I've known who Dr. Eric Cole is for most of my cybersecurity career.
Like many people in this industry, I first knew him through the resume. Former CIA hacker. Advisor to presidents. Chief scientist. CTO. Author. Speaker. Teacher. One of the people who helped shape modern cybersecurity as we know it.
Those accomplishments are impressive. They deserve recognition.
But they aren't why I'm writing this. I'm writing because of a video:
In the video, Eric spoke openly about something many cybersecurity professionals experience but few talk about honestly: burnout.
What struck me wasn't that Eric experienced burnout. If we're being honest, I'd be surprised if he hadn't. Look at the career. Look at the pace. Look at the expectations that come with being one of the most recognized names in cybersecurity.
What I appreciated was his willingness to talk about it publicly.
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Bill Brenner
Bill Brenner
Cybersecurity has a strange relationship with vulnerability. We spend our careers identifying vulnerabilities in systems, networks, applications, and processes. We obsess over weaknesses. We build businesses around finding them, yet many of us are terrified of acknowledging our own.
We tell people we're tired when we're exhausted. We say we're stressed when we're overwhelmed. We say we're busy when we're running on fumes.
For years, our industry rewarded that behavior. The people who answered emails at midnight were celebrated. The people who worked weekends were viewed as dedicated. The people who sacrificed themselves for the mission became examples for everyone else to follow.
Eventually, many of us discovered the flaw in that model. Human beings are not infinitely scalable.
The threat landscape never stops. The alerts never stop. The vulnerabilities never stop. The incidents never stop. If your strategy for success is simply to work harder than everyone else, eventually you run into a hard limit called reality. As Eric put it in the video, it is physically and mentally impossible to keep up with the speed AI has introduced to the work of cybersecurity.
When someone with his credentials talks honestly about burnout, it gives other people permission to do the same. It reminds younger practitioners that success and self-destruction are not the same thing.
It reminds leaders that resilience is not measured by how much punishment you can absorb before breaking, that cybersecurity is ultimately a human profession.
We have lost too many talented souls to burnout in this industry. I'm grateful he was able to acknowledge that before the end.
Thank you for everything, Dr. Cole.
