Speaker 1: You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim Stinovic on Bloomberg Radio. A lot
Speaker 1: going on, as we mentioned today, of course, those headlines
Speaker 1: from J Powell at the NAVE conference in Washington, certainly
Speaker 1: Royal uh the financial market. J Pali saying he's ready
Speaker 1: to back half a point hike in May if it's necessary.
Speaker 1: So we did see a sell off in equities, we
Speaker 1: saw bonds go up. We kind of we did initially absolutely, yeah,
Speaker 1: that NASAC wonder. I believe we felt more than one
Speaker 1: point four percent, Carroll underperforming every major index, including the
Speaker 1: Russell two thousand. So what changed, Well, I think it's
Speaker 1: just a little bit more of an aggressive tone, right
Speaker 1: changed toward the end of the day when when equity
Speaker 1: investors bought back in, because I still I still sense
Speaker 1: this disconnect between the equity market and the bottom. I
Speaker 1: think there's a lot of disconnect everywhere because I think,
Speaker 1: you know, we talked about growth and so on and
Speaker 1: so forth, so this is just the environment we're in.
Speaker 1: And speaking of the vironment that we're in, you know,
Speaker 1: we're trying to figure out how we come back post pandemic.
Speaker 1: We're also, of course, you know, watching what's going on
Speaker 1: of course with this war in Ukraine, the Russian invasion,
Speaker 1: and there are increased concerns about cyber warfare. Yeah. Just
Speaker 1: this afternoon, President Biden warned that Russia is weighing a
Speaker 1: cyber attack against the U S as its military struggles
Speaker 1: in Ukraine, and urged private businesses to enhance their defenses.
Speaker 1: Joining US now, as Brian Palmer, CEO at Trelix, it's
Speaker 1: a privately held cybersecurity company. It monitors at researches threats uh,
Speaker 1: and it produces threat intelligence on threat actors and their behavior.
Speaker 1: Brian joins us a via zoom from Washington, d C. Brian,
Speaker 1: how are you, um well, Hey, Tim? How are you hey, Carol?
Speaker 1: Thanks for having We're doing well. Hey. I wonder how
Speaker 1: you read into a statement like this coming from the
Speaker 1: President of the United States. He said that Russia could
Speaker 1: quote conduct malicious cyber activity against the US, including as
Speaker 1: a response to the unprecedented economic costs we've imposed. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so obviously we know it's an effective form of war.
Speaker 1: Fair in today's world, right, cybersecurity can can get the
Speaker 1: job done. I think in general, what we've been seeing
Speaker 1: over the last few weeks is limited novel attacks. We
Speaker 1: haven't seen a lot of new things happening, uh, and
Speaker 1: that's caused some folks to pause. Right, because it's not
Speaker 1: as much as expected, doesn't mean it won't happen. I
Speaker 1: think obviously the President's right, there is a high possibility
Speaker 1: that there could be attacks coming out of that region
Speaker 1: and they could be directed towards US companies, but so
Speaker 1: far we have not seen that, but all of our
Speaker 1: customers are obviously on guard. Yeah, it's just a reminder, right, um,
Speaker 1: Brian that we are living in an environment where this
Speaker 1: is a really potentially effective weapon and could really we
Speaker 1: see you know, some of the stuff that's been going
Speaker 1: on in Ukraine, but it's certainly something that we need
Speaker 1: to consider whenever we're in any kind of a battle
Speaker 1: economic or militarily. That's right. And it isn't a weapon
Speaker 1: that we know will be utilized and it could have
Speaker 1: big consequences, so it's something that you know, we're staying
Speaker 1: close to it. Like you said, we've seen some pseudo
Speaker 1: ransomware out there that's been putting some wiping and some
Speaker 1: other things within the Ukraine, but nothing like anyone expected.
Speaker 1: But everyone's on guard. So what does on guard mean? Well,
Speaker 1: I think everybody's looking. So all of the cybersecurity companies
Speaker 1: that are out there, we have our trailicks, threat labs
Speaker 1: were monitoring obviously on the government side, we have lots
Speaker 1: of people cyber warriors that are out there engaging, seeing
Speaker 1: looking at the intelligence we're seeing if there are new
Speaker 1: types of attacks, tim uh, And today we're just seeing
Speaker 1: really pretty much a normal course of business, but that
Speaker 1: could change on a moment's notice. So Brian, you're not
Speaker 1: seeing anything out of the ordinary over the last three
Speaker 1: or four weeks, or perhaps nothing more coming from Eastern
Speaker 1: Europe with than usual. Now we're seeing, you know, basically
Speaker 1: the same stuff we would normally see. Like I mentioned,
Speaker 1: we saw a little bit of pseudo ransomware or something
Speaker 1: called hermetic wiper that does some wiping and destruction, but
Speaker 1: but nothing UM that we would see as as off
Speaker 1: the norm Do you think it's because and in this
Speaker 1: story that we have I think this came from James
Speaker 1: Lewis to Retro Strategic Technologies Program at the Center for
Speaker 1: Strategic and International Studies UM, saying that the Russians have
Speaker 1: explored US critical infrastructure before in very extensive ways. This
Speaker 1: is a wake up call to people. I mean, if
Speaker 1: something is going to happen, I mean, this is your world,
Speaker 1: and you obviously dealing it with a business perspective and
Speaker 1: a corporate perspective. But the conversations, is it more likely
Speaker 1: to be some of that critical infrastructure, be it physical infrastructure, utilities,
Speaker 1: or our financial system. It potentially could. I mean, they're
Speaker 1: going to go for high value targets. We know, we
Speaker 1: know that we've seen that in different industries, so I
Speaker 1: wouldn't speculate which one. I also would speculate why they
Speaker 1: haven't done it so far. I think there are a
Speaker 1: lot of people speculating on that. That's not my job.
Speaker 1: I'm not on the policy side, but we're definitely ready
Speaker 1: and watching and ready to help our customers. Hey, Brian,
Speaker 1: you Um and Tim and myself and a lot of
Speaker 1: other UH senior executives. About a week or so ago,
Speaker 1: we're part of Bloomberg Live event working Shifting two point over,
Speaker 1: Reinventing normal, and we talked about what work like post pandemic.
Speaker 1: I mean, we're still exploring this and trying to understand it.
Speaker 1: What are you seeing, what are your expectations, and I'm
Speaker 1: curious how it compares to personally what you guys were
Speaker 1: doing pre pandemic and what you're seeing from some of
Speaker 1: your customers and clients. Yeah, Carol, great question. I think
Speaker 1: we were seeing. Look in cybersecurity, it's been an extremely
Speaker 1: competitive environment for a long time, so we have about
Speaker 1: a million person shortage across the cybersecurity market. We were
Speaker 1: also seeing a lot of this happening pre COVID. I
Speaker 1: think what happened is a lot of folks got forced
Speaker 1: into remote work and that accelerated the curve on having
Speaker 1: to build capabilities and make better cyber investments. As I
Speaker 1: mentioned last week, COVID, of course was not a good thing,
Speaker 1: but in the world of cybersecurity, it actually accelerated our
Speaker 1: capabilities to protect and defend companies in this time of
Speaker 1: more remote work. So in a way, it did drive
Speaker 1: investment and capability building. What does it mean for you
Speaker 1: attracting and retaining talent here in this environment. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean it's definitely tough. One of the things I like
Speaker 1: to talk about is soulful or soulless work. One of
Speaker 1: the things we're seeing is that people are really thinking
Speaker 1: about what do they do, how do they spend their time?
Speaker 1: And for us being in cybersecurity, I call it soulful work.
Speaker 1: I think as an industry we have a real advantage there,
Speaker 1: especially as many technologists are looking and asking what do
Speaker 1: they do, who do they work for, what's the impact
Speaker 1: they're having in the world. We're trying to use our
Speaker 1: soulfu work to our advantage to attract people to come
Speaker 1: join us in the cybersecurity world. You're paying workers more, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: of course, right, that's a piece of the puzzle. But
Speaker 1: that that alone doesn't do it, Carol Um. With the
Speaker 1: great resignation, we're seeing a lot of competitiveness. You obviously
Speaker 1: have to pay people, but what you also have to
Speaker 1: do is have a mission and a culture and career
Speaker 1: advancement that is attractive to them as well. You've got
Speaker 1: to have the full package. Pay alone won't do it.
Speaker 1: We just talked with our New York Bureau chief, Shelley
Speaker 1: Banjo about what's going on in New York City, and
Speaker 1: you know whether or not everybody is going to ultimate
Speaker 1: come back to the offices here in New York or
Speaker 1: whether they continue to do hybrid work. Um, what are
Speaker 1: you expecting. Are you willing to hire anybody from anywhere
Speaker 1: in the world and that's fine with you? And that
Speaker 1: means people can live wherever they want and just get
Speaker 1: about thirty seconds. Yeah, of course. Yeah. So in our industry,
Speaker 1: like I said, we've been in a war for talent
Speaker 1: for a number of years. We have to get the
Speaker 1: best and most talented. People will go anywhere and hire
Speaker 1: folks anywhere. That means we make certain accommodations within the business.
Speaker 1: Obviously that's not the case for all businesses. Some businesses
Speaker 1: we're going to have a higher propensity of folks coming
Speaker 1: back to the office. I think we're starting to see that, Brian,
Speaker 1: ten seconds. Do you think that means urban areas are
Speaker 1: at risk potentially just quickly? I do. I think a
Speaker 1: lot of folks who work in the technology area are
Speaker 1: moving out and they're moving to places they want to be,
Speaker 1: whether they love to fish or ski or do different things.
Speaker 1: I do think we're seeing an exodus from some of
Speaker 1: the urban areas. Great to check in with you, Brian Palmer,
Speaker 1: us CEO at Trellis via zoom from Washington, d C.