Bruno Lecoq — Co-Founder, CEO and CISO of BEMO and the leader who blocks his own employees from working on weekends

In this episode: Bruno's origin story: a fifteen year old in a French village of 1,200 people watches a late night TV show about two young American millionaires and wakes up his mom at midnight to announce his plan (05:47 - 07:08) Arriving in Seattle with a $10,000 loan, a backpack, and English as a work in progress (07:08 - 08:06) From MS-DOS to Windows NT to Exchange to Xbox to Hardware to HR, how a developer ends up running Microsoft's worldwide HR planning (08:06 - 09:42) The day Bill Gates walked into the shipping party and canceled the product Bruno had spent a year building, and the box he still has (09:42 - 10:57) Starting BEMO in 2010 before Office 365 or Azure existed and building a system that could deploy SharePoint in 15 minutes (11:07 - 12:07) Watching Microsoft decide to eat his lunch in 2012 and becoming the second biggest reseller of Project Online and SharePoint Online on the way out (12:07 - 13:39) The deliberate pivot to cybersecurity in 2018 and winning Microsoft Partner of the Year in 2023 (13:39 - 14:34) Why CMMC compliance is like having a child and the birthday is just the beginning (14:34 - 15:34) Opening the hood on companies that have been self-attesting perfect CMMC scores for five years and what you find inside (15:34 - 16:53) What the average SMB gets wrong about cybersecurity and why being on Copacabana beach with a laptop makes you a very effective hacker (16:53 - 18:28) AI versus AI: going from 46 agents to 21 and building a governance framework that mirrors BEMO's human staffing levels (18:28 - 20:34) Eight years working alongside his son Brandon, how he kept it professional, and why he is relieved they never had an accident (20:34 - 22:00) The Lifestyle Polygraph: éclairs, a French bakery, the 1998 World Cup, flying lessons, the Marshawn Lynch earthquake, and the leader who blocks his own employees from connecting on weekends (22:29 - 33:15) Timestamp Highlights: (05:47) The midnight promise to his mom that became a thirty-six year adventure (07:08) Arriving in Seattle with a $10,000 loan and English as a work in progress (09:42) Bill Gates walks into the shipping party (11:07) Building BEMO before Office 365 existed (12:07) Watching Microsoft eat his lunch and becoming the second biggest reseller anyway (14:34) CMMC compliance is like having a child (16:53) Why hackers love small businesses who think they are immune (18:28) From 46 AI agents to 21 and why governance matters (20:34) Eight years working with his son Brandon (23:18) His favorite French pastry is the éclair (25:59) France beats Brazil two months before his wedding (27:31) The family intervention that ended his flying lessons Resources & Links: BEMO — bemopro.com ThreatLocker — Presenting sponsor of No Password Required DerScanner — Episode sponsor Cyber Florida — The Mother Ship