Billy Mitchell, Editor-in-Chief at FedScoop joins Carolyn to discuss surveillance, national intelligence, the benefit of partnerships, and more. Billy gives his perspective on today's hot topics in federal technology, and what he thinks may be coming next.

Episode Table of Contents

• [0:23] Federal Technology and Its Battle Against Balloons
• [7:18] Varying Opinions Towards Federal Technology Problems
• [14:41] Federal Technology Embraces Industry Technology
• [21:56] Federal Technology Means Business
• [29:33] Implementation of Zero Trust in Federal Technology
• [36:54] Billy Mitchell’s First Encounter With Technology

Episode Links and Resources

• Billy Mitchell
• FedScoop
• The Last of Us

Carolyn:

Welcome to Tech Transforms, sponsored by Dynatrace. I'm Carolyn Ford. Each week, Mark Senell and I talk with top influencers to explore how the US government is harnessing the power of technology to solve complex challenges and improve our lives.

Carolyn:

Hi, I'm Carolyn Ford. Today, I welcome Billy Mitchell, Editor in Chief at FedScoop and DefenseScoop. Billy leads an award-winning team of reporters in providing breaking news on the ways technology is transforming the operations and services of the federal government and US military.

Carolyn:

And today, we get Billy's insight on lots of things. We'll see what we actually get to. Billy and I have kind of lined up like testing, implementation, policy changes, and then what's coming next in the federal IT landscape. So welcome to Tech Transforms, Billy.

Billy:

Thank you so much. It's my pleasure. I'm looking forward to it.

Carolyn:

I'm excited for this conversation and I'm going to start it with one word Billy, and I'm just going to let you respond. Okay, are you ready for the word?

Billy:

Sure.

Carolyn:

Balloons.

Billy:

Please. No more. There's been a lot of balloons and I can't believe that this is the news cycle.

Billy:

In my first year we launched this defense publication DefenseScoop back in September meant to really focus on the intersection of emerging technology and defense and how critical that technology is to the future of warfare. And here we are reporting and working on the weekends, writing about fighter pilots shooting down balloons that have flown across the United States.

Billy:

But it is so incredibly funny just to watch how this has captivated our own publication, but really the nation's interests because there are such important implications geopolitically with some of our biggest rivals, notably China that suspected and pretty much confirmed that this was a Chinese intelligence type of balloon. But really-

Carolyn:

And they still deny it even though we've pulled the data, we can see what they were looking at and they're still like, "No, no. It was weather. It strayed."

Billy:

And I think of our... We can get into the just US versus China and the intersection of tech later on in the conversation, but that will continue to be a theme, that we'll probably never be on the same page as them and that they'll always be that tier one rival.

Billy:

But in the aftermath of the initial balloon that was Chinese and then these other objects that have since been shot down, which were more than likely some sort of either research or commercial type objects that were here from domestic organizations. It's just so fascinating-

Carolyn:

It's some kid's science project.

Billy:

Exactly. I saw something pretty hilarious, a meme of, "You want to get an air show in your front yard, just buy this a hundred dollars Amazon weather balloon and flight up into the air because in hours you'll have F22 or F whatever there to shoot it down.

Billy:

But it really does spotlight all that goes into sensing and the radar in the technology involved in this thing, in these things and how NORAD and NORTHCOM have had to respond.

Billy:

And we did a pretty interesting story in the aftermath of why are all these balloons being shot, or not balloons, because they... at this point just referred to as objects, maybe some of them balloons, maybe some of them aren't, which is another question. How are they getting close enough to know that somebody's not in there, they're not going to take a life in shooting it down?

Billy:

But they haven't been able to give us details on what's out there, which really gets some members of my team's UFO radars kind of their hunches up because there's just so much mystery into this, but the way they're able to sense and track these things and they've been able to really open up the aperture, if you will, on their radar.

Billy:

And that's why they're shooting more things down because after the balloon, the initial balloon happened, they made a decision to open the scope on those things and they're now tracking more things in the atmosphere.

Billy:

But yeah, there's a lot of tech and it kind of gets back to this really wonky term that... I wouldn't say it's all that we care about on DefenseScoop, but it's really one of the most essential pieces of the intersection of tech in the military is JADC2, Joint All-Domain Command and Control, which is really to sum it up an Internet of Things for the military and connecting generals wherever they are to the commanders on the battlefield and making sure that sensors are sort of driving intelligence and decision making.

Billy:

And I think it comes back to the balloon conversation because it shows that there is that sensing ability and the sort of connectivity of all these different systems that or...

Billy:

You see that, what it takes to sense something in the air and how quickly we can get a couple of fighter jets up in the air to track it, and essentially when the command comes, to shoot it down.

Billy:

Carolyn:

Right. This is the best we've got to talk about. Well, there have been many balloons. I listened to a spot on NPR and they said, "We all do it, you're just not supposed to get caught."

Billy:

Yeah.

Carolyn:

So, I mean, why is it such a frenzy right now? Because we all know this has been around. Is it because somebody saw it with the naked eye, and so, then words spread because of social media? Why is this such a story right now? Are we that desperate for something to talk about?

Billy:

Yeah. I think just global tensions, I think it starts there. With what all that's going on in Ukraine and in Russia, I think it could have honestly have to do with the news cycle.

Billy:

I think there's also a lot of changes happening at the Pentagon right now with the way they're dealing with... they were called UFOs and now they're called UAPs, aerial phenomena. And they're really kind of opening and being more transparent about the things that are coming into the airspace. And maybe some of those in the past that were identified by pilots as UFOs or things like that were things like balloons. Who knows? But there's that.

Billy:

But also as I mentioned, I think there's just this... some of these changes that are being made to their abilities to sense things in the airspace via radar and other means that have really made these things that have maybe been there all along a lot more apparent and readily apparent.

Billy:

And once there was a little bit of political pressure and people caught on to what was going on and somebody had to make a decision, and there were people on one side saying, "We don't need to start a war right now over a balloon flying across the US," and then others who were saying, "Who knows what they're spying on?" They're flying over nuclear missile facilities and things like that, or bases in Montana or wherever it may be and that we need to shoot it down."

Billy:

There's these kind of opposing political forces that created this big story and then everybody was kind of captivated by the time it flew across and hit Carolina. And once it was safe to shoot it down, that's when the real story to me starts to figure out what was actually on board and what they were able to pull from it.

Billy:

And we might not know for a long time exactly what that is, but that's really a look into the sophisticated sensing technology that the Chinese have in what they were able to look at and what they were looking for when they were flying this balloon across the United States.

Billy:

Honestly, we may get more out of it than they did at this point given that we shot it down and now have a playbook of some of their technologies that came down with that balloon and some of the intelligence that they were spying on as it flew over the United States.

Carolyn:

So to your point of looking at their technologies, this makes me think of a story that you recently covered, which is the announcement of the state department's Office of the Special Envoy for Critical and Emerging Technology.

Carolyn:

So I'm going to hold back the skeptic in me about another committee and I just... Can you talk about that? What are some of the primary roles for this office?

Billy:

Yeah. So it's obviously very nascent at this point and I don't know a ton of what it's going to work on specifically.

Billy:

I know that Secretary Anthony Blinken has really had this major push for modernization across the state department and really looking at how emerging technologies, some of the ones we've already talked about or mentioned, Internet of Things, AI, and things of that nature, but also other things like disinformation and things that impact human rights surveillance and whatnot, really looking at how those impact global diplomacy and society writ large across the United... or across the world and looking at how the United States can be a leader in sort of shaping the norms around those things so that other democratic nations can join on board and make sure that those opposing forces, whether it be in Russia or China or North Korea or other nations that are maybe not as democratic, that they don't have the sort of leading voice in those things.

Billy:

So I think that's what it's intended to do, but yeah, it will be interesting to see exactly what types of projects or sorts of, I guess, issues that will work around.

Billy:

I would imagine it to be mainly a policy element in that it's kind of be trying to shape that policy again globally, writ large. And yeah, I think a good use case or maybe since I wrote that article, something that came up actually last week that is probably, I don't know that it was directly related to this office, but I would imagine it's something that's going to be similar to what it does.

Billy:

The State Department actually issued a declaration to basically any nuke bearing foreign nation saying, "Hey, look, we all have nuclear weapons. We're all, to some degree, probably working on artificial intelligence and we think it's probably not in anyone's best interest to connect our AI to those nuclear command and control systems because who knows what could happen? Maybe something goes wrong if we let the AI make decisions about this that's obviously everyone's worst nightmare," when we look at sci-fi movies and go back to Dr. Strangelove or even the Terminator movies and giving artificial intelligence the ability to wage war, if you will.

Billy:

But again, it is the State Department attaching itself to a technology topic and looking to set the tone for the rest of the world's leaders when it comes to these things.

Billy:

So it's hard to deduce from that declaration if the State Department itself has signed on at this point or is just sort of saying, "Hey, I think this is a good idea and maybe we should all kind of pledge to do this."

Billy:

Again, getting back into that topic of China and Russia and some of those kind of opposing forces, I think it's next to impossible or one of the more unlikely things that they would ever sign on to a similar sort of agreement, but it at least sets the State Department in the United States in a place that it's starting to present itself as a leader on these topics.

Billy:

Obviously, this has big impacts on the Department of Defense, which is the one that would sort of be in charge of not connecting AI to its nuclear command and control and a number of other agencies who sort of deal with those things as well.

Billy:

So it's the very initial jumping off point for something like this, but it's interesting to see this state department sort of take this approach. Again, I don't know that it was necessarily connected to that new special Envoy, but I do think we'll start to see more and more of this regarding things like responsible AI, misinformation, human rights and surveillance, open internet and free internet and things like that coming from the State Department.

Carolyn:

There's been a big call that I've heard among government leaders. The one that's coming to mind right now is General Skinner has made a call for more interaction and partnership between government and industry, and do you anticipate that this special Envoy will affect that or lean into that or maybe say put on the brakes towards that? Do you have a sense of that?

Billy:

No. I would think if the State Department wants to be a leader in this space, it's going to have to look to the smartest and brightest and the most tech-savvy people, and that is industry.

Billy:

So it's going to have to facilitate that and bridge that gap a bit more. I don't know how much it will come into impact with the contracting for what General Skinner might be more focused on when it comes to the DoD's adoption of it and contracting over those things.

Billy:

But certainly as it looks to build out this special Envoy, bring people on board and learn things about these advanced topics, there's no way that the State department internally is going to have that expertise or that knowledge base.

Billy:

So it's going to have to look to experts and maybe it'll create some sort of board. I don't know if that's exactly what the Envoy is supposed to be. So similar to way the DoD has its defense innovation board and has some really bright people on there, maybe that's the direction that the State Department will go, but without a doubt, they're going to need to engage with industry a bit more because that's where the latest and greatest expertise is going to be.

Carolyn:

You've been covering tech for a while, several years. Does it feel like government is leaning into that partnership more? And I ask...

Carolyn:

When I first came into this world of GovTech, it seemed like there was a big, I don't know if conflict is the right word, but butting of heads between GOTS and COTS.

Carolyn:

So it feels like there's not as much tension, there's not as much resistance to embracing and using industry technology in government. It used to be, "No, no, we're building our own because it's got to be secure," whatever. But have you noticed that?

Billy:

It's hard to say. I think it comes in waves. I definitely think we're at a high point on that wave, if you will, where there's definitely an open appreciation for what industry has to offer from the commercial space that...

Billy:

It just doesn't make sense for the government to custom make or spend the time or build something that's required for a specific use case when there's something that is out there that can be maybe, in a very small way, adapted to fit a government mission.

Billy:

So I don't understand why it would be, especially in an economic perspective, in anyone's best interest not to go with a commercial provider when you can give business to hopefully a small mom-and-pop shop. If not, you can go with one of the major IT providers or a major defense firm or something like that that does this for a living.

Billy:

Yeah, so I think there's a much raider aptitude and willingness for that. And I think also a lot of the... Let me back up.

Billy:

There was a major sort of sea change around the healthcare.gov kind of debacle in the way that the federal government thought about buying IT. A lot of it can be deduced to sort of that Agile DevSecOps mindset, but it also brought a lot of that talent in-house through USCS, ATNF and others.

Billy:

And I think there's been a major push to bring really tech-savvy, smart, talented people into government. And I don't say that to say that they come necessarily to build things like that, but they have those relationships and they know that they're not going to be able to build things within government that the private sector isn't already building itself.

Billy:

And those relationships and that willingness, again, to go back to the private sector for those things because a lot of those people, again, already came from backgrounds in private sector, know how to speak that language and where to get the best things and how to... Or I guess I wouldn't say that how to build relationships but already have those relationships.

Billy:

So, I think that's a large part of it as well. And then just in general with as much that's going on wrong in the cybersecurity space in the federal government or has been in recent years, there's been, I think with leadership of CSO and others, I think you sort of have to, at a point, put your arms up and say, "Hey, we need as much help as we can get because we can't do this alone."

Billy:

So I think that plays into it too. Again, I've been covering this space around nine years and I've seen it kind of ebb and flow, and I would imagine there will be a point where it could shift back in the other direction a little bit.

Billy:

I like to think of things in those wave structures where things come and go or almost like a pendulum where things swing back and forth. But right now I definitely think we're on the upswing in terms of, like you said, that very friendly private public partnership element.

Carolyn:

Well, and I think you nailed it. The leaders that I've been talking to, they come with this mindset of, "We want the brightest, we want the best private sector within the agency. It doesn't matter. We want to be on the cutting edge." And so, they have that mindset of, "We're going to get it wherever we need to get it."

Billy:

And to that point, as much as I hate to say, the government's not going to be able to compete with Silicon Valley or whatever valley of tech entrepreneurial type people who want to work for the big tech firms who can get paid a lot more to do really much more cutting edge type things.

Billy:

So the only way they can attract that sort of cutting edge nature is to do it through contracting.

Carolyn:

Partnership.

Billy:

And partnership, exactly. If they can't bring the talent in-house, then they have to find a different way. And I think it's through that partnership.

Carolyn:

I want to circle back to something you said about hopefully partnering maybe with mom-and-pop shops. So again, the cynic in me was just thinking, "Yeah, that's impossible," from where I sit because you have... the agencies don't have a... Or at least my understanding, the agencies don't seem to have a choice other than to use these big contract vehicles, which means one of the big integrators.

Carolyn:

Do you think that the Envoy might change that so agencies could partner more easily with these mom-and-pop shops? I mean, it seems like that's asking us to turn the Titanic, maybe not the Titanic. Bad metaphor.

Billy:

Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I'm not the most... I do follow a lot of contracting, especially in the IT space and some of these larger acquisitions, they seem to be doing their due diligence when it comes to getting more small businesses and minority owned businesses.

Carolyn:

So, the integrators are bringing these small mom-and-pop shops into the big contracts.

Billy:

Exactly. But still, when it comes to certain things, there's only so much that if an agency's looking to procure cloud or something like that, like the DoD's Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability, of course, the companies named were Microsoft, Google, Oracle... I'm spacing on the rest of them.

Billy:

But all that to say there are these traditional major tech companies, and of course, there's certain... It's not because of any contracting nature that it happened that way. It's just that's what the DoD needed.

Billy:

So there's certain things that these mom-and-pop shops are not going to make sense for. But I think in other cases, there are some people I see a lot in the Department of Veterans Affairs because they look to veteran owned companies and things like that to sort of work with them where it does make a lot more sense or some of the IT things.

Billy:

And I don't have a great purview of other contracting spaces across the federal government, but I would hope that agencies like GSA are doing the due diligence in setting incentives in place to make sure that those mom-and-pop shops are able to do business with the federal government as well as possible.

Billy:

And it is hard though. They don't make it easy in other regards, especially, we read a lot about this a lot in the DoD side and that it really... For a small innovative handful of people, organization that has these bright, innovative ideas to do work with the Department of Defense, it just doesn't make sense.

Billy:

They would go out of business before they could ever serve on their contract because the budget cycle just takes so long and everything's so slow and bureaucracy gets in the way.

Billy:

So we'd like to see more of it, but it is a tough environment and as long as I've been covering it, I've heard GSA administrators and defense acquisition leads and people like that talk about how they're going to work better with small businesses and other minority groups and things like that. But it's a small step in the right direction usually. There's never a massive surge.

Carolyn:

I mean, I guess, on the bright side at least there's a desire. I want to switch gears a little bit and talk about something that we saw in early January, the US Patent and Trade Office sought out a partnership to perform red-team penetration testing services, and more recently the DoD announced the third installment of its Hack the Pentagon challenge.

Carolyn:

What are some of the USPTO and DoD's goals with this kind of testing? I mean, it's not new. This has been around forever, so what's made it news, I guess, now and what are their goals?

Billy:

Yeah. I mean, I think it's the continuation of the conversation we were just having in that it brings in a diversification of talent and people to really drill into the security of DoD and USPTO systems. I can start with the...

Billy:

I think the DoD just because it's a much more broad application with Hack the Pentagon and it really... versus the USPTO's looking to really potentially contract with one organization who's really just going to hardcore drill down into its systems, Hack the Pentagon is kind of brilliant.

Billy:

And I mean it's again brilliant in the government sense. It's not brilliant in the commercial sense, because you name a major tech company out there and they've been doing bug bounties and which is what Hack the Pentagon is to some degree, it's a vulnerability disclosure program, they don't always pay for them, so they aren't quote, unquote, "bug bounties."

Billy:

Usually, bug bounties, people get paid when they find bugs and then the organizations go back and fix them. But what they do is just sort of enlist crowdsourcing to bring in white hat hackers to say, "Look at our public facing website. That's how the DoD started with its initial instance of Hack the Pentagon and if you see a bug, report it to us and we'll reward you in some way."

Billy:

Over time, they've gotten to a place where I think just last year they find... or they did their first payment structure and made it an actual bug bounty. But what it does is it just enlists massive amounts of people to look at these things.

Billy:

In a lot of cases, these are people who maybe don't buy into the nature of working a Pentagon job or a government job, or maybe for other reasons, maybe they've done something in their background that they can't get the job in the Pentagon that they want, but they can still serve their country and look for these things.

Billy:

And I as a writer or a journalist use the analogy of, if I'm writing a book or an article or something like that, I want as many eyes as possible on that rough draft so that maybe the first 99 people don't catch that drops period or the misuse of some word or something but the hundredth person does.

Billy:

And it's sort of similar in the DoD space where they have thousands upon thousands of people looking at their public infrastructure and are kind of poking holes in things and looking for bugs. And these people are really, really, really smart and are incentivized in a lot of cases, either by money or other incentives to do this work. And at the end of the day, it's making DoD systems stronger.

Billy:

In the USPTO sense, they're looking for a more narrow and tailored approach with red-team penetration testing. They're essentially doing the same things, but they're looking for a team from a third party provider to come in and really just blast their systems and look for vulnerabilities.

Carolyn:

So wait, you're telling me that all the agencies don't already do this? I just, see, I assumed they did Billy.

Billy:

I think to some degree, most of them do things like this, but it's not something that they necessarily have to, maybe no. They do basic security measures, but this is up there with the most or the more thorough in terms of continuous penetration testing and looking for ways that people could enter their systems.

Billy:

A lot of times these CSOs and the CIO organizations take their inside out approach and don't really think about how people are necessarily getting into their systems.

Billy:

So yeah, that's the kind of role of what an organization would do under this solicitation and really running it through the most advanced TTPs to see ways that if I was a nation state bad actor, how I'm using some of their techniques in the latest ways to model those threat vectors to see if USPTO systems are advanced enough or secure enough to prevent that sort of entry.

Billy:

And then all this plays into sort of what you said, that all agencies probably should be doing this, but we see to a large degree that federal agencies writ large in the federal government writ large, is it's largely behind on these things, and Zero Trust is the buzzword of today. And it really plays into that changing of a mindset.

Billy:

And a lot of commercial sector organizations have been doing Zero Trust type things for a decade plus, and the federal government's finally getting its act together and moving in that direction.

Billy:

So they should be doing it, but luckily even if they're not, they're finally catching up in a large regard in understanding that these are the modern practices for good cybersecurity.

Carolyn:

Are there AI pen testing or synthetic pen testing that takes place?

Billy:

There is. There is, and it's, like you said, automated pen testing and a lot of agencies or some agencies use it.

Billy:

I know some of the more advanced military services are doing continuous pen testing where I think they are relying on automation to a degree to continuously seek out those systems and make sure, more so for accreditation purposes, so that their software, they don't have to go through the two-year accreditation cycle.

Billy:

Billy:

It's been talked about for a long while, but DHS in recent years has been sort of gotten to the point of maturity where all federal agencies are using that continuous monitoring because it's, again, it's great to have an accreditation and test the system at a point in time, but once that test is done and those check boxes are checked, what does that mean after that?

Billy:

Is it still secure next week or next month or next year until that accreditation comes around? Maybe it isn't. Bugs happen, patches are needed, things change and it is needed on a continuous basis.

Billy:

I mean, that's the big lesson that's been learned in modern cybersecurity is that things aren't done in a vacuum anymore at a point in time. It needs to be done continuously to prove effective against adversaries who are coming in from the outside.

Carolyn:

Yeah. It's not a one and done, is it?

Billy:

Exactly.

Carolyn:

Unfortunately. It's like life, not one and done. So of the trending topics and storylines that are on your plate right now, what are you the most excited to cover?

Billy:

You know, you caught me at a time where I was covering a lot more than I maybe typically am earlier this year, but I'm not necessarily writing and reporting as much as I once was, but I am helping as the editor to shape the coverage areas.

Billy:

And there are a number of areas that as I play that editor role that I'm very focused on. And obviously it kind of split my hat between the Fed civilian under FedScoop and the defense IT space under DefenseScoop.

Billy:

And I'll start with the FedScoop side. And I think it is again, a continuation of the same conversation we've already been having because cybersecurity Zero Trust, the kind of advancement of the mandates under the executive order, will without a doubt continue to be the biggest story in the federal civilian side until obviously agencies stop getting hacked and information-

Carolyn:

So, forever.

Billy:

... starts getting leaked.

Billy:

Yeah, exactly. Because of the way the federal government contracts and operates, it'll never be able to catch up with those advanced APTs and the state-of-the-art on the commercial side. So it'll only makes sense that it's going to be a race to catch up on that, but it has been meaningful. I don't think...

Billy:

Carolyn:

Log4j.

Billy:

Exactly. Log4j, and all the other breaches that have happened in... And now, it's several years ago, but it still seems like it was yesterday because I think the federal government has taken an approach where because of the President's executive order and really this doubling down on Zero Trust, which to some degree we're kind of getting to the point in the hype cycle where people are getting a bit just exasperated by the buzzwords and, "What does this really mean?" Or, "Are we actually making progress?"

Billy:

But all that to say, there's still this acute focus where I think people are continuing to have conversations about it and really focus on it as part of the larger technology modernization conversation in the federal government that by this point in the OPM cycle, we probably would've been a little bit more back to normal and just people would've, I guess-

Carolyn:

Right. I got a letter-

Billy:

... moved on from-

Carolyn:

... "Your information got stolen." I'm like, "Okay, and you're going to do what?"

Billy:

Exactly, exactly. They'll have dozens of hearings on it and let everybody know that they're going to buy you one year of fraud protection and identity theft.

Carolyn:

See, this is to my point, going back to this new Envoy. I am like, "Is this what this is going to be? It's just more committee gatherings and nothing's really going to happen?" That's so cynical.

Billy:

And unfortunately... I mean, that's just the way the federal government works to a degree. It's this civil service organization built on top of a political structure where people come in for a handful of years at time that they'll work really hard on something or form committees or special envoys or put something into the budget or write legislation, whatever it may be, but a lot of those things die with those people, or not when those people die, but when they leave the government.

Billy:

And unfortunately, we'll reach a point in another couple years where we may have a new president and that means a new secretary at all those cabinet level agencies, which means new IT decision makers and things like that. And there will be this reshuffling again, and a lot of those priorities will go with them. And that's just unfortunately the way a lot of those things work.

Billy:

In addition to some of the bureaucracy and contracting and slow moving budget cycles that we've already talked about, it just makes it infinitely hard for change and progress to be made in the government context.

Carolyn:

Democracy, man.

Billy:

Exactly.

Carolyn:

All right. I want to shift to our tech talk questions. These are just kind of fun, quick answer questions, which we usually end up ratholing on a little bit because they're fun.

Carolyn:

So first question for you was, what was the very first piece of technology that you remember receiving or buying yourself?

Billy:

Yeah! So I was born in the late '80s, and so I came to... had childhood and all that stuff in the early '90s. And I think the first thing that I remember being very meaningful to me was a video game system, but it was one of those handheld ones and it was a Sega.

Billy:

I think it was called a Game Gear or something like that. But I'm not a big gamer now. I have a system, but definitely not in terms of gaming and whatnot. It definitely didn't make a huge impact on me, but I definitely remember just taking that thing everywhere with me, probably too young of an age. It was probably the...

Billy:

I'm a parent now and I'm sure my parents threw that thing at me. I sometimes, guilty as charged, will put a phone or an iPad in front of my kids if they're extremely cranky or in the back of a car and screaming or something.

Billy:

So that was the first big thing that I can sort of remember. Also, I mean, I think this was a little after that, but our first family computer, because this was back when people had family computers, a desktop from Gateway and it wasn't-

Carolyn:

Billy:

Oh yeah. And that's what I was going to say. This computer wasn't even hooked up to the internet, I don't think. I think this was just our first family computer, with floppy disks and stuff.

Carolyn:

Oh my gosh, I remember those.

Billy:

But just the ability to go and just tinker with things, and open your mind up to this other digital world that largely at that time didn't exist was pretty interesting. And just doing voice recordings or using MS Paint or something like that, it was pretty fascinating.

Billy:

Eventually, we'd get to the AOL dial-up and all that stuff and I would go on to be any kid that age, a Napster or whatever kid who illegally downloaded music. If the FBI wants to come get me, they can. Guilty is charged.

Billy:

But yeah, I think definitely roots back in that early sort of '90s timeframe where it was the Gateway computers into the initial internet coming out to the commercial public and people getting online for the first time was pretty interesting.

Carolyn:

Yeah. Yeah, I remember that well. Okay, very important question. I know you said you're not a big gamer, but did you play the Last of Us when it first came out, or have you played it?

Billy:

I played it very briefly. So, it came out around the time that my first kid was being born. So I-

Carolyn:

Oh, okay.

Billy:

I pretty much lost ability to play any games at that point, but I have watched a little bit of the show and I think they're doing a pretty good job of taking it away from the game in some regards, which I've enjoyed because I don't think you can just create a TV show off of a game.

Billy:

You have to create a little bit more substance, although from the people who I do know or have read comments from the Last of Us game, did a pretty good job of being cinematic and creating emotion and really-

Carolyn:

Oh, I would want-

Billy:

Carolyn:

So when my son would play it, because he was big into the Last of Us when it first came out, and I would sit with him while he would play it and he would tell me the storyline because it was so good and he was excited for the show to come out.

Carolyn:

And then he's decided actually not to watch it because it verges too much off of what he knows to be the truth. And he's like, "But what I've read, I think they're doing a really good job." So all right.

Billy:

And I'll just say, I think part of it, I just... Zombie stuff is too played out for me. I know they're technically a different form of zombies, but-

Carolyn:

They're zombies.

Billy:

Yeah. After The Walking Dead, I just can't do it anymore.

Carolyn:

I know. The Walking Dead man, is it still going?

Billy:

I think so.

Carolyn:

All right. So, last question for you. If you could wave your magic wand and wish anything into existence... think, go big Billy, go sci-fi for me please, what technology would you wish into your life?

Billy:

And maybe this is just the limited capacity of my brain, but I've always thought that just like teleportation would be like-

Carolyn:

Oh my gosh, yes!

Billy:

... my dream thing.

Carolyn:

That is mine.

Billy:

Yeah, I'm big, I wouldn't say I'm... I'm definitely not a travel junkie, but I love to travel. And just the constraints of the travel and things like that, just drive me nuts. I think my other one would be self-driving cars for that same reason. I would love-

Carolyn:

Yeah. But let's skip the self-driving cars and just go to teleportation.

Billy:

Oh, yeah.

Carolyn:

Billy:

Oh, yeah. It would be all worth it. I live far away from... My family or most of my family lives in Tennessee and I don't get to see them a ton. So just like the ability to pop in and have dinner with my family or something like that.

Billy:

Or if I'm jonesing to go travel to a beautiful island or something and don't want to fly across the world to get there, it'd be pretty nice to just pop over via teleportation.

Carolyn:

I completely support that. Well, our time is up. Thank you so much for spending this hour with me. It's been really fun.

Billy:

Yeah, same. It's been a pleasure.

Carolyn:

And I'd like to thank our listeners. So please share this episode, smash that like button, and we will talk to you next week on Tech Transforms. Thanks for joining Tech Transforms sponsored by Dynatrace. For more Tech Transforms, follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram.