Mike Lynch: the creation of Darktrace and the tech of the future, in his own words
Mike Lynch has given an interview to Neil C Hughes’ Tech Talks Daily podcast about the creation of Darktrace, and the technologies that will shape our future. You can listen to the podcast here.
Here are some key excerpts.
On the idea behind Darktrace and turning it into a reality:
“I was on the board of the BBC… and the celebs’ salaries were appearing in the tabloids. Because I was the only technical one on the board they said – Mike go and find out, deal with this. I realised that it was the insiders doing it. It was people that were actually employed [by the BBC]. Back then the only thing people ever thought about cyber security was: build this massive great wall around everything and keep everyone out. They forgot that they let everyone in in the morning.
“So, I started thinking: there’s got to be a different approach here because you’ve got to assume the attackers [are] in. I remember the New York Times got hacked. I just remember hearing an interview and someone said – yeah well, we’re never going to get them out now they’re in that far….
“I had that idea and then Jack Stockdale who’s an amazing technology guy decided to try and create it and put it together… and it went forward…The funnest bit for me is always when it’s ten of you before it gets big, I love the early days
On Invoke’s role building Darktrace, and the Invoke model:
“[We] gave [Darktrace] the sort of experience they needed to do stuff like set up a salesforce and all those bits. Support’s so important. People who have great ideas don’t necessarily have experience of how you do that sort of stuff but it really matters and that got the ball rolling…
“Practical business support’s crucial. You don’t want to be reinventing the wheel especially where there are bits that other people know how to do. One of the problems we have in the UK is often the [venture capitalists] don’t actually have any practical support running anything. They’re all finance people…”
“The thing we try and do is we want to take the whole funding headache away so once we start, we stick with it as long as it takes and then that way again the person actually doing the tech can just get on with and not worry about continual rounds of funding.”
On the next big thing in ground-breaking technology – virtual reality without headsets, and explaining ideas without speech:
“Put a VR [headset] on these days and it’s incredible. It’s like you’re sitting in the cockpit of a jet and you can go and do things you wouldn’t be allowed to do in a real jet. If you could take the whole headset away, not just glasses – the whole thing, you could create that illusion, so I think that’s going to come.”
…
“There is a big problem about how we communicate ideas which is we’re restricted to language, and language is defined in a way that we can only deal with about three or four variables in a sentence, and we have to have these very deterministic relationships. Well, that’s not how we think and that’s not how the world works. So wouldn’t it be great if you actually did have a mind interface that freed you from four or five variables? So, I think there’s some interesting ideas there where we really can open up people to interaction with things in a completely different way.”