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Phishing For Answers
“Phishing for Answers” brings you insider knowledge from the front lines of cybersecurity. Listen in as we speak with seasoned professionals about overcoming phishing attacks, managing user training, and implementing solutions that work. From practical insights to actionable strategies, this podcast is your guide to strengthening security awareness across your organization.
Phishing For Answers
How Quantum Computing Will Change Everything
A transformative look at quantum computing's implications for businesses, especially around cybersecurity, with industry expert Bill Genovese from Kyndryl. Key insights into navigating this technology are presented, emphasizing urgency and strategic planning.
• Quantum computing's transformative potential in everyday business
• Bill's extensive background in leading global tech initiatives
• The urgency for businesses to adapt to quantum threats
• Exploring post-quantum encryption and its necessity
• The convergence of quantum and AI technologies
• The importance of developing a strategic framework for risk management
• Lessons from past tech disruptions like Y2K
• Practical steps organizations can take to prepare for the quantum frontier
• Critical services to fortify against cyber vulnerabilities
Joshua Crumbaugh is a world-renowned ethical hacker and a subject matter expert in social engineering and behavioral science. As the CEO and Founder of PhishFirewall, he brings a unique perspective on cybersecurity, leveraging his deep expertise to help organizations understand and combat human-centered vulnerabilities in their security posture. His work focuses on redefining security awareness through cutting-edge AI, behavioral insights, and innovative phishing simulations.
PhishFirewall uses AI-driven micro-training and continuous, TikTok-style video content to eliminate 99% of risky clicks—zero admin effort required. Ready to see how we can fortify your team against phishing threats? Schedule a quick demo today!
Hello and welcome to another episode of Phishing for Answers. Today I'm here with Bill Genovese of Kindrel. He is their CIO in charge of Quantum. What a fascinating role. Tell us a little bit about yourself yourself.
Bill Genovese:Yeah, so just a clarification on the role and no problem, I am officially, in an organizational structure, a consulting partner. Okay. If you look at the big four, or Accenture or some of the other technology consulting firms, you know they have various levels of practitioners. The highest level you can typically get is partner level, so you're driving a part of the service in a company for revenue. Okay, and I started with Kindrel, where the CIO, as that acronym comes in. I'm not advising our CIO, nor am I the CIO of the company. Albeit, though, to what you said, which dovetails into the explanation of my role in alignment in terms of partner and what I'm driving, I am the global principal quantum leader.
Bill Genovese:We are moving into quantum services and consulting to be driven by Kindrel Consult, where I am a partner.
Bill Genovese:Okay, and we have a number of consulting partners that we're working with on our team from different industry verticals on the quantum team to represent industry views and my background, you know 30 years, primarily working at the intersection of financial services and technology outside the US for over a decade in six countries. Okay, and I always explain this in capital letters living and working in these locations, not, you know, parachute in for two weeks for a business meeting, or fly back and forth for three months. This is, you know, going in as a permanent resident with my family six times and completely immersing myself in the work and living culture Okay, which, which has influenced me in my career, definitely in terms of benefits Hasn't been easy. You know we'll get into some of those challenges, but, and then you know, I've been a three or four time CIO and CTO for startups and mid-tier companies real estate, two blockchain companies. One of them was a digital asset exchange that was taking distressed, privatized healthcare facilities in China into public regional centers and using technology innovation, which was quite interesting.
Joshua Crumbaugh:So very cool. This might be a good place to put in the disclaimer that anything Bill says today is his own opinion and not that of Kindrel. So with that, talk maybe a little bit more, or tell us a little bit more about your background as it pertains to Quantum.
Bill Genovese:Yeah, a number of companies that I've worked for got me exposed to it. I mean, and I did work for a major technology company in china, okay, and the us and the west has had some bumps back and forth with them over the years huawei technologies in china. But you know, in terms of seeing and experiencing so much technology and innovation under one roof, um, and I'm ex-ibm, second generation ibm, or between me and my dad, oh, second generation huh, or between me and my dad, oh, second generation huh. Yeah, between me and my father, we spent nearly half a century with Big Blue. You know he was with IBM for 30 years. I was there 12 years.
Bill Genovese:But you know, even in comparison, huawei had so many things going on that people were not aware of in four distinct divisions, things going on that people were not aware of in four distinct divisions. They were like a conglomerate marketplace of technology consumer cloud, telco, how they were originated and where they were born and bred and I got exposed to quantum there. First. I was with them 2016 to 20. About halfway through, um, you know my my position there they announced that they built a quantum simulator on their public cloud. Okay, so very similar to what the hyperscalers globally are doing now okay, and a quantum simulator basically, will you take your business problem and they will help you determine and assess whether quantum is the right solution set or technology over existing technology.
Bill Genovese:So my role there was to drive and deliver industry strategy for global banking and financial services for our customers OK. So I immediately saw that Okay and, knowing the industry, I knew there was going to be some use cases to bring into quantum ie portfolio optimization. So I worked very, very closely with that team and research and development and got exposed to it. At that same time, to accelerate my exposure and learning and enablement, I enrolled myself at my own investment in MIT Pro's Quantum Fundamentals course. It's a certification course, hands on.
Joshua Crumbaugh:I looked at it, actually thought about doing it myself.
Bill Genovese:No, I'm probably the strongest advocate on the planet for that. Half of our team in Kindle here embarking on quantum, has been through that course on our own investment. It's probably the best value in terms of me opening up my wallet and not getting reimbursed by an employer and saying it accelerated my skills in that space. It's a great holistic mix of algorithm development, cybersecurity where it's impacting cyber use cases, and you're doing everything hands-on in terms of developing algorithms and labs in a low code, no code environment using IBM Qiskit. So really, really fascinating. And then, of course, you come out with the benefit of having the MIT badge. You're certified, you know. So very, very interesting stuff and I went through that program and that helped me quite a bit. You know in terms of how long I've been working in this space. Back to those days, it's been about five or six years now. So one of the reasons I, you know, joined Kindrel, kindrel being ex-IBM company.
Joshua Crumbaugh:Yeah, I was going to ask about that. They spun off out of IBM, right?
Bill Genovese:IBM Global Technology Services and I was a chief architect and engineer in that division OK, working with financial services clients. And part of the reason architect and engineer in that division okay, working with financial services clients. And part of the reason I came back into Kendrell was to get into this space. Okay, and somebody tapped me on the shoulder that was putting together kind of a tiger team. You know, which is a lot of tech companies do this. It's not your day job, but you know the tech companies want to kind of test the market appetite, so they put together across the company teams of individuals that have background and skills in it, even though the company as a whole hasn't embarked down that path.
Bill Genovese:Years ago this started, so we're, we're beyond that point now and you know we're developing, go to market into this space. So, um, and and then of course, you know you know I've just immersed myself in this technology a number of industry consortiums, think tanks, um, working in this cloud security alliance. They have a quantum safe working group, okay, and and we're putting together a post quantum encryption reference architecture across a number of participating companies, which is getting very overwhelmingly positive response. It's needed, okay, because echoes of Y2K, if we all remember that, okay, and it was kind of a land grab for all technology companies, you know, in terms of a market opportunity. Same thing or not same, but similar here in the sense that US government saying it's going to cost $7.1 billion to remediate this encryption problem for enterprises.
Joshua Crumbaugh:That might be a low number, honestly.
Bill Genovese:Yeah, but every cyber company and networking company is pivoting in the quantum safe direction. Now, okay, but for the CISO and the CIOs and the CEOs that are out there, ctos, who do I go with and who do I call, based on where that company is in their new post? Quantum encryption, that's available to me for remediation. You know what area of the stack you know, and right now, largely okay, largely I emphasize that again most of these companies are are recommending broadly remediate everything. Okay, and it's kind of an even playing field. So it's very, very chaotic and confusing. So the purpose of this reference architecture is to develop based on critical services that are ideally cross industry. Okay, so I'll pick on payments. I always do, because payments was the first one to leave financial services. Okay, so I'll. I'll pick on payments. I always do, because payments was the first one to leave financial services. Okay, I E a K a via Amazon and e-commerce. Okay, you know.
Bill Genovese:So if there's going to be a decryption event based on a quantum computer, you better damn well make sure that your payments service, regardless of what industry vertical you're in, that you swap out the encryption for payments first, right of what industry vertical you're in, that you swap out the encryption for payments first, right, you know, otherwise you're out of business if payments goes down. I mean and, and you know, you, you, you tell me, josh, what's one industry today that's not using digital payments? I couldn't think of one. I mean no, I mean it's everyone, everyone does it.
Joshua Crumbaugh:I mean no, I mean it's everyone, everyone does it. I mean, yeah, wow, that's that. That could be an interesting I guess I hadn't thought about. I thought a lot about you know the nation state side of it. But you're right, there's, there's millions of credit card numbers, bank account numbers, you know wire wiring, wiring instructions, all going across the wire every single day.
Bill Genovese:Um and so this, this type of asset and guidance, and then associated with that would be, you know, a starting point ecosystem map. Okay, so, for example, if you're if you're, you know, looking to remediate payments or trading or credit card or even other cross-industry services supply chain, what have you who are the companies that have already started developing approved post-quantum encryption for those services? Those services, and ideally, you're going to start with companies that are cyber companies that already issue certificates for payments, for billing, for credit card, because they're going to be first movers in terms of having to swap out the encryption and their native offerings. They have to. So that's what the ecosystem map and the reference architecture will provide.
Bill Genovese:So, instead of the CISO or CIO panicking and saying you know, well, rsa is going to be deprecated in four years, 2030. Ok, and I know it represents 65 percent of my systems. You know I've got to get going on this, but how real is it that I'm going to be attacked by a quantum computer going on this? But how real is it that I'm going to be attacked by a quantum computer? Well, you can't wait till 2030 or till the day zero event. You've got to start planning now.
Joshua Crumbaugh:But I mean we're getting closer, the news is ramping up around that Just I mean it may not even wait until 2030. I mean we've got now all of a sudden a $3,000 supercomputer that can sit on your desk. It's not quantum, but how long before the equivalent is available to me and I can connect that supercomputer to my new quantum computer that I also bought for $3,000. That sits on my desk and that's when it gets dangerous.
Bill Genovese:Yeah, but I mean at least in a pragmatic approach where you know you can work with organizations and say tell me your top three revenue generating services. Okay, that are cross-platform, cross-network layer, cross-application database okay, companies know this, you know and you know if you lost them, how much revenue would you lose in an hour? Okay, then you start to decompose those services in terms of encryption, vulnerabilities. Then you can put together, from a criticality perspective, an executable tactical plan Okay, that won't take half a decade and cost you billions of dollars. Okay, I mean, you can go out of this, you can go out this and shore up your vulnerability to keep you in business and keep generating revenue. And then through crypto agility, okay, depending upon how you're classifying the services.
Bill Genovese:You know, my thoughts have always been around throughout my career. The framework I love is CIA, you know, by ISACA, you know confidentiality, integrity, availability, because that brings from the valuation of a service these dimensions together, triangulated, okay, and you can classify even simply on a three-point scale services that are one one one, okay, but you know this as well as I do. A service may be one in terms of confidentiality ultra-private, spi, pii but there's variations in terms of exposure and integrity, data and transfer and at rest. So some services may be 1-2-3 or 1-2-1 or 1-1-1, based on integrity. Ok, so that ties into the execution approach for migration for PQC, because you don't have to rip and replace everything for integrity. You can do encapsulation and step down. So you know, that's why I think it's a fantastic there's other good frameworks out there in security. But in terms of fit, you know, fit for purpose this is a great way to look at PQC migration.
Bill Genovese:And then I've worked extensively in availability okay, and outages in banks around the world and what causes them. Okay, I worked in a SWAT team in IBM High Availability Center of Competency for lab services and systems group. You know, because clients sometimes they would experience mainframe outages. The mainframe doesn't go down, okay, it's not a hardware failure Okay, it's either application or human element, okay. And so you know I've been very deep in availability. So tying availability into this piece CIA, you know. In terms of encryption, same premise. I mean, if you get decrypted for a critical service, you better have failover and DR. You know you can't have a 113. I can't think of any scenarios in my career where a service was 113. You know, unless it's in some type of vault, you know you get my point, but anyway, I do absolutely.
Joshua Crumbaugh:So how do you expect that quantum is going to impact artificial intelligence?
Bill Genovese:it's good. My thesis again. I keep coming back to convergence. I worked in the blockchain space quite a bit okay, and I've always been a cautious skeptic on on emerging tech. I've been a passionate advocate as well, and you know blockchain was was probably the the first big light bulb that went off in my head. In terms of passion, I'm like I was drawn to it like a moth to a flame, you know. But I looked at it skeptically because you know my early days working in erp and and seeing.
Bill Genovese:I built erp systems, you know, back in the 90s, client server base for revenue recognition, and when the erp came I was like, well, this is great, you can cart, kind of take out large chunks of a function and link them together with application suite okay. So so that premise, that architectural principle, has stuck with me throughout my career integration and convergence, tying functions together for streamlining and control, okay. And I saw that with blockchain too. But then I said, okay, going back to the thinking around ERP, how is this going to integrate into the existing systems in an enterprise? We still haven't really solved that problem with that technology.
Bill Genovese:And then the other aspect of it too is terms of automation and AI and there's some semblance of convergence there with blockchain, with smart contracts. So there's a starting point there for automation, for generating transaction registration on the blockchain, based on the requirements of automation and AI that's in smart contracts. So I'm kind of leading to the answer here, in the sense we're driving down the path of gen AI. It's hitting the ceiling and walls in terms of capability. Okay, it's not sustainable to keep building Frankenstacks, nvidia GPU data centers.
Joshua Crumbaugh:So no, I actually I've looked a lot into that.
Joshua Crumbaugh:I think the biggest issue and the biggest reason that we're running into the ceiling, if you will, aside from computing, is that we still haven't figured out the memory issue, and until they can remember stuff like a human would remember stuff, they can't work alongside us like a human would, and I think that's the reason that we haven't seen AI enter the workforce yet.
Joshua Crumbaugh:But what do you think about these models that, like China, this group out of China just I want to say last week it might have been the week prior trained a model at one eleventh of the cost of the traditional models, and so it was able to do far more with far less, and we're seeing a lot more optimizations as these new models come out. It doesn't take long for that next, more optimized model to come out. So I do see the cost of it going way down, and as the cost goes down, that's because the efficiency is going up, meaning they're going to use less computing power, and I see a lot more edge AI as like the capabilities these days as well, and so I don't know what's your thoughts around all of that.
Bill Genovese:Again, the thinking and the model development in AI and Gen AI, and how the models are developed and evolved and optimized, is based on a finite known set of input data parameters. Okay, and the key word is train. Okay, train and reinforce. Okay, if we're only taking the data that we're familiar with, based on a certain set of circumstances and problems that we know exist, a certain set of circumstances and problems that we know exist, we're going to be limited by that thinking.
Bill Genovese:Okay, quantum opens that whole sphere up to the art of possibility. So one of the ideas that I've been developing for a good five or six years now is a converged technology, black and gray swan risk predictor using the convergence of quantum, ai and blockchain. Okay, so we, we all know as humans to some extent, what the term black and more black swan. Then who's the author? Talib had a trilogy of books on black swans. He's kind of the godfather of the term black swan, and these are really events that come around once a century that throw everybody upside down. Ok, it could be Wall Street crash. It could be, you know, global financial system crash, the event we had in 2008, covid.
Bill Genovese:OK, we certainly didn't see that happen. The problem is, even if you build a model based on that singular, once in a century event, okay, we're still falling into the trap of known data parameters, okay, and a finite set of training data. What the hell happens in the world if a black and gray swan converge, or two black swan converges, ok. So a real, a real life example is a hurricane barreling up the east coast of the United States Hurricane Sandy and hitting New York City tri-state area. Ok, storm like that will never impact Wall Street, okay.
Bill Genovese:You know, and then you have kind of a triangulation of risk impact across markets, credit and operational. You know Wall Street's flooded, okay, not anticipated, you know. Another example would be the convergence of COVID and a major regional war Russia and the Ukraine. We can't we can't handle multifaceted global events, nor can we predict them, because we're patterned. And that's how we build technology based on silos and singular sets of training data. Okay, if you kind of converge quantum machine learning, okay with the existing data set, okay, and kind of create an abstraction layer to widen the parameterization in terms of what if? And then constantly evolve that static set of training data with classical, widen the parameter, what if this happens now to that? What if this happens now to that? Okay, so that's basically the premise in terms of the convergence and I kind of see where that's going.
Joshua Crumbaugh:Oh, I can see that being very helpful. I hadn't really thought about the, the blockchain application, until now, uh, but that makes perfect sense, uh well, the block, the blockchain piece comes in in terms of the single source of record. Yeah, so so for example in this risk data in or the continuously updated input.
Bill Genovese:Right, right, right, so you know, once, you've once, once quantum through quantum machine learning finds a new risk event we haven't seen, either through convergence of risk events or higher impact. You know it could be a Category 10 hurricane that's never hit our planet. Okay, and we're not prepared for that. We're only prepared for Category 5. It then identifies the risk vectors across the triangulation and says well, there's something here you need to record, put that risk event in terms of a higher rating in the risk register and update your models. So then you put that risk register event in blockchain. Potentially, as an example, it could be a relational database, it could be, you know, a cloud database it could be you know the the blockchain would be a great source for any data going in.
Joshua Crumbaugh:Uh, yeah, because I mean one of the the cyber security issues around ai models is you know that model pollution um from, uh you know, nation state perspective or something like that or model poisoning attacks, and so I can see the blockchain completely getting rid of that. I mean, yeah, sure, maybe you can poison it, but we're gonna know exactly what happened and have a complete, unalterable record of everything that you did to do it, which would make it easier to remediate too.
Bill Genovese:So Especially if that blockchain is quantum safe with the latest encryption yes, so let's talk about that.
Joshua Crumbaugh:Um, I've read the new, the updated fips, uh guidelines for encryption. I'm not convinced that that's quantum proof. What? What are your thoughts there? Or is this too controversial? I don't know. What do you think?
Bill Genovese:you know, it's still open to to wide circles of debate. Okay, and you know, I, I brought up the quantum safe. You know, block, block, uh, blockchain for that reason. Okay, somebody a while ago, um, put out a white paper and touted that their blockchain was quantum safe. Okay, and I immediately cocked my eyebrow when I heard that, you know, the first thought in my mind was okay, well, my first thought was well, whose quantum computer did you test it on? Okay, to break it. You know what commercially available quantum computer? And then what was the modality and what are the encryptions that you're assured that their quantum computer cannot break? You know, so there's so many variables in place and, and you know, the Chinese government, for example, you know, came out recently, within the last three months, using a D-Wave computer Leap, touted that they broke RSA. Okay, now the experts in the industry looked at this and said well, based on a certain set of scenarios using that computer, it's true, but from a widespread, you know, full stack perspective, everywhere where RSA is, no, it's not true. Okay, and it's the same same situation as we have going on now.
Bill Genovese:Okay, and my premise and thought here is NIST has put out the five guidelines. Okay, in terms of RSA, sha-2, sha-3, ecc? Okay, the five, the five big culprits in terms of digital signatures? Okay, encryption and recommended these are the most vulnerable get going okay. And here's what we recommend in terms of replacement for those. Are there going to be flaws in the replacement? Sure, okay. But you know, from a evolution perspective and scenario basis, and probably some logic behind to what I just mentioned, where are you getting the computer to break it? Okay, and looking at the landscape of modalities and who has them Okay, whether it's academia or commercial providers, and then trying to kind of assess well, if somebody had access to these seven computers with these modalities, what is the percentage chance that they're going to break this new PQC? That's how I would approach it.
Joshua Crumbaugh:I mean, you've got to go with kind of a known universe to think through this and to that, I really think that the biggest threat relies around the defense industrial base, far more than financial. Now, yes, okay, a nation state may have motives to disrupt us on a financial scale, so that that absolutely has to be addressed as well. But you know, I see that going after defense first, because it's going to be governments long before it's going to be individuals, these ransomware groups or cyber crime gangs that are doing enough ransoms to generate the revenue of a crowd strike and with a fraction of the cost. So what are the concerns? That they get their hands on quantum and take it from more of a criminal perspective. You know, carding and stealing stuff and whatnot.
Bill Genovese:Yeah, the scenario I see there and again it ties back to what you said in terms of, you know, defense being the first interested point. Okay, in terms of decryption, you know, I think of the example of the major entity breaches, marriott Verizon. Ok, you know, and you know, my reaction to these is well, gee, you know, I'm a Marriott Wards member for 15 years. You know, I work with Marriott, but I wake. I wake up every day and you get the notices that there's been a breach.
Joshua Crumbaugh:I'm immune, I mean I'm numb to them at this point, are you? Because I get one new one every week, it seems.
Bill Genovese:yeah, I mean but you, you, but nothing happens. So you're waiting for the shoe to drop, okay, but the problem is, whoever stole the data can't decrypt it, okay. So they're waiting for a way, technology-wise, to have access to something that can decrypt it, ie quantum. Now the ransomware groups may not have the wherewithal, either budget or security restrictions A lot of intelligence too, and just the knowledge I mean to be able to build these.
Joshua Crumbaugh:It's not like you just buy one at the corner store.
Bill Genovese:Right, but that's a monetization opportunity for bad actors in conjunction with nation states. Ok, if a nation state really doesn't have any violent intentions, ok to disrupt the financial system or decrypt everything, but from an economic leverage perspective, they see value in that data. In terms of gold, okay, they may pay a large amount of money to it and intersect academia and research to go decrypt it. You know that. That's where the that's where the danger is, okay.
Joshua Crumbaugh:So no, and I well, I don't even think just academia and research.
Joshua Crumbaugh:I think what we see with AI right now I am not convinced that a large percentage of the emails of the that we get reported every day millions of people with the report button installed through my company, and so I see all of these different emails being reported, or phishing emails being reported across a range of different industries, and many of these were clearly written by a large language model, because it went from bad spelling to perfect grammar, and they're very well-written.
Joshua Crumbaugh:What I find interesting, though, is that I'm convinced that they're very well written. What I find interesting, though, is that I'm convinced that they're they're utilizing the paid models, and that's the thing. That's the thing about the way our market runs is that, yes, we have some guardrails on it, but for the most part, in the enterprise space, you can turn off the guardrails, and because many application use cases wouldn't allow it and I'll give you one we had to get with Google to turn off the guardrails on Gemini, because we were trying to run just a bunch of unknown content through it, particularly reported phishing emails, and so we were violating the terms of service constantly, and so I see that and think also you know, when Quantum is made available to the public, or at least to the enterprise, I think we're gonna see criminal organizations with fronts utilizing that technology too.
Bill Genovese:Yeah yeah yeah.
Joshua Crumbaugh:Correct.
Bill Genovese:So how's quantum going to impact my everyday life? Well, it's certainly not going to make your optimized cup of coffee every morning, I wouldn't, you know. Across a number of vectors, I mean I see it kind of accelerating consumption of technology at the palm of our hand, okay, and making it more context ready. Okay, you know one of the scenarios and it's real today to a certain extent. You know you've got the interface between you and your bathroom mirror, okay, smart mirrors, those haven't come in vogue yet in terms of mass production. Or your smart refrigerator, or your smart auto console.
Bill Genovese:And the problem right now, from a sensor and interface perspective, it's pretty much all or nothing. Okay, right now, based on the model that's serving up that data, okay, but in terms of personalization and what you want to see at various points in time on a custom basis, I see that as an impact that quantum can kind of kind of help solve in conjunction with ai, okay, and the other thing too, um, harder to kind of articulate this. But can quantum, um unbind the dependency of what I just said, okay, from software and hardware providers software and hardware providers to produce that interface, okay, and that's part of the problem, okay, in the dilemma that I just said. So you know, if you look at your iphone or android device, what have you? The amount of content that's served up that you can touch and interact with is driven by the manufacturer, by Apple, samsung, so on and so forth. Can there be an open standards based interface based on converged technologies?
Joshua Crumbaugh:I think we'll see that. I mean, look at how open source is changing and making ai just go rapid. Now we don't see open source in the quantum space, uh, yet, uh, I think, being the key word there, uh, but I'm very optimistic just because, yes, ai, generative ai was almost entirely, you know, an enterprise thing, uh, but it wasn't that good. And the second it started getting really good is when it went to the masses as well, uh, and they're still just burning money. They're not making any money yet, uh.
Bill Genovese:But I mean, I I'm optimistic there, so I, I would like to see it unbound as well, where we all have that, uh, that yeah, I mean, and then the manufacturers just tap into that, that open standards-based highway, yeah, and then you know they orient their interface for for sales based on demographics or what have you, okay, and they try to tailor the personalization into that highway based on the consumer demographics they're going after. But I mean, I see that as a major opportunity. That that would be pretty wild.
Joshua Crumbaugh:So yeah, absolutely Any cool new things happening in AI that you're excited about.
Bill Genovese:I just came off a webinar yesterday. It was a public webinar between Microsoft and a company that they're collaborating with, atom Computing, okay, yeah, and you know this was on Microsoft's further developments in quantum. And the big takeaway that I took away from that, which was really insightful and eye-opening, is they kind of have a bimodal strategy with this. Okay, because you know you kind of wonder, are they trying? You know, are these? Are these companies the big three hyperscalers amazon, google, microsoft you can kind of throw ibm in the mix, but they're more of a product company than than cloud. But you kind of wonder, are they they're using gen, ai and quantum to drive cloud stickiness, you know, just bring everybody to their cloud. Or is it a, you know, some type of additional growth driver for their overarching business strategy?
Bill Genovese:Ok, and I came away from that session yesterday. It's overarching, okay. So they're moving down the path of utility-based quantum computing from a software and hardware perspective, ie the collaboration with Atom and Quantinium is another company they're collaborating with. But also they're opening up the tool chest, okay, and converging what they're driving revenue now with cloud. Okay, copilot, chatgp, gpt, open, open ai, you know, yeah, now they're developing something with co-pilot that you can use to generate quantum programs. I was like you got to be kidding me.
Bill Genovese:this is really really cool you gotta, you gotta, and you know. Now they have this other thing too, too, called the Discovery Suite. So it's kind of like a developer marketplace for quantum tools. Okay, that converts with other adjacent technologies. Okay, and based on your problem, you go on the toolbox, then you drive it and test it out. Okay, now the backbone. I get it too. Okay, you know Well, how do you enable it. Well, this is great stuff. You know, I want to use everything you're talking about, bill, okay, we'll sign up. And you're a microsoft cloud customer? Okay, well, I get it. I mean that you know that stickiness, that enablement platform, is not going to go away from cloud on-prem, you know.
Joshua Crumbaugh:But you get the nature of how the business works.
Bill Genovese:They're going to try and make it as possible.
Bill Genovese:You know. But? But what I'm saying is that's the first example of an overarching ecosystem based strategy that's converging technologies that I've seen in this space. You know the other, the other providers are either hardware bound 're driving towards Harbor. Ibm, my former employer, google, came out with the willow chip. But you've got a question they're not using that to drive Google Cloud platform revenue. They're probably, if I rise, I, you know, if I could surmise they saw what copilot and gen AI did to their search business. So they're revisiting how can we, how can we, re-anchor our search position? That's our core business strategy, right, okay, you know, so they're using quantum. In that regard, they're not going to take I. I can't see them taking willow and going going to sell semiemicon to all these companies. You know they're not a Semicon company. You know why did they come up with the Willow chip? Okay, sir, you're absolutely right, you know. And then Amazon, you know we just had a discussion on our team, you know it's like well, what's Amazon's business strategy as a company? And again, I kind of pose this to our teams You've got to think of it in terms of the company's overall business strategy. It's not cloud first and Amazon's approach is just like you interact with them on a daily basis. Pick up the Amazon app. If I want to buy toilet paper, I mean, I can order toilet paper from Amazon and have it tomorrow, instead of getting in my car there are places.
Joshua Crumbaugh:They actually drone delivery now too.
Bill Genovese:In terms of quantum. They have a marketplace of technology modalities for hardware providers D-Wave's in there, rigetti was in there, okay, and we don't care about your use case. If we offer everything in our store, you're going to come to us, you know. So it's different approaches here, but but you know, you kind of get my point. You know, you know these, these companies are approaching the space differently in terms of emerging tech, but the ones that I think move the needle forward fastest are converging. You know where they're taking converging place.
Joshua Crumbaugh:Yeah, so even in the AI space, we see convergence of different AI technologies becoming the new thing. I was looking this morning at a new AI tool where I can import any image. It will instantly create a 3D model off of it. I can move around these different 3D models on side of a canvas and it instantly creates a high resolution photo off of the canvas that I've created.
Bill Genovese:So you can the next step does it. 3d print.
Joshua Crumbaugh:I guess. I guess in theory it could. I mean, you've got these things that turn any picture into a full 3d environment and they're. They're better in many cases than what we could do, uh, you know, with these massive teams before.
Bill Genovese:Well, I'll give you a useful scenario there. I'm a car buff, so if I see a new model Range Rover driving down the street parked at my local dollar store, okay, for whatever reason, oh, I'm going to take a selfie of that. The snapshot I'm going to take that home, put it in that app and then I'm going to try to print it.
Joshua Crumbaugh:I like it. I like where you're going with this. That's great. Well, we are just about out of time here. Any sort of final thoughts? I know we haven't really talked a whole lot about well. I mean, we've talked a good bit about cyber.
Bill Genovese:Yeah, I mean a couple of, a couple of summarized, you know, nuggets or takeaways, you know that, that have helped me and resonated with me in my career and get me excited to wake up every day. Look for those watershed, milestone moments in your career where you really can see things moving forward. Ok, and again, you know it's all about convergence across a number of dimensions. Okay, so the convergence of the business and technology side for me has always looked for cost avoidance place Okay. And as technology providers, whether you're on the security side or application side or infrastructure cloud what have you? Companies delay moving forward on large-scale investments, digital transformation, cloud migration what have you? Regulatory mandates from a business data model perspective Payments kicks the can down the road in terms of ISO 20022 from a data model perspective. Reason being is some of the payment providers, the banks, have already conceded well, they're not the central hub for payment. We lost that battle to PayPal, so I don't need to move forward.
Bill Genovese:Pqc encryption Basel was another example where there's such a big global event that happens. That forces a compliance mandate. You can use that to drive modernization of systems that were delayed for other reasons. Budget politics what have you? You can't skirt this encryption thing. Okay. It's only going to leave you vulnerable down the road one way shape or form in terms of the timing and your impact to be determined okay, but you got to do something about it. Okay, and you know. So I look for these events that happen and latch on to them, to weave together, okay decision analysis to move the ball forward. So that's pretty cool and that's one takeaway. In conjunction with that, there's not too many things, as a 30-year technology professional, that make me excited. Blockchain was one, okay, the internet, certainly, and mobile devices was another Okay, but the biggest one so far in my career is quantum.
Joshua Crumbaugh:Okay, Quantum is very exciting. I mean just the continue. But I agree, Quantum is incredibly exciting and we're seeing it happen in our lifetime. I didn't think we would be where we are by now, so and we're we're way ahead of where we were predicted to be.
Bill Genovese:So yeah, I mean, and when you, when you start thinking of the art of the possible, of what quantum will open up with information consumption and optimize tailored information based on what you want, just to solve risk problems, to make our lives better, I can't even wrap my head around the possibilities. It's fascinating.
Joshua Crumbaugh:So the world is going to look very different.
Bill Genovese:And I've got a five year old and an eight year old son two boys, okay. And the eight year old, the five year old, you know, we put them in pre-K, okay, because he wasn't speaking until he was about three and a half or four. Okay, he's now five and he speaks Spanish fluently. Okay, they're not teaching him Spanish in pre-K. He learned this from YouTube.
Joshua Crumbaugh:Oh wow, that's impressive Okay. From YouTube. Oh wow, that's impressive Okay.
Bill Genovese:But besides the fact that for Christmas he sent my wife a $3,500. Shopping list of toys he wanted.
Joshua Crumbaugh:This kid is five $3,500.
Bill Genovese:I love it. I mean, the next thing is he's going to hit the purchase button.
Joshua Crumbaugh:I mean hey, Alexa, buy me this.
Bill Genovese:You know that's what I'm saying, so you start wrapping in quantum to this equation. And my kids I had a discussion on EVs with my eight year old, you know, because we saw an Amazon van that's powered by Rivian. They have Rivian vans now. They're electric, and you know my sons are enamored with the Cybertruck. Okay, and I had a discussion with my son very, very deep, you know. When you're old enough to drive, you may not be able to buy a vehicle. You won't need it. The car may pick you up at home, okay, and drive you where you need to go and you don't think we'll be driving anymore.
Joshua Crumbaugh:I mean car it. We're going to hit a point very soon where AI makes us safer than if we drove ourselves. So as soon as that hits, I think that's going to become the mandate, because you're less again, again.
Bill Genovese:That's a training data problem. Now we're self-driving cars creating accidents.
Joshua Crumbaugh:Well, it's because it's being trained by a known set of parameters that we're experienced with Yep. But the more data we have, the smarter it gets. Yeah, yeah, true, and that means that the more accidents we have, the less likely we are to have them.
Bill Genovese:Well, I mean and I mentioned my sons, josh because I'm 60. My sons are five and eight. Okay, so father time is working against me. You know I'm very active with fitness and running and marathons and so on and so forth, so I'm trying to add years to my life, but all of this stuff we're talking about in one way, shape or form, I want to experience with my boys.
Joshua Crumbaugh:Well, they say we're gonna pass, uh the or surpass the longevity escape velocity sometime in the 2030s, uh, which means you just gotta make it another six years, six, seven years and, uh, they'll be able to print a new heart or whatever. But I think that quantum will have a huge impact on on that. If we are able to get there, it won't be without quantum.
Bill Genovese:Yep.
Joshua Crumbaugh:Well, hey, great discussion. Thank you so much. It's been a fabulous episode. Thank you everyone for joining us. Have a great day, much appreciated. Thank you, bye.