In part 2 of our discussion, John Strand tells us how the cybersecurity industry has turned stagnant, with a lack of innovation and an investment model that isn’t going to turn that around any time soon. We explore why venture capital funding hasn’t led to the breakthrough products the industry needs, and what’s holding back real innovation. John also highlights the leaders in the security industry who are actively giving back to the community, and he and Adam try to one-up each other over who’s stayed in the most disgusting hotel room.
What We Cover
Why the cybersecurity industry is ripe for disruption How VC funding can stifle innovation in security products The commoditization of MSPs and incident response Why competitors can be your best friends in this industry Security leaders who give back to the community Conference travel horror stories
Listen Now
Tune in to hear our discussion with John Strand.
Guest Bio
John is the owner of Black Hills Information Security, a company specializing in penetration testing and security architecture services, and is one of the premier voices in the security industry.
📝 Full Episode Transcript ▼
Joe Patti (00:00) This episode we’ve got part two of our discussion with John Strand. This time John talks about the other leaders in the security industry who are given back to the community and the places where he thinks the industry isn’t just ready for disruption but needs it.
Adam Roth (00:12) So John about a year ago, I learned some I think some valuable lessons in business and kind of the reason why Joe and I are we’re kind of We’re kind of up in our game. We’re gonna start, you know, selling our services through our own consulting company and We don’t want to compete with people just to compete with people What I’ve learned is you need to be a disruptor in your industry. That is how you win
When I say win, I’m not saying hurt other people, but that’s how you become successful. That’s how you get that niche. Being a disruptor means coming out with a product that’s different than everybody else. You don’t want to compete apples for apples. You want to compete like, you know, green apples against maybe something smaller apples. Not that you want to hurt people because we don’t want to hurt people, but we want to be successful and we want to establish, I think,
our products different from other products. It’s a hard thing to do, but if you had that mindset, that’s the way to go.
John Strand (01:15) Well, dude,
let’s unpack that, right? Putting away the negative connotations of disruption, like you had said, this whole industry is ripe for it, right? I mean, walk around any major conference, like sales floor, like I’m talking the big ones like RSA, right?
and see the companies, how many companies are doing the exact same thing. If you look at it, and it isn’t just that they’re doing the same thing, they’re advertising the same way and they’re doing the same moves. And if you start picking at it, it’s a lot of the same shit in a new veneer that we’ve been doing for 10, 15 years. So I think that whenever you’re looking at computer security, there’s plenty of room for disruption. And I’ll give you two examples, right?
One of those examples is backdoors and breaches. We created this collectible card game and it kind of blew up, which is weird because I created the core of the game in 45 minutes in the back of a Candidate Area regional jet. And.
Adam Roth (02:15) Yeah, it’s amazing.
Joe Patti (02:16) You
John Strand (02:18) So we did this thing and I remember I was at a conference with my wife in Florida and we were handing these things out and this guy comes up to me and you know, we got this big group of people around us and he gets up there and he’s really confused and he’s a VC funding person, right? And he’s like, what the hell is this? And I’m like, it’s a collectible card game. I do this, I do that. And he goes, this is stupid. And I’m like, what do you mean? He goes, you’re just giving this away? I’m like, yeah.
I’m giving it away. And goes, that’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. And I explained to him, it’s $1 at the time. It was $1 per box of cards versus $10 for a t-shirt. All the other vendors are handing out t-shirts like they’re going out of style. They’re paying 10 bucks a shirt. I’m paying a buck. It was actually 89 cents per box. And then it’s sticky. People are going to play this game again and again and again and again. Then they’re going to get the instructions and they’re going to go to our website and they’re going to see videos of us teaching people.
Joe Patti (03:07) Mm-hmm.
John Strand (03:18) how to do this, and that’s gonna lead to business, right? He couldn’t see it, right? So that’s an example of like kind of doing a disruptive like activity in such a way to where you’re doing something that’s different, that is powerful, but it’s not what everyone else is doing. And this industry needs more of that.
Adam Roth (03:35) Yeah,
and you said exactly what I was conveying disruption is Never meant to be a negative connotation at least in my mind disruption is What sets you aside? from everybody else Doing the same exact thing. Why is your product better? Or what does your product bring to the table that nobody else does? Because if everyone’s
the same thing and you’re competing on price
What’s the point? Anybody can sell milk.
John Strand (04:07) Dude,
Joe Patti (04:08) Well.
John Strand (04:09) dude, dude, two examples of that, right? Number one, MSP industry. The vast majority of MSPs became a price game. Now they’re trying to get better. Andrew Morgan, right a boom, they’re trying to do better MSSPs, but it became a price game, right? That’s all that mattered. Number two, computer
and IR. Computer forensics and IR became a commodity. How much, how cheap can you get an IR engagement?
How much can you outsource that off to India and get cheap labor to do it? And look at that, that industry is ruined. And the MSP space is trying to rebuild itself. Dude, yeah, if you start playing the game where it’s just gonna be cost, one, why would you do that? It’s not gonna be fun. And two, you’re gonna lose most likely.
Joe Patti (04:53) you know, what I’ve seen too is that when you see, you know, an area, I if it’s a bunch of companies, but it’s usually like a technology or something. When they start getting into the price game and commodity, commoditization game and everything, the, whatever innovation there was is gone. It’s just gone. You know, it’s like, and you’re buying and very often you’re, you know, it probably does work, but you’re buying it because the auditors expect you to have it. I mean, you know, look at like EDR.
John Strand (05:10) That’s done.
Exactly.
Joe Patti (05:21) came from nothing, then all of sudden it was the hot thing. Now it’s like, you gotta have it, whether it works or not, whether you can bypass it or not. It’s gotta be on the machine. But what’s next? What’s coming out next? Who’s disrupting that? Who’s going beyond that? There are a lot of things like that.
see.
John Strand (05:39) Sometimes
disruption
Adam Roth (05:40) Yeah.
John Strand (05:40) can just be due quality.
Adam Roth (05:44) Yeah, I
don’t want to define what disruption is It’s you know it when you see it, you know, you feel it when you feel it and that allows you not to like it’s like almost like if you’re running for office and You keep on you’re competing with the same exact person. I want to fight crime. No, I want to fight crime No, I want to save money. I want to save money You’re fighting on the same values even though values are important But if you can say this is my plan how I’m gonna be different
John Strand (05:47) I don’t think you can. Yep.
Adam Roth (06:13) and you can spell out that plan and people see it’s a real plan, that’s what you do. That’s why you’re different.
Joe Patti (06:19) Yeah, well it’s funny. You talk about quality, You know, for years people have asked me, go, being in New York and a lot of financial people, all that kind of thing, they go, what does the security industry need? If I gave you a million dollars, what would you do? What area do you think insecurity? And I said, well, to tell you the truth, with a lot of stuff that’s out there, if you built a product that was quality, that actually worked, know, reasonably, you’d make a ton of money.
John Strand (06:47) But even that is hard.
Right. I think that that’s absolute truth. God damn it sucks. Like there’s so many companies I see that come up and they’re spunky and they’re trying to do the right thing. And then the money comes in. And as soon as the investors get in, how can we reduce costs? How can we increase the profit so we can get to series B? How can we get it so we can go IPO? And like you said, as soon as that money starts sinking Making Better Security Products it at that level, unless you get good investors, right, that truly want to do the right thing, then you’re caught into that trap.
Joe Patti (07:01) Yeah.
John Strand (07:19) and then you almost always see those products stagnate. I mean, I do think about how many vendors like what was it RSA or was it Black Hat? can’t remember. Somebody did a study of how many companies show up one year but never show up again. And it’s something like 75 to 80 % of the companies just disappear from one year to another. And I think a lot of that is the heart, the spunk, the inspiration gets sucked dry by
Joe Patti (07:22) yeah.
John Strand (07:48) taking on the wrong type of investors. And, you know, it’s just, I keep telling people, if you before you take on investments, right, you want to sit down, you want to say, like, what is the success rate?
for the companies that this particular company invests in. What are they gonna bring to the table? Is it just money? Because if they just bring money, there’s strings attached, right? If they bring in a marketing team, if they bring in additional development, if they bring in additional expertise, and they’re gonna help bolster and support you in an ecosystem, that’s what you should be looking for. But a lot of people, don’t look for that, right? They just see, I’m gonna get $10 million, and that’s all that they see, but there’s so much more to it than that.
Adam Roth (08:20) Yeah.
Joe Patti (08:23) Yeah.
yeah, especially if you’ve got some of those VCs who have their business strategies. we’ll get someone who did one innovation, we’ll market it heavily, we’ve got all the contacts to get them in into the big corporations and everything, and then we stop innovating and we start locking them in. And that’s what they’re doing.
Adam Roth (08:47) So
check this out Joe, at SEC CocktailCon, which John Strand is gonna be the opening speaker, we’re gonna talk about how to be a disruptor in the cybersecurity or offensive security market and what you need to bring to the table. That’s gonna be the main conference in 2027 at SEC CocktailCon. By the way, you can sign up now for our conference a year and a half in advance, go ahead.
John Strand (09:11) There you go. 2027. That’s a long view.
Joe Patti (09:12) Yeah, yeah,
Adam’s big innovation for the conference is going to be basically free drinks. We’ll have cocktail waitresses and waiters walking around like a casino, right?
Adam Roth (09:21) Whoa, whoa, whoa, So so we’re gonna miss so it’s it’s sec cocktail
con It’s a mixer event of security and cocktails and we’re gonna give the people will sign up for the floor Five vouchers and then they’re gonna be served a cocktail in hours security cocktail our Podcast class and that’s gonna be under our parent company of security mixologist our consulting company, which we’re open for business
So let’s go guys. We’re ready. We’re a year and a half in advance. Let’s go.
John Strand (09:52) Yeah.
We got it. We got it. Yeah. Maybe we’ll get you guys in our next 24 hour con so you can feel that pain. all right.
Joe Patti (09:54) That’s right.
Well, you know, it’s funny when we were setting this up and everything, I’m like, okay, so what are we going to talk to John about? And I’m like, well, it’s easy. I mean, he’s everywhere, it seems. And it sounds like you really literally are everywhere with all the traveling.
John Strand (10:36) Yeah, I am especially
how that we’re trying to expand in Europe. But yeah, we’re we’ve got an office in Krakow where we have a bunch of video production and we’ve got some testers and then we also just got set up with our GMBH in Germany. So our home base in Germany is right outside of Munich because it’s central airport. So, yeah, there’s a lot of travel, but, this is this is like this field is awesome.
Joe Patti (10:40) Mm-hmm.
Adam Roth (10:58) Very nice.
John Strand (11:05) this whole career field and what we do and the changing the dynamics of it. And you can, I always say there’s no straight paths to get into computer security and there sure as hell aren’t any.
Joe Patti (11:05) Hmm.
Adam Roth (11:16) that’s for sure. mean like, you know, I was a contractor working for a law firm and I planned on being there for a year in a contract and within a month they made me an offer Joe which was my boss the predecessor made me an offer Meanwhile, I don’t want to say who it is, but he basically said you don’t know your shit We’re not gonna hire you. Meanwhile, he goes a month later. He goes. we’re hiring you and then two weeks later He left then I got Joe but Joe likes to tell people
He didn’t hire me. He inherited me.
John Strand (11:47) that’s and you’ve been around ever since. So we were talking about Paul. so so back in the heyday of Security Weekly, how I ended up on Security Weekly, I was invited by by Paul and Larry, I was going to do a tech segment. So I showed up and I did a tech segment. And it was fun. I love doing tech segments. I love doing technical training. We do pay what you can training with anti siphon. And I just love it. Right. I got done after the show. We had a great time.
Joe Patti (11:47) Yeah, yeah, that’s right. Yeah.
John Strand (12:15) And Paul and Larry were like, Yeah, John, you should come back. And Larry made a joke about, yeah, come back next week. And it was a joke. I showed up next week with another tech segment. they were like, John, yeah. I’m like, I got it. I got another tech segment. And they’re like, cool. Yeah. OK, well, here we go. And I just kept coming back. And so.
Adam Roth (12:25) No!
John Strand (12:40) They kind of, I was like a stray cat that followed them home and they just couldn’t get rid of me.
Joe Patti (12:46) Well, I gotta ask you at this point with all the speaking you do and everything. mean, you are at a lot. doing a lot of stuff. I mean, I figured just you can’t constantly be writing a new thing for the new presentation for everything. I mean, are you like a comedian? Do you go out and like do a have your material like for the year or something or for a season or like how do you just get it all? yeah. Okay.
John Strand (13:07) Absolutely. And I
can give you a shitty kind of stock answer, but I’m going give you an honest answer. I am, which is something someone says right before they lie to you. So I been giving this deception talk and I’ve been giving it for a couple of years, right? Like that’s just been my stock talk for quite a while. And I was presenting a besides crack out a month and a half ago. And I realized that I gave the same presentation two years in a row and that
That’s a faux pas, right? You’re not supposed to do that. But I’ve got like four companies and you know, we’re trying to stand up the training side and I created all this pay what you can. I got like 38 labs that I worked on to get this pay what you can training out there to the community and try to get that rolling. And I realized that I have a problem, right? And the first thing is admitting that you have a problem. So I presented my first large scale conference.
Adam Roth (13:50) wow.
Joe Patti (13:51) Yeah.
John Strand (14:07) And I might’ve been missing something honestly at Saint Con last week in Salt Lake City. And I was there with Grifter and Pope and all of them. that was the first time I’d been on stage to over a thousand people since DerbyCon. had been a while. And Wild West Hacking Fest, but I’m never really presenting at Wild West Hacking Fest. I’m just kind of MCing. And that was the first like new presentation that I’d written from scratch in a while. And…
Joe Patti (14:21) Mm-hmm.
John Strand (14:36) So that one is now in the can and that one’s I’m probably going to keep that for a few months. And then the other one that I’m working on right now is cloud forever days where there’s vulnerabilities that we keep finding in cloud infrastructures again and again and again and again. And what, what do we need to do in the industry to get these things fixed? Right. So that’s the next, the next one that I’m working on right now. I’ll have that one done probably in the next couple of weeks.
But no, I’m gonna try to be better. Now that my labs are stabilized and I know I’ve got, like I said, about 38 labs that are free, open source, they’re out on GitHub. Anyone can use them for their college classes. Now I’m ready to start doing some more presentations again.
Adam Roth (15:22) I mean, I think it’s impressive. we, you, you, you, a lot of, guess, kind of revolve around you. Not sure, we’ve been dealing with Natalie Cano, Natalie Cano, and, she’s amazing. She has this whole thing. She actually is kind of almost like Joe’s neighbor. And, I know that you, you, yeah, she’s like literally the same town, like in a sort.
John Strand (15:32) Mm-hmm.
Joe Patti (15:43) I think she moved though, but whatever. Yeah, she’s close by. Yeah.
Adam Roth (15:44) Yeah, but but
John Strand (15:45) What’s not?
Adam Roth (15:46) Yeah, but we know that you you you guys have donated or worked with her to get card the card games that you have So it’s amazing stuff. So between paul acedore and natalie cano I guess you should tell us who’s our next guest because we want to just start working through you
John Strand (16:02) I,
so if you were going to get some really good presenters, I am, I’m a huge fan of Bull Bullock, right? He does all of our cloud research. He’s the author of, Breaching the Cloud Class and also the, GraphRunner and some of the industry standard tools that are out there. And then Jeff McJunkin, Jeff McJunkin and Tim Medine are two of the most dynamic and they’re not BHIS people, just really good friends.
And they’re just amazing dynamic people just to sit and talk to. Tanya Janka, she won the Rita Award. Jerry Auger is phenomenal from Simply Cyber. And John Hammond, the YouTube phenomenon. These are all just like great people. And anytime I get an opportunity to see these people talk, I’m gonna take advantage of that and sit down and see these people talk.
Adam Roth (16:48) Of course.
Joe Patti (16:49) Mm-hmm.
Adam Roth (17:00) So Joe Joe note the self we got to drop his name every time we reach out to all of these different guests. John Strand said you’re gonna come on don’t give us a hard time. He said it
John Strand (17:04) you can absolutely you can to say hey john was on
Joe Patti (17:07) Well, yeah.
John Strand (17:12) I might be pushing it, but feel free to say John recommended you. have no problem with that. a lot of these people, yeah, and lot of them have their own companies. So, you know, we’re always out there pushing, right? That’s just kind of way it is and hustling in the industry.
Adam Roth (17:14) I’ll do it my own special way John
Joe Patti (17:15) Okay. Well,
yeah. Adam’s more charming than me.
Well, that’s what I find amazing. You know, like I said, you’re everywhere that there’s you, there’s this whole group of people who have their own companies, but are also so visible and giving back, you know, so much. you know, I mean, it’s like how you do it, I don’t know, because like, you know, at least always haven’t been in a corporate job. You know, it’s like to fly all over the place and do stuff. It’s virtually impossible.
John Strand (17:55) will tell
you like how that happens, right? We’ve talked a lot about Paul. And with
Joe Patti (17:58) Mm-hmm.
John Strand (18:03) with Paul, I think that one of the things is find people that are good people to start with, just genuinely good human beings, right? And then, you know, kind of surround yourself with people that are doers. They’re out there and they’re good people and they’re just doing the best they can. Now, one of the things I like to talk about is I’m exceedingly lucky in the fact that some of my best friends are my competitors, right? So like Kevin Johnson is another person you should have secure ideas. Kevin Johnson is a competitor of mine. Tim O’Dean is a competitor of mine. Dave Kennedy.
is a competitor of mine. And we have all talked to each other at some of the lowest points of our lives, whether it’s relationships, financial, health, we’ve all been there for each other.
because there’s hardly anyone else in the world that understands how to run a boutique small pen testing company and the trials and tribulations that come with that. And I think that that’s one of the things that I, know, there’s this great group of people that I have as my support network and people that I talk with. And if I win, great, they celebrate it. If they win against me, I celebrate them. I remember years ago when I first got started with Black Hills Information Security,
was another person that I thought was kind of a friend of mine. And we spent a lot of time together. When he found out I started my own security company, he said, you know, hey, if we’re hanging out, we’re having a good time. That’s great. But I want you to know in the world of business, I wouldn’t piss on you if you were on fire. And I just got, you know, I got this thing in my head. It was just like, I don’t want to party with this guy anymore. Right. I just don’t. So I would much rather I’ll give you an example. So
Joe Patti (19:39) Mm-hmm.
John Strand (19:44) Dave, Kennedy and I, we have customers that alternate back and forth between trusted and Black Hills information security. I have had Dave, it is, right? But I’ve had Dave contact me, you have to mix it up. I’ve had Dave contact me and say, what the hell did you do to that customer? They were amazing, right? And likewise, back the other direction as well. And those are like…
Joe Patti (19:51) which is normal.
Yeah, you want a diversity,
Yeah.
John Strand (20:09) Think about that, we aren’t playing Wall Street sharks trying to cut each other in the world of business. We’re all supporting each other. That’s a much better way to live your life.
Adam Roth (20:19) And it’s funny, we were just talking about this in another episode, not about the competition, but like in ISACs, you have all these competitors, like law firms and financials, but they all have to work together to share information to protect themselves, yet they’re competitors against each other in that industry. like you might have 10 top law firms in an ISAC and they’re all maybe doing the same thing, yet…
We know that the security people are not really competing against each other. It’s really the attorneys, but it’s still competition. Same thing with the financials. It was the last episode, Joe, right? We were talking about that, about how all these high-frequency traders, the security people, do talk to each other.
John Strand (20:51) Mm-hmm.
Because they have to. know, I’ll give an example, Outflank. We use Outflank stuff. They’re amazing. If you’re doing offensive security, you should go get Outflank. They have like a Slack server or a Discord, I think it’s Slack, I’m not sure. And it’s where they can communicate directly with their customers and all their customers can talk to each other. And it’s literally like one of the coolest things in the world because it’s a who’s who of offensive security research. And they’re all supporting and working with each other all the time.
Joe Patti (21:06) Yeah.
John Strand (21:34) So it’s like that. That’s just the way it’s gonna be. And it honestly has to be that way if we stand any chance of succeeding the onslaught of attacks that we’re gonna be dealing with over the next five to 10 years.
Joe Patti (21:47) Yeah, but it’s tough because you guys have that, you’ve known each other a long time, you have that, not the niche so much, but that worldview, that focus of being collaborative, of sharing and everything. There are a lot of people who do come up in lot of corporate environments where, know, Emma and I are both out of New York. And yeah, it is, why did I see you sometimes in a bar with one of our competitors? And it’s like,
Adam Roth (21:53) niche.
John Strand (22:14) Well,
and to be honest…
Joe Patti (22:16) grow up, you know?
I mean…
John Strand (22:18) I’m not going to name names because that’s kind of a jackass thing, but there are firms in this industry that have that attitude. They’re assholes. Anytime another firm is successful, they get angry at their employees like, didn’t we do this? Why aren’t we doing better? I have people that I help support in the early stages of different parts of their career and I believed in them because I met them, I hung out with them, their technical abilities were amazing, but they have that I’m not going to piss on you if you’re on fire attitude.
that zero sum game that if you get pie, that means less pie for me. And some of them come around eventually, but it’s kind of something that breaks my heart. Like whenever I hear someone say, yeah, you you got a beef with this company. I’m like, I do? I didn’t know I had a beef with this company. Yeah, it’s just, yeah, it’s okay. But like I said, don’t party with those people. Party with the people that…
Adam Roth (23:06) Yeah, it was unbeknownst to me. Yeah.
John Strand (23:14) are doing their best to support the community and everything’s going to be fine.
Joe Patti (23:18) That looks like a fabulous hotel room you’re in back there. yeah.
Adam Roth (23:21) You
John Strand (23:21) It’s actually the best that Radisson can provide. If you touch that,
it feels like crushed velour. It’s awesome. It’s really something else.
Joe Patti (23:29) Yes!
Nice, nice.
Adam Roth (23:33) I was
at a conference once and I was at a hotel where there was water running down the side of a wall and I’m like, what happened? go, maybe the shower’s leaking upstairs. I’m like, can you move me? So you gotta be careful when you’re at conferences, yeah.
John Strand (23:42) Maybe. Maybe. So
we were at a conference. We’re actually getting ready to go to San Diego. We’re going to do a training event there the week of May 18th. And we’re going back to the Wyndham. And Wyndham’s like rotated everybody since COVID. And they were talking about, how was your last time here? And it was like three, four years ago. And I’m like, well, we ended up having raw sewage drip down from above the check-in table.
and it was like all over the table and the conference people were bringing out like these 50 gallon buckets on wheels to catch it. And it’s amazing. We got a really good deal on the hotel this time. They felt just awful about it. they, so yeah, I’ve had that happen, but that was raw sewage. was just, some hotels were just, something else.
Adam Roth (24:26) God.
Joe Patti (24:26) well you’re…
Well you’re lucky the last time I complained about a hotel they said, well we’ll give you a discount when you come back. I’m like no I want my money for what you didn’t give to me now, you know? Forget about this. Really.
John Strand (24:36) There you go.
Adam Roth (24:39) I
got even one of the better stories since we’re talking hotels. I guess got a one-up you guys I my wife and I went to Israel to yeah, I got to do it So we’re in the Middle East and we’re in Israel and we actually you know We had a tour and in the tour we were put into a hotel We call that basically New York City a section 8 hotels when we walked in it smelled like road spray and there were people lying on mattresses and rooms with the burners and stuff and I’m like, whoa
John Strand (24:45) one up and then it’s all sharing it’s all sharing.
Joe Patti (24:48) Do it, yeah.
Adam Roth (25:09) So I said my wife let’s go take a walk. Let’s get out of here We call the person that scheduled us for the hotel because what’s wrong with the hotel I go Guy I bought I did everything with American Express. I’m just gonna shut it off. He’s like no no, no, I’ll work it out So we went to the King David Citadel, which is like where the heads of nations stay in Jerusalem and it was like 500 count sheets mahogany dressers soon as I walk up to the hotel like put your hands up spread your legs because they check you for weapons going into the hotel
John Strand (25:22) There you go.
Mm-hmm.
Adam Roth (25:39) It was the best hotel I’ve ever stayed at but it took me two weeks to get rid of the road spray smell in my clothing and in my my suitcases.
John Strand (25:49) This is freaking bizarre. so I’m, I’m, once again, not one uping. These are sharing stories. These are closure moments, right? For people that are roomworks and
yeah. Exactly.
Joe Patti (25:58) also unlicensed therapists, so you can say whatever you like.
John Strand (26:01) And it’s like, people like, I want to be one of those people in security that travels around. No, you don’t.
You really don’t. was teaching at Fort Gordon. I was teaching the 255 Sierra and 25 Delta students out there. And there was this American, what is it? Not American Express, Holiday Inn Express right outside of the gate, because it was closed. And I wake up in the middle of the night with this nightmare that I’m getting eaten alive by ants. All right. I wake up and I turn on the light and I’m covered in goddamn ants.
these little teeny, teeny, ants all over the sheet and all over me, right? So I freak out, right? And I’ve got like these little red bite marks all over my body. This is like two o’clock in the morning. And I go downstairs and I’m like, whiskey tango foxtrot, I’ve got ants. Like, what are we gonna do here? So they go and they get the bug spray and they just go into my room and it’s like, you know, like, you’re good.
Joe Patti (26:36) man, ugh.
Mm-hmm.
Adam Roth (26:59) Hehehehehe
John Strand (27:04) I’m not good, this is not good. My room now reeks of ant sprays. It’s gonna be like naked lunch type, you know, hallucinations with a typewriter turning into a cockroach and talking to me. And I’m like, I can’t stay in this room. And they had no other rooms. So then I go and I sleep out in my car. So I go into the back seat of the car, I snuggle up and I start going to sleep. Ants are coming into the car. They’re coming in through the vents and they’re like going around the car on the inside.
Joe Patti (27:12) Yeah.
John Strand (27:31) So it turns out there was a huge construction site that they disturbed massive amounts of ants the day before, and that’s where all the ants came from. But no, that shit, whenever it gets in your clothes, it does not come out. I mean, it smells like that for a while.
Adam Roth (27:47) You don’t carry an anteater every time you travel, because I do.
John Strand (27:50) There you go. I need to carry an ant eater with me. That’s the thought. So this is hard hitting like news right here.
Joe Patti (27:51) Yeah.
Well that’s just… Yeah that’s…
Adam Roth (27:56) Well look, you know, me
being in security, just do, I mitigate incidents and issues all the time that easily. I’m joking, yeah.
John Strand (28:05) Yeah, yeah, so it’s part of the course, right?
No one died today.
Joe Patti (28:08) Well, you know what? I…
Yeah, I don’t like to travel and I’ve always avoided it. I mean, not that I’m scared. You know, it’s just so painful and everything. That’s the stuff I try to avoid, you know? I know what you
Adam Roth (28:22) It’s like when you’re
watching that movie, My Cousin Vinny. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. Does that train come every day at 3 a.m.? No, it doesn’t. It’s like, you never know what’s gonna happen when you go into a hotel.
John Strand (28:26) Mm-hmm. Yep.
Yeah, yeah. And I’ve been road worrying with my wife. We’re empty nesters now. All of our kids are out of the house. So we’re getting a lot of travel, but it’s actually cool travel. Like I’m here in Riga and Latvia, which is I’ve never been here. And it’s a fantastic city. And I got to go to countries like I went to Cluj, Nipoca, Romania and Budapest and all these different places. And honestly, for as bad as the travel is, and it is bad. I want everyone to know
Adam Roth (28:42) Thanks.
Wow.
John Strand (29:01) meeting people in this industry, it’s wild to be on the other side of the planet.
and just find kindred spirits and that’s the
thing.
Joe Patti (29:10) we’re really happy you were able to join us
John Strand (29:12) Thank you for inviting me on. I appreciate it.
Adam Roth (29:14) I really appreciate you having here and thanks for being the opening speaker at our conference. We’re looking forward to that in 2027. I can’t obligate him legally, but I can kind of try to give him the guilt trip.
Joe Patti (29:21) You
John Strand (29:23) I don’t have to move on a plane.
no more planes. I’m tapped out. I got my 1K in February.
Adam Roth (29:30) Yes.
Yeah. No, but seriously, thank you very much. know it’s very late for you and we really appreciate it and we know you’re a very busy person. We look forward to work with you in the future and hopefully you’ll come on later on.
Joe Patti (29:34) You
John Strand (29:46) You bet.
Joe Patti (29:48) All right, well thanks again, John, and thanks everyone for watching and listening. Take it easy.
John Strand (29:53) Later, everybody.