellowship at Stanford, at Harvard, at a think tank.”
2017-02-03 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why I Do Not Regret Taking 'Peter Thiel Money', What Is The Difference Between Leadership & Management & What Conversations Are For The Founding Team Only with Tim Junio, Founder & CEO @ Qadium · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Thank you again for having me on the show. Really appreciate it. Have heard wonderful things from both founders and VCs who have been on, so really appreciate the opportunity to try to get some of our message out. My personal history from having started on the East Coast was largely framed around two careers I thought I was going to have before I ended up in this one. So ending up in Silicon Valley in a tech company was largely a historic accident where when I started my career as you pointed out I was working at CIA. I was thinking ahead to spending decades in the intelligence community and that ultimately changed for a few different reasons largely the job wasn't as satisfying as I thought after a few years whereas initially the kind of learning period and getting involved in all kinds of new things that the government has a monopoly on was pretty fantastic. But when I started to think about what it would be like to exist in a large bureaucracy for decades and the kind of repeat iteration”
2017-02-03 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why I Do Not Regret Taking 'Peter Thiel Money', What Is The Difference Between Leadership & Management & What Conversations Are For The Founding Team Only with Tim Junio, Founder & CEO @ Qadium · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source