Bill Largent: On epic reads, lifelong learning, and empathy
Welcome to another episode of Humans of Talos! This week, Amy sits down with William (Bill) Largent from the Strategic Planning and Communications team. Bill’s role as Senior Security Researcher spans from threat research to communicating Talos’s critical work to internal teams, partners, and customers.
Join us as Bill shares what drew him to Talos, how his love of reading has shaped his cybersecurity ethos, and the key insights he shares for the next generation of cybersecurity professionals.
Amy Ciminnisi: Bill, it’s great to have you on. You’re part of my team in Strategic Planning and Communications. Can you tell us a little bit about what you do here at Talos?
Bill Largent: Generally speaking, most of my time is still spent on threat research and hunting. About 25 to 30% of the time, they have me talk to people. They let me out of the cage for a little while and put me in front of people. I get to talk to internal Cisco teams and to a lot of partners, which is really interesting. I discuss the state of things, help them understand what’s going on in the threat landscape, and explain what Talos is and how we do things. I also get to talk to customers, which is really fun. My background is in vendor-agnostic remote managed services, so I ran SOCs for years. Talking to people who are doing that now is really refreshing.
AC: You’ve been at Cisco for a while. What made you want to join Talos, and how did that career transition go for you?
BL: It’s really interesting. I’ve been here a long time. If you look me up in the directory, you’ll see my photo is about 24 years old. It was taken on a Saturday or Sunday night at 2 or 3 a.m. because I was working overnight shifts, so it looks exactly like you’d imagine. Getting to Talos was about seeking out smarter people. I believe if you’re the smartest person in the room, you’re in the wrong room, so I started tracking where the smarter people were and went there.
As a member of Talos, there’s never a smarter room than the Talos room. It’s insane, and I mean that for any topic you can think of — chaos theory, mathematics, planetary science, beer making… You name it, someone in Talos is an expert. It’s honestly great. That’s how I came to Talos: trying to find the smartest people in the room.
AC: Is working with people and especially people on Talos your favorite thing about your role, or are there other aspects you love?
BL: For me, the people are a massive differentiator from working anywhere else. I feel super supported and engaged all the time. Beyond the people, what’s interesting about cybersecurity is that it evolves so fast and changes so much that you’re never in a state of stasis. There’s always something new to learn, and even though it’s all cyclical and some things come back around, there’s a lot of difference day to day. It keeps my brain occupied. I also have the support of people who encourage me to go learn things that interest me.
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