You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim Stinovic on Bloomberg Radio. A lot going on, as we mentioned today, of course, those headlines from J Powell at the NAVE conference in Washington, certainly Royal uh the financial market. J Pali saying he's ready to back half a point hike in May if it's necessary. So we did see a sell off in equities, we saw bonds go up. We kind of we did initially absolutely, yeah,
that NASAC wonder. I believe we felt more than one point four percent, Carroll underperforming every major index, including the Russell two thousand. So what changed, Well, I think it's just a little bit more of an aggressive tone, right changed toward the end of the day when when equity investors bought back in, because I still I still sense
this disconnect between the equity market and the bottom. I think there's a lot of disconnect everywhere because I think, you know, we talked about growth and so on and so forth, so this is just the environment we're in. And speaking of the vironment that we're in, you know, we're trying to figure out how we come back post pandemic. We're also, of course, you know, watching what's going on of course with this war in Ukraine, the Russian invasion,
and there are increased concerns about cyber warfare. Yeah. Just this afternoon, President Biden warned that Russia is weighing a cyber attack against the U S as its military struggles in Ukraine, and urged private businesses to enhance their defenses. Joining US now, as Brian Palmer, CEO at Trelix, it's a privately held cybersecurity company. It monitors at researches threats uh, and it produces threat intelligence on threat actors and their behavior.
Brian joins us a via zoom from Washington, d C. Brian, how are you, um well, Hey, Tim? How are you hey, Carol? Thanks for having We're doing well. Hey. I wonder how you read into a statement like this coming from the President of the United States. He said that Russia could quote conduct malicious cyber activity against the US, including as a response to the unprecedented economic costs we've imposed. Yeah, so obviously we know it's an effective form of war.
Fair in today's world, right, cybersecurity can can get the job done. I think in general, what we've been seeing over the last few weeks is limited novel attacks. We haven't seen a lot of new things happening, uh, and that's caused some folks to pause. Right, because it's not
as much as expected, doesn't mean it won't happen. I think obviously the President's right, there is a high possibility that there could be attacks coming out of that region and they could be directed towards US companies, but so far we have not seen that, but all of our
customers are obviously on guard. Yeah, it's just a reminder, right, um, Brian that we are living in an environment where this is a really potentially effective weapon and could really we see you know, some of the stuff that's been going on in Ukraine, but it's certainly something that we need to consider whenever we're in any kind of a battle
economic or militarily. That's right. And it isn't a weapon that we know will be utilized and it could have big consequences, so it's something that you know, we're staying close to it. Like you said, we've seen some pseudo ransomware out there that's been putting some wiping and some other things within the Ukraine, but nothing like anyone expected. But everyone's on guard. So what does on guard mean? Well,
I think everybody's looking. So all of the cybersecurity companies that are out there, we have our trailicks, threat labs were monitoring obviously on the government side, we have lots of people cyber warriors that are out there engaging, seeing looking at the intelligence we're seeing if there are new types of attacks, tim uh, And today we're just seeing really pretty much a normal course of business, but that
could change on a moment's notice. So Brian, you're not seeing anything out of the ordinary over the last three or four weeks, or perhaps nothing more coming from Eastern Europe with than usual. Now we're seeing, you know, basically
the same stuff we would normally see. Like I mentioned, we saw a little bit of pseudo ransomware or something called hermetic wiper that does some wiping and destruction, but but nothing UM that we would see as as off the norm Do you think it's because and in this story that we have I think this came from James Lewis to Retro Strategic Technologies Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies UM, saying that the Russians have
explored US critical infrastructure before in very extensive ways. This is a wake up call to people. I mean, if something is going to happen, I mean, this is your world, and you obviously dealing it with a business perspective and a corporate perspective. But the conversations, is it more likely to be some of that critical infrastructure, be it physical infrastructure, utilities, or our financial system. It potentially could. I mean, they're
going to go for high value targets. We know, we know that we've seen that in different industries, so I wouldn't speculate which one. I also would speculate why they haven't done it so far. I think there are a lot of people speculating on that. That's not my job. I'm not on the policy side, but we're definitely ready and watching and ready to help our customers. Hey, Brian, you Um and Tim and myself and a lot of
other UH senior executives. About a week or so ago, we're part of Bloomberg Live event working Shifting two point over, Reinventing normal, and we talked about what work like post pandemic. I mean, we're still exploring this and trying to understand it. What are you seeing, what are your expectations, and I'm curious how it compares to personally what you guys were doing pre pandemic and what you're seeing from some of your customers and clients. Yeah, Carol, great question. I think
we were seeing. Look in cybersecurity, it's been an extremely competitive environment for a long time, so we have about a million person shortage across the cybersecurity market. We were also seeing a lot of this happening pre COVID. I think what happened is a lot of folks got forced into remote work and that accelerated the curve on having
to build capabilities and make better cyber investments. As I mentioned last week, COVID, of course was not a good thing, but in the world of cybersecurity, it actually accelerated our capabilities to protect and defend companies in this time of more remote work. So in a way, it did drive investment and capability building. What does it mean for you attracting and retaining talent here in this environment. Yeah, I mean it's definitely tough. One of the things I like
to talk about is soulful or soulless work. One of the things we're seeing is that people are really thinking about what do they do, how do they spend their time? And for us being in cybersecurity, I call it soulful work. I think as an industry we have a real advantage there, especially as many technologists are looking and asking what do they do, who do they work for, what's the impact they're having in the world. We're trying to use our soulfu work to our advantage to attract people to come
join us in the cybersecurity world. You're paying workers more, well, yeah, of course, right, that's a piece of the puzzle. But that that alone doesn't do it, Carol Um. With the great resignation, we're seeing a lot of competitiveness. You obviously have to pay people, but what you also have to do is have a mission and a culture and career advancement that is attractive to them as well. You've got to have the full package. Pay alone won't do it.
We just talked with our New York Bureau chief, Shelley Banjo about what's going on in New York City, and you know whether or not everybody is going to ultimate come back to the offices here in New York or whether they continue to do hybrid work. Um, what are you expecting. Are you willing to hire anybody from anywhere in the world and that's fine with you? And that means people can live wherever they want and just get
about thirty seconds. Yeah, of course. Yeah. So in our industry, like I said, we've been in a war for talent for a number of years. We have to get the best and most talented. People will go anywhere and hire folks anywhere. That means we make certain accommodations within the business. Obviously that's not the case for all businesses. Some businesses we're going to have a higher propensity of folks coming back to the office. I think we're starting to see that, Brian,
ten seconds. Do you think that means urban areas are at risk potentially just quickly? I do. I think a lot of folks who work in the technology area are moving out and they're moving to places they want to be, whether they love to fish or ski or do different things. I do think we're seeing an exodus from some of the urban areas. Great to check in with you, Brian Palmer, us CEO at Trellis via zoom from Washington, d C.