Today was the first day of RSAC. For some reason anything having to do with any kind of registration is fuxors for me but the RSAC line was actually pretty smooth. Somehow I got into a conversation about ukuleles with the lady behind me and then since I’m volunteering on college day, I was able to get the fancy green badge but the mega access part only works for Thursday. I used to have a sick mini business where I would work with recruiting companies and package my friends to them by prepping them and redoing their resumes. I’d even negotiate salary on their behalf, sometimes double. At BSides this guy told me that pass gets you into a lot of things and I thought it was just for the last day, college day. Turns out I was right lol, ask me how I know.

This was my first RSAC so I didn’t realize that the expo doesn’t start until 5pm which sucks because I was planning on doing a bigger version of what I was doing at BSides so I didn’t sign up for any sessions. Different companies feel different and now I get to feel the shape of them in booth form. Barbara and I hadn’t had breakfast yet so we went to Trader Joe’s. The guy in front of me had his badge so I said “HAPPY RSA DAY!” and we ended up in a long conversation because lines. We decided to hit up all the small storefronts turned lounges and I was too lazy to fill out their form so we went to the lounge Socket had told me about yesterday. It was split up into meeting rooms and a video game room more so we dipped and went back to the place I was too lazy to fill anything out for. After I registered I got a fancy latte and they had a game you could play to win a million dollars. I would even sit through an entire demo for a million dollars. I didn’t win the million but I won a moleskine notebook instead. The guy from Trader Joe’s was there and I laughed and asked if he was following us. He told us about after parties and the lounges and the drinks and all these things about philosophy and calculus and fun things like that.

I’m here to study startup booths and cross train my research assistant so my plan was to brute force through as many companies as possible without signing up for any sessions. Honestly the expo pass is pretty limited and I didn’t feel like sitting through anything that’s recorded with me in it. Call me crazy, but I would guess a lot of people in cybersecurity feel like that.

I brought my ukulele with me as usual. It’s kind of like my “emotional support uke” which sounds weird because it’s absolutely terrifying to play in public. I’m really trying to get over it though because I’m trying to teach my kid how to be brave and how can I teach them how to be brave if I’m not brave? So after wandering around for a while we sat around by the Metreon and I played silly parodies about VCs and moats and term sheets. I got approving looks from people passing by and one person gave me a thumbs up and said awesome! Eventually we wandered into the food court and had random chats with the people in there. One of them told us to get coffee tomorrow at their outdoor booth. Free fancy coffee? Yes please!

Five PM finally rolled around and the expo opened.

What in the Black Mirror is this? It was like it’s own ecosystem. As an introvert, I’m already going to have a hard time here and now it’s lit up like the 4th of July and just as loud.

I like optimizing things and efficiency so when I see the really big booths I have to sort through the bs to get to the information I need which is lowkey irritating. On the main expo floor someone from [REDACTED] asked to scan my badge and then didn’t know anything when I asked a question. They were “just a contractor” which turned into “just a waste of time.” Luckily on the other side there was an SE who was great and also was standing all by themselves at an empty part of their giant booth. Why they setup chairs and things with contractors by all the traffic doesn’t make sense to me. Are they expecting buyers not to have any questions? Like let’s just collect random swag and rely on this t-shirt to determine buyability? The SE btw was great and invited me back the next day because they had a hat machine. I have enough hats, thanks though.

OK SO! One of the things I used to do when I was having a bad day would be to text random people and just wish them a happy day or whatever random thing it was that day. My logic was, even if I’m having a bad day, then someone else can have a good day! I don’t do it as much anymore, I should. Anyway, I ended up doing that in real time by shouting, “HAPPY RSA DAY!” to random people as I passed by them. It’s great, it’s like throwing confetti into the air and running away, which I love because sometimes I get stuck in conversations and then I don’t know what to do. I think it took a second for people to process sometimes but when they did they’d usually laugh and say it back. Sometimes I wonder what the world would be like if everyone did that.

In the morning when we were wandering around one of the first people we did that too ended up talking to us for a long time. He was really funny and he invited us to hang out with him later on. We went to an event then we walked to where we were supposed to meet him. There was a lounge thing going on that we had to sign up for before we went in and then we sat in the alley and was about to leave before he came out and took a picture of the alley with us smiling in it and he sent it to me with directions of where they were at. I thought he was joking but he was like “Wait a second, you were here the entire time? I just took a picture to show you where” and when you look at the photo the two of us were smiling in it. He introduced us to his friends and then somehow we ended up at a different party where I sang a song about term sheets.

I don’t know if I’m bad at networking or if I just don’t like it, but I’d have these conversations with people and then just dip. I feel weird asking people to trade contract information in this kind of sales environment because I don’t want to be treated like a number so I figure they don’t want to either. My friend was asking me about if I got some CISO’s information and he was like “THEY ARE EXPECTING THIS GO AND DO IT!”

One of the CISOs I was talking to kept getting interrupted and even though he was telling these people that he was in a conversation with someone (in a nice way) they just kept talking. I said it was fine, he’s working, and he kept apologizing. He looked tired though, and I get it, like the guy can’t just have a drink and talk about his kid without being interrupted every 5 minutes by some guys who want to sell him “yet another AI Agentic Security” product. When everyone cleared out I asked him what he wanted to talk about, and he said, “Anything but work.” Same lol.

Parties with DJs that no one danced at: 1
Songs about term sheets sung: 2
Times I got lectured for not doing my job because I was supposed to be networking and I just wanted to talk to people and be a real human for once: 1