J.J. GuyCo Founder

United States - San Antonio, Texas Metropolitan Area

I build and execute a product vision.

I've been doing security my entire career. I'll take the labels "developer," "hacker" or "executive." I've helped run three early stage startups, a late stage startup with thousands of clients and a small team in a huge federal contractor. I've grown teams from nothing to dozens and led teams > 100.

I've been preaching about the inevitability of compromise since 2003. Since the first 12 years of my career were all about defeating security controls, I developed an intimate understanding of industry security gaps. I'm glad the rest of the world has finally recognized the problem so I'm no longer "that crazy government guy."

I'm biased to action in all things. I'm deeply analytical and careful with decisions, but also believe there are very few decisions that are unrecoverable. We all make mistakes every day, better to make them quickly and iterate. I ask "why" a lot and I'm not comfortable until I can build something up from first principles. I hold myself to the standard of being able to explain why for any strongly-held belief and expect the same standard of others.

My single greatest strength is building, communicating and driving a strategic vision. I collect, synthesize, simplify and share a compelling story, then serve as a "lighthouse" to guide teams to the goal.

For building product management and engineering teams, I am a disciple in the Church of Marty Cagan. For building healthy organizations, I use Patrick Leoncini's models. To fill in the gaps, I turn to Patty McChord. (The books are "Inspired," "The Advantage" and "Powerful" respectively)

I believe a small team with vision and courage can change the world, and I've been lucky enough to be part of a few of those teams.