Speaker 1: You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and
Speaker 1: Tim Stenebek on Bloomberg Radio. Well, Carol, I'm reading a
Speaker 1: book right now. Actually, Jason Kelly, your former co anchor
Speaker 1: here on Bloomberg Business So he recommended it to me.
Speaker 1: He recommended it to me a couple of years ago.
Speaker 1: I'm a little behind. I bought it that I'm getting
Speaker 1: around for reading it. It's called The Avery. It's by
Speaker 1: Dave Aggers. It takes place in a not so distant
Speaker 1: dystopian future where one single, huge tech company pretty much
Speaker 1: controls everything from social media to e commerce to search.
Speaker 2: Wait aren't we there? Oh no, sorry, Well.
Speaker 1: That's a good question. Here's the thing. Almost everyone lives
Speaker 1: under constant surveillance, their cameras everywhere, people broadcast their entire lives.
Speaker 1: Everybody's on their best behavior lest they be caught on
Speaker 1: camera saying the wrong thing or not recycling. Oh my
Speaker 1: what Yeah?
Speaker 2: All right, So, given we're technologies today, it's actually not
Speaker 2: that hard of a future to imagine, and perhaps our
Speaker 2: next guest is trying to prevent the world from emerging
Speaker 2: that specific world. So we've got with us Tim Tom Keppy.
Speaker 1: He's the author a new book containing Big Tech How
Speaker 1: to Protect our civil rights, economy, and democracy. He's also
Speaker 1: co founder of the cybersecurity firm Centrify. It's now called Delinea.
Speaker 1: It was bought by Toma Bravo back in twenty nineteen
Speaker 1: and later by TPG. He's volunteered on the Biden Harris
Speaker 1: Tech Policy Team. He did that in twenty twenty. He
Speaker 1: worked with advocacy groups for years on legislation around consumer
Speaker 1: privacy and data protection. He joins us on Zoom from
Speaker 1: Menlo Park, California. Tom, good to have you with us.
Speaker 1: How are you.
Speaker 3: I'm doing great, Thanks for having me on.
Speaker 1: Well, thanks so much for joining us. So we have
Speaker 1: some a bit of time this afternoon, and we have
Speaker 1: a lot to get to. But I want to know
Speaker 1: at the specific moment that you realized that you thought
Speaker 1: that big tech needed to be contained.
Speaker 3: Well, my last company was Centrify, and it's cybersecurity, and
Speaker 3: we saw all these hacks coming in and it really
Speaker 3: became clear that when a couple of these companies got breached,
Speaker 3: just the incredible amounts of data that was being accessed
Speaker 3: by the bad guys. It really got me to appreciate
Speaker 3: that We're now in a situation where especially little, larger
Speaker 3: tech companies are really just over collecting so much information
Speaker 3: about us. And you know, in the past, you know,
Speaker 3: companies like Standard Oil were powerful, but they didn't know
Speaker 3: everything about us, and that's that was the Really when
Speaker 3: seeing the hacks and seeing all this data slashing around
Speaker 3: really made me say, uh uh, something's going on here.
Speaker 2: All right, Tom, I'm going to put it out there.
Speaker 2: I'm going for a headline here. But is it like
Speaker 2: climate change or maybe like climate change, that we might
Speaker 2: just be too late, that this train has definitely left
Speaker 2: the station.
Speaker 3: You know, I think we actually, because it's bits and
Speaker 3: bytes versus the sky and clouds and the earth rotating
Speaker 3: and trees and all that stuff, I think we can
Speaker 3: actually control it. I mean, the fundamental issue is in
Speaker 3: the US, we don't have a federal privacy law. Right.
Speaker 3: We don't have rights over our data, the right to
Speaker 3: know what's being collected about us, the right to say
Speaker 3: no and say please don't sell or share my data,
Speaker 3: or the right to correct or right to delete. So
Speaker 3: I do think that we could really make some significant
Speaker 3: strides and be able to govern our information. And if
Speaker 3: we don't Frankly, it is going to get worse with
Speaker 3: AI because then all of a sudden, our data, and
Speaker 3: a lot of it's our personal data, kind of becomes
Speaker 3: part of this big blender of AI utilizing our data
Speaker 3: to create other things as well. And we worry about copyrights, right,
Speaker 3: what about our data? Well?
Speaker 2: What about do we follow the lead of what's going
Speaker 2: on in Europe? And I think about the GDPR, right,
Speaker 2: the General Data Protection Regulation that's out there that really
Speaker 2: does push for privacy protections and security of personal data.
Speaker 2: Is that what we need here in the United States specifically?
Speaker 2: Is that what you're kind of pushing for.
Speaker 3: Well, actually we've done it here in California. So I
Speaker 3: mean you're referring to Europe's privacy law and people call
Speaker 3: it the Brussels effect, but California, we've historically had the
Speaker 3: California effect. It first started with auto emissions and consumer
Speaker 3: protection around car safety, et cetera. And then California in
Speaker 3: nineteen seventy two actually put privacy as an inalienable right
Speaker 3: into our constitution, and from a privacy and cybersecurity perspective,
Speaker 3: we were the first state to actually pass a data
Speaker 3: breach notification law, right and we are and have been
Speaker 3: the first state with the most comprehensive privacy law. So
Speaker 3: I think California actually has a better model where it's
Speaker 3: able to balance innovation with the tech players, but also
Speaker 3: give consumers some basic rights over their data and how
Speaker 3: it's used.
Speaker 1: Tom, you're also a seed investor in many startups right now.
Speaker 1: They include companies with names like Sakouvi, Privacy Code, Trusted,
Speaker 1: twin Ivy Technology, share Id, Sunday Security, Surf Security, Holistic AI.
Speaker 1: The list goes on the cynic and perhaps somebody would say, well,
Speaker 1: wait a second, this guy's has this agenda because he's
Speaker 1: invested in a lot of companies that want to take
Speaker 1: on the big guys. He's invested in a lot of
Speaker 1: companies that would benefit from company from having stricter data
Speaker 1: protection laws here in the US. What would you say
Speaker 1: to that.
Speaker 3: Well, I'm back, Maybe this is a bad analogy, but
Speaker 3: al Gore, you mentioned climate change. You know, he was
Speaker 3: talking about climate change for years and then you know,
Speaker 3: he was having difficulties trying to get things passed from
Speaker 3: a policy perspective, but so he wanted to have change done.
Speaker 3: So he started joining boards and he's on the board
Speaker 3: of Apple, but he's also involved in climate funds. So
Speaker 3: everything that I've been talking about as it relates to
Speaker 3: privacy in the book is things that are written years ago,
Speaker 3: well before or I actually started doing any investing, and
Speaker 3: so I'm trying to put my time and effort into
Speaker 3: making changes. And what I'm doing with my investments is
Speaker 3: actually trying to empower consumers to better secure them and
Speaker 3: protect themselves. So my investments tend to be more consumer
Speaker 3: centric and trying to help stop identity theft or help
Speaker 3: people get better control over their privacy as well. But
Speaker 3: I've been completely consistent. I have a blog that's been
Speaker 3: out there for years. I've talked about these things. I
Speaker 3: was a full time volunteer on Proposition twenty four in California,
Speaker 3: and it wasn't only to just relatively recently that I've
Speaker 3: been complimenting and supplementing this, but I've been completely consistent
Speaker 3: in my advocacy of better cybersecurity, better privacy for you,
Speaker 3: me and other people as well. And so yeah, that's
Speaker 3: I mean, people can say that, you know, but the
Speaker 3: record shows that I've consistently been talking about this and
Speaker 3: proposing this for years.
Speaker 2: Well, and on what you said, if we go along
Speaker 2: with what you kind of said in akin to what
Speaker 2: we saw with al Gore, he was right in terms
Speaker 2: of the concerns about climate change, and so if we
Speaker 2: had all paid a lot more attention, maybe we wouldn't
Speaker 2: be kind of in the world we are today. If
Speaker 2: you are right about your concerns and we ignore them.
Speaker 2: In terms of cybersecurity, where could that what's the dark scenario,
Speaker 2: the dystopian scenario of all of this data accumulate, accumulation
Speaker 2: on all of us in the hands of a few
Speaker 2: big tech companies.
Speaker 3: Well, you know, look, historically the large tech companies their
Speaker 3: business models was advertising. And for us, we made that
Speaker 3: trade off to say, Okay, I'm gonna give you all
Speaker 3: this data and you're gonna give me these free services.
Speaker 3: And then what happened was that, you know, we started
Speaker 3: shopping for a red dress or red basketball shoes, and
Speaker 3: then all of a sudden, for the next seven weeks,
Speaker 3: every web page had that red dress or those red
Speaker 3: basket all shoes.
Speaker 2: It was creepy tory being a journalist and like researching
Speaker 2: a company that we're gonna have on a guest that
Speaker 2: does something like men's underwear, and then we're getting it.
Speaker 2: Sorry anyway, go ahead.
Speaker 3: That is it's creepy. I'm doing work.
Speaker 2: I'm doing work seriously, seriously anyway.
Speaker 3: But the problem is is that we are now in
Speaker 3: a post abortion rights America where stuff that we did
Speaker 3: before is actually illegal in some states. Or there's data
Speaker 3: like you know, there's all these issues about trans and
Speaker 3: so the information and that type of data is now
Speaker 3: actually can be used against people because before it was
Speaker 3: offered to advertisers, but it could be offered to people
Speaker 3: to harass or discriminate against people as well. And so
Speaker 3: but even if you just step even further back, I mean,
Speaker 3: the reality is is that this data is being collected
Speaker 3: about us as adults. And yeah, maybe we can navigate
Speaker 3: around some of the rabbit holes or not, you know,
Speaker 3: disregard these ads, But what about our kids. There's no
Speaker 3: differentiation if our kids are on the keyboard versus us
Speaker 3: on the keyboard, and I think that's fundamentally unhealthy. So yes,
Speaker 3: I think that the actors have figured out how to
Speaker 3: start weaponizing this data that historically has been used for advertising.
Speaker 2: I want to get back to our guest, Tom Camp.
Speaker 2: He has a new book out already available containing big
Speaker 2: tech how to protect our civil rights, economy, and democracy.
Speaker 2: He's co founder of the cybersecurity company Centrify, former CEO
Speaker 2: of that company. He was also, i should point out,
Speaker 2: a volunteer on the Biden Harris Tech Policy Team back
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty and has worked with advocacy groups on
Speaker 2: legislation around consumer privacy and data protection. He's still with
Speaker 2: us on Zoom from Menlo Park, California.
Speaker 1: You've got to scroll a lot when LinkedIn, I'll tell
Speaker 1: you that story.
Speaker 2: We've run out of time. We can't.
Speaker 1: Sorry, Tom, we're TK haven't met any of your investments yet,
Speaker 1: and he's a man qualified to write a.
Speaker 3: Book like this.
Speaker 2: So Tom, AI Artificial intelligence generative AI. We're talking about
Speaker 2: next level generation AI, something we've all been obsessed at about.
Speaker 2: Has that sped up the need to do something soon
Speaker 2: or so? In other words, is that a catalyst for
Speaker 2: concern when it comes to cybersecurity and data information and
Speaker 2: our privacy issues?
Speaker 3: Absolutely? Yes. It's funny because there are so many people
Speaker 3: running around Silicon Valley with business plans to do more
Speaker 3: for cybersecurity as it relates to AI and so, and
Speaker 3: also as it relates to privacy. I mean there's a
Speaker 3: lot of concerns that companies will you know, employees within
Speaker 3: companies will take their sales data and say, well, what
Speaker 3: does chat GPT have to say with it? And all
Speaker 3: of a sudden they upload the data to get some
Speaker 3: nice graphs, reports, some analysis, and low and behold. Now
Speaker 3: open AI has your entire sales pipeline. Right, same thing
Speaker 3: with customer information, right companies right. Right.
Speaker 2: Companies have warned their employees like, don't do that, because
Speaker 2: you're sharing.
Speaker 3: Information exactly, And so I think that, and then of
Speaker 3: course there's not only the input, but there's also the
Speaker 3: output of information. And are you going to be liable
Speaker 3: if you generate if there's content generated, and then it's
Speaker 3: based on copyright, but you're putting that as a business,
Speaker 3: you're putting that out on your own. I do have
Speaker 3: a funny story. So a family friend of ours has
Speaker 3: a daughter. She was told to write an essay in
Speaker 3: high school. This's just passed in the spring, and she
Speaker 3: wrote a great essay about what's the best way to
Speaker 3: get into college? And she said, Hey, I'm going to
Speaker 3: move to Montana. I'm going to take the bassoon up.
Speaker 3: It was a funny essay. The teacher said, you used
Speaker 3: chat GBT to write it and so and how could
Speaker 3: she actually like and she didn't. But it was like
Speaker 3: that big debate, like is was this machine generated or
Speaker 3: human generated? I think that issue is going to come
Speaker 3: up a lot with business.
Speaker 1: That's really interesting. And look, we're just at the beginning
Speaker 1: of this, Carol, as we've talked about a lot. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so when we think about Tom, how this is, you know,
Speaker 1: really in our lives each and every day. The book
Speaker 1: focuses on Meta, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, and Google, what they're
Speaker 1: doing individually, but also what they're doing as a group.
Speaker 1: If you were to pick one company in there that
Speaker 1: you are most concerned about, which one is it.
Speaker 3: It's a close tie between Meta and Google. It's just
Speaker 3: because of the vast amounts of information that they collect
Speaker 3: on each and every one of us. And so Google,
Speaker 3: I did various experiments, and Google was collecting information about
Speaker 3: me on average every five minutes, and so it had
Speaker 3: a complete dossier in terms of where I was going,
Speaker 3: what I was searching. I have an Android phone. It
Speaker 3: knew exactly what apps I was accessing, It knew the notifications,
Speaker 3: et cetera. And you know, Google had actually made some
Speaker 3: promises after Roe v. Wade was repealed, and they said,
Speaker 3: you know what, We're going to discard any reproductive rights
Speaker 3: related information about searches for abortion or visits, mapping information
Speaker 3: about visits to abortion clinics, planned parenthoods et cetera. And
Speaker 3: so I put that to the test last fall as
Speaker 3: I was researching this book. Turns out it wasn't the
Speaker 3: case that they were still collecting this information, and that
Speaker 3: led to an article that appeared in the Guardian and
Speaker 3: then a couple of months ago, Jeffrey Fowler the Washington
Speaker 3: Post also saw the same thing as well. So you know,
Speaker 3: when when healthcare related things become you know, illegal, and
Speaker 3: the data is being collected, it just raises serious concerns
Speaker 3: and issues about how this data could be used potentially
Speaker 3: against people. And of course we know the expression digital redlining,
Speaker 3: and with algorithms and now becoming AI, you know, how
Speaker 3: much control do we do? We have to say, wait
Speaker 3: a minute, that that out put was incorrect.
Speaker 2: So you note and how we started technology a gift
Speaker 2: and a curse. Can we get to a point where
Speaker 2: it's no longer a curse? Can it be managed in
Speaker 2: a way where we still benefit by the amount of
Speaker 2: data that so many companies have that kind of makes
Speaker 2: some processes much easier for all of us. Like what's
Speaker 2: the balance here?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean it's funny because like if you have
Speaker 3: kids and you have a car, you probably would put
Speaker 3: them in a car seat, right and you would put
Speaker 3: them in the back of the car. But that wasn't
Speaker 3: there before. So we put we put some guardrails. And
Speaker 3: so I'm not proposing that our technology environment ecosystem becomes
Speaker 3: like airline safety, but it should be like car safety
Speaker 3: that we have air bags, that we have speed limits,
Speaker 3: you know, things of that nature as well. And there's
Speaker 3: two core fundamental facts. Fact number one is that there
Speaker 3: is no oversight or regulation in terms of the data
Speaker 3: being collected and how it's going to be used, with
Speaker 3: the exception in specific sectors based on laws such as
Speaker 3: Hip and Graham Leach Blily that were passed in the
Speaker 3: nineties pre iPhone, pre Meta, pre Google. The second issue
Speaker 3: is is that a lot of the problems that we
Speaker 3: have are exasperated because we have now this consolidation into
Speaker 3: large monopolies, and we haven't had a significant anti trust
Speaker 3: lawsuit since Microsoft was told not to bundle Internet Explorer,
Speaker 3: and that opened up the door for Google and everyone
Speaker 3: else as well. So these companies over the last twenty
Speaker 3: years have done thousands of acquisitions and it's been green lighted,
Speaker 3: green lighted, et cetera. And so I think we need
Speaker 3: a proper balance of some antitrust sprinkled in with some
Speaker 3: privacy laws as well. And I think that will provide
Speaker 3: the proper cars safety as opposed to airline safety, that
Speaker 3: there can be incredible innovation that can continue because look,
Speaker 3: when AT and T was broken up, the telecommunications revolution happened.
Speaker 2: No, it's a really good point, very thoughtful. Hey, Tom
Speaker 2: really enjoyed this. Comeback soon. Tom Camp author of a book,
Speaker 2: new book it's out though, containing big tech how to
Speaker 2: protect our civil rights, economy and democracy. As we mentioned earlier,
Speaker 2: co founder and former CEO of the cybersecurity company Centrified,
Speaker 2: joining us there from Menlo Park, California.
Speaker 1: The cover of this book hearkens back to those old
Speaker 1: Monopoly posters with big octopuses tentacles.
Speaker 2: The artwork means something. Yeah, in a big way, this
Speaker 2: is Bloomberg