Building a Community of Hackers with Ted Kramer

Kudos to Ted for making it the longest episode on the show so far!   

 Creating a healthy culture is hard. Nurturing it to grow is even harder. I̶t̶'̶s̶ ̶w̶h̶y̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶y̶o̶g̶u̶r̶t̶ ̶b̶u̶s̶i̶n̶e̶s̶s̶ ̶i̶s̶ ̶7̶ ̶b̶i̶l̶l̶i̶o̶n̶ ̶d̶o̶l̶l̶a̶r̶s̶  

Bug bounty platforms are websites that link up with companies you can hack. If you find a vulnerability and report it to the company, you get paid through the platform. And when you're one of the best hackers on the platform, you get invited to a live hacking event where everyone has to consolidate into one spot.  

Which is supposed to be 40-50 security experts in a room attacking the same target. But it's way more than that, it's an event where they can just hangout and share information. Just groups of people staying up until 4 in the morning eating pizza and sharing stories.   

But what drives this success? What creates this environment of sharing and friendship? I asked Ted Kramer to drop some knowledge. He's HackerOne's ex-Chief of Staff and Bugcrowd's ex-Advsior. In both positions, he has created successful events where the biggest downside is that they didn't last forever.  

On this episode, we talk about his time at both companies, how to build a successful community, and what he’s working on now after leaving the security community.