Washington, District of Columbia, United States
I’m currently a venture partner at Paladin Capital Group, a multi-stage investor founded in 2001 where we focus on investing in innovative companies that develop promising early-stage technologies to address the critical cyber and advanced technology needs of both commercial and government customers. I was also recently appointed to the Virginia Governor's Task Force on Artificial Intelligence and am on the board of directors of RangeForce, a cybersecurity startup. Prior to that I also served as a member of the DHS Cyber Safety Review Board and helped grow a network threat detection cybersecurity startup led by the former Director of the U.S. National Security Agency from 30 people and bootstrapped to over 300 staff and an IPO on the New York Stock Exchange (and raising over $100M in venture capital). A few years back, I also founded the National Security Institute and the NSI Cyber & Tech Center, a pair of startup think tanks & academic centers at George Mason University’s Scalia Law School, where, as a recovering lawyer, I also teach classes on artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, surveillance, and other cool areas and also run the National Security Law & Policy Program and the Cyber, Intelligence, and National Security LLM. NSI and NSI CTC focus on bringing real-world experience to bear on solving on hard national security and cyber problems. In my free time, I serve as an advisor to various companies and organizations, including U.S. Strategic Metals; Beacon Global Strategies; the FDD Center on Cyber and Technology Innovation; and the National Cryptologic Foundation, among others. I'm also currently affiliated with Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation. Prior to that, I served in a variety of senior national security roles in the U.S. government , including on the leadership team of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee as Chief Counsel & Senior Advisor and on the senior staff of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. I also served in the Bush Administration on the leadership team of the Justice Department’s National Security Division as Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General for National Security and in the White House as an Associate Counsel to President George W. Bush, where I worked on surveillance, counterterrorism, and other national security matters. I also took time off from (i.e. quit) my day job(s) back in 2017 to briefly work for Justice Neil M. Gorsuch of the U.S. Supreme Court and, as noted above, we currently teach together in a summer overseas program.