Dan Guido, Trail of Bits

Dan Guido is the co-founder and CEO of Trail of Bits, one of the most respected security research firms in crypto, government, and software infrastructure. In this episode, we trace Dan’s path from hacking his high school’s computer systems to working at the NSA, the Federal Reserve incident response team and eventually building Trail of Bits. We dive into how North Korean hackers became some of the most sophisticated attackers in the world, what DARPA is, and how trail of bits works with government contracts. Finally, Dan shares his views on AI and cybersecurity, why defense may benefit more than offense, and what happens when agents dramatically increase the attack surface of the internet.

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Timestamps

((0:00) Intro

(0:23) Altitude

(1:14) What is Trail of Bits and how did it get started

(6:49) Dan's upbringing and developing a passion for computer science and hacking

(16:25) Working at the NSA

(22:51) North Korean hacks on crypto

(28:22) The incident response team at the Fed

(33:05) The motivation behind Trail of Bits, and DARPA's role

(47:23) Starting Trail of Bits

(58:22) Government shutdown, losing all revenue, and surviving with 1 paycheck

(1:04:36) Hiring people for mastery and building a high agency team

(1:15:34) Bitcoin post-quantum cryptography

(1:20:12) The culture and expectation at Trail of Bits

(1:38:42) Mythos and AI's role in cybersecurity

(2:05:48) San Bernardino iPhone incident, and Dan's proudest moments

(2:12:12) Learning to become a CEO

(2:19:59) Peiter "Mudge" Zatko