OODAcast Episode 36: Matt Devost on Hacking Entrepreneurship and Identifying Threats and Opportunities
In this OODAcast, the tables are turned as OODA Network Expert Jen Hoar interviews CEO Matt Devost and they discuss how Matt consistently identified new threats and opportunities by blending eccentric interests into a career as a serial entrepreneur and become an established expert on cybersecurity, counterterrorism, and technology issues.
Having been educated in a one-room schoolhouse in the rural Northeast Kingdom of Vermont, Matt identified a way to blend his interests in emerging national security threats and computer science into a bespoke career path and took persistent risks to realize non-obvious opportunities.
Matt's Bio:
Matt began his professional career in 1995 hacking into systems for the US Department of Defense and Intelligence Community and over the past twenty-five years has emerged as an established thought leader in the cyber and security domains. A successful entrepreneur, he has founded several companies including FusionX & the Terrorism Research Center and played a key leadership role in a handful of successful companies including Accenture, iSIGHT Partners, iDefense, and Tulco Holdings. He has served as a senior advisor to DoD, a professor at Georgetown University for fourteen years , and is a founding member of the Black Hat review board.
Matt’s unique approach to technology, business, and security issues is driven by a technique he calls “HACKthink” – applying a hacker mindset to analyze and dissect complex problems and develop innovative solutions.
Matt has appeared on CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, NPR, CBC, CBS News, BBC television, NWCN, Australian television and dozens other domestic and international radio and television programs as an expert on terrorism and cybersecurity and has lectured or published for the National Defense University, the United States Intelligence and Law Enforcement Communities, the Swedish, Australian, Japanese, and New Zealand governments, American University, George Washington University, and a number of popular press books – magazines, academic journals and over 200 international conferences.
Matt has co-written or authored chapters for several books including Cyberadversary Characterization, Threats in the Age of Obama, Information Warfare Vol. 2, Sun Tzu Art of War in Information Warfare, Counterterrorism, and Addressing Cyber Instability. He was the technical editor for Hacking a Terror Network and best-selling author David Ignatius’ book The Director, and advised on the Chris Hemsworth movie Black Hat.
Additional Resources:
Matt's 1995 Thesis - National Security in the Information Age
Recommended Book: If Then: How the Simulmatics Corporation Invented the Future