Voices of the Vigilant EP06 | The Relentless Rise: Smashing Cybersecurity's Status Quo
In This Episode
This episode features Mariana Padilla, CEO, co-founder of HACKERverse®, and unapologetic force of nature.
You can learn more about the conversation and the guest below.
Tune into the audio version of this episode by clicking the player below:
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VIDEO: Voices of the Vigilant EP06
“The Relentless Rise - Smashing Cybersecurity's Status Quo,” featuring Mariana Padilla, co-founder and CEO of HACKERverse.ai
About the Guest
Mariana Padilla, co-founder and CEO of HACKERverse.ai, is a dynamic leader with a proven entrepreneurial track record and an unwavering commitment to success. She successfully scaled her marketing agency, Red Lab Marketing, from a one-person operation to a thriving business generating over $1 million annually within three years. Her expertise spans leadership, sales, marketing, and community-driven growth, which she now brings to HACKERverse.ai to revolutionize the cybersecurity sales process.
Mariana’s journey to success began long before her business ventures. As a Division I distance swimmer in college, she developed a relentless work ethic, a drive for excellence, and the resilience to overcome challenges—qualities that now define her leadership style as a CEO. Her experience as a competitive athlete translates seamlessly into the world of business, where she leads HACKERverse.ai with the same determination and discipline that made her a standout swimmer.
Her frustrations with traditional enterprise software purchasing processes inspired her to join Craig Ellrod on the journey to build HACKERverse.ai, a platform that streamlines Proof of Concept (PoC) evaluations for cybersecurity buyers and vendors. Under her leadership, the company has achieved significant milestones, including participation in TechStars Chicago and the Google Growth Academy AI Cybersecurity cohort and building strategic partnerships.
Mariana is a champion for diversity and inclusion in tech. Recognized as a “Woman to Watch in Cybersecurity” by Authority Magazine, she has earned scholarships from Women in Cybersecurity organizations for her work in expanding access and representation in the field. She consistently uses her platform to create opportunities for women and minorities in cybersecurity.
A sought-after thought leader, Mariana has been featured on over two dozen industry podcasts—including Cybersecurity Standup and Enterprise Security Weekly—where she shares how HACKERverse.ai is transforming cybersecurity sales. In February, she was featured on the cover of the Cincinnati Business Courier as one of the most innovative startup leaders to watch. Her media presence and business accomplishments underscore her influence and ability to drive forward-thinking conversations in tech.
Mariana’s visionary leadership, discipline, and passion for solving real-world problems make her a standout CEO for investors seeking to support transformative change in technology and cybersecurity.
Full Episode Transcript
Jess Vachon: 0:33
Hello, welcome to another episode of Voices of the Vigilant. I am just blown away by my guest today, and you will be too, Mariana Padilla, CEO and co-founder of Hackerverse AI, Welcome.
Mariana Padilla: 0:49
Oh my gosh. Thank you so much for having me. I've really been looking forward to this. I know we've been trying to get on the books for a while, so here we are. This is going to be great.
Jess Vachon: 0:58
Yeah, well, you're busy, right, so I really appreciate your time. Right, so I really appreciate your time. You know we were talking before we came on about how you had to let everyone know. Hey, I'm going to be on a podcast and right up until the last minute working and I'm sure once we're done here, it's going to be going right back to the drawing board and creating the amazing things that you're creating. I like to let my guests introduce themselves and tell us what you're doing right now and especially tell us about Hackiverse. So the floor is yours.
Mariana Padilla: 1:30
Oh well, awesome yeah. So hello everyone watching and who will be watching this later. Again Mariana Padilla, co-founder and CEO of Hackiverse AI. So what we're really trying to do at Hackiverse is, I would say, overhaul, revolutionize, you know, throw out the old cybersecurity sales process and really create something that works for both sides of the equation, for both vendors as well as enterprise security buyers. So what does that mean? Essentially, we're creating a platform where we use generative AI and automations to quickly spin out product proof of concepts. We then host those on our platform for self-service product evaluation, building out some really cool things like multi-tool evaluation actually in the pike right now so you can be able to come to the platform and test products with each other. Also, do a lot of really fun disruptive things. World Hacker Games is one of the things we're known for, where we put vendor products in a CTF and essentially real-time product validation, so disruptive way of, you know, selling cybersecurity products. And it's long overdue in my book, long overdue in my book.
Jess Vachon: 2:45
So let's talk about that, where did the idea come from?
Jess Vachon: 2:55
How did you discover the need, what's been the response to the product and what you're trying to do?
Mariana Padilla: 3:00
Yeah, so this was all the brainchild of my co founder, Craig Elrod, who has been a sales engineer, led sales engineering teams for over 25 years at vendors, mssps kind of across the industry, and so this was a lived pain point of his, which was like manually building out demos, manually building up POCs very linear process. You, you build this thing out. It takes months to build and execute, and then you, you know, bring the customer in or install it in their environment, and sometimes they don't even close the sale and so it's literally full of friction. Obviously, on the buyer side, those months and months are also frustrating for you, right? So if you have to get this product installed in your environment, there's checklists, there's legal and there's just like so much stuff and there's legal and there's just like so much stuff, and so I think it's definitely been something that people are getting excited about.
Mariana Padilla: 3:51
One of the things I talk about a lot is Ross Haleleuk wrote a book called Cyber for Builders, and he has a whole chapter on why, like, the current sales process is dead. He has a whole thing like literally paragraphs and paragraphs on like why selling to CISOs is not a thing, and, jess, I'm sure as a CISO, you know, you, you, this is a pain point. You live of getting pitched constantly. So on your side, I'm sure you know that this is something that CISOs really, really want, and so the and enterprise buyers in general, and so I think that that that has been really great.
Mariana Padilla: 4:24
You know what we have really tried since the very, very beginning to make sure that this is a platform that is wanted and created for everyone involved. So we have really been strategic about doing, you know, hundreds of hours of discovery calls with, you know, the buyer side, to really understand their pain points in the process, what it has looked like, what an ideal sales process would look like for them as well as vendors, and really understanding, you know, their own sales challenges. Right, because we're not trying we're not out here like trying to slam vendors and, you know, sales people. That's not what we're doing. You know, obviously, products are needed. We need cybersecurity tooling. There's a lot of incredible products out there that we need to get in the hands of the people who need them. We just want to make that easier and faster and more enjoyable for everyone.
Jess Vachon: 5:14
Yeah, you listed all my pain points as part of what you just said. I don't even know where to start on this. When I'm looking for a product, right, I want to go out and research it without having to sign into a website and give out all my information. I don't want to just read the marketing material. I come from a technical background, so I want to get in and kick the tires a little bit, and I know that the teams that I I lead the engineers want to do the same thing. They don't really care about the marketing fluff. Maybe after they've kicked the tires they want to know, like, okay, how's it built? You know in terms of is it a secure product? How long does it take to implement? But most people I think in information security with a technical background, want to get in and figure out the product for themselves and see does it fit my need? And you don't need a salesperson for that. You don't really need a sales engineer for that, although they bring a lot of value to the team absolutely, and you don't need to be marketed to and you don't need a million calls. As a CISO, I don't have an unlimited amount of time for cold calls.
Jess Vachon: 6:29
And to sit in the marketing part of a demonstration. And then, when I'm interested in the product, the proof of concept bringing it into my environment can take months. So you touched on that. We have to do the non-disclosure agreements. We have to prepare the environment. If it's not a SaaS- based product, then I've got to get some servers spun up for it. There's integration that has to be done and then if I decide I don't want the product now, we've got to unroll all of that. So there's so much involved there.
Jess Vachon: 7:01
I have been able to see your product. I've been able to see it mature over time and it is so awesome to be able to go in there and say I can touch the product, I can use the product, but oh, guess what? There's AI built into the back of here that will now simulate real- world use of the product. So I'm not just pressing buttons and going between menus. I'm able to actually have myself, or my team, see how this product will work in production in our environment.
Jess Vachon: 7:39
I can't overstate the value that that has to a CISO, that that has to technical teams and I would assume for sales teams as well, you're reducing all that friction, you're reducing that time to the sale. You don't have to be on call after call. I think it's the way that the industry needs to go. Let's talk a little bit about the AI piece. So we know AI is changing all industries, especially changing the IT and the information security industries. It's allowing us to move faster, it's allowing us to do things with less staff, and now you're introducing a way in which we can test and evaluate a product and, potentially, our environments with it. There's some pushback that AI is going to displace people.
Mariana Padilla: 8:48
I think that's true. It will displace people, but I think, like with all other technologies, it's just going to change the way we work. Yeah.
Jess Vachon: 8:59
you've introduced your product to people and you've shown them the AI piece, how would they receive that part of the product?
Mariana Padilla: 9:09
I mean, I think it depends on who you're talking to. I think overall, people understand the value proposition, just like you said. I mean it is changing workflows pretty dramatically, right. I think there's a lot of really positive use cases for it. I think what's really exciting, like you said, it's like the real world, the real world testing abilities that we're, that we're providing.
Mariana Padilla: 9:31
So, you know, we started with this process of you know stitching together attack campaigns based on the MITRE framework and we, you know, had that all built into the POC where you can run the attack campaign, you can see how that performs in the end of vendor product, and that's really, really great and cool. But now, where we're headed with that is making those bots agentic. So we're going to be training them, so they're going to be learning. They're going to be, you know, ingesting the latest information around how these attack campaigns are shifting and all of that kind of stuff. So I mean, what essentially is going to be happening is that we're going to be continually testing some of these vendor products. They're only going to get better, they're going to get stronger. It's gonna be real time, you know, feedback for them on how buyers are using the POC where their product may be falling short. So ultimately, I think it makes us all stronger, which is isn't that why we're here? Sometimes we forget that, I think.
Jess Vachon: 10:30
Yeah, and that's a good point. Right, we're supposed to be moving our industry and the work that we do forward. We're supposed to be changing. So it sometimes is ironic that people in our industry are dismissive of AI when it's moving in the direction in the future that we were hoping for and that we're trying to build.
Mariana Padilla: 10:53
Yeah, yeah, I mean there is a. There's a lot to be nervous about, obviously, right, and so it's like you know, as a CISO, you have to be aware of the tools that your employers are bringing in house. Sometimes maybe they're not even telling you they downloaded this thing. It's totally insecure. What kind of you know employers are bringing in-house? Sometimes maybe they're not even telling you they downloaded this thing. It's totally insecure.
Mariana Padilla: 11:09
What kind of you know content is being fed into that AI system? Like you don't even know? You know there's a lot to consider. We talked about agents. Now each individual agent needs to be secured. I mean there's a lot happening. I mean the only way I think to effectively secure all that is also with AI.
Mariana Padilla: 11:29
I mean there's going to be a lot of human work involved, obviously, but if we're not adopting that in a safe way, I mean it's going to be an uphill battle and you're probably going to lose.
Mariana Padilla: 11:41
I mean the thing we need to do is like I just feel like we're constantly learning. I have kind of stumbled into cybersecurity I'm not native to cybersecurity, stumbled into it, my co founder, we hit it off and I absolutely love being here. I think a huge reason for that is because you constantly have to learn and I get so bored I'm like ADD, but now I'm just like I'm learning something new every day, because I have to, because if I'm not, then I'm behind, right. So yeah To the naysayers out there sorry, get on the boat, get left behind, I don't know. So and I mean I get it. Look, I understand, like you, some people may be kind of standing back and seeing what's going to happen before they take action, but I mean, what I would say to that is like are threat actors stopping? Are they holding back, or are they using these tools to their advantage to do new harmful things every single day, every single hour, every single second of every single day?
Jess Vachon: 12:41
So yeah, and, in case in point, we can look over the last six months, last year. All the attacks that we know are backed by AI agents that are being used to break into organizations. So we don't have a choice. It's here. It's going to change the world we're living in and we have to change with it. We have to change with it. We look at the auto industry like we can look back at a hundred years of history and we can see how the audio industry has changed and mechanics from 50 years ago and mechanics now have totally different tools. Right, you bring your car into a repair shop. Now, the first thing they do is hook it up to a computer.
Jess Vachon: 13:23
Right and why? Because there's so many computers in the vehicle yeah . I have a vehicle that has ai built into it and it integrates with ChatGPT . So, yeah, it's here. This is the world we live in, and as much as you may feel uncomfortable with it to your point, get out and learn about it. Yeah, stay in front of it, figure out the benefits, figure out the drawbacks. You can still have your humanity right, but there is a better tomorrow coming if we're smart about how we leverage the ai yeah, I mean what's interesting?
Mariana Padilla: 13:57
This like not at all related to the question that you asked me, it is interesting to see kind of the I don't know if I would call it the response, but what is occurring as a result of AI, right?
Mariana Padilla: 14:10
So I talked I the other day, I posted on LinkedIn about just like the ridiculous slop that's getting fed by the algorithm. There's so much crap out there. I think that it is really forcing people to like, want or like people really want that human to human connection and people are coming together in community and creating content in a way and really thinking about the humanness of all of this in a way that hasn't happened. And to me, as someone who lives on the will, die on the hill of community led growth and like building human connection, I'm very excited to see that. So it's an interesting upside of AI adoption. Interestingly, we're all forced to like really, you know, double down on our humanity and again, that's like not necessarily like cogent to the conversation we're having, but I just think it's interesting. It's an interesting thing that I'm seeing.
Jess Vachon: 15:03
Yeah, so I have that same insight, slightly different. So I have started to use AI in various aspects of my life. So in producing this podcast, once we're done recording, I will use AI to do the transcripts to upload. There's a whole bunch of work that I use AI to do on the backend, and what that does for me is it saves me a tremendous amount of time. So with that time that I have available now, I have more time to spend with my family or my friends. So it's ironic because AI it's not another human, but there are rewards, as you pointed out, to using it that allow us to interact with each other more often.
Mariana Padilla: 15:46
Yeah.
Jess Vachon: 15:46
We're getting back some of our time. The last podcast episode that I recorded, we talked a lot about AI and what does it mean for our future as humans. How are we going to live in five years, in 10 years, if a lot of the work that we do right now is supplanted by AI?
Jess Vachon: 16:08
What does that mean to us and it's discussions that I think we're having here that we need to have moving forward.
Jess Vachon: 16:16
Yeah, I just I keep circling back to. I think this is going to be a good thing, as long as we are good about the governance of it and realistic about what it can do, and we're willing to change and do work that AI can't do. And, like every other generation throughout history, change is inevitable. But we're still here. We're going to do different things, want to switch things up a little bit.
Jess Vachon: 16:44
Now I'm actually going to have to read this part of your background because your background is amazing. I'm going to read this out so our audience knows. You just didn't show up and start this company. You are a driven individual. So your background: Division I competitive swimmer, scaled a marketing agency, Red Lab, to a $1 million per year agency, built Hackerverse, advocate for diversity, inclusion and tech, voted a "woman to watch in cybersecurity and oh, by the way, appeared in over two dozen podcasts. Do you sleep? What drives you? I mean, that's a lot for a relatively short span of lifetime so far.
Mariana Padilla: 17:28
Yeah. WellI mean, I started out as a Division I college athlete. I think that tells you a lot about me. Highly competitive for sure, which you know. My mom used to tell me that I was like horrible at board games when I was young because I was a terrible loser, just like hated losing. So there you go. Fun fact about me I've toned it down. I've toned it down, I can lose Monopoly now, but apparently sorry used to be a big trigger for me To the point she was like I'm not playing sorry with you anymore because if you lose you like pitch a fit. But anyway, I've grown up a little bit.
Mariana Padilla: 18:05
Yeah, I mean, I definitely am driven. I love accomplishing things. I would say that I'm an obsessive problem solver, so this was not a problem that I knew a lot about. I met my co founder. We hit it off. He told me about the problem.
Mariana Padilla: 18:21
I like, as you mentioned, scaled my own marketing agency. Through that process really had a lot of challenges onboarding customers on enterprise software not necessarily cyber security, but crm other things. It was huge pain. Um, specifically Hubspot was a trigger for me. And joining hackerverse like I was trying to onboard a marketing client onto like enterprise Hubspot, the sales team turned over, we weren't actually sure what was going to be included in our plan. Like it was this whole thing. We couldn't get access to all the features on the free trial, like. All I wanted to be able to do was like use, touch, feel, evaluate the software. So this is not a problem unique to cybersecurity, which I'm sure everyone knows. Some things lend themselves better well to like product led growth and free trials and that kind of stuff, and so you know that's how some aspects of the SaaS industry are adapting is through that.
Mariana Padilla: 19:11
You know there's a whole conversation about whether you require people to insert credit cards and all that kind of stuff. They're still capturing your data. But you know some some things. You know just don't necessarily need a tool like Hackerverse, but I understood immediately the value proposition that he wanted to bring, which is, essentially, try before you buy for highly technical software. That's it. I mean the number of times I said to myself like I just want to be able to use this thing. I don't. I call it the existential dread of clicking on the talk to sales button, like that. You're like, okay, here we go. I got to click on talk to sales.
Mariana Padilla: 19:45
They're going to have my information for all of eternity. It doesn't matter how many, how many times I unsubscribed from the mailing list. I'm still on the mailing list, they're still texting me, like you know, um. So I understood the value proposition immediately. And then, you know, I came on, initially as an advisor and then became CEO, um, and was really drawn to the mission because of what we talked about earlier Like, look, we have an ethical obligation, we have a mission to secure our systems. Like, that is a mission that I can get behind.
Mariana Padilla: 20:16
I'm definitely someone who has to be working on something that I feel called to in terms of, like, making an impact and making a difference in in, you know, in our community and globally. I can't just work for work's sake. It just doesn't work. That's not how I am. So I got it. I was drawn to the mission of cybersecurity and and and you know, really wanted to help make it a better place in my own way, and so that was through, you know, really revolutionizing the sales process and really getting the best hand, the best tools, in the hands of the people who need them. I think you know there's a whole conversation to be had around why the sales process is the way it is now and all of that kind of stuff. But it's very much when I feel connected to the mission of what I am doing, then I just won't stop until I get there.
Jess Vachon: 21:13
Interesting. So when are out out as CEO of your company, you've got to get funding, backers and then you've got to get interest of other groups. And I just mentioned your background. What aspects of that background are you pulling to influence the funders and get them on board? And you know, do you see challenge in which your background lets you overcome?
Mariana Padilla: 21:46
Yeah. So I would say I think one of the common threads in everything I've done is storytelling. I mean, obviously that's inherent to marketing, right . But before that I briefly had a little stint teaching middle school and high school which, like I don't think a lot of people know that. But I think that you know the common thread there really is storytelling, right, the better you can tell a story, the more successful you're going to be at everything in every industry, and that's something I deeply believe.
Mariana Padilla: 22:14
You know I taught history. So I thought you know storytelling is the best way to teach that. No one wants to memorize random dates that mean nothing, you know. That has no context for anybody like why the human motivations and all of that in the stories behind that is what really, you know, hook students. That's why I got interested in history. To begin with I was actually a history major. So there you go. So I would say storytelling is a huge piece of that and it's. I think Craig, my co founder, saw the value in what I, what I brought to the table immediately. I think cybersecurity is full of very intelligent, highly technical people who suck at communicating, and that's just a blanket statement.
Jess Vachon: 22:56
You know us so well statement.
Mariana Padilla: 23:04
Obviously, you know there's exceptions to the rules, but I think it's like it's, and it's at every level, right. So it's like practitioners to, you know, mid level managers, it's CISOs to the board, it's security teams to the rest of the organization, talking about the value proposition. It's founders to investors, like I can't even tell you the number of like just terrible pitches that I have sat through where it's like here's the 85 product features that we offer. It's like who gives a fuck? Like, why, like, why. So, anyway, there you go. I would say that's a huge, that's a huge reason for our success. I have a pretty strong personal LinkedIn brand, which I'm sure will you know. At the end, you'll tell people how to get in touch with me or follow along LinkedIn, and that honestly is our biggest source of inbound right now as a company and what investors are like.
Mariana Padilla: 24:06
"Oh, you ever like very kind of like semi famous on LinkedIn? This is, you know, I'll put that in. I'm actually you maybe put that in my LinkedIn tag like kind of semi-famous on LinkedIn Hashtag, semi-famous on LinkedIn.
Jess Vachon: 24:11
I think it's more than semi-famous. Of course, your brand with the eyeglasses for those of you who are listening in Mariana's eyeglasses are amazing. It's eyeglass goals for me. But definitely I mean, if you've got that, that, that thing, you market that thing. And with your marketing background, I mean you know this, you've mastered that. I want to speak to your advocacy for diversity and inclusion. Where does that spring from and how do you share that in the work that you do and outside of your official capacity as a CEO, in your personal life?
Mariana Padilla: 24:43
Yeah, so that's something I've always been passionate about. Like I mentioned my kind of background in education. You know that was how I initially wanted to make an impact on the world. I quickly became clear that there's a lot of flaws in public education. I quickly became clear that there's a lot of flaws in public education. I am not someone who subscribes to the belief that this is the way we've always done. It is the way we should do things, and that in our public education is that's the mentality, which is very unfortunate. I think we're massively under-educating our youth and not educating them in the things that will help them for the next economy and the next job market. But that's a whole other conversation, and so the other thing that I kind of learned through that process was there.
Mariana Padilla: 25:30
It was in inner city schools. There was just so many challenges facing these kids externally that were preventing their success that the you know my impact was limited, just like why do you care about the war of 18 step 12, 18, 12, I think I I should know this, I taught this. Uh, when you like don't know where you're going to sleep at night, or like you know, there were so many other things happening and a lot of really good kids who are just dealt really bad hands in life, and so from there I moved to nonprofit and that's actually where I got connected with marketing, but I'm someone who is what am I trying to say? I am very aware of injustices, I guess is what I will say in all aspects from you know, and it's just like so prevalent and getting worse, to be honest, and so when I was talking about being mission driven earlier, that's essentially it. It's like I just feel called to make an impact in the way that I can.
Mariana Padilla: 26:33
I think, ultimately, one of the things that I would love to do is to a make a lot of money on Hackerverse and then use that money to like burn the system down. Let's like we really need to change it, and I think the only way to change it right now is to have a lot of money. You got to make a lot of money to change things, which is unfortunate, and so that in my personal life, that's, you know, like what I would love to do eventually is to figure out a way to leverage returns from a tech company to really make an impact. I think there's a lot of really interesting opportunities for how we think about building businesses in the future from like co-op models to like really reforming economic systems, to like work for people and societies as a whole. Clearly, I have given this a lot of thought.
Mariana Padilla: 27:22
Do you remember that social media trend from a few months back like the Roman Empire? How many times a day men think about the Roman Empire? Mine is like rethinking global economic systems. That's something that I think about a lot.
Jess Vachon: 27:38
Yeah, no, I do too, and I have found, at least in my experience in our professional community, that there is a lot of thinking about that and I think a lot of us went into technology because it promised a better tomorrow. And we're in a place now where I think those of us that you know got into technology in the late nineties and saw a promise, a new, a new world, a new world order for everyone, are have reached this point of being disillusioned.
Mariana Padilla: 28:13
Oh yeah. Because, the folks leading leading the charge in those technology have they have not have not done what we had hoped they would do.
Jess Vachon: 28:24
True, right, and they have the billions of dollars and they're sitting on it or they're using it for their own ends, which, hey, yes, that makes some sense. Yes, that makes some sense. But to me I'm confused, when you have billions of dollars, how you can't address social issues that you see around you. And I'll use the example of RSA. We've been to RSA. You walk out of RSA, you go a couple blocks over. The social issues hit you over the head. They're all around you, and is probably one of the most challenging things for me when I go to RSA is when I leave, because RSA is millions of dollars. You know companies that are renting out museums and entire restaurants and you go outside and you see someone who's using yarn to stitch together their shirt so they have a covering over the top of their body, right. Or someone who society doesn't have the resources to help them with their substance misuse, order or their mental health issues.
Jess Vachon: 29:28
It's a weird world that we're inheriting and living in right now where that stratification is so varied. There's the small minority that has everything and there's a big "used to be a minority, but it's a big majority of people that have nothing and are getting less. So I think it's good that we talk about this. I think it's good that we're frank about it and realistic about it, and I love to have communications with people or interactions with people who say, if I can get to this point, this is what I want to do. I want to fix that. Yeah, and sometimes we think we have to do it on such a large scale. But I actually picked up a book. I don't have it handy yet, I set it aside here, but it's. It's on micro activism and it talks about how we can make these changes within our means on such a small level, and most of it's around just living the example yeah and being true to our principles. It's refreshing to hear you talk about that and and I don't think anyone who knows you it's refreshing to hear you talk about that and I don't think anyone who knows you questions that you live your principles. It's just comes out of you, and you're so authentic that it's there. So it's great that you talked about that and I could hear the passion coming out about wanting to fix the world and hopefully, more people in our industry are sharing that and are thinking about "what are my next steps. You know, not just about a career. It's got to be about making a difference.
Mariana Padilla: 31:06
Yeah,, well, no, and I appreciate that and definitely something I'm passionate about. I, you know, have running commentary, I tell people so grew up with a mom who in a former life was a card carrying member of the Communist Party. So I feel like I would have either turned out one of two ways, like a hard, poor Republican or who I am Like. I feel like there's no middle ground there, like you're going one way or the other. It's either like what is that? Or like oh okay, I see you know, acknowledge that also labor union organizer, like she did all sorts of interesting stuff. So I come by honestly, I guess is what I'm trying to say.
Jess Vachon: 31:45
And what a good segue, because I was going to ask you about what were you like as a kid and what do you think the influences of your parents were on who you've become today and how you guide your life?
Mariana Padilla: 31:56
Yeah, well, I've shared things on LinkedIn. If you find me on LinkedIn, I was a big nerd. I'm still a big nerd. I just like happen to have nicer glasses now. They were not cool. When I first got my first pair of glasses they were like brown tortoise shell. I also had like a weird bowl cut. So, like you, just like run with that as a vision. Yeah, so grew up in the middle of nowhere, new Mexico, I Espanola, just in between, kind of sandwiched in between Los Alamos and Santa Fe. I spent a lot of time in Santa Fe. Love New Mexico, love, love, love New Mexico. I read a lot as a kid, spent a lot of time in books, then started became a competitive swimmer when I was nine and then you know, like, like you said, division one swimmer.
Mariana Padilla: 32:50
But yeah, I would say not that either of them are really interested in technology or entrepreneurship, but I think it was just always encouraged me to really think critically about a lot of things, which I think is more and more important than ever. I mean, I mentioned things that were not teaching students. If I had to choose two things that, like everyone comes out of high school knowing how to do one, would be personal finance and the other would be critical thinking. Beyond that, I think the rest of it's kind of optional right Like. So maybe math skills, that's probably important too. That's probably important too. My math teacher would be horrified, but I was also not very good at math. But so I would say, thinking critically and, you know, spending a lot of time really analyzing the messages coming our way and all of that kind of stuff really helped get me to where I am today.
Mariana Padilla: 33:44
And then, yeah, I think you know competitive athletics is something that I think a lot of people give credit to for helping them become who they are as adults, as people, who they are as adults, as people. I was actually a distance swimmer which I think has lent itself well to being a startup founder, because it's a slog right Like you're in it for the long haul. There's not a lot of quick gratification unless you like have family, money or know someone and recent or something Like. So I think there's a lot of tough lessons to be learned and thing adversities that you have to overcome, and I do think that being a competitive athlete was really important to that, which I never would have thought. But as I've gotten older, I really I do think that that has been kind of key to a lot of things I've done. Nice has been kind of key to a lot of things I've done.
Jess Vachon: 34:37
Nice. When, many, many, many years from now, you reach the end of your career. How do you hope that people remember you ?
Mariana Padilla: 34:50
She lit the fire. There's no doubt about that. She torched it there, you go.
Jess Vachon: 35:01
It reminds me of the meme with the little girl who's got the fire. It's all good, she's like, yeah, she's like looking around, like, yeah, I lit that fire.
Mariana Padilla: 35:10
Right, I did I mean I, within any organization you have, like your builders and your burners, right, and so, like the people who are like okay, like let's, let's fix what we have, and you know, like you know, make some changes and try to improve things. And there are some, definitely some things I think we can do that for, but, like I really question where we are societally right now and whether some of these old systems are worth keeping at all. So I don't know. There you go. There's my answer.
Jess Vachon: 35:42
I want to ask so many more questions. I have to ask... Would you ever consider going into politics so you could affect the change that you want to see?
Mariana Padilla: 35:55
I thought about that. That was life goal for a very long time. I mean, you know it's interesting because I always thought I had too little of a filter to be a politician. But I don't think you need a filter anymore. People don't want to filter, apparently. Filters not needed, filters not required. Nor is tapping oh, siri wanted to tell us it's seven. Nor is having a brain or conscience. So I don't know, the bar is pretty low
Jess Vachon: 36:25
Yeah, you're probably overqualified for politics, all right. So now I want to do a little fun thing that I do in the podcast. It's called an empowering question. I'm going to read it, but you're answering it as if, um, you ask this question to yourself. Hopefully that's not too confusing. It sounded confusing when I said that, um. So the question is how would I want to be encouraged right now? What would I want to hear?
Mariana Padilla: 36:54
hmm, oh, that is a great question. I mean, we're very much in the throes of startup life right now. I'm very much in the throes of startup life and, making you know, working with VCs has been hard. While I do think that my background, in non-traditional background, in a lot of ways is an asset, sometimes I think that VCs don't see it that way. They may see it as a liability. So I would say that the fight, I would say maybe just some positive talk around with the maybe the light is at the end of the tunnel and bigger things are coming and I just need to like keep progressing onward, I guess maybe is what I would say.
Jess Vachon: 37:53
Nice. Thanks, I didn't realize I muted myself. But no, it's all good.
Jess Vachon: 37:59
And in the middle of that, one of a viewer or a listener popped in with a question. I don't know what it said, but hopefully those of you who watch the video don't find it to be offensive. If you do, it's not reflective of my guest or myself. So tell us, where can people connect with you and what are you up to next?
Mariana Padilla: 38:22
Yeah, so check out our website, hackerverse AI. Also find me on LinkedIn. It's very memorable. Memorable backslash here to shake shit up is literally my LinkedIn URL, so you will not forget that. Where I will be next, if you are going to be out in Vegas for Black Hat Defcon B-Sides, I will be there the 4th through the 9th in Vegas for the whole shebang. I'm definitely doing B-Sides May or may not make it to the famous, infamous pool party. I heard that's a thing, so we'll see. But either way, I'll be in Vegas and that's probably the next big thing that I have coming up.
Jess Vachon: 39:04
Thank you, I'm not going to ask about the pool party. I don't want to know about the pool party.
Mariana Padilla: 39:08
I don't know. I haven't been to said pool party so I'll report back.
Jess Vachon: 39:13
Okay, hopefully everyone leaves their cell phones in a black bag someplace. There you go All right. Thank you, Mariana. I enjoyed having you on the show. I hope you enjoyed it as well. Folks, if you like this episode, please take a moment to rate us on your favorite podcast app. Rating the program helps me grow the audience and fund the program. Until next time, bye.
Mariana Padilla: 39:38
Thank you so much. Thanks everyone.
