25. David Gurle - Founder and Executive Chairman at Hive, on Empathy, Innovation, and Disruption

Hey, welcome everyone to another episode of the security podcast in Silicon Valley. I'm here today with a very special guest, David Gurley. David, welcome to the show. Thank you, John.

And the way you pronounce my first and last name is perfect. I'm so happy about that. I'm really good at butchering names. David brings to the table so much experience.

You started your career, it looks like a digital equipment corporation in France. You were a software engineer there. Then you moved to France Telecom. You were an R&D engineer.

And then ETSI, you were a technical officer there. VocalTech, the VP of strategic alliances. And then you moved into Microsoft. And at Microsoft, you're actually director of program management of real-time collaboration and communication.

And that was back in 2002. So right after the dot-com bust, I suppose, and we're getting serious about communications. Well, the thing is, I'm very good at missing the rise of the stock and arriving at the end of the rise. So I arrived at Microsoft, at the height of Microsoft stock.

And after I joined, it just went down and memory covered. Oh, I'm so sorry to hear that. Oh. Okay.

And then after that, you were at. . . We were with Thompson Breuders.

You were the global head of collaboration services and head of sales in Trading Asia. Awesome. And then you were the general manager at Skype for business. This is now in Palo Alto.

And at this point, I think your career really started to take off. You were with Avaya, VP of corporate strategy. And then you started your own company. You started Perzo Inc.

Yeah. You were the founder, CEO of Perzo. That chugged along for two years and was bought by Symphony Communications. You were the founder, CEO of Symphony Communications, which has a very special place in my heart because I was.

. . The third one. I joined Symphony Communications.

This is where we met. Yep. I have to interrupt you right now just for a minute because, you know, I was thinking about this podcast and I said, what am I going to do to John to embarrass him a little bit? And I just want to say that I am so grateful for everything that you've done for Symphony.

You made Symphony secure. You made Symphony strong. And thanks to the great work that you've done and along with your teammates, you managed to break through the impenetrable walls of Wall Street and became the standard there. So thank you, John.

David, you're very kind. It was a solid team effort. And we wouldn't have been, we wouldn't have had that opportunity if it wasn't for all of the hard work everyone had put into Perzo and then followed through with Symphony. And a lot of, you know, Symphony Communications is where I had the first opportunity to really lead the team technically.

And it was an amazing experience. And I have all of the gratitude and humility in the world for having had those, those opportunities and made those connections and a spectacular adventure that we shared together. I would say David. Yep.

So thank you. The gratitude is, is a two way street. Um, and after Symphony, you're a founder, a board member of Symphony Communications. You got involved with a lot of advising.

Yep. And creation corporation. Cause Cosmian. Yep.

Cosmian. Yep. Check your, uh, advisor and board member there. Quest partners.

Uh, founder and executive chairman at Quest. Rothschild & Co. Senior advisor with Ross Schultz. Anthony Invest in Banking.

Yep. And F24AG. You're chairman of the board there. Uh, you took a role with the government of France.

You're an ambassador to France for 2030. Yep. Amazing. And now you've, you've done it again.

I guess once an entrepreneur, always an entrepreneur. You're the founder and executive chairman at Hyatt's. Yeah. One, one more time.

One more time. I mean, is it, is it something that you're really going to walk away from ever? Is it just, it's just too fun to keep doing these things. Right.

Exactly. And, and I think the, the, the, you mentioned the keyword, the fun. Um, you really have to have that passion because things get gritty. Things get difficult.

Uh, you have to reach down deep and find that drive and just not just plow forward for your own sake. But as a leader, you have to inspire everyone else around you to stick with it, stick through it. Right. Yeah.

Uh, so was there any part of your childhood that, you know, getting into our first question, was there any part of your childhood that really makes you, you, or that was like very influential, um, maybe a unique experience that, that gave you some of that grit or some of that drive? Yeah, I, I believe so. Um, I, I'm not sure if it's only one thing, John, but, uh, I, I grew up in the Middle East. I was born there and parents, uh, were diplomats and, um, and I, I grew up, you know, in the streets of Lebanon, Syria and Turkey and, uh, played with, uh, the kids of my age, um, from, from those countries.

And, uh, you know, growing up, uh, playing football and soccer, uh, and all type of, you know, games that we used to play. I always was this, this kid who wouldn't do things like the other kids would, um, like kind of the old ball. Um, and, uh, and, but I never felt, um, wrong doing it. You know, I always felt that, you know, um, I was doing what I once do.

And if, if it was against what the group was doing, it was okay for me and, and, and vice versa. So, um, so, you know, people will always call me like this, you're special or, uh, you know, uh, you don't listen and, uh, you know, you, you are top headed and all of those things. Yep. And, uh, and, you know, I got Teflonized into the Teflon in terms of this thing that never sticks.

Yeah. It never sticks to you, huh? Nothing, nothing never sticks. Just like Teflon.

Yeah, exactly. Just like very early on in my, in my life. And, um, and, um, I, I have one memory, um, that I can relate to. I was 13 years old.

Um, we were in Turkey and there was a military coup in Turkey in 1980. And, um, um, it was curfew. But, you know, who would respect the curfew when you're a 13 year old and there is nothing to do home. And so I just got out and, uh, managed to convince few of my friends to get out as well.

Um, by just yelling at the mayor, um, and then we started playing outside. I don't know what we were playing, but eventually, um, a military, um, truck came by and, uh, saw us and stopped us. Uh, uh, so we see the bus curfew. You can't go out.

Right. So they just aligned us like that. And, uh, I was my youngest. Oh, you were the youngest.

Wow. I was the youngest. Absolutely. I was the youngest.

And, um, and they start hitting us from the oldest all the way to me. Like, and, uh, you know, um, it was my turn. I was the youngest, you know, I thought, why am I escaping? Because I was the youngest and I was the last one out of the, I don't know how many you were.

It just didn't matter. And, you know, I just got a big hit on my face and a big hit in my stomach. Uh, and, um, and, and, you know, I just, I just looked her up and I said, okay, are you done? You know?

And so, uh, so I guess, um, this, uh, this rebellious attitude that, that I have, um, the fact that I make my own roles, um, was probably in me, um, and, uh, the environment in which I grew up, um, helped me to, you know, further, um, uh, sharpen that edge that I had. And, uh, it never left me. And I think it's, it's one of my, um, qualities. Uh, but.

Sorry. Your secret, your secret strengths. Yeah. Maybe.

Yeah. No, it's amazing. And I'm sorry that you, you went through that. I, I believe firmly that it's the experiences that we go through that sort of shape who we are and give us the opportunity to rise to the occasion.

It sounds like you really took it upon yourself to be yourself, even in the face of great adversity. Yeah. Because that was the only way, you know, I was a foreigner, right? You know, if you think about it, I was a foreigner trying to integrate.

Um, and so I, I faced racism all my youth. Um, you know, I was a minority. I was the only white kid playing in those places, only white and only non, uh, no Muslim. So, um, so, you know, you had no choice but to deal with it.

Right. And you had to deal with it a very formal time in your childhood. And, uh, it sounds like you made the most of it. And it really like, uh, shaped you to be able to handle like tough situations and, and, and.

Yeah. But also the respect, you know, uh, the thing you need to understand when you are in a situation like that is the fact that where you were born, um, affects a lot, your future. And, um, affects who you are a lot. And, uh, and so rather than judging people for who they were, I was trying to understand the differences and respect those differences.

Right. And, uh, and so, you know, even though I was this, um, uh, you know, this, this, uh, this old kid, because I, um, always respected their differences and try to lead their differences. Uh, you know, eventually I was welcomed. So, uh, so it, it, it was, you know, a good learning for me.

Yeah. That that's really heartwarming actually to be different, to be perceived as different and then to be welcomed into the group. Right. Yeah, it does.

I have to admit that it sounds very similar to experiences that I had, uh, coming out. This game in Minnesota in a very conservative environment. Um, you're forced to deal with differences and things that you can perceive as adversity, but, uh, they do shape you into who you become. Right.

So. Yeah, of course. No, no, no. I, I, I, adversity is a very good trainer.

You know, if you have the right support. If you do. Yes. Yeah.

I mean, you know, being alone is not easy. I mean, some, some exceptional people can do it all by themselves, but, you know, if you have the right support from family, friends, um, you know, that, that helps a lot. That is absolutely critical. I'll come back to these differences, um, through, uh, an, an experience I want to tell with you.

I'm going to share with you. Uh, both, please. We were in Beirut and, um, capital of Lebanon and I was much younger than, you know, maybe eight, nine years old, but enough to remember. And, uh, it was the civil war of Beirut.

And, um, the buildings were destroyed. The roads were destroyed. And, um, we were, uh, walking with my dad on the street going somewhere. I don't remember where.

Let's be walked by across the street. Um, there is this kid older than me, but the kid, um, he's got an AK 47 on his shoulders. You know, there's this, this, this Kalashnikov thing. And, uh, and, uh, and, you know, me being young, um, just got scared.

And, uh, and I was hitting myself, you know, behind my dad. And, uh, my dad said, what, what's going on? And I said, wow, you know, you look at this kid, you know, he's, he's a, he's a bad person and, uh, and he might kill us. And, uh, and he said, uh, well, how do you know he's a bad person?

Well, I said, because, you know, he's got a gun. Right. And, uh, yes. But, uh, imagine you were born in his shoes and you were defending your home.

What would you do? Right. And, uh, and that for me was the, um, somehow defining, uh, uh, experience in intolerance. And, uh, and, uh, and understanding diversity, um, and not judging, you know, not judging the book by its cover, you know, it's trying to read it and understand it and give time.

And, um, and so I think, I think that would be, um, the right answer to your question. Yeah. I appreciate that. Yeah.

I can feel the empathy. It's a skill that you can develop. Right. And, uh, Oh yeah.

Anybody can develop it. You just need to love the human nature. Not be too surprised by the unexpected, but you know, one of the tricks that I've always used was, you know, when there's a disagreement, I assume two things. I assume that everyone, uh, brings something to the table.

People are smart. People are smart. And it's, it's my job as a listener to study that in, in other people that are at the table. And it's also my job to play with, uh, a sense of perspective and empathy to answer the question.

Okay. Why is this the right thing to do? Like what set of values are driving the discussion so that this is the right thing to do and to drop my set of values and really try to pick up another set of values. That might actually be a better, a better set where the, the problem or the disagreement is not a problem or disagreement anymore.

You know, it sounds like you do a very, you were, you were put in a situation where you were doing exactly the same thing, except it was someone with a gun. A kid with a gun. Yeah. It was just defending his country perhaps, or his, his family or his loved ones.

Right? Exactly. I'm sorry that you have to go through those things, but it sounds like it really helps shape who you are today. And I think that's a pretty spectacular person.

So I think so too. So would you like to share our listeners a little bit about Hive? Yeah. Um, well, Hive is a distributed peer-to-peer, uh, cloud solution.

Um, it is unique in its, uh, approach to build an alternative cloud to the, to the ones that, you know, we use every day. Um, uh, it has, um, the ability to, uh, take the, um, end use resources of, uh, computers around the world and, and, and put them in a virtual operating system. And from which, uh, we can offer and we offer storage and compute services. So that's, uh, really the nature of that.

And, um, I had the idea actually, when we were at symphony 2018, I want the bills of, uh, Amazon and Google on which, you know, we were building and running our infrastructure. I was going mad. And, uh, the reason I was going mad, not because. You know, the bills were going up, obviously they were going up, but because I knew that there was a better way of doing it because I used to run Skype for business.

You mentioned it earlier and Skype was entirely peer-to-peer. So no infrastructure and no data centers. So we were using everyone's computers, you know, to do what service do. And, um, and so I said to myself, there's really no technical reason that we couldn't do the same thing with, um, um, you know, with the cloud.

So I went to the board, uh, and I said, okay, guys, you know, I know I'm running symphony, uh, but I have another idea. And, uh, and that's really what I want to do is the reason why. And, uh, so, um, and I want to have the right to, to start doing it. Uh, because I had to ask permission.

It was in my contract. And, uh, so they gave the permission to me and they, some of them even said, okay, we're going to invest in it. You know, we liked the idea. And, uh, but you know, life happens.

Uh, we, we didn't have, I didn't have time. I just symphony just absorbed me so much, uh, that I couldn't put a, um, a minute on, uh, on this new initiative, which wasn't called Hive in my mind back then. And then, uh, it's only when I decided to step down, uh, you know, last, uh, you know, 2021 that, uh, I said, okay, what am I going to do next? And, uh, and, and that, uh, became the beginning of, uh, the journey for, for Hive for me.

Um, so, um, we can obviously talk more about Hive, but that's kind of how it started and that's kind of what we do. Uh, and as a matter of fact, you are catching me at a very opportune moment. because literally yesterday we released our first version. So.

Wow. Congratulations. That's huge. It's good.

It's huge. That is amazing. So that's, that was Wednesday, September 28th. And so when you say the first version is released, um, can I try it out?

Can I download it? I can participate in. You can, if you have a Windows machine, uh, we don't have a Mac version yet. I'll send the Mac version when I'm running Mac myself.

Sure. Um, the thing is that, you know, we haven't gotten, you know, this better than anyone else, all the signatures, uh, from Apple, like approved, you know, all the, all the developers. So when you install, when you, when you still have, you get all these warnings. And so you need to mute those warnings installed, you know, cleanly.

So since, uh, you know, uh, you know, all of this better than I do. Security. Something like that. Yeah.

Yeah. No, I, I, I got to loop in our listeners. Like what's going on with Apple. They, Apple is pretty famous for being a closed ecosystem.

Meaning they do try to control what goes into it, but on your desktop computer, it's been pretty open, but they're slowly introducing this feature called gatekeeper and a developer program. And so all software that runs on America is supposed to be signed with a, a private key that chains back up to a root of trust that goes through their developer program. So that they can detect things that were not developed by a, a person that has an official relationship with Apple, uh, through the developer program. And it sounds like they're, they're making great strides.

I don't follow their program very closely, but it sounds like they're starting to get to the point where error messages become like, um, almost like barriers to entry. Oh. It is. Because the error message is actually incorrect.

You know, say the program is broken. It cannot work. I mean, you know, but what you see when you try to make such an install, uh, is if you are an inexperienced end user, you're going to say, okay, I'm not going to install something that doesn't work. Of course.

Of course. But when you send me the, you know, the Mac version, I'm just going to cook through all of those warnings. I'll be like, yeah, I know what I'm doing. Uh, don't worry.

Like I'll, there's a special command line interface. Uh, you know, your strength, which I'll send you, which will mute all of those things. So don't worry about that. Okay.

I'll, I'll be happy to run that. And, uh, I have plenty of spare compute. So I'll be interested to see like if, um, maybe the next big SAS service can be, uh, deployed on top of Hive and part of it can run on my local machine here. Yeah.

In San Francisco. And, um, maybe even use some of the storage. Cause I have four terabytes of storage on this, this machine. I don't use all of it, not by any stretch of the imagination.

So do you monetize? So as a, as a contributor to the network, is there any sort of reward that I get for participating? Exactly. You get a reward.

Um, at this time, uh, the reward is what you share, you get in exchange. So if you share one terabyte, you'll get one terabyte from the network, uh, which you can use to backup your files. Um, and, uh, we don't make money. Um, no, we don't plan to make money out of what I call this pure exchange.

Uh, having said that, if you want to consume less than, you know, what we share, we ought to pay you, so we're going to actually pay you, uh, a, um, a monthly fee, uh, because we're going to use, um, the end use capacity that you have, uh, for people who want to consume more than what they share. And, um, and so our goal will be to kind of in a wholesale fashion, buy all these, uh, compute and storage capacity. And then set it at the same price, but with a 5% transaction fee back to the users who want to consume more than the exchange. I, I think that's, that's awesome.

It's almost like taking the business model of Uber and distributing it across, uh, folks that just have spare resources and spare time, uh, help connect people looking for rides as folks able and willing to give rides. And so we're doing it in the compute space and instead of centralizing all of the stuff like AWS has done, like, you know, Google GCP has done where there's a big company behind it. Then the yellow taxi cab shows up and you have to call one specific phone number, it goes to central dispatch. Like this is the decentralized model of compute and storage.

Exactly. Very nice. Very nice. Um, I, I, I like to, you know, ask your permission to use what you just described in my, like a next hive introduction video, uh, because it is, it is so well said and so well, you know, metaphor, you know, I hope you'll, you'll give me that.

Oh, please. Yeah, of course. Of course. I, um, I'm just, I'm just rephrasing what you've shared.

And so this, all of the content is yours a hundred percent. Like please do. I'd be very flattered. Um, so what's been your best day along your journey so far with hives?

28th of September, 2022, the release of the first version. Um, yesterday was your best day. Amazing. Yeah.

Yeah. You're still floating on the clouds. I am. I am still, but distributed cloud, you know, there's nothing.

I'm perfect that way. Now, essentially, it's got the distributed cloud that we're floating on. Exactly. Uh, yeah.

I mean, the reason it's a best day, um, you are a software engineer, you know, training and, you know, you know, how hard it is to converge the first release. You know, you have to not only converge the code, but the engineering, you know, back office things behind it. Um, yeah. Together the support system, the release system, the tracking system, the data collections.

I mean, everything that, that comes, that needs to come together, it's still enough effort. Um, and, uh, and so, uh, what's really beautiful about this and why I'm so happy is not that it's the best product ever. I honestly think it's not, you know, the first version, um, uh, is of Hive is something we look at, you know, uh, as, oh, why did we release this thing? You know, a few, a few releases from now.

But it is actually how everything comes together and the team comes together. And suddenly, you know, the, the, the humans, the, you know, um, you know, just, just merge with each other in, in, in this. In this common goal in, in ways in which no words, uh, no process, uh, no rule can describe. It just happens.

And, uh, I've seen this many, many times all the time. I mean, many, many times. And in every time I have goosebumps from it because, because I think it represents some of the best of humanity, this ability to come together for a common cause and to produce something that didn't exist before. Yeah.

It's creation. Yeah. Yeah. I, I understand that entirely.

I remember when we first released the public version of symphony and, um, there were cigars and vaults. And at the end of the day, they're in the back of the, oh, back behind the offices. It was a celebration of the greatest type. And I'm sure that, uh, it, there at Hive, uh, you're, you're broadcasting from New York, right?

Yes. Yeah. I'm sure there's celebrations happening there too. Okay.

So how about the worst day that you've had on your jury so far at Hive? Um, so there was a moment, um, was in October, November last year. I, uh, so you have to put things in perspective, right? I did symphony.

Um, now I am raising, uh, for Hive and, uh, and there are, uh, things that I absolutely want to do differently than I have done in symphony because I have learned a few lessons. And, um, and, um, and one of the things that I absolutely wanted to do was that I am going to have, um, majority control over some key decisions, no matter how much I own in the company. Okay. And so that basically means that, you know, my shares will have more voting rights than investor shares.

Right. Okay. Which I did not have at symphony. Right.

And so, um, so, you know, I'm negotiating with investors around that. And it's a, it's a very, very difficult topic. Like you cannot imagine. And, uh, because they don't want to, nobody wants to lose control.

Um, so, um, but, but somehow, um, you know, through grits, uh, through, uh, empathy, through negotiation. I managed to get the lead investor to agree to, to, to this. So I'm pretty happy with it. And I'm saying, okay, you're right.

You know, so, uh, I received the final draft. Um, and, um, I was in Hong Kong at that time. Um, so, uh, it gave me an excuse to sleep over because it was my evening. It was their afternoon.

They were European, uh, VC firm. Um, and so I said, okay, you know, uh, I got it. You know, it's now 11 PM for me. I'll get back to tomorrow morning.

Right. Um, so I also had six hours in the morning when I woke up to think about it. Right. You're safe.

And yeah, it's good. It's 24 hours was very important. And so I go, uh, once more, you know, over the term sheets and, and kind of all the process. And I realized that I don't want this deal.

I don't want it. And, uh, I don't want this investor. And, uh, so, but I have no other investor. I mean, I, I mean, he's the, you know, they are the lead investor.

Right. Okay. I have other investors, but if I basically don't do the deal with this investor, I don't know what's going to happen to others. I mean, you know.

Right. That's a very precarious situation because of the other investors are not prepared to put more in, but if they lose the lead investor, then. And their investment becomes much riskier because now there's a huge chunk of capital that's not being injected. It needs to get injected in order for them to feel comfortable again.

Right. Absolutely. So here you go. Right.

You know, we are almost there. All I need is to sign that thing. So there's something that I negotiated so hard that they agreed to, but I decided not to do it. What was they, did they try to sneak something else into the terms or.

No, it was just too painful. It's just me. To arrive to that level. And I said to myself, what if I am in a different situation now that the company exists and I'm going to have to negotiate again with them.

Right. And, and is this really the culture, the type of investor I want in the cup table or not? Right. And I realized I didn't want that.

And so suddenly back to square one, no money for HIFE. And despite the fact that I had all the money I wanted. And so, you know, the, the call when the woke up was not an easy call to make, to explain it, Verizon, and then I have to figure out what I'm going to do next because I have to start from scratch. Uh, so yeah, that was, and that was a low point.

Yeah. That, those can be very difficult decisions that we have to make as founders. Uh, but keeping that long-term vision in mind and, and I a hundred percent empathize with. Why to retain control of the company, because if you retain control of the company, you retain control of your, you can execute against your vision.

Right. Uh, but if it's an arm and a leg and twisting, and is it really the optimal partner? Because when you pull in an investor, it's not just capital that they bring, right? It's supposed to be the network and the support and maybe a couple of customers and initial traction and advertising and help with the marketing or even like the security of the whole thing.

So. And on top of that, the judging. And the judging. Yeah.

Yeah. And, uh, and so, you know, one day, uh, I was at Microsoft, um, and we were in a very tough negotiation with an organization, a very, very tough negotiation. I mean, I was the one instigating the, the, the break of a massive contract, which I felt that, um, you know, was against Microsoft. And, uh, and so, um, we are going in this, uh, in this negotiation, you know, with the top lawyers and everywhere, but I am the business lead.

And so, uh, we arrived to this point in which. For me, I'm just not going to continue. I, uh, I'm not going to do this deal. I'm saying that I'm just too tired.

I'm not doing this deal. It doesn't go the way it should go. And so I go to my boss. I say, you know, uh, Bob, his name is Bob said, Bob, you know, I'm sorry, but I'm going to walk away.

I'm not doing this deal. And he looks at me and he says, David, you are now ready to do the deal because you are ready to walk away. You, you mean walk away from your role with Microsoft. Yes.

To be totally clear about this. Yes. I was. And, and he said, now you are ready to do the deal.

And now you're ready. Okay. And I didn't understand what he said, but it took me, I don't know how long, but it meant that I had nothing to lose anymore. Right.

Right. You see, at that point, suddenly, you know, all of the, the artificial, you know, constraints I put left and right, uh, in my decision process, gone. Mm-hmm. And I just could do whatever I wanted to do.

Mm-hmm. And, um, and it's exactly the same thing that happened with Hive. So when that situation happened, I said, okay, what, I'm not going to do Hive. I don't care.

You know, not doing it. If I, if it's not going to happen the way I want, I'm not going to do Hive. Right. And so that, that gave me somehow the courage.

To say no. And to, to say, okay, I'll do it only in the right condition. At least I gave myself, you know, this out. Right.

Uh, I think that was critical. Well, you, you speak from a position of power. Uh, when you respect yourself, you know, that, and you acknowledge that like these are small. I mean, maybe they're not small problems to face, but there's, you put it into context, you know, and you remind yourself like what really matters at the end of the day.

Yeah. Yeah. That can be very empowering. A hundred percent.

David and I, we both ride motorcycles. Um, it's a very dangerous, uh, endeavor. Often I've had some very close calls. And so I count all of this as icing on the cake.

Um, sometimes I use that experiences just as a, as a similar reminder. Yes. Um, and I don't know, I've always see one regret. We haven't written, um, you know, many times together.

That's right. Yes. Yeah. We will, we will fix this.

Like, yeah, we have to. We have to. Absolutely. I look forward to that too.

We'll do some spectacular, perhaps longer rides. Or Europe or. Have you done ever. Anytime in Europe.

I mean, you know, um, there are some beautiful passes and, uh, and, and areas of Europe. I want to go like from, from, like from town where I am, uh, you know, in summer times all the way to, uh, to the Northern tip of Norway. There we go. So if we step back and we look at this bigger picture.

And through this lens of the bigger picture, you fast forward into the future and I'll let you decide how, how much we would like to fast forward into the future for this. But you look at that future and you see a smashing success for highs. Can you, can you help us see like what that is for you? The moonshot?

The moonshot. Yeah. Like your North storm. Uh, well, high becomes the fabric of our digital lives.

Um, you know, it's, it's, it's in every device. It takes, um, um, care of, uh, giving us privacy. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. It takes care of, uh, giving us means to, uh, have a, uh, sustainable. Use of digital resources that, um, we love to use, or we have to use. Mm-hmm.

Um, it facilitates, um, uh, the, uh, solving of massive, uh, you know, complete problems, uh, that humanity faces as we need to progress science. Uh, because we have, um, you know, billions of computers and only two, 20 million of, uh, servers in data centers around the world. So, you know, imagine you could put a billion computer together to work just for four hours, you know, to solve a particular, you know, genome problem or, or particular math problem. Um, like Riemann hypothesis verification.

And, and, you know, you, you, you, we could make maybe leap forward, um, in, uh, in the way humanity survives, in the way humanity thrives, um, and offers new doors. So, uh, so that for me, for me, the biggest, uh, uh, reward. No, I love it. Um, very inspirational.

So, uh, makes me want to go off and look to see if you have any job openings. That's always. Do you have job openings for security experts? Okay.

Well, and you did mention privacy. Yes. Oh, I'm obsessed about privacy. You're obsessed about privacy.

I mean, when I, when I put my data on someone else's computer or when I run a very sensitive program or some compute on someone else's computer, I am thinking about privacy. How, how do you see, let's double click on that just for a second. What's that, what's that story? What's that piece of the story look like?

Before we go on the mechanics of that, I think we need to think about, we need to understand what's to, what's to current situation. Right. Right. The afrocious current situation.

Yeah. The current situation is, um, is an anti-private as you can imagine it could be. Right. Uh, so this is where we use, um, services from the Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, and a few others, like Box and Dropbox.

Yep. Um, in which the, the, our personal data, okay, gets stored, um, in the property of these companies and we subject that data to their commercial needs. And so they make money in two ways. They make money in one way, which is they sell subscription services to individuals or corporates, um, or they sell free services in the hope that you can upgrade to a subscription service.

Um, and, and, uh, regardless of, you know, which, um, path you take on a commercial basis, um, that data is used to, uh, generate revenue for these companies, um, and increasingly for machine learning. And we are therefore a product at their service. Um, and, uh, that, uh, is, uh, uh, uh, uh, and, uh, uh, any data that is, uh, part of, uh, their infrastructure, um, without your knowledge can be used, uh, you know, against you, uh, or, um, any investigation by any, any U. S.

authority. Um, and, uh, and so we literally have no privacy. Like it just does not exist. Right.

And if you were to read their end user license agreements, the EULAs, it's pretty explicit. They're not lying to you. They're just saying, you know, bluntly, your data is ours. We can do whatever we want with it.

Don't put your data in our system. If you care about privacy, don't put your data in our system. If you think that your data needs protection because we don't guarantee it. Right.

Okay. So that's the lay of the ground. I think that's not okay. I just, for me, there are a number of things which are great with the cloud.

And there are a number of things which are wrong with the cloud. And this is, I would say, by far the first one. And so for me, building high isn't only trying to take advantage of this end use capacity of computers and using good technologies. But it's mostly building a cloud that's better.

Us as individuals and corporate. So privacy is built into the DNA of the company. And so it's entirely zero trust system. Now, if you want to double click into this, you know, it's full end-to-end encryption.

There is a master key that you create. It's stored into your local secure vault of Windows and Mac. And you forget it, you know, it's screwed. There is no way to recover it.

And from there, we derive the second key. From there, we derive a subset of keys. And those keys are only known to you. And only you can never, ever, ever access to it.

And then we encrypt data and metadata. So anything that goes into the infrastructure, anything that goes into the internet, anything that is stored in your computer or for, of somewhere else's data is unpenetrable. So, not only by the virtue of this encryption, we use AES-256, which is the post-quantum resistance, you know, certified algorithm today. And, but we generate a new key for every chunk of data we create.

So, we take a data, we cut it in size of 64K, and then we compress it. And then that compressed file is then encrypted with a different key each time. And so, it's sharded in 1K sizes, and then it's, you know, distributed across the network. And so, the data that you might host for me, maybe, you know, 3K of my, you know, 1G file, that 3K, even if you were to be able to access that, there's just nothing you can do with it.

Right. No, I love it. So, it means that the places that my data ends up will never, never, never be able to access that data directly because I'm the one controlling the key and all of those derived keys from that one key. It's encrypting.

So, this is better than the Googles and the AWSs of the world today because that key is actually controlled by them in their cloud. And, of course, I'm sure they do some encryption, but they're also controlling the key. And this puts me, as the user, the owner of the data, I prefer the word owner because it is my data. The owner of my data is encrypted on my local machine before it's sent up and out and distributed across the Hive network and maybe even used for compute operations, too.

So, perfect. That's great. I love that. Let me ask a follow-up question.

Yeah. If you don't mind, like, one more double click. So, if there's a smashing success and Google comes to you, David, tomorrow and says, like, oh, we saw yesterday you released this thing, it's going to fit perfectly with our vision of how we want to move forward with how we run all of the services in Google. We're going to deploy all of our services on Call of Those Pives.

The data that ends up inside Hive through Google, through my use of Google, could that still be encrypted using my key so that Google doesn't have visibility? Maybe there's. . .

That's the only way to do it. We are not going to do it any other way. It's just not designed nor desired to do it in any other way. Okay.

I like the future. Yeah. This is a good future. Commutable features of Hive.

And this is, I would say, absolute one. No deviation around that. I love this vision of the future. Thank you so much for sharing, not just sharing your vision of the future, but making it, bringing it to fruition, too.

Let's go back to your job board first, Lelby. I remember when you interviewed me, it was actually one of the best interviews that I've ever had. It was very unexpected, but most delightful. And so that leads into this question, which is, do you have a favorite interview question or questions?

Yeah, I have questions. Can I get more than one shot? Sure. Okay.

Of course. The first one I always ask, you know, after getting to know the person is, if you have a superpower, what will that be? I really like that. The second question is, I send you back in time.

With all the knowledge that you have, you will not forget, you know, whatever you know, you know. You have right to go back in time. Pick, first of all, pick the age that you want to go back in. So that's the first question.

And then why? And the second question is that, now that you have all this knowledge, what are you going to do with it? I'm super curious, what time period would you go back to? I'm sure you've thought about this.

Of course. Every day. Every day. For me, that will be when I was 13, 14 years old.

We left Middle East when my dad retired and we moved to Cannes. Yeah. And, you know, I wish I knew what I know today. And go back and correct a few things that needed correction back then.

Mm-hmm. That's, no, that's spectacular. That's awesome. So you'd be part of the change that you want to see in the room.

I feel like that's just part of the journey that we're all on as entrepreneurs, right? Yes, we are. So. I think we like change.

I think that's the, one of the, the, the, the essential elements of entrepreneurship is that you, you are a change agent. You know, you embrace, you know, you embrace, you promote change. Always. A catalyst.

Mentally, that's, that's really what we are after. Right. Right. And having that playful sense of empathy to help answer that question.

Like, what does it mean to have a better future? Yes. Right. Do you have any other interview questions that you enjoy?

Well, I got plenty. I'm not going to go through the, you know, what's our, or. John Follett. Those things.

Yeah. I tell you, I tell you, actually, for me, when I interview someone, I honestly don't care about the skills interview. The reason I don't, it's not like I don't care is because I assume that I have a resume here. I'm somebody who is coming with some experience.

And I can always do reference check that it's very hard to lie and, and survive, you know, first or week or two in your job. If you're not skilled, you know, you are going to get ejected very, very fast. And so no need to bother on that kind of stuff. Now in the engineering universe, there are a bunch of coding tests and et cetera that people make.

It is what it is. For me, that is not actually what defines a good hire. It's not the skill. Because I have made so many mistakes of hiring the best skilled people that I was, could be jealous of because they were so good.

Right. But they screwed the entire project. Because of the problem of who they were, not the problem of what they did. And so therefore, my focus is the person and not the skill.

And my questions are always around understanding the person. And most importantly, and I can't in an hour to get, you know, an idea of a person. It's too short of a time. Sure.

Whether they have self-awareness and a reality which is not distorted so that they can improve and they can change. Growth mindset. Growth mindset. Growth mindset.

Growth mindset. So that's what I am after when I interview someone. Does this person has this capacity or not? And if they do, no matter who they are, they will become better.

That's true. You can learn new things. Yeah. You can.

I mean, technology is always changing anyway. You better be able to learn these things. Right. Exactly.

Right. I mean, I'm not done learning. There's so many things out there. So I'm optimistic that I think most people share that mentality.

So. Most people do. There are a few who don't. And you need to find ways to, you know, filter them out from the company you are building.

Yep. It's, you know, it's that passion. It's the drive. It's the one thing that I don't know how to teach somebody.

And I don't know, like, it has to come from inside you. You have to want it. It's like a hunger. John, I think everybody has it.

Everyone has it. Everyone. I think it's just not necessarily applied to the job that they're interviewing for. Right.

Oh, I see what you mean. Yeah. I mean, you know, I don't know. Imagine I don't drink alcohol or smoke cigarettes.

Now, if you were to hire me for one of those companies, right. You know, who are doing manufacturing and selling those goods. Honesty. You will not find me passionate.

About it. Okay. I mean, it's going to, I'm going to come flat and in interesting. Okay.

Because I just don't have a passion for that. Some people do and that's perfect. As long as that passion and skill matches that domain in which they want to work in. Right.

And I think as an interviewer or as a hiring manager, our job is to make sure that for the respect of the respect of the people who we live with in this adventure and for the respect of this individual who wants to join us, that we make the best match possible. Because if not, this person suffers and we suffer. That's right. But when it's a good match, like both benefit.

And this is why. Fly together. Fly together. I like that.

Yeah. Fly together. Very nice. No, thank you for sharing.

If, if you think about your experience, maybe with Hive, maybe with Symphony, and you fast forward a little bit into the future, is there one tool or service that you're just dying to have show up in the marketplace that you've never, I don't know, maybe never had the interest to build, but have always needed or never had the time to build, but it has always needed. This is a little bit of a leading question for entrepreneurs who listen to this and are, are playing around with. I'll show you something. Like, these are my bills of my trip into New York.

Like, there's all of these. Oh, yes. Okay. So I have to go through each one, Y11, and file it so that, you know, the expense claims is done.

I want to get rid of this. You want to get rid of this. I want to get rid of this. There's really no reason, right, in a world in which I have Google, Apple Pay.

Yep. Right? That you have to make really interesting expenses. Yeah.

This doesn't automatically go into my expense. Why will I have to get those things print, you know, not print, and I have to go and scan it and attach it. And all this stuff. Such a waste of time.

I'm going to spend probably an hour, an hour and a half just to do that at the end of this trip. So, well, as long as somebody has access to Apple Pay APIs and Google Pay APIs. Yep. And you can build a UI on top of that.

Like, imagine a scenario in which, you know, I make a payment. You know, it goes through. And then, puff, I have a pop-up that comes from, you know, the native experience. Is it business or personal account?

It's a business or personal expense. Business expense. And this thing knows I'm in a trip. And, wow, we're done.

I mean, you know, that will be such a lifesaver. Would you switch carriers if it only showed up on an Android? Like, reach from Google to Apple. Yeah, I would.

Yeah. I mean, as long as I do business. Because, you know, you travel and you have these expenses. Yep.

In a personal life, I'm not sure if that would be a good reason to switch. But maybe there will be utility. Maybe it's for tax benefits. I don't know.

Maybe. Yep. All those. That's a very good idea.

I love that idea, actually. So, David. It's been a pleasure. Please do it.

Please don't hesitate. David, it's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you so much for joining on the show of the Security Podcast in Silicon Valley and sharing just a little bit about your great experience and your adventure along the way and some very personal stories. Thank you, John.

Just don't be afraid. Let's go for it. All right. Well, thank you for everyone for tuning in.

And don't forget to catch the next episode as well. Thanks.