Episode Details

In this episode:

• Bruno's origin story: a fifteen year old in a French village of 1,200 people watches a late night TV show about two young American millionaires and wakes up his mom at midnight to announce his plan (05:47 - 07:08)
• Arriving in Seattle with a $10,000 loan, a backpack, and English as a work in progress (07:08 - 08:06)
• From MS-DOS to Windows NT to Exchange to Xbox to Hardware to HR, how a developer ends up running Microsoft's worldwide HR planning (08:06 - 09:42)
• The day Bill Gates walked into the shipping party and canceled the product Bruno had spent a year building, and the box he still has (09:42 - 10:57)
• Starting BEMO in 2010 before Office 365 or Azure existed and building a system that could deploy SharePoint in 15 minutes (11:07 - 12:07)
• Watching Microsoft decide to eat his lunch in 2012 and becoming the second biggest reseller of Project Online and SharePoint Online on the way out (12:07 - 13:39)
• The deliberate pivot to cybersecurity in 2018 and winning Microsoft Partner of the Year in 2023 (13:39 - 14:34)
• Why CMMC compliance is like having a child and the birthday is just the beginning (14:34 - 15:34)
• Opening the hood on companies that have been self-attesting perfect CMMC scores for five years and what you find inside (15:34 - 16:53)
• What the average SMB gets wrong about cybersecurity and why being on Copacabana beach with a laptop makes you a very effective hacker (16:53 - 18:28)
• AI versus AI: going from 46 agents to 21 and building a governance framework that mirrors BEMO's human staffing levels (18:28 - 20:34)
• Eight years working alongside his son Brandon, how he kept it professional, and why he is relieved they never had an accident (20:34 - 22:00)
• The Lifestyle Polygraph: éclairs, a French bakery, the 1998 World Cup, flying lessons, the Marshawn Lynch earthquake, and the leader who blocks his own employees from connecting on weekends (22:29 - 33:15)

Timestamp Highlights:

• (05:47) The midnight promise to his mom that became a thirty-six year adventure
• (07:08) Arriving in Seattle with a $10,000 loan and English as a work in progress
• (09:42) Bill Gates walks into the shipping party
• (11:07) Building BEMO before Office 365 existed
• (12:07) Watching Microsoft eat his lunch and becoming the second biggest reseller anyway
• (14:34) CMMC compliance is like having a child
• (16:53) Why hackers love small businesses who think they are immune
• (18:28) From 46 AI agents to 21 and why governance matters
• (20:34) Eight years working with his son Brandon
• (23:18) His favorite French pastry is the éclair
• (25:59) France beats Brazil two months before his wedding
• (27:31) The family intervention that ended his flying lessons

Resources & Links:

• BEMO — bemopro.com
• ThreatLocker — Presenting sponsor of No Password Required
• DerScanner — Episode sponsor
• Cyber Florida — The Mother Ship