Security Confidential S3 E1 Manoj Tandon

Kevin Casey: Good afternoon and welcome to another episode of Security Confidential. This time, my name is Kevin Casey. I’m the CEO and one of the equity partners here at Dark Rhino. I’m turning the tables on your normal host, Manoj Tandon, and we are going to ask Mr. Tandon nine questions. He has three minutes, and only three minutes, to answer each one of those questions. He does not know what questions I’m going to ask, and we will see how this proceeds. So, it’s a little bit different than our normal Security Confidential podcast, but I thought it might be something that would be fun. So, Manoj, are you game for this little exercise?

Manoj Tandon: Do I have a choice?

Kevin Casey: You do not. So, I am going to start the clock here in a second. Remember, you have a bourbon. You can get bourbon. I’m more than happy to get bourbon or a glass.

Manoj Tandon: Oh man, you’re driving the bus. I’m like, oh no.

Kevin Casey: So remember, you only have three minutes to answer each question.

Manoj Tandon: Okay.

Kevin Casey: So, are you ready?

Manoj Tandon: I guess. I don’t even know what the question is.

Kevin Casey: I know you don’t. So I’m going to ask the question, then I’ll start the thing. So let’s start off with something easy. What’s the one thing you wish you would have known when you began your career many, many years ago?

Manoj Tandon: I wish I would have known not to be afraid to speak out, no matter who’s in the room. Just remember that regardless of title, people are people and you probably know more about it than them.

Kevin Casey: Excellent. Okay. So my second question is kind of a follow-up to the first one. Who are the three people who have had the most influence or who have been most influential to you in your personal and your professional career?

Manoj Tandon: Well, I’ll tell you: my dad. I watched him build a medical practice from scratch. My uncle, who to this day runs an aerospace company. I always watched these folks have a great deal of self-confidence in themselves, and in spite of knowing what the odds are of commercial success when you venture off on your own. And they all had families and children; they still went ahead and did it. And my dad’s youngest brother, who’s also my uncle. He built a very successful refrigeration company. They all were willing to take a chance on themselves, and that’s a big lesson learned.

Kevin Casey: Thank you for sharing. So, again, building upon the first two questions, what advice would you give someone wanting to pursue a career similar to yours?

Manoj Tandon: Don’t. Don’t. So here’s the great thing: careers do not correlate. Careers in education and the pursuit of an education and the pursuit of corporate success have no correlation with happiness. If it’s truly happiness that you are seeking and your passion lies in your career, then by all means, do it. But if your passion lies elsewhere, that is outside of the traditional norms, when you’re younger, you must take the chance before you become responsible for other lives around you.

Kevin Casey: That’s good advice. So now when you look back after almost 30 years of building… this is hard, by the way.

Manoj Tandon: It is serious. I thought they actually prepared me. What the heck? This was supposed to be easy stuff like, “What bourbon do you like?” or something like that.

Kevin Casey: No, no, no. So, almost 30 years you’ve been out of school, and when you look back, what’s your biggest failure and what have you learned from that?

Manoj Tandon: It’s actually not academically related or even career-wise related. I would say not spending enough time at home. When I was… just, you know, I got married soon after, like two years after I started making a real living. Well, I wouldn’t call it a real living back then. Wages were pretty small. But when I could afford to get my own place, a place that you would actually want to bring somebody back to, I don’t think I spent enough time at home. I really thought that career, a good home—not a good house, but a good home—was correlated with a fantastic, financially successful career. And that was absolutely wrong.

Kevin Casey: I also have that experience.

Manoj Tandon: Do you?

Kevin Casey: I do. But you’re not interviewing me; I get to interview you.

Manoj Tandon: Yeah, but now you opened it. No, no, no. I gotta ask that.

Kevin Casey: Wait, no, no, not yet. Not yet. So, what are the best resources that have helped you along the way?

Manoj Tandon: Along the way for what?

Kevin Casey: Personal and professional development. Did you have a mentor?

Manoj Tandon: Yeah, I’ve had a great time. I had fantastic professors in college. Really good, really good professors. And they were both academically and for professional development. They had great advice. One of them actually came over with Operation Paperclip.

Kevin Casey: Many of our listeners probably don’t know what Operation Paperclip is, so why don’t you explain to them?

Manoj Tandon: Basically, it was the way German scientists became American scientists post-World War II. That’s how Von Braun became the head of NASA. But they’ve absolutely had, from a professional standpoint, especially early on in my career when I was a practicing engineer, a tremendous amount of guidance on certain things. And I didn’t follow it, which I wish I would have done, some of it, but that’s okay. And then I think having great friends who also became great advisors over the years. I do want to mention you, but I don’t…

Kevin Casey: You can’t, you can’t.

Manoj Tandon: Yeah, well, there’s a lot to be said there and I’ll say it. Kevin, you’ve had a big influence, and we’ve known each other for a long time. There’s a lot that I learned. I’ve been very selfish in this relationship to a degree where I’ve probably gotten more than I’ve given. So, great friends like you. And I think the other thing that’s been for me is developing a positive outlook on humanity. I think that has been a big influence on me, although it may not seem like so at times. I really am a pretty positive person, and I genuinely believe that fundamentally people are good. And if you take that approach, your thought processes change. You become a little bit more trusting, and unless you’re trusting, it’s hard to let go of things. You may be wrong, but that’s okay. But if you don’t trust and you become a control freak, it’s a recipe for disaster.

Kevin Casey: Yeah, and that’s a good segue. Given what’s transpired in the last 24 to 48 hours, we really don’t necessarily have to discuss that right now. I think it would take up much more time than we have, but my question that I wrote down for you is: What are your hopes for the future, not only for yourself but for your children?

Manoj Tandon: For myself, I think I am now much… I want to build things. And right now we’re involved with Dark Rhino, and seeing this essentially this child grow and develop from what was an idea on a napkin into a flourishing enterprise. It’s not the monetary gain; it’s actually being able to look back and say, “You know what? We built something pretty darn cool.” That’s pretty cool. I think that would be a lot of satisfaction. And I think I would like my kids to grow up in a much less polarized world. You mentioned the events of the last 48 hours. I think there has to be a… before things get better, they always have to get worse, right? And hopefully, what has taken place might lend itself to people seeing that there’s more common ground than there is divide, and that they fundamentally believe in a nation that is for the people and of the people. Not just a government for the people and of the people, but the nation itself. And that might bring upon a world that is less polarized, and as a result, I hope my kids are more happy. That’s the one thing I hope they pursue. I hope they pursue happiness.

Kevin Casey: One of the things that I’ve learned as an entrepreneur over the last almost 25 years—it’s hard to imagine—is, I’ve been asked the question: “Do I have any regrets?” Again, for me, this podcast is way too short to be able to list all of my regrets, but I think it’s an interesting question. So, I pose it to you: do you have one or two regrets in your life right now?

Manoj Tandon: I don’t know if, to have a regret, I think you have to have a certain maturity level at the time in which you committed or did not commit an action to realize that it’s a regret. So, I don’t know that I would characterize it as a regret, but heck, this audience would probably be pretty surprised to learn that my number one job… I would love to have flown F-15s. That’s if I could have done that gig, I would have never… I wouldn’t be sitting here today. I tried to get into the Naval Academy and they wouldn’t take me.

Kevin Casey: I was a little bit older than you, so for me it was an F-14 Tomcat. I would have been Tom Cruise; I would have been me. They would have called me Maverick.

Manoj Tandon: And I was going to say the second thing is I have a real passion for music. When growing up in an Asian household, it’s a very conservative environment, and the emphasis on education supersedes what are termed “ancillary activities.” I wish I would have picked up the guitar when I was 10 years old or seven years old, because I actually think I might have been able to do something with it.

Kevin Casey: Well, you can’t sing, but you…

Manoj Tandon: I can’t sing. I can’t sing. And now these hands are getting too stiff to do a lot of things that a lot of artists are capable of doing. But yeah, I think I genuinely might have pursued something or given it a shot. I don’t know what it would have done, but I might have ended up in the same place where we’re at right now. But it would have at least been a different journey, and I could say, “You know what? I tried. I wasn’t cut out for it. Oh well.”

Kevin Casey: Yeah, move on. So, turning to a little bit more serious, it’s unfortunate that you did not have your mother for as long as I have had mine, and your mom’s been gone for a while.

Manoj Tandon: Yeah.

Kevin Casey: If your mom was with you right now, what would you say to her?

Manoj Tandon: I would say, “I love you,” and, “Before you go, I need to spend a lot of time with you in the kitchen, every minute.” She was a fabulous cook. She was excellent, and for her, cooking was a joy. It was preparing a meal for everyone. And it wasn’t just the family; we had friends over all the time for dinner. There was always a full house; everybody was welcome. And she created through cooking a camaraderie, a liveliness, and a happiness in everyone’s life. And I miss that. I think I would like to experience that again.

Kevin Casey: That’s wonderful. I was going to ask a follow-on question: basically, is there a funny story you could tell about your mom? But you started to around the kitchen. Maybe there is a funny story that you can recall that you could share with our audience.

Manoj Tandon: A funny story about her… You got me into a little bit of a serious thing. I’ve got to think of that. There’s a lot of unexpected memories.

Kevin Casey: Yeah, it’s a hard question. You know, one of the questions that I’ve really pondered about asking—because actually, the next three questions are probably the most serious—is, if this were to be our very last conversation, is there anything you would want to say to me as your friend?

Manoj Tandon: We did it right. So if you get it right, love you and catch you on the other side, whatever the other side is. I think Paulo Coelho put it in his book, The Alchemist: the universe always conspires to help you. I believe this moment was inevitable. It was meant to be, whatever happened. And you’re very familiar with my background. I believe we did it right. We did it the best that we knew how, and I don’t have any more to be able to do than that. So, one day, God will take all of us, or whatever you believe in.

Kevin Casey: If you were a witness at your own funeral, what would you want people to say about you?

Manoj Tandon: I would want them to remember that I tried to be kind to everyone, never held a grudge against someone, and always tried to help people. I believe probably the biggest sin, depending on your belief, is probably not helping someone when you have the ability to do so. To consciously look the other way is hard. There’s a lot of things that you would love to help people with, but you have no ability, and that’s okay. But if you consciously turn away when you know you might be able to help someone, I think that’s a serious decision, even if it means that help is not necessarily wanted or needed, or it goes unappreciated. Well, ideally, if it could be given, Kevin, it should be given in a manner where the person receiving it doesn’t even know, so that the possibility of that expectation arising in yourself doesn’t exist. It’s not always possible, because that’s where all these things go off the rails. I’ve been guilty of it: when you help someone and you’re doing it out of kindness, but subconsciously there’s an expectation of a return, you are going to be disappointed in the future. Without fail, it happens all the time. But if you help someone and they don’t know you did it, it’s intrinsic. At that point, there can be no such disappointment.

Kevin Casey: It’s true. Well, Mr. Tandon, our time is almost up. We wanted just to get to know our beloved leader of the Security Confidential podcast. I hope that our audience finds this post-holiday podcast meaningful and insightful. We look forward to getting back on track next week with a cybersecurity expert and continuing every week with new and innovative and creative guests that will bring value to all of you. We appreciate the time and consideration that you give us each and every week.