"Hunky Sales Dudes" with Dan Tentler
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What is the episode’s opening hook and who is the guest?
Hey everyone, it's Nick. This episode I've got Dan Tentler on. Dan's a cool security dude who has spoken of DEF CON and a whole bunch of things like that. He's one of the main people I talk to before doing novel things with my network so I don't get absolutely owned by random people on the internet. I'd say more, but I decided to just send this episode out instead of delaying any more because I don't publish nearly enough. Uh this one's a long conversation, so it's coming out in two parts. I'd also like to thank Lisa Lorenzen for all the work she's done editing this podcast as a volunteer for the past couple of months. After this episode, I've actually hired someone, so I'm now officially losing a bunch of money bringing everyone the podcast.
Uh, but I want to bring the release schedule up to once a month. So uh enjoy not even putting intro music in this one. It's just gonna be a a cold start. I just want to get an episode out. So uh hope you enjoy. Second part will be out shortly. How's you're saying you just a million clients popping up at once?
Well, I wish a million, but yeah, it's the typical startup feast or famine kind of thing. You j there are seasons, right? And so spring for us is what I call tire kicker season. And the reason I call it that is because springtime ish, February, March, April, we get this huge influx of demand where suddenly in the course of two weeks I'll have a dozen inbounds. And as a small business owner, you're like, oh, this is fucking awesome. I love it. We're gonna be flush for the year. But it turns out, and this took several years for me to put my finger on. Companies tell their staff that they need to go get three quotes. And Phobos is nine and a half years old and we are old enough now that we are well enough known that people just use us for quotes.
Uh so they'll say, Hey, give me a quote and I'll get on the phone with them, or you know, we'll set up a call, we'll do a meeting, I'll walk them through like our report structure, I'll give them the whole pitch and be like, This is why we're different. This is why you should give us your money and not some other random org that will dangle your A really common technique that I've discovered is well maybe not that I've discovered, but that I've observed, is that companies will send their rock star types, you know, the people that write the exploits, the people that are famous, the ones that you see talking on social media and what have you. The th they'll send them to conferences to do talks and you'll see them presenting at Black Hat and at DEF CON and all these other big conferences all over the place.
And so the customers will see that person on the stage and be like, Oh, I like what that person has to say. And they'll contact the company and be like, Hey, I want pen test from your org. And what that org will do is say, Cool, here you go and hand them a twenty-four year old kid with no previous technical experience to speak of, who's never touched a computer before. In some cases they like used to work at Jiffy Lube changing people's oil, or they used to be a hairdresser, or they were formerly a carpenter. Like all
three of
these have
experience.
And they'll take this person and say, Okay, cool, this is gonna be your first pen test. All you have to do is follow this script, and the script is run Nexbose against them, or run, you know, Metasploit Pro against them, or run Immunity, or run Pick Your Poison of commercially available security tools, run Burp against them, whatever, and just look at the output and write a report. And they call that a pen test. And they pay the kid, I don't know, some reasonable sixty, seventy, eighty K a year starter salary or something like that. And the kid thinks that they're printing money and making money.
Yeah.
And the company charges the customer like hundreds of dollars an hour or tens of thousands of dollars a week or a month. And the report will come out to be a forty page report, the majority of which is either corporate fluff or the full resumes and backgrounds of all the people that they had on the report or on the assessment.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the episode’s opening hook and who is the guest?
0:00–9:23
2
How does Dan describe the incentive structure behind pen‑testing quotes and “tire‑kicker” seasons?
9:23–19:23
3
Why do many companies rely on cheap, low‑quality pen‑test reports and what does Phobos Group do differently?
19:23–27:02
4
What frustrations does Dan share about responding to RFPs and getting three‑quote requirements?
27:02–37:10
5
How does the “shelfware” phenomenon illustrate wasted security spend (e.g., the McAfee case)?
37:10–45:15
6
What criticism does Dan offer about the commercialization of security conferences like Black Hat and DEF Con?
45:15–53:43
7
What is the battery dendrite explanation and how does it relate to real‑world safety risks?
53:43–1:00:54
8
How does the conversation wrap up on gender bias in security events and future industry hopes?
1:00:54–1:11:53