What is the Career Field of Intelligence?

In this episode of Unspoken Security, AJ Nash and Janet Rathod - the Global Head of Cyber Threat Intelligence for Citi - talk about what people mean when referring to the career field of Intelligence.  They explain what goes into becoming an Intelligence professional, different paths for entering and growing within the career field (HINT: it is more than just smart people who know how to use Google), and why organizations must stop thinking that someone successful in another security discipline can be a plug-and-play answer for building or leading an Intelligence team.

Janet and AJ examine the skills needed to succeed in Intelligence, the importance of education and training, and why people from various backgrounds are so important to building successful Intelligence programs. Additionally, Janet talks about the concept of "intelligence failures" and digs deeper into some of the 188 different kinds of biases that all Intelligence Analysts need to know and overcome to deliver results that influence security decisions.

Finally, as is customary with every episode of Unspoken Security, AJ asks Janet to share something from her career that has so far been unspoken...and she doesn't disappoint!

Transcript

Unspoken Security Ep 3: What is the Career Field of Intelligence?

Janet Rathod: [00:00:00] So interesting when I transitioned from the FBI to the private sector, I had just a very elementary understanding of the fact that there are Intel programs in the private sector. Very, very, um. I would say a low level understanding both of of vendors, contractors and the in house security program.

So it was a huge learning curve for me. And I still to this day, I'm surprised how much I didn't know.

[00:01:00]  

AJ Nash: Hello, and welcome to another episode of Unspoken Security, brought to you by ZeroFox, the only unified external cybersecurity platform. I'm your host, AJ Nash. For those who don't know me personally, or are first time listeners, I'm a traditional intelligence guy. I spent about 20 years in the intelligence community, both within the US Air Force, and then as a defense contractor.

Most NSA. I've been in the private sector for about eight years now, primarily building or helping other people build effective intelligence driven security practices. I'm passionate about intelligence, security, public speaking, mentoring, and teaching. I'm also deeply committed to servant leadership, which is why I completed my master's degree in organizational leadership at Gonzaga University.

Go Zags! The goal of this podcast, though, is to bring [00:02:00] all of these elements together with some incredible guests and have authentic, unfiltered conversations, even debates, about a wide range of challenging topics most of us are faced with today. This is not going to be the typical polished podcast. You may hear or see my dog.

She's over here. Uh, people may swear here. I, I almost certainly will, frankly. Uh, we may argue or debate and that's all okay. You know, think of this podcast as the conversation you might overhear at a bar after a long day at one of the larger cybersecurity conferences. These are the conversations we usually have when nobody's listening.

So today, our guest is Janet Rathod. She's a 16 year veteran of the FBI. So look out for her. She knows her stuff. She, uh, spent a few years also as a leader in cyber operations and intelligence at Capital One, one of my old stomping grounds. And that was before she took on her current role as the global head of cyber threat intelligence at Citibank.

Uh, she took that position mid 2021. So as you can tell, she's clearly one of the more impressive experts in [00:03:00] intelligence and security, and I'm honored to have her here today. So Janet, anything you want to add to that brief introduction?

Janet Rathod: Thank you for the generous introduction. That was very concise. Nothing to add.

AJ Nash: Nothing to add. She's a woman of few words mixed for a tough podcast, but I think we'll get out of her as we go. So listen, uh, for this episode, you know, we're going to focus on helping people understand what we mean when we talk about intelligence as a career field. You and I talked obviously before, and I think you and I share some of the similar ideas on the challenges.

Of explaining what we've dedicated most of our lives to we're intelligence professionals, but nobody seems to know what the hell that means. So, you know, in your words, as an expert on the subject, how do you describe the career of intelligence analysis to people?

Janet Rathod: Yes. So I often think of how, when I leave the Washington DC area, visit my hometown. So I'm from small town, Nebraska. If I were to go back and say, I'm a heart surgeon. Everyone would [00:04:00] immediately understand what that means. When I say I'm an intelligence analyst, right? It doesn't seem to resonate. It doesn't mean much to people.

So I really appreciate the opportunity to tell the story. I think it is a very important one. When I think about the field of intelligence. analysis. It's really about providing advantage decision advantage. We collect information from several different sources. We weigh it, we analyze it. So in this ecosystem where we're, we're mired in so much data, so much information, so much dis information, we're weighing the credibility.

And we're ultimately using it to drive decisions. And we use this, this vernacular, which comes from the military of tactical operational and strategic. So we're driving decision making at all three of those levels. One thing I'd like to add, and it's something we don't talk about very often is. I feel this is one of the [00:05:00] few job roles where you can bring together so many different faculties, geopolitics, economics, technology, cybersecurity, language, culture, history, religion, science, math, psychology.

All of those things are relevant within the field of Intel analysis.

AJ Nash: Yeah, I mean, I think that's an excellent point, right? I've worked on some amazing teams, uh, and I've been lucky enough to work with people, as you said, that have backgrounds in a lot of these different areas, right? It's, I think. People on the outside who haven't done what we do or what we've done, at least, I think maybe they have a misunderstanding sometimes of how teams are built.

It isn't everybody didn't go to university to study the same cultural studies, right? Or the same background, right? Uh, they're not all military experts. Uh, you know, you mentioned. Language, you mentioned culture and history, religion, right? Which are huge components to a lot of what we do. There's a lot of, you know, discussion about understanding motivations of different threat actors, different groups, different, or just different cultures.

I don't want to get into adversarial [00:06:00] discussions, right? Sometimes we just have to understand the point of view. You know, if you talk about diplomacy, for instance, you know, understanding how a culture. You know, seize the world, uh, you know, the U. S. has a different, uh, lens to look through than, say, Japan or China or, um, Great Britain, uh, just to use a few examples.

Right? Um, so I think you make a really good point that. It's, it's one of the things I've enjoyed the most about this industry, about, about the government and the private sector is working with so many amazing people that know so many things I don't know. Um, you know, economics is a great example, man.

I've worked with some brilliant economists. I've learned a lot, not enough. I'm still not making any money. So apparently I don't understand the economy, but, uh, I think it's interesting you pointed that out though. So, you know, in some of the teams you've worked on, for instance, um, you know, can you give some examples, like not naming names, of course, but of, of the kind of backgrounds you've stitched together, either as a leader or just teams that you've worked on, you know, when you talked about some of these backgrounds and how that's really helped with the analysis.

Janet Rathod: Yeah, absolutely. So as I, as I look to hire and retain talent, I am [00:07:00] always looking for people with non traditional backgrounds. So I've had analysts on my team who have psychology backgrounds, who have history backgrounds, who speak multiple Languages and what that has done is really helped deepen our understanding of the world around us.

And we think about analyzing threat actors, activities and trends. When you bring together a team from different backgrounds, different academic backgrounds, you can really not only deepen your understanding, but it goes back to what we just talked about in terms of decision. It's through that, through that deep understanding of whether it's the adversary or any problem that you're diving into.

It's through that deep understanding that you can ultimately drive to more informed decision making.

AJ Nash: Yeah, I think that's an excellent point. Yeah, I think, and you've already mentioned a couple of times and we'll probably mention a couple more is, is that key piece of why do we even do intelligence? You know, and it's about decision advantage. You know, as you've [00:08:00] said, right? It's I tell people our job is to get people the right people, the right content at the right time to make informed decisions.

Now, that doesn't mean they're gonna make the decisions. I think they should make. Lord knows every Intel professional has given a recommendation that somebody with a Authority to make decisions didn't follow. Uh, and that's just because there are other pieces, right? You know, there can be politics, there can be budget involved.

There there's a lot of components and leaders have a lot of things to consider beyond just what Intel people, you know, tell them, but I think you're right on in that decision advantage, you know, and that's, that's a key component, which comes from a lot of context. Uh, which I think it really talks, you know, to what you just said about this diversity of thought, right?

And to be able to understand beyond just the obvious fact of this happened, you know, isn't enough. We have to say, well, this happened and here's why we think the next thing might happen or what we think this might mean. And that's based on all these. Other components that people may not consider that the cultural aspect and the economics and, uh, you know, the specific socioeconomic climate at the time and, you know, whatever's going on politically, you know, and of [00:09:00] course, then the standard things we all expect to understand about adversaries, whether it's a technical adversary, um, or, you know, whether we're talking about a physical component, you know, whatever their capabilities might be.

Right. So I think. You know, I think we're probably gonna talk about it over and over again, though, is that decision making thing. Um, so,

Janet Rathod: yes, and it transcends government in private sector. And I, I sort of organize, organize Intel programs under three different categories. I think about the intelligence community, as you know, 18 different agencies.

AJ Nash: yeah.

Janet Rathod: I think about private sector companies that do niche intelligence or contract services that are either for the government or the private sector, and then you have private sector intelligence programs that are.

In house, they could be focused on physical security, cyber security, geopolitical, competitive intelligence. So exactly as you're just outlining the context, the context that drives to better decision making, it transcends all these three different categories. And I think you, the work that [00:10:00] you do on a day to day basis falls into that second category.

I fall into the third where I'm currently in a role that has an in house Intel program that's focused on cyber security. With also a geopolitical lens to

AJ Nash: Yeah. Well, and it makes sense. And people move between these categories, right? You and I both obviously were in Category 1 at one point, that intelligence community component. Uh, I've been, uh, in Category 3. You know, I worked, as I said, I was in Capital 1 before. Uh, you know, I've been on the side of, of in house Intel.

Uh, I've been on the vendor side, you know, that capital two component or that, uh, category two component you talked about as well. So, you know, I think personally, I'm interested in your opinion on this, you know, the advantages and disadvantage of being able to move between these categories. Again, we're talking about that diversity of thought, you know, for me, when I went from the government to the private sector, I mean, that was obviously a shock, you know, in general to realize.

You know, the difference between everything I thought everybody knew, because we all become insulated and think everybody knows everything we know. And then going to the private sector, to a bank and realizing how much wasn't translated. But at the same time, how much I didn't [00:11:00] understand about banking and finance and some of the threats that they looked at, um, was very interesting.

And then of course, when I moved on to the vendor side and was supporting these organizations, you know, having seen what it's like inside, where does the Intel go? What? Organized sub organizations within this large enterprise need which Intel, you know, I found that to be really informative and hopefully makes me better now as I try to support folks.

But what are your thoughts? You know, you came on the government space. You've been in the private sector. Uh, you know, a couple of different banks, obviously, so you really Well versed in what's going on in finance, how did that translate for you? How do you think that helps? And how does that, how does that work within your team as to where you're pulling people from?

Janet Rathod: you, you make an excellent point. So interesting when I transitioned from the FBI to the private sector, I had just a very elementary understanding of the fact that there are Intel programs in the private sector. Very, very, um. I would say a low level understanding both of of vendors, [00:12:00] contractors and the in house security program.

So it was a huge learning curve for me. And I still to this day, I'm surprised how much I didn't know. So I have made it my mission to. Try to help. I primarily focus on FBI intelligence analysts who are still in the FBI, but as much as I can help tell the story of private sector intelligence to them so that when they decide to move to the private sector, they are are better equipped, so to speak.

But there were there were times where I was just astonished at how much I didn't know to the second part of your question in terms of building teams. So I'd like a combination of those who come out of the intelligence community. And those who are sort of born and raised within the private sector environment.

I think it makes for a good mix to have both. And, um, it also leads to, to dissenting opinion, dissenting analysis, different ways of, of looking at problems and different approaches to analyzing problems. And so [00:13:00] I always like to build teams that are, um, just from various backgrounds.

AJ Nash: Yeah, I think the same way, you know, uh, and, and I've been lucky enough to work with some brilliant folks, as I said, and, and I feel the same way. I think it's, I have said, and I'm. You know, on record publicly. I talked about this. I do think if you're building a program from scratch, I do think the first key hire should be somebody with an Intel background, uh, you know, a serious intelligence professional.

I've seen too many organizations who misunderstand intelligence as a career, as we're talking about. And so they might just take somebody who's really, really good at what they do. Say incident response seems to be a common one leader in incident response. They're doing a great job. You know, Bob's due for a promotion, Bob, you're the new director of Intel.

And, you know, Bob's got to go out and figure out how to build an Intel team and they're not the same. And, and, you know, he does what he can and he works really hard at it. And even if you're really dedicated, a lot of times I see those teams don't end up being what they intended, right? Cause these aren't Intel professionals and Bob and his whole team ended up in a really tough spot because Bob was just put in a bad position to begin with.

Whereas if you bring in an [00:14:00] intelligence professional, the structure and the foundation. I mean, that's all old hat, right? You know, building intelligence, uh, requirements, right. And, and bringing tradecraft and standards and product lines and some of those things, and then having the, the dynamic team, you know, you've already talked about, right.

Having folks who have a really good private sector background. So they understand the needs, they understand the pace, they understand their, you know, what's going to be required and what's going to be delivered and what's going to be done with it. Uh, having all Dynamic bodies you talked about in different backgrounds of, you know, economics and history and culture and technology and all that component.

Maybe some folks who spent time in the vendor side and reverse because then you understand the other side. You know, I found that working as a customer side. If I had people on the team who had spent some time on the vendor side, they may be able to help me translate what my needs are. And hey, this is why this won't happen boss, because this is what they have to do over here.

And they've got 62 requirements. We aren't going to be the top requirement. So, you know, helping translate those languages. So you get what you need from vendors and vice versa. So, um, I think, I think it's been great to see people transition across these different lines.[00:15:00] 

Janet Rathod: Absolutely. Absolutely. And I think the point you're making also, um, it really, it really resonates with me because this story is yet to be told. So to the, to the very first thing that we discussed when we started our podcast here. Today is that the American public generally does not have a deep understanding of what this job role is.

And so it goes directly to your point where you're saying you, you've seen scenarios where somebody's just picked up from a different job role and designated the head of intelligence. That's absolutely what you do not want to do. And I know you and I have talked about this before, but there's, there's 2 phrases.

I think that do not resonate positively with us. And that is connecting the dots. And putting together a puzzle,

AJ Nash: Yeah.

Janet Rathod: it reduces this field to, uh, sort of a juvenile game. And as we get deeper into the conversation, I think it'll become clear just how sophisticated and [00:16:00] difficult the job of an Intel analyst is.

AJ Nash: God, you're, you're so right. I mean, those are, and I know people don't mean it to feel that way, but that's such reductive terminology, right? As you said, you know, it's just, are we putting puzzles together? I mean, I know a lot of people in Intel love puzzles. I mean, there's, there's truth to that. Certainly, uh, connecting the dots, I find it even worse.

Cause I mean, that's, uh, yeah, we'll just leave that one be. But, um, But I'm, I'm with you. It is very reductive, right? There's a lot to this. And I feel like, you know, at some point we're doing this long enough now. I feel like it's, it's on us, frankly, as Intel folks, we haven't done a good enough job trade off is, course, you know, the Intel community has always been this hush hush behind closed doors thing, which has always been good, I think, for a long time. But now there's enough in the public. There's just enough knowledge out there to be dangerous. And we're not helping educate people.

Listen, this isn't just a bunch of smart people with Google. Um, you know, and just as I think we're seeing this, this influx of people who are claiming to be journalists, uh, because they have a camera and they can read a few things, uh, people are claiming to be intelligence analysts because they can read some things and they can come to their own conclusions.

And I think both of those [00:17:00] are, are inaccurate ways to look at it. Journalism has their own standards and there's a lot that goes into journalism beyond just finding and reporting on things. And intelligence has a lot of standards and trade craft. I think people don't understand behind the scenes cause they just get a product and they go, Oh, this, this is some interesting stuff.

Right. Um, so I think that brings us like to the next question we were talking through is, so no matter which category, you know, people came from, whether it was that government, whether it was, you know, from the vendor side, you know, support teams, or whether it's, you know, uh, from a customer, what I would call customer side from an organization building an in house Intel team, you know, let's talk about this, about the skills, right?

What are the skills that you think all Intel analysts absolutely need?

Janet Rathod: Yeah, absolutely. So 3 main skills. It's critical thinking, writing and briefing and that transcends all categories in the FBI. We have a 4th pillar and that is legal. Um, and that may not be the case in other academies, other Intel agencies that do structured training. And so when I think about those 3 core things, critical thinking.

Writing [00:18:00] and briefing. The one that I hone in on and is so absolutely fascinating is the concept of critical thinking, cognitive bias, and what you'll sometimes hear some of us say is thinking about your thoughts. Thinking. So there are, I'm sure you, you likely know this because you've studied it as well.

So last time I looked it up, there were nearly 200 different cognitive biases. And what, what I mean by that is our brains, our brains have evolved over time to make quick decisions and it's essentially a survival mechanism. So it's, we're relying on mental shortcuts and the purpose is to process information quickly.

So it's efficient, yes, and it's based on survival, but it leads to cognitive bias, especially when we're talking about highly complex situations. So the, the one example that I was recently thinking about was [00:19:00] if I, if I go to Whole Foods and there's 30 different boxes of spinach in front of me, I don't have the time to, Weigh them and look at the country of origin and look at how big the leaf structure is before I can make an informed decision.

So I make a quick, efficient decision, choose what I want and get on with my day when we're dealing with either a life and death situation or something as sophisticated as a cyber threat actor and assessing the threat to your firm or your company. You really have to account for your biases you have to question your assumptions, and in the field of Intel analysis, apply what's called structured analytic techniques to your products and to your overall assessment and overall understanding of the situation.

Thank

AJ Nash: point. You know, so cognitive bias, definitely something I think any intel analyst, anybody who's been trained at all knows the [00:20:00] concept. I won't lie to you. You told me, you know, we're pushing up on close to 200 now. I think I think you mentioned like 1 88 previously. That even blew my mind.

Listen, I need to go back and do some more research and studying apparently because I've lost track of some of these along the way. Right? So Thank you. You know, and theoretically, I'm, I have knowledge in this field. I'll never call myself an expert. I'll leave that for somebody else. That's, I think that's pretty arrogant, but at least I have knowledge.

I've done this a few times. I'm old. I can tell you that. And I've done it a while and cognitive bias. Like I didn't realize there were that many. And you talk about structured analytic techniques, which is whole books on. I think people don't understand. I've, I've often worked with folks. I'm building Intel programs and you talk about standards and trade graph.

And I bring out, you know, uh, structured analytic techniques and, and people just. You know, kind of cock their head. You're like, Oh, yeah, let's talk about how this really gets done. Like when we get to the end and you see a product that says, you know, we have a high confidence assessment based on, you know, intelligent sources.

We go through that process. That wasn't just a hunch. We didn't just sit down here and decide. Yeah, I read this. I think this, uh, there's a lot in that background that people don't know. [00:21:00] And I think, you know, As you said, thinking about thinking, uh, it's such a deep concept that most of us don't have time to do, especially in tech, you know, you talk about how quickly we have to make decisions that we're working at the age of cyber, things are coming at us so fast.

And so you have these biases, you know, and I think, you know, one of the big ones you hear about is, is, uh, right now I would say we talk about like mystics and malinformation is something I'm. Very concerned about talking about a lot. And what I see there a lot is confirmation bias, uh, is, is one that comes to mind, um, uh, wherein somebody has an idea already, you know, we see this one, our political discourse right now, unfortunately, not just our country, but around the world, people are already entrenched in an idea and so after that.

It's very hard to get them out of that decision. Even if we have hard evidence that refutes their thought process, they don't want to hear that because people don't like to be wrong. Uh, they don't like that. There's an ego piece to that. Right. And at the same time, there's plenty of other stuff out there.

They can consume that fits. Right. So, uh, I'm sure you're seeing a lot of this, [00:22:00] right? Uh, this, this confirmation bias.

Janet Rathod: Yes, yes, this is such a good one. I think in nearly all circumstances, it's easier. We tend to seek out information that confirms our pre existing beliefs. And this is something that happens in our day to day life. And it happens in our workplace. So if I'm an Intel analyst and I've got a specialty let's just take Russia for for instance, let's say my specialty is Russian FSB, and I have a particular Analysis, and I want to stick to my analytic line.

I may just disregard data or information comes my way because I want to stick to that analytic. Um, this is a problem that again transcends all three categories and some techniques to overcome it is just simply being aware, being aware that the human mind has these tendencies and then [00:23:00] just being cognizant of.

Your own behavior, so am I disregarding data that's put in front of me that goes against what my analytic line or what my assessment is. I have been talking to other analysts, even just simply asking another analyst to push on your thinking push on your analytic. Line, um, that always helps. And then, of course, as you and I have talked about through this discussion, applying structured analytic techniques.

So there's ways for you to check your assumptions. You can employ a myriad of different techniques with your team of analysts with your colleagues to try to help overcome some of these some of these cognitive biases. But I think I think confirmation bias is an excellent one to dive into.

AJ Nash: Yeah, I, I, I absolutely agree. It's, and it's great. You mentioned, you know, bouncing ideas off of teammates. Right. And this is again, the discussion about why we have more diverse teams, you know, I think, I think maybe people don't [00:24:00] always understand, you know, and it's, it's an odd position to be in. Cause on the one hand, we're intelligence analysts, we're intelligence professionals, and I know there's plenty of people think, oh, you think you're smart because it says intelligence and that's not what it's about, but there's so much humility to be really good at this, to go, Hey, listen, I think I know a thing, I think I've got data to support it.

Now, let me. Have somebody who's also really smart and knows their background and let, let him push me. Let me, let me see if, if this holds up to, to scrutiny. Uh, and it takes, it takes guts and humility. Once you've gone down the path and you've done the research and you've put something together to go, I'm going to put this all on the line with somebody who might just tear it completely apart and expose me because I failed to notice.

My own bias, right? I didn't, I really wanted to believe this apparently. Um, or you mentioned, you know, dismissing content that refutes what you have to say. You know, people talk about that a lot. One of the standards for, you know, producing Intel, you know, we talk about timely and accurate and relevant. One of the standards is completeness, which I think a lot of people forget, which is you have to Validate obviously things if it's not valid content, you can dismiss it.

But if [00:25:00] it's validated or equally validated to your other content, you can't just ignore it. Even if it doesn't fit your assessment at a minimum, you have to note here where the dissenting pieces of content, and this is where we went with our assessment. And I've, I see a lot of people who. Miss those. And I wonder if they're missing them because it's cognitive bias and they're choosing to ignore things, or is it that they were harder to find, which is another bias that we run into when people are in a hurry.

Um, and I know, you know, a lot about availability bias and how that works, especially in again, the social media age where people are in a hurry, you know, how does that play and how do we figure out, is it cognitive? I just dismissed things versus, ah, it was just too hard to find. And I just didn't have the time for it.

Janet Rathod: Oh, this is another good one. So it's this concept of over emphasizing readily available information. So exactly as you laid out something that's easy. That's right at your fingertips. I think we also have a tendency, especially if you're under pressure from say an executive who says they want something yesterday.

You may [00:26:00] throw together a piece of analysis that is just based on what you have in front of you. And that can be a very dangerous. A couple of techniques to overcome that again is to leverage your fellow Intel analysts. If you are under a time crunch and you're working with a set piece of data and looking to make an assessment that is going to decision makers tap into the collective.

Ask for additional information, ask for more sources, outsource some of your research. If you need to, to some of your colleagues, I think there's ways that you can overcome that tendency to just look at what's readily available. Then, when you do have some downtime, and you're not responding to something that is.

Urgent just ensure that the sources that you're looking at are coming from different places so that the next time you're, you're maybe under a time crunch that you already have your sourcing and different pieces of [00:27:00] intelligence available to you. So, so not just relying on what is right in front of you, but doing your deep dive research in between.

If that makes sense as you're building your expertise on your portfolio.

AJ Nash: No, that absolutely makes sense. And when you talk about dynamic sources, I think that's a really key point too. So, uh, you know, in, in our space, you know, in, in intelligence, you know, obviously, if you're in the government space, we have all sorts of, you know, pretty impressive sources and the private sector, frankly, we do too.

There's a lot of different vendors now. Uh, who have some really cool accesses, whether it's deep and dark web, whether it's, you know, social media monitoring, whether it's, uh, you know, just open source. Right. But for a moment, I'm just thinking just the average person, right? The average, my sister, she's average as anybody, I suppose.

Uh, you know, listen, she's got access to all the social media platforms. She watches the news, you know, things happen in the world, scary, bad, terrible things. Right. But is she really taking the time to consume the content? That is less likely to agree with her. So the answer is probably no, no offense, uh, Sarah Lynn.[00:28:00] 

Uh, it's my sister, but, uh, the answer is probably no, right. Whereas you and I might, I tell people all the time, listen, on a daily basis, I consume what CNN, NBC, Fox, Al Jazeera, NPR, uh, you know, there's local newspapers, three or four of those. It's a lot of sources. I think. I've seen a lot of people that just get into this, this, uh, this echo chamber, right?

Whether they're, I don't care if they're on the right, on the left, I don't care if they're in different countries. People pick these echo chambers again, cause it fits our biases, right? And it also fits the time constraints we have. It's hard to look at all these sources and then compare them. But wait a minute now, that's a very different line of thinking than I got from this news source and sitting down and comparing them.

And it's just so much easier to just go, I already believe this anyway. Let me just listen to people that tell me the thing I want to believe. And you know, I don't know how you feel about this, but I it's, I've been very frustrated by this for the last several years. I have a lot of conversations with people where facts just don't seem to matter anymore.

And it's very disturbing because they're so far into this echo chamber, [00:29:00] whatever it is, and, and, and it just becomes very difficult. And I think it's, you know, conspiracy theories have been on the rise as a result, um, and we've seen a lot of interesting components to it, but I'm curious, I just rambled on a bit on your thoughts on how hard this is for the average person who has very little time, but has access to an.

Infinite supply of content coming at them to, to know their own biases, whether it's, you know, recency bias, whether it's availability bias, whether it's cognitive bias, and where's the truth in all that, then where do they find the truth?

Janet Rathod: It's such a difficult question. I think that it is the number one challenge that we're facing as a society today. Our ability to think is deteriorating. And so it's on us as individuals to try to fight against that. I even think about my own attention span, and there's times where I'll click on a A news article, and then I'll just skim it, or I'll read the 1st, couple of paragraphs [00:30:00] and already thinking about the next thing.

And so what I've tried to do to combat that is essentially force myself, read the whole thing, consume the whole thing. Don't always be in a rush and then understanding that if you firmly believe something. Gathering information and gathering data and reading. The opposing perspective will either help firm up your perspective, or it may make you change your mind.

And so, versus sort of living in the dark, it's incredibly important to bring in all these disparate pieces of information. And, of course, weighing it for accuracy and making sure that you're, you're using reputable sources becomes more and more important. Um, and I recently just had a very similar experience.

So I. Was in a deep dive on the belt and road initiative, and I wanted to believe that it was all bad. I [00:31:00] walked I walked into my own research, um, knowing that it was all bad. It's all bad for developing countries. It's all bad for the economy. Then I looked at the data and come to find out some of the outcomes.

Not aren't all that bad. So if you have strong feelings about something, if you think something is black and white, that actually should be a red flag. To you, if you think something's all bad or all good, chances are you're wrong. And in this, in this case, I was, I was wrong. There's that gray area and learning to be comfortable and learning to live in that gray area.

There's a power to it.

AJ Nash: What a great point. Like both of those points were huge, right? The first, like I'm gonna do in reverse, but if you are certain about something, you're probably wrong. I think that's a fantastic point because there, the world isn't black and white. You know, there aren't for the most part, there aren't good guys and bad guys.

Uh, there are people. You know, and and people have different [00:32:00] flaws. They have different lenses. They see the world through the different aspects they come through. Things are rarely just black and white. And and I think it is easy for people to go. No, they're just wrong. They're just bad. We're just good or vice versa.

And and I think that's key. But another Um, Huge point you made, which I hope people take away from this is if you're really entrenched in a position, you believe something strongly, then really, you just need to go read the other position, right? You don't need to read more of the things that validate what you already believe.

You're done. You've already believed this. You've got enough content to make an opinion. You believe this already, and that's fine. And maybe you're correct. I don't know whatever the opinion is, but I think you make a great point. Read the other side a lot because either it will enlighten you. Oh, there's things I didn't know, or You're It will, as you said, validate your position, be like, well, these are ridiculous arguments. None of this makes any sense. This isn't this isn't good argumentation. There's no logic to this. There's no facts behind this and will validate your own position. It doesn't make any sense to continue to read content and sources on a topic that you already know the answer.

They already know what they've said [00:33:00] and what they're going to You're just pushing yourself further down that bias. You're just building that wall against what might be, you know, an alternate opinion of value. So, you know, I think, I think those are huge points and I hope people take that away.

And, and, you know, as you said, think about their own thinking, um, which is hard to do, especially, you know, we have no time, right? Nobody has energy or time this. You're right. I read so much every day, but I'm. Thinking to myself, even now, how much do I actually read and how much is it the headline and the skim and I move on versus how much I actually read.

Um, I, I probably to do a better job too. So with, with all this in mind, you know, uh, we had talked about the kinds of people, uh, doing Intel and we talked about, you know, where they come from, the different categories and, and, you know, the diversity of the teams and a little bit of, you know, discussion on structure and techniques, but with all that going on, what kind of training goes into becoming an intelligence professional, like where.

Where are we getting them? You know, you came from the FBI. I was in the air force and then, you know, NSA, uh, and cyber command. Right. So I, in our cases, I think everybody knows where we came from. You know, we're grown by the government, so to speak, but not [00:34:00] everybody's going that route. Uh, you know, federal service and military service are, are part of it, but where else are we able to create, grow, educate, you know, Intel folks that end up working at Citibank or cap one or fire, you know, zero Fox where I am or wherever it might be.

Right.

Janet Rathod: Yeah. Yeah. I think, um, for one, no matter who you are, no matter where you work, you should always be in a state of learning. You should always be seeking out training, both formal and informal. And you're, you're, you're spot on when you talk about the government, the FBI, for example, you go into the Academy at Quantico and you are trained on critical thinking, Um, Writing briefing and the law and you take tests and you have to pass before you can start your job.

So there is very structured training. And then throughout your career, um, you'll continue to receive training in whether it's open source intelligence or critical thinking or any [00:35:00] number of things could be your subject matter. Expert, um, in a field of counterterrorism or counterintelligence or cyber that sort of training as well.

So you, you get a lot of structured training in the government in the private sector. What I've noticed is that it varies quite a bit from, um, firm to firm, from company to company. And so what that tells me is that you generally have to take it upon yourself to seek out training. And there are so many different things that.

There and a lot of it is free and is as simple as just doing a Google search other things you have to pay for such as sans training as you as you probably know all too well. depending upon depending upon where you work. There's a myriad of different opportunities to to get structured training so I break it down into the analytic methodology so that's your critical thinking writing briefing.

And then your subject matter area. So you could be a [00:36:00] strategic analyst on Russia cyber, for instance. So you'll want that trade craft training, but then you'll also want the specialty training in your line and in your portfolio.

AJ Nash: Yeah. That makes sense. Right. And, and so, you know, I've seen, it's funny, you mentioned SANS training, right? Great training, really expensive. Like you really need a corporate sponsor. A lot of times to do SANS, uh, training, uh, good shout out to SANS great training guys. I wish you could help us with some discounts.

Uh, but I, I love when I see people who have SANS training on their resume, it tells me they took it upon themselves. To accomplish that. And there's some, listen, there's some other certifications out there that are gaining traction to, you don't have, if you don't have four or five, 6, 000, there are other certs.

I tell people, listen, take anything like LinkedIn has some training on Intel. At least it shows me you care. You're trying. You have an interest. You want to learn because it may not be your background. Uh, you know, federal service, military service course. Uh, there are some great university programs. I've seen Mercyhurst is fantastic.

They teach the Kent school, uh, which is, you know, CIA's training, right? Um, there's a couple other programs out there. I think James Madison University has a great program, which is, [00:37:00] if I remember correctly, is a collaboration between a retired FBI, um, employee and, uh, their Computer science department. So they actually have a cyber intelligence program at James Madison.

So there are some cool university programs. You don't have to strap on a uniform or make it through Quantico and which is hard, uh, you know, to, to make it here. There's other ways. And then obviously there's a lot of OJT, as you said, they come in the door and then it's this ongoing process of learning and developing.

You don't just graduate and become an Intel professional. You're, you got to Continue to learn and things change. As I just said, I'm going to go back and see the biases. Now I'm missing some, some biases. I didn't know we were at 188. So now I gotta go back and see what I haven't recently. So it never

Janet Rathod: And I think there's large categories yeah there's no way to memorize all of them. That's for sure.

AJ Nash: now. So I think that's great though, to know that there's more than one way to get here. Um, you know, I've seen people that have come through tech who have no formal Intel background, but they wanted to move into CTI. So, you know, they got some training again, SANS training or another certification, you know, they got an opportunity to move.

I've also told [00:38:00] folks if you've had the same experience, um, you know, who said, Hey, I want to move into Intel. Uh, well, you know, you've got several years in, in another, you know, Instant response or, or, you know, uh, something in the socks, something like that. Are you okay with moving back and being a more junior position?

You can't take your leadership position with you into a field you've never done. If tomorrow I decided I really want to be, uh, a physical therapist. I'm not going to come in leading a physical therapy department. I don't know anything about physical therapy. Ask anybody. Uh, so I'm going to have to accept that I'm like an intern.

I'm gonna start over. Uh, have you had that happen? Have you had people ask and have you had that experience? Have you been able to mentor people who've said, yeah, I'm willing to give up my, my. You know, experience portion and start over. Cause I really want to go this path. I'm curious if you've run into that or have any thoughts on it.

Janet Rathod: yeah, definitely ran into many people who are looking for a career shift it is exactly what you said. Generally, you can't come in at the same level that you were at if you don't have any Intel experience and so [00:39:00] coming in at the right. Level, but then learning, and there's always opportunities to work your way up in the organization.

So definitely have come across that. And it is, it is a very compelling job role. It's high visibility of there's times where you're, you're briefing executives on a regular basis, whether it's the or the executive management team, there's, There's tons of opportunities in this space, and I think people look at it and recognize it and realize it.

And you just get to see how intellectually stimulating it is on any given day. You're diving into a number of very interesting issues and you get the opportunity to research and write and analyze and brief and it just doesn't get any better than that.

AJ Nash: I agree. Like I, it's a, I was very lucky. Listen, Intel was a mistake for me. I, it was, I shouldn't say it was a mistake. It was unplanned. Uh, you know, I went into the military and I was going to be a. a cop and I was going to law school and be a lawyer. Like everything about my career is just pure luck. [00:40:00] I got talked into some taking some different tests.

I ended up going down the path of linguistics, which I'm not a very good linguist. Uh, and that led me to being an intel analyst and I couldn't be more thankful because as I said, it's, it's incredibly interesting work. Uh, the opportunity to get paid to think, uh, and to, to, to dig into so many different topics over the years and learn a whole lot about the world, which can also be a bit of a burden sometimes, uh, to know things that maybe you.

You wish you didn't have conversations with people you can't correct them because they don't know the access you have. But I'm with you. It's a fantastic career field. And I'm just reminded there was somebody reached out to me on linked in a couple years ago, and he was a manager of a restaurant. Um, he, he reached out and he said, I'm I'm working, he was working on, uh, some computer certifications.

He wanted to switch careers and he asked for advice and specifically wanted to get into cyber threat intelligence at some point. And that was the discussion we had, you know, you wouldn't manage, he was a manager of a restaurant for like 20 years. Uh, but he was fine with that. He wanted to give all that up.

He was frankly bored with his career. He'd gone as far as he wanted to. Uh, and he reached out to me not that long ago and it's all worked out. Like he, he finished school. He did the training. He's got a job in, in tech [00:41:00] now. And he's, he's made that transition, um, which I give him credit. I'm not sure 20 years in any career.

I'm not sure I'd be able to do it. I mean, that's, that's impressive, but he's very, very happy and he's doing work he enjoys. Um, so it's possible, but it took the, you know, I had that conversation up front to make sure he was okay with the idea. Listen, you're going to come in. Basic. Like you're in a different career field.

You will be an intern or you'll be a junior analyst starting out. Are you okay with that? And he was, uh, and he was very committed to it. So, um, if he's out there I, I'd call him up. I name it. I don't remember at the moment. I feel bad. Uh, but I hope he's listening. I hope he's doing well. Um, so, all right, we got to Yeah.

I mean, it's, it's a cool story. Right. And there's a few, I'm sure you've, you've had others. I'm sure you've encouraged people to make changes right over a career. We run into a few of those folks and it's nice to help. And hopefully, hopefully I that guy. He seems really happy. So,

Janet Rathod: Yes. Am I, am I allowed to ask you a question?

AJ Nash: sure. Ask me whatever you want.

Janet Rathod: Do you, you ever get asked, do you ever get asked, how do, how do you get, or how do I get to where you are? Because as you were talking about, um, [00:42:00] how so many things happened in your career by accident, it got me thinking that we should. We should briefly discuss that, but, but it sounds like you've been asked that question.

AJ Nash: I mean, I get asked where I, you know, how do I get where you are? And I, and I tell him to check Google maps, but, uh, no, I, the truth is, uh, yeah, there's no one path, right? My path was an accident. I I've, I've said to people, I'm very, very lucky because I think everything, everything in my career that led me here was probably not planned in a bit of a.

Just lucky. Um, you know, I, I agree. We make our own luck. You know, I did join the Air Force. I made that decision. I wanted to do something different with my life. That was a good choice. Um, you know, and, and, and you make luck as you go, but sometimes it's just about being willing to, to go where the world's going.

I ended doing terrorism because that's what was happening at the time. So I got into counter terror work. I got into cyber entirely by accident. I got recruited into a contact, a contract when I was doing defense contracting, uh, that was cyber focused. And they, they already had, it was actually a bunch of, uh, mathematicians and [00:43:00] operations researchers, and they were developing this new process, uh, which was cyber intelligence, preparation of the battle space, which became cyber intelligence preparation, the environment, which for those who are old enough to remember, turned into what is now known as kill chain, that's how old I am.

Uh, but I got recruited into that by mistake. Uh, and that led me into cyber and a whole different career field that I didn't intend to be. And so I've told people it's about. Putting yourself in a position to take advantage of opportunities, you know, through education, uh, you know, uh, through, through effort, uh, through, through, uh, socialization, right, uh, you know, through building networks and then being willing to, uh, you know, be open to opportunities when they come up, that might seem unusual and just taking that, that leap and that chance, um, You know, I'm being adaptable on it.

And if you make a mistake and listen, not every move I've made, my career has been good. I've had some jobs that I probably wouldn't take a second time around, but when you're there, make the most of what's there. I'm going to, I'm going to do the best I can here. I'm going to take as much as I can out of this situation.

I'll carry it forward. You know, bad experiences, uh, you bring as much value, probably as good experiences sometimes. Um, so, I mean, you can't [00:44:00] replicate somebody else's path, right? Um, but those are the big pieces I've told people.

Janet Rathod: Exactly. Luck favors the prepared. I don't know whose quote that is, but it always resonated with me because so much of your career path will be by accident or will be serendipity. But if you're prepared for it and you're prepared to take care, take advantage rather of opportunities, it can make a huge, huge difference.

AJ Nash: That's a good point. You know, I often tell people fortune favors the bold too, which is again to somebody else's quote from Greece or it's a long time ago, so I don't own it, but same thing, right? Being prepared and then, and then having, you know, the guts, right? Being able to take risks. Very few people in life have been very successful without taking a risk somewhere, big or small.

Um, and you take that leap, you trust yourself, um, and just understand that the chances are you'll be okay either way. You know, I, within reason. Everybody who I know is wildly successful has failures in their past. I think

Janet Rathod: Oh yeah, yes, it's a [00:45:00] huge part of the growing process the bumps and bruises and calluses that you get along the way that's what actually makes you a more effective professional and a more effective leader. I'm laughing you can probably see on the camera I'm laughing a little bit because I'm thinking we can just, we can keep bouncing back and forth and forth with unattributed quotes.

AJ Nash: totally. Yeah, yeah. About being an Intel. We probably have a thousand different quotes because we've all gone through some of them, but no, it's true. You know, the, the failures make us better. You find me somebody who's never failed at anything. And my guess is they haven't taken a lot of risks. You know, it's, they've lived in zone and maybe they've been successful, but I think you just have to be able to take some leaps and take some risks in there.

And then you end up. Finding a whole different path. You didn't expect like, if you told me this is where I was going to be, this is not what, you know, seven year old me thought I was going to be someday. Um, but then again, seven year old me thought I was gonna be an NFL quarterback. What did that guy know?

Uh, so, so, all right, listen, I want to keep, keep the conversation moving here. You know, we've been talking about, you know, I mean, I think hopefully the audience is getting a better idea of what Intel is, right? That this [00:46:00] is a career field, that there's structure to this, that there's, you know, technique to that, that there's training to this, there's education to this, but we're not perfect, right?

And I think that's another challenge is people like, Oh, you're so smart. How come you didn't know this? Or how come you didn't see that? First of all, predicting the future is really hard for anybody who wants to try. But, you know, we hear people talk about these things as like Intel failures. Now, listen, I, I'm.

I worked through 9 11 and we talked about that as an Intel failure, but even beyond that, uh, you know, in, in the grand scheme of things, you talk about, you know, the Iraq war as a whole, the Iranian revolution, uh, the Yom Kippur war, Indian nuclear test right now, we're watching, right? Russia invading Ukraine.

I know people who are Russia experts for decades, who right to the bitter end said, I don't think this is going to happen. And then it did, uh, you know, we've Hamas and Israel is, is in the news again right now. Right? So. Yeah. Cool. How do we, you know, first of all, I don't love when people call these intelligence failures.

Uh, I think you gather everything you can gather. We have to remember you make an assessment based on the best content available at the moment. Adversaries [00:47:00] are trying to hide things. So we don't necessarily know everything. Uh, they don't always act rationally and sometimes make decisions we didn't anticipate.

And also a lot of times people look back on history and say, well, you should have known because of this, but the thing they're referring to happened afterwards, we didn't have the benefit of knowing that thing at the time. But let's. You know, turn that to like the private sector for getting the war for a minute.

Do you have examples where decisions were made in the private sector where maybe they might've been considered an Intel failure from a private sector standpoint, and maybe were they tied to say cognitive bias, for instance? Uh, I feel like there's some parallels between the biases we see in the big picture government world affairs thing and what we've seen in private sector, uh, business decisions.

So I'm curious about your thoughts on that one.

Janet Rathod: That's such a great way to weave it in. So you're absolutely right. When we think about the government, we think about the intelligence community. We have example after example of what is termed an Intel failure. There are so many Intel successes. It's just that [00:48:00] it doesn't hit. The news, there's there are things that the general public wouldn't ever know about.

So I think that is that is another critical point to make looking at the private sector to your question. I think there were a lot of different decisions that we could draw from a little lot of different examples that we could point to in the private sector of decision making that we won't call it an Intel failure, but it could Possibly be, um, cognitive bias.

If we look at Blockbuster, I think that might be a good example where they passed up opportunities to buy Netflix. That could be an overconfidence bias. If we look at Kodak, how they clinged to film based photography. Even though digital photography was on the rise, and they have the technology for digital image imaging that could be called a status quo bias.

And these are just two examples, but there are so many. And so I think it brings a converse conversation full circle. We think about decision advantage, [00:49:00] making informed data driven decisions. So whether it's in the government or the private sector, we have this tendency. Toward these cognitive biases and it can lead to these types of massive decisions that that don't always work out very well.

AJ Nash: Yeah, well, I think those are great examples. You know, blockbusters, uh, you know, one of those stories, you know, I think most people probably heard at one point, Netflix really tried to sell the blockbuster and blockbuster basically said, no, thanks, kid. Like we're good. You're going to go away. We're the market.

Right. And, uh, and they could have bought it a very small number. I don't know what it was, but compared to what it turned into. And of course, Netflix, I think everybody I know has a Netflix account or we're all using six accounts for the whole world still. I'm not sure how that's working, but we all have access to Netflix.

At least I don't know anybody who. As Blockbuster, I'm pretty sure they're all gone. I think there was one left for a while. I mean, we have a whole generation doesn't even know what Blockbuster is. Right. I feel for them because. Yeah, I mean I feel for them at least because they didn't know for sure like you said overconfidence bias in the moment Probably made some sense.

They were doing really well [00:50:00] still Netflix You could see what was eating away at their you know at their business, but I could see it But the second one you mentioned is just phenomenal to me Kodak Sticking the film base when digital photography was on the rise and they had the technology Kodak understood what digital imaging was And they just chose, chose not to go down that path just blows my mind.

You know, I think you said that was status quo bias. And that just blew my mind because they had all the pieces in front of them to know the benefits, cost benefit analysis between film versus digital and where the world looked to be going. And with all of that in front of them and access to the technology and obviously a dominant brand at the time, they still by and watch the world pass them by.

Uh, it's just. egregious, you know, I'm glad I didn't have Kodak stock apparently because it's just just brutal for them. just

Janet Rathod: It's an interesting thing and then to your point on, we weren't in the room, we don't know how exactly the decision was made. And would [00:51:00] we have made the same decision if faced with the same data, who, who knows, it certainly fascinating to dissect after fact.

AJ Nash: no, that's a great point. And yeah, it's easy to be monday morning quarterbacks You know, I remember listen I was I was certainly within the ic on 9 11 and after and I remember all the things that came on that and it's You made a good point. Obviously, we can't go into detail, but we've stopped a lot of terrorist attacks as a government over the years as an intelligence community over the years, you know, I used to tell people, you know, this is a constant problem every minute of every day.

The bad guys only have to get. One win, they win once and everybody knows all about it. And it's a disaster. We win every day and nobody hears anything about it. And that's fine. I get it. Like tragedies, when these tragedies happen, everybody needs to find out how this happened, how do we prevent it? How do we do better?

If you're in Intel, you understand that's the job, our jobs to prevent things we'll miss occasionally. And when we do, we're going to pay for it. I'm totally fine with that logic. I just wish people. Had a [00:52:00] better way of understanding just how many successes were, how many interdictions there are, how many things are stopped before they become disasters, because it's one thing to say, we need to work to do better at this.

And I, I'm disappointed this happened and we should find a way to be better. It's another thing to malign the entire intelligence community as, as, you know, with every negative term that came out, you know, whenever 9 11 happened or when other events happen, uh, that there's a little frustrating, you know, because I know people are really.

Really working hard on this stuff every day. You know, I know you do too. People who work long hours and nights and weekends. And let me tell you, if you want to get paid, the IC is not the place to do it. So they're not doing it for the money. Uh, they're genuinely Patriots trying to work, you know, what's best for the American people and overseas, you know, for their nations as well.

And it's just frustrating to see the categorization that comes out, you know, as, as now you're a you don't know your job. And it's because people, I think, just don't understand all the background and all, all the difficulties and not having the benefit of seeing the future until it's already passed us by.

Um, but with, uh,

Janet Rathod: And so many things that are under the radar [00:53:00] counterintelligence. I don't think that was part of our everyday language and vernacular. Then we move into the 2016 election and things sort of change under that framework, but the amount of work that the intelligence community has done historically on that portfolio and continues to do is astonishing and it really it.

Protects our way of life. It protects our technology and our status in the world. There's so much that goes into it and you're spot on. It's it's something that we all should be grateful for.

AJ Nash: Yeah, agreed. Uh, so, all right, we've talked about the field. Hopefully again, hopefully people are gathering that this is a truly, you know, this is a profession, you know, this isn't just smart people with Google, right? And we've talked about the training. We've talked about the education. We've talked about decision making, uh, you know, structured bias, you know, structural techniques and, and fighting out our biases.

But now everybody's talking about, you know, who's the big buzz is, is AI. You know, AI is everywhere now. So, I mean, what do you think? I mean, how long until we're all replaced by [00:54:00] AI? Cause I keep hearing that's the next thing. We don't need these Intel analysts, right? AI is going to do it. So you're an expert.

How long until AI replaces all of us?

Janet Rathod: That is absolutely not going to happen with. In the field of intelligence analysis, you need the human touch. Now, where that comes into play. That is what can be up for debate. So there's certain things that I think we can potentially outsource to a I that will help us be more effective at our jobs, especially given the rapid evolution of technology and the incredible amount of data that we have to deal with on a day to day basis, but you will always need human judgment as part of this ecosystem if we really want to do it right and if we really want to do it well.

Yeah.

AJ Nash: I've had this discussion, I think, you know, AI.

Janet Rathod: Yeah.

AJ Nash: Which I debate the term, you know, this isn't [00:55:00] sentience, right? This isn't AI, like in the movies, you know, we don't have a sentient being we're working with, but mostly it's stacked machine learning. This is, you know, large language models, et cetera.

But I think it has the potential to do great things for us. You know, as an Intel professional, I'm sure you had the same experience. You know, the frustration was you spend 80 percent of your time on the research. And you have about 20 to actually do the analysis and the reporting, which is where we decide what matters.

I think there's a chance that technology can flip that and we can get the content to us, the right content faster. If we can go through the process of validating and vetting to make sure the machines are giving us everything, that completeness, not creating its own bias to give us just content from certain buckets.

I think there's an opportunity there. And so. People, you know, humans can become superhuman. Perhaps I think there's a chance to really make us smarter and better, but it isn't going to replace us. Right. There's a human component machines aren't capable of, to my knowledge, aren't close to capable of yet.

And, you know, frankly, when I joined. When I got to NSA [00:56:00] in 1999, you know, I was told literally like my first weekend, enjoy it while it lasts, because you're all gonna be replaced by machines. We're gonna automate all this. We're not gonna need you Intel analysts, you know, and it's 20 some odd years later now, and there's more Intel analysts today than ever worth then.

So it's not like it's the first time we've been told technology is going to get rid of us because we're expensive. Uh, but I, I'm with you. I think there's a human component that content isn't there. The context isn't there. Plus there's accountability. You know, who's accountable if the machine says it and you go do it and that's bombs on targets or that's major business changes and it goes terribly wrong, who are you gonna blame?

You know, somebody's gonna be accountable, right?

Janet Rathod: Yeah. Yeah.

AJ Nash: I think that's, 

Janet Rathod: on. 

AJ Nash: I'm glad to hear that. You're again as a leader who does this every day for one of the best Intel Intel programs on one of the biggest companies in the world. Uh, you know, it's good to hear your thoughts on the subject. I'm looking forward to finding people who disagree because I'm also looking.

To get more different opinions, but it's been tough. I don't know also where you'd get junior Intel pros. If the [00:57:00] technologies replace all the, the junior folks, people, cause I hear say, oh, well, the low lying work, you know, will be replaced by the tech. Well, I'm not working until I'm a hundred.

So what happens when, when we're gone, when the senior folks have gone on to other things, where are your next senior folks coming from? All your junior people were replaced by machines.

Janet Rathod: This is an excellent point.

AJ Nash: Yeah, I 

Janet Rathod: think through that. Yeah, yeah,

AJ Nash: Yeah, maybe we'll follow up with that I'd like to get more information on that one.

I think maybe we'll do another show on AI and Intel as we get more on it. And I think the technologies that are some very cool things, but, um, I worry when people just start talking about how it's going to replace. Everybody, especially Intel pros. So, you know, good to hear that you're not thinking that at least.

Um, all right, cool. So we're getting near the end, but there's a bonus question. I ask every guest to close out the show. You know, since the name of the podcast is unspoken security, tell me something you never told anybody before, you know, something so far that's been unspoken. Hmm.

Janet Rathod: wow. Okay, that's a. That's a tough one. As [00:58:00] I think about communicating, so the pandemic, for instance, where everything went virtual, my communication skills, I feel have deteriorated and I want to walk through a quick story when I was transitioned from the FBI to the private sector. So I went to my first meeting, I grabbed my notebook and my pen, and my boss, I got into the room, my boss says to me, Oh, um, In the private sector, people bring their computers with them to meetings, so I was embarrassed, went back, got my computer, came into the conference room, opened it up. The boss is talking. Nobody is listening, so everyone is on their computer and they are typing. I have no idea what they're doing, but I mean, that just, um, it, it shocked me, but I feel that it has stayed, um, through my career in the private sector. It's sort of stayed with me. And what I mean by that is that now that we're virtual, and if I am [00:59:00] trying to speak, or if somebody else is trying to speak, it's unclear to me if anybody is actually.

Listening and so can throw you off when you're when you're speaking. And, um, so I would, I would say I'm, I'm trying to work on my communication skills. We're trying to refresh them because I feel we've actually deteriorated, um, after leaving the FBI.

AJ Nash: That's that's a really interesting point. I hadn't heard anybody, you know, put it in those terms yet. I, I, I share your shock in walking into a room, you know, some of the transitions, you know, from government to private sector, right? I mean, for me, it was just remembering I could bring my phone into work was a weird thing at first.

Um, but, but yeah, walking into a meeting. I, yeah, I wouldn't have thought it would be okay to open my laptop. You know, you should be paying attention. Um, and now I'm at a point where I walk into meetings and I'll tell people, Hey, I hope you don't mind if I stare at my phone because I'm probably taking notes on my phone.

Um, and people just have to trust that that's the case. I'm not, you know, playing video games or something over here. I do take notes occasionally on my phone, but I think you make a good point. Communication has changed. Uh, [01:00:00] a lot right through through covid. We've moved to zoom. We've moved to a lot of distant, uh, communication structures.

And as we're starting to come back together, I think norms are changing now. Um, and yeah, you don't know if people pay attention. I guess we just assume it. Like I've sat in rooms, given, given presentations. They brought me into present and people don't look like to pay attention to me. And I just assume they 

Janet Rathod: unnerving.

AJ Nash: Yeah. Yeah. Like I just assume they must be painted, but I guess if they're doing emails and whatever, then, then I guess that's what they're doing with their time. But, um, I, it's

Janet Rathod: We need to dig into this. I don't, I don't know if it's, if it's true or not. Well, I just, I also notice that people will be pinging me during meetings. So, if I'm trying to pay attention, the same people who are in the meetings are on the side, pinging me on something separate, which also, um, that maybe, maybe I'm walking into my own cognitive bias here, but that, that's, a little bit of my evidence as, Oh, it doesn't seem that anybody's listening anymore.

AJ Nash: That's a good point too. And I'm totally guilty of that. Anybody who's ever been in a virtual meeting with me, there's a [01:01:00] very good chance I'm on Slack messaging at the same time. I think, and the thing is, I, I believe I'm paying attention still. Now I'm gonna have to think about my own thinking here. I'm multitasking.

Right. And, and, and. You know, I'm ADD, so I'm, I'm playing through that a little bit. Um, I can not focus and be focused in time. It's kind of how my, my thinking and learning works, but I also have to realize that that's not how everybody works. That might be disrespectful. Um, but you make a good point. I do it all the time.

I'm, you know, I'll be in meetings and I might be in a chat, like narrating the discussion to somebody else while we're going through the meeting, um, or passing off other notes that hit me in the head and maybe I'm distracting them. I hadn't really considered maybe I got to get more thought to that. Um. 

Janet Rathod: Fascinating. Oh, can, we can talk further about this.

AJ Nash: it's, you make a good point though, I think, and I think it's great to hear the key piece you said, which is you're thinking about your own, you know, communication, right? This isn't about saying, Hey, other people have to do a better job, right? It's what has changed about me how do I focus more?

How do I communicate better? You know, remote's not going away. You know, this, this hybrid and remote is here to stay. Uh, [01:02:00] how do we behave differently when we're on camera like this versus when we're in person? Um, you know, what are the accepted norms? Um, and maybe as much as what are the ground rules? If you come into a meeting, wouldn't it be nice if somebody told you up front?

Hey, everybody bring your laptops today. Um, so you would have known coming in because we're all coming from different cultures and backgrounds. There's no way you could have possibly done to bring your laptop on, you know, coming over from the, from the bureau. So, um, that's a cool, cool observation. Thanks.

I appreciate it. I haven't, uh, haven't thought about it. So now I've got something to think about as well and maybe work on my own behavior a little bit. I'm sure people will hopefully listen to this and all my friends and. Family and coworkers, but I'll tell me all the things I'm doing wrong and I've got to work on, um, which is probably a long list.

Um, all right, cool. So listen, we're, we're coming up on time here. Uh, I want to, I got to get to the end here and wrap this up, but any last thoughts that you want to add before we do that? Anything we didn't, we didn't touch on that you want or anything you want to clarify, uh, or anything you want to talk about going on in the future, uh, with you, anything at all, really.

Before we wrap it up,

Janet Rathod: The number one thing, number one thing I want to say is thank you. This story needs to be told. And as [01:03:00] you said, during the podcast, it is on us to tell this story. So thank you. Hopefully more to come.

AJ Nash: 100%. I agree. No, thank you though. Like, listen, I agree with you. The story needs to be told, but it takes people like you, you know, it takes, it takes professionals who've been doing this a long time who are leaders still in this space. You know, I appreciate you taking the time. You could have easily said, no, you've got a lot of things going on.

City is very busy. I'm sure. Uh, and your team's very busy. So taking the time out today, I really, really appreciate you doing that. Um, and absolutely, I'd love to have you back on, you know, I know we have some other topics we've talked about privately that we might be able to bring forward. So I'd love to have you back on for another, another episode, uh, you know, sometime in the not too distant future, but I'd really appreciate you spending time with us today and giving the audience a better understanding of what intelligence is as a career fair, what intelligence analysis is and what goes into it.

Uh, and, uh, I look forward to chatting with you more, uh, in the future. Um, so for now. Absolutely. Yeah. So for now, uh, everyone, you know, that's, this is, we're going to wrap up this episode of, of Unspoken Security. Thanks [01:04:00] again, uh, for all of you for, for tuning in and listening. Uh, look forward to your feedback.

We're always looking to try to get a little bit better every day. So if there's anything else, you know, that you're looking for, whether it's, you know, topics you want to discuss, or we want to get some feedback on the show, you know, feel free to reach out, uh, and let me know and let the team know. And until then, you know, thanks for your time and look forward to talking to you again soon.

Janet Rathod: Thank you.