BSidesSF 2025 - 15 Years of BSidesSF...(Reed Loden, Ricky, Steve, Tania McClain, Meghan Manfre)

Hello everyone again. Uh welcome to our panel 15 years of besides behind the scenes AMA. Well, thank you for being here. You can ask questions on slido and once this are done uh you can talk to them outside. Thank you very much please. Thank you for thank you for joining us. This session is really all for you to let you ask us questions about how bides works on the underside on the back side. Um so yes and we are all a little punchy. It's been a long three days so far and we have a lot more to go tonight. So, day five of six. Thank you very much. Day five for day day four for me, day five of six for

Reed. Um, let's do a quick round of introductions. Let's hear who you are, what you're responsible for, how long you've been with Bides, and uh, that sounds like a good start. So, I'm Ricky. Um, I do sponsors and other stuff. Um, and I've been with Bides since 2017. We'll start. Oh, winner. Yes. Yeah. Read. Um, hi, I'm Reed. I am the president and lead organizer for Bside San Francisco. Um, I've been with uh for been with BSSF for 10 years now. Um, I started off actually running the CFP for one year and then they were like, "Oh yeah, can you just run everything?" And so that's literally how it's uh Yeah. I'm Megan. I've been with BIDES

for nine years on staff and I volunteered for one year before that. I've done a number of different jobs, primarily kind of in venue operations and most recently primarily written communications. Hello, I'm Tanya. I mostly have run sponsors. Easier. Uh I've been with Bides 11 years, 10 years as a lead. And I recruited these two and this one and that one. No, not you. Sorry. Those two. Yeah, those two. So I'm Steve before Ricky. That's actually Ricky on the end in case you were wondering why I don't look like that. So, I'm Steve. I've been with Bsides for since year two, which was I think 14 years ago now. Uh I was a volunteer starting in year three and we when we

were uh and I do safety ops mostly operations before it turned into safety ops. It's still safety ops. Uh and I also participate in B sites Las Vegas for those of you who are coming. CFP's call for volunteers is open for Vegas. Just FYI. Plug. Plug. Yeah. Yeah. Plug. It's a two and a half day conference at Vegas this year, too. Yes. And Vegas is bigger this year and even better. It's two and a half day conference. It's Monday, Tuesday, half day, Wednesday. Okay. I'll stop the plug for Vegas. Cool. All right. So, let's on our first question. What is your favorite story about an individual or corporation finding success at Bides SF? Tanya, you

want to talk about that from the sponsor side? Great. My favorite story, um, it's really more about connecting with people. I I don't really have one favorite story about one specific vendor, although or sponsor, sorry. Um, although they're always fun and some of them come back repeatedly and thank thank us and tell us how great it is to be here and how much they enjoy it. And then they get bought and then we don't see them again. That's really true. So please whiz, come back. Everybody, please just say exactly. Well, the first time I volunteered, I was a sponsor. I was sponsoring for the company I worked for. I was volunteering. I was doing registration with Tanya. And if you're

interested in running a Bides, I would say one thing is about proactively recruiting for staff. As Tanya mentioned, she recruited myself, she recruited Ricky. finding those folks who what they do and how they do it really aligns to how you want to run your team has been really meaningful for us. So I think for me being a sponsor moving to a volunteer moving to staff has been a personally incredible experience for me. So I'm incredibly thankful to Tanya for that one and we thankful to her and we've had actually several sponsors that have converted into staff and leads over the years. Yeah. I think one of my the one that I can think of that's happening

on right now is uh Code Red Partners started as Tom being a volunteer and now then he started a company and started in the the lower tiers and he's running the career village and now they're up in the gold sponsor and Code Red Partners is doing really really well. So we're very happy excited about all that and they love being here. Yes. Yes, they do. Um next question. Uh, have you had any horror stories like a vendor threatening to sue the conference due to the contents of a talk or law enforcement having problems with a talk to or speaker? Um, Reed, since you've uh you're the lead. Oh jeez. Um, what's your favorite one of

these? Uh, we have not had like threatened to sue us before. Um there's been plenty of times when uh there's been, you know, something said by a uh a presenter or something that caused controversy. Um but that's kind of normal. Um I would say that you know in any kind of conference whether it's besides I mean this has happened plenty of times at Defcon and Black Hat as well is that some presenters um you know like to say things that uh for on for the laws um or for to get to get the uh the hits. Um, so yeah, that happens. Uh, we have nothing had nothing happen where we like like the a lot of people

know if people remember um I don't know if it was Defcon or Blackout Black Hat I think where they had to confiscate actually things because of some legal problems with a a talk. So we've never had to my knowledge um since I've been involved had anything like that happen. Uh yeah, exactly. Um but uh but yeah, I mean it's it's always a concern um of just like understanding what can uh what could go wrong. And so our presenter team is our program operations team has been very good about you know working with with the presenters making sure that uh you know we kind of talk to them about things and then also I think we we have

a agreement we actually have with our our presenters to basically say that like hey you know take for example we don't want you disclosing an ode here at besides like that's not our ethos. Um, we, you know, I'm fine with you disclosing, we're fine with you disclosing of vulnerability and such, but you need to have done it responsibly. You need to have to make sure that, you know, they that a fix is is available. We're just not the type of conference for that kind of stuff. Um, again, we're here for to actually, you know, help the community and disclosing ODA doesn't help anybody here. So, I don't know if anybody else has any horror stories that I'm aware of. Not

but they're not about lawsuits and presenters. We have horror stories about attendee behavior. Oh yeah, plenty of those. Separate conversation. We'll kind of keep those private. You can ask me later if you really want to know. Off the record. Yes, definitely off the record. Yeah, absolutely. OTR. Um, what are things what things did you used to do but had to stop doing and wish you could bring back? Uh well, one thing that we actually brought back this year that I was very happy that we were able to brought back is the graphic recordings. Um we weren't just not able to do that. We tried to sell that. It was actually very expensive to do the visual notes. Um and

uh we uh you know just didn't get a sponsor for it for the last several years. We tried it was part of the sponsorship kit. Um but we were able to bring that back this year. And if you if you've been to the City View lobby and seen some of the work um that has been done by the artists, it's really cool. And so I'm very happy to to actually bring that back this year. I don't know if you'll have anything else. I think the one thing that we've missing I wish we could bring back is an internship program. We used to have one. We got students and interns and it was great having them and introduced into the

community, helping build the community at a very young age or maybe not a young age. You don't have to be young to be an intern. And but it helps to increase the reach, right? Bring new people in, helping get over imposter syndrome and all the rest that we all struggle with as part of this community. And I wish we could bring that back. Sort of a a starters track kind of thing. Basically starters track, you know, uh much like in Las Vegas. Sorry, I keep pumping Las Vegas. Um in Las Vegas, we have a we have a whole talk a whole talk track dedicated to people who are it's their first time, right? And it

gives people that opportunity to get that run. That's not necessarily the interns, but it's a similar kind of idea. Yeah. Cool. Um what uh I have two questions here that are kind of similar. Um, what are the top three improvements the organizers have made to the conference in the last five years and what are the metrics that we use to decide if the event was a success for the community? I'll let you Megan I think don't think you said a lot. I'm trying to think. So what are improvements we've made as organizers? I would say we've definitely brought on more staff over the last few years. Once upon a time there were maybe 10 of us and we ran ourselves incredibly

ragged. Not not to say we don't still but I don't think to the same extent that we used to. I think we went to a department structure that really helped as opposed to there was a single point of failure that we were always concerned with. It does mean that we become people managers as volunteer organiz organizers which is a lifestyle choice but it definitely has cut down on the amount of miles that we walk. I think there was one year we walked in a single day about 23 miles. Now we average closer to 10 to 15. We do keep track by the way. That's it's it's a bit of a competition. There's a sheet. But distributing the

work and and bringing on more staff and recruiting for staff. I think that's an improvement we've made. Also just expanding space too. Um, you know, when I got involved, uh, back in 2015, uh, we were still just at DNA Lounge, and then we expanded from DNA Lounge to DNA Lounge and Buzzworks, and then we finally moved over here, just to City View, uh, and then finally expanded into AMC, just a small batch of theaters, then bigger, and now we have all of AMC this year, actually, you know, all basically three entire floors of this building. Um, so that's been one improvement that I've really enjoyed is being able to expand the space, which means we can actually have more talks

and presentations and other content um, available for folks. Uh, make it a much more uh, you know, be able to bring lots of cool new stuff. There's a lot of times we we'll talk about like, hey, we'd love to do XYZ, and it's just our limitation is we just don't have the room for it. Um, and so being able to expand the space and have more options available to us for things is is is one thing I've personally enjoyed. When I first started, I used I drew our floor plan in Excel. Now, we actually use some good tools. So, that's been a huge improvement. And we do use that to figure out how we're going to expand and

grow and add more villages like we did this year because space has definitely been one of the issues that we've been trying to fix every single year as we grow. There's a lot of things I look back once upon a time I fed everyone personally from Costco. Like I literally got all the bagels and all the sandwiches and hand trucked them to the venue. Like the thought of doing that now is just laughable. But it it's interesting to see all the ways we've grown and the things that made so much sense nine years ago that we could never fathom. But it is because we've grown the event and the space and so much of it. How many costs did you go to for

bagels? I think it was three. Uh because I just kept taking them out of stock. So yeah, it was those are it was those are fun times when you look back though. Would never do it again. Lots of growing pains, but it was fun. Oh, sorry, I lost the question. Um, has there been ever been a desire to decouple it from RSA? Why or why not? We've we've discussed it. Um, the I think the benefit of having it tied to RSA is that we get a lot of uh folks that don't live here in the Bay Area that are flying in for RSA and they just extend by a few days and are able to

join BIDES. Um, and you know, we're partners with RSA. Uh, we've been able to build a good relationship with them over the last few years. Um, but it's always nice when somebody says that like, oh yeah, you know, came to Bides. And I guess they're like, I'll also do RSA while I'm here. So, instead of the vice versa. So, it's always it's always fun to hear that. Um, but yeah, I mean, it's like we're looking at the numbers, especially international folks where it's like very challenging to kind of inexpensive to come in. Um, I don't think we'd a be able to have those kind of folks if we weren't tied to RSA. Just like Vegas, uh, if they weren't tied to

Blackhead and Defcon, I think those numbers would be a lot, uh, you know, less, of course. 100%. Yeah, I agree. Right. It does. It expands your reach. It also expands the kind of quality of both the presenters, frankly, right, that we're able to get and I think it also broadens the reach in terms of sponsors, right? You have all these sponsors who maybe don't want to spend the money for RSA and then they we can partner with them instead. We we've had multiple sponsors that have just used their RSA budget on us instead and have been very happy. And it's no surprise running an event in San Francisco is incredibly expensive and so we are very

thankful for all the sponsors who make it possible. Yes, absolutely. Yeah, definitely definitely definitely and then also the all the participants um a lot of other bides around the world have more students. We have quite a mix of students and experienced people and new people and everything. So, yeah, I actually love the range that we literally have brand new students including, you know, high school kids um uh that are here um all the way up to CISOs and everything in between. And I I love that. I love that we have something that appeals to everybody. Exactly. I think our youngest attendee this year was five as in five years old. Now the the the reason why we would want

to move away is the cost because the cost does increase for everything around RSA and also space. We're very limited in space around RSA. So we we look at all of those things. That leads very well that leads very well to the next question. Have you ever thought about switching venues to have a larger or smaller event? Oh Ricky, you seated this morning and I know this was you. Um no, the my seated question did get added up. I haven't asked it yet. Um, but I'm going to kind of combine it with this and three three things into one question, which is, have you ever thought about switching venues to a larger or smaller event? If so, what are

some of the factors and thought process around that uh larger or longer or shorter show? Um, how did the original idea of a movie theater come about? And this is the seated question. Uh, what's next for Bides SF on a cruise ship? So, Ricky threatens to take us to a cruise ship every year. It's my worst nightmare. Uh, sides, but it would be seesides as the new branding. Um I we think we talk about this every year. Um what we're going to do, how we want do we want the conference to grow, do we want the event to grow, to what extent? And the venue is always part of that. I time will tell is kind of where I

stand. We just keep looking at options and keep coming back here. Yeah, it's really hard. San Francisco has a lot of big spaces. Um, but it's the spaces aren't kind of not able to break into like different kind of tracks and such. Um, so like yeah, we could go to Fort Mason or one of the peers or something like that, but we would literally have to build walls and like then you have to think about sound isolation, all these other kind of things there that come with that and your your cost just skyrocket from there. Um, and so it's it's kind of very hard to go figure out what is the next step from here. uh we

look every year and kind of take a look at at what makes sense here. Um and we're still we've been talking today and yesterday is like okay at what point does it make sense that like okay hey do we continue to expand and try go to that next step or do we do something like what Schmukon does and set a upper limit and just stick with that like there are options here that we're still trying to work out. Yeah, I've been looking for a few years to try to figure out what would be next if we were to keep growing and or even like stay the same but find a different venue slightly away from

Mosone and the RSA conference and it's it's it's hard. So if you know of something that is very similar to this, please reach out and let us know um because we will consider all options even a ship. Yeah, I disagree on that. I I don't think I'll consider that. Um but to one of the other follow-up questions was about the picking the movie theater. I I think this we kind of lucked into that uh because we didn't actually start in AMC. We started just with City View. Um and it just so happened that we were like, "Okay, we need to expand." It just so happens that in this building there's a movie theater. Um and so reached out

to AMC and they've been really great to work with um over the last few years. And again, this is our first year doing a full buyout of all 16 uh auditoriums. And uh yeah, honestly, it's been it's really fun to kind of like, hey, you're having these talks um you know, in the movie theater, people are sitting in the seats, you can recline back and enjoy it. Uh and then also, of course, being able to have your presentation be on like the iMac screen and like that's really cool. Uh and so yeah, so I I really enjoy it. Uh you know, the only my only wish on the AMC front is I wish there were more seats in the theaters,

but again, this is San Francisco. We only have so much space and workshops. Yes, we're trying to find a good place for workshops. So, if you know any doesn't have to be here. Yeah. Could be nearby. Good home for that. Easy access. Something easy to secure. Um, that's where you go. Yeah, that's where we go, right? That's where I have to go. Yeah, it' be great. I think the theater thing has been a lot of fun. The 5-year-old, by the way, was here to watch their dad present at IMAX. Cool. Cool. Yeah. So, I was like super excited. Like, you know, dad's here, screens like this, your 5-year-old gets to watch. That's awesome. I love it. All right. Uh, Roro

had a question which I'm going to combine with another one. Rero Roro asks to the panel, "This has been an incredible event and a staple of my yearly conference attendance. I've met so many wonderful wonderful people here. How many more years do you plan to continue to do this?" And someone else has asked um uh what are the growth opportunities for Bides SF? Uh what would you guys like to see for Bad Sides in the next 5 to 10 years? So how how much longer do we plan on doing this? Is was that was that directed at us individually or besides sort of in general? Okay. To all of us. Oh wow. Yeah. Individually. It's it's an interesting

it's a very interesting question, right? Um 14 years, right? I've been coming to this 13 years. been volunteering. 11 of them are staff, right? Working for folks. Um, and then I do Vegas on top of this and a couple other cons in addition to that. It's an interesting thing. I think I'm addicted to it. So, I'm probably going to be here till I drop. Um, but that's honestly just me and it's my personal problem that I'm sharing. Um, how about you Tanya? What's that? Yeah, I think there's exactly I meet tons of organizers, right, all the time and a number of us have this broken genetic sickness. Yeah, that makes us want to keep doing this. I think at the

end though, why do we do it? You do it because you see this community and this community is incredibly powerful. And I think this is this particular conference is an amazing asset for San Francisco, right? It it it proves the power of this community, the infosc community here in San Francisco. It makes us better, right? And year after year, I see it continue to grow. It's it's really increasingly promising. Whereas like Vegas is different again, right? You don't have that year-over-year community being built in Vegas. Yeah. Right. You know, you there's Yeah, there's more in physic practitioners in Vegas every year, but they all seem to leave after Defcon, right? Whereas here, we see the

community growing every year. And so there's there's always this positive feedback loop that makes you want to keep coming back. So, I keep telling my family, this is my last year, and then I come back. But honestly, this year I stepped way back and thank you Ricky for stepping in. Um, so this year I was more of an adviser because I changed jobs and I just don't have the time to put in. It does take a lot of time, not just during the con, but all year long planning, recruiting, whatever it takes. Um, so I I don't know how much longer I'm going to keep doing this, but as long as you guys still want me as an adviser, I'm

here. Yeah. Similar to Tanya, I think the last couple years I've I've I've definitely pulled back and I'm always questioning if it's my last year. When I started doing this, I had a nine-month-old and now I have a 10-year-old and a six and a halfyear-old. And the job I have today is very different than the job I had nine years ago. And so carving out the time every week is that much more difficult. And it is weekly. I mean, it's weekly, at least a weekly meeting. It's the work you have every week. And the leadup to the show is even that much greater. The Saturday before we all came here, we spent eight had an eight hour

meeting, a nine hour meeting, six hour meeting, an all day meeting. Um, so it's just an incredible time investment. Why I keep doing that though is like I love these humans. Like this is like a little family for us, you know? Like we sign off calls like, "Love you." Like we do truly care about one another. And it's like I we've like trauma bonded, I guess, to a certain extent, right? when you're so deliriously tired and you can't see straight, there's just something that's so brings you together and it's really cool to see and I just love spending time with these folks. And if I didn't do this, I don't know when I would see them. So that's why I come

back in addition to everything Steve said. Also for me personally, like I love having a work product that is really physical and tangible to get to experience. That has been really fun with conference planning because you spend all year and then you get to see it and you get to see people experiencing it and I love that. Yeah. So I mean I I think about this every year as well. I mean I've been here for 10 years. Um and I spent a lot of time on besides uh there there are certain weeks especially closer to the event where you know I'm spending at least 40 weeks of 40 hours on my day job and then

probably at least 30 hours at least 30 hours on bside stuff. Um and so I basically have two full-time jobs and only one of them pays me. Um so it's uh it's can be a lot. Um this is why you know when I when I talk about in my opening remarks uh both mornings is like hey you know we're always looking for uh for more people to join and kind of participate. Um and there's all kind of different ways to do that. Yes it is a year round uh obligation. Um but it doesn't mean that like you're immediately thrown in and you know there tons of hours like like we do. Um there are there uh opportunities that don't

take us much effort uh there that we still need kind of that that fresh blood, fresh energy to kind of come in and help us out. Um we do kind of suck from a secession planning though. Um it's something that we've discussed many times about like what is the plan there? Um and how do we kind of handle that? Uh so again, this is where we we'd love other people to kind of join in and you know be able to one day pass the torch. Sure. cuz we want this to outlast us, right? Like we hope this goes on forever whether we're still here or not. So that is something we talk about quite a bit.

How are we going to bring in that next generation of staff and organizers? I do want to add one thing. Ricky's been really good about automating things that I used to do manually. So that's helped a lot. Yeah. And we and safety apps in particular, we've built an entire org structure. You know, it used to be one guy and a bunch of other minions. And now it's a one guy and five leads and eight millions below that and then 100 people below that. Right? So you're essentially building a whole organization to make this more sustainable so that you can come back year after year. It does though as as Megan said it is a completely different

job. I no longer have to tune radios. I now have someone who buys them from a rents them from an editor. Right? It's so it's it's gone from one thing all the way to the other. Right. I don't have anybody putting in a repeater anywhere anymore and I don't have to figure out why it broke. So, I knew it had changed when someone referred to me as my boss's boss and I realized they were talking about bides and like they saw in that level of structure and I was like, "Oh, this isn't this isn't what I expected." Yeah. That's I got called that today. My boss's boss for a volunteer job. Yeah. Yeah. That's uh that's a little bit crazy. You

have you're How many layers did you say? Three layers of we have in safety ops we have one, two, three. We're really four layers deep now. Yeah, there's three that work for me. Yeah, cool. Um, are any ideas on expanding leadership? We were just talking about that. I think it's always be recruiting. We're always looking for more people. We're always looking for volunteers that are stepping up and doing more work than they need to or they have to and constantly seem to be energized and wanting to contribute. Um there's some other questions in here about um uh how how do we how should I why should I volunteer at besides SF? Um and uh how do you avoid burning out

volunteers year round ones and day of ones? Has anybody here worked at Shoo? Oh well, I was going to say if anybody worked if anybody was working at Shoo, we'll hire you. We don't pay. We don't pay but we'll hire you. come on down. Okay. Sorry. Go ahead. Oh, I was just saying that uh yeah, I mean it's like there's so many different ways to volunteer in different departments and such and so if you have a passion for you know particular area of things like one thing we were just actually talking about earlier today is that uh the website needs a a major refresh and so uh and like we have a tons of photos from our professional

photographer that we've collected over the years and we're really bad about actually using those. Um, and so it's, uh, would be nice to actually have, uh, you know, somebody to redo the website. Uh, which is something like it's it's like right now it's some, uh, you know, GitHub pages thing that I set up like I don't know. Who said that? I'm going to throw the ball at you. Um, so, um, yeah, like set up like 10 years ago. And so it's, you know, there's there's plenty of things for people to do, uh, from a volunteer standpoint that we've loved just people to kind of reach out. Um, I, you know, one thing that we have

found successful is that people volunteer for the event and they really enjoy it. And so like, hey, they're like, they say like, "Hey, how can I help out more?" And then, you know, we like, "Hey, here you go. You know, here's the stuff you can do." And then all of a sudden they're a staffer or a lead. Um, but yeah. I said that's exactly what happened to me, right? Same same. My first year I worked for Jedi. Uh yeah, it was Jedi. My first I worked for Jedi and then the next year he was gone. And so someone had to fill the hole and I got the job, right? And it it was wonderful. I met lots of

people. I did it all. There like four of us. We did the whole thing. We were much smaller show at that time. That was the I can't remember if that was a show at ZM or that was a show at Open DNS. Oh my god. Open DNS. When was Children's Museum? Yeah. Yeah. I think it was Children's Museum. Yeah. That was my first That was your first Yeah. So that I went to Children's Museum as an attendee or a participant. Open DNS was my first volunteer. Was your first volunteer? That's right. I remember that. That place was dark and hot. Yeah. Well, we had food trucks. You remember the food truck? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. All right, I'm gonna switch over to some

logistic questions. Um, and there's a stack of them here. So, um, how much equipment do you rent versus buy in store? Alex, where's Alex? Yeah, we have a few now. We have someone whose full-time job is just inventory, if that gives you a sense of how much stuff we have. Have a lot of stuff. Yeah. And he's a year- round volunteer. And most of what you see in front of you did not come from that storage. Yeah. The table, the linens, the mics. We rent um a lot of stuff. Uh pretty much all the furniture um you know tables, chairs, things like that. All the um AV equipment is all rented. Um all of our network gear we've

actually had donated from various groups. And so that is ours. Uh all the the cameras and such are all ours as well. So we keep that. And then there's just kind of like you notebooks, stationary, paper, uh pins, office supplies. Office supplies. Yeah, office supplies. We keep uh we have a dedicated, you know, printer and everything else. um refrigerator. Yeah. Lots of power cords, lots of extension cords, uh you know, all this kind of stuff that we do. Yeah, we have a refrigerator. Um yeah, so there's a it's a fair bit. Uh we do have an entire storage unit uh that we fill up. It is completely full. In fact, they've already told me that we probably need to

cuz we load we'll load back in the the storage unit tomorrow and they're like, "Yeah, we're not sure we're going to be able to fit, so we may have to get a bigger one." So I'm like, "Yay, fun." How big is it? It's I don't It's pretty big already. So, um but yeah, we already fit up a fill up a six foot box truck completely um of our stuff. Um this year it was not it was multiple trips. Yeah, we had to do two trips. So, next year we're going to have to get a bigger box a bigger truck or maybe two. Yeah. Um someone uh Fab uh asks, "What does safety ops include? What what do you do

like physical safety security as well? Yeah. So safety ops is a funny phrase, right? It means a lot of things to a lot of people. We talk about it though is it's sort of it's broken down into basic three basic areas. One is to protect the show, right? Uh then protect so that the the then protect attendees so that and in that way we're making sure that attendees have a safe experience, right? Make sure this is a space where people feel comfortable. Make sure that our code of conduct is being followed. Anybody read it? Make sure no one leans on the walls. Make sure nobody touches the walls because they charge us a lot of money when they have to repaint

walls. Um, and then ultimately at the end of the day, it's protect the venue. The venue is the sort of our lowest priority item, right? But it's the conference and the attendees are really first and second. So that involves making sure people don't get into places they don't need to be, making sure people don't have experiences that they didn't want to have. Um, you also have to make sure that we have fire lanes open and all that. Yeah, exactly. Fire marshall, all of that goes into that. Um, managing alcohol consumption goes into that. Uh, especially the show in Vegas. Yeah. And then also safety ops is also responsible for bringing Dr. Sarah on. Um, so and then also we have an

on-site medic as well that's also under safety ops. Yeah. So with all the wild stories people say about eclectic speakers, what or who was the most controversial presentation presenter you remember?

No comment. Uh yeah, I think the one that I found the most fascinating and I was just like flabbergasted and wowed by the whole thing was the person who talked about hacking their biome. We had a biohacker. Yeah, the biohacker. I think that was one I was like, "Wow." It was just me personally though. I didn't hear lots of flack about it. It wasn't like all over Twitter or anything, but I was sort of sat there in the back going, "Oh, wow." And oh wow. I will say we actually don't get to watch many talks. Uh, yeah. I think I don't think I've watched a talk in at least seven years. I I watched Reed's opening remarks and

that's about it. So, that's not really a talk. It has to it has it has to be pretty controversial to hit us because we're not actually getting to sit in the seats. I think I've seen three in the 10 years. Yeah. So, I think this is my the second talk I've actually seen. The first one was cuz I was walking around DNA Lounge and I got to see Jason Craig speaking from the stage of DNA Lounge. Yeah, that's one of the things you do learn to give up as an organizer is actually attending your own show. Um, we don't I let's like we love the party and that's great and the happy hour. We don't go to the happy hour of the

parties. Like it's just we are sitting in an ops dead from just walking our feet all day long since um we get here. You know, call time is for us uh for the last 3 days has been 6 a.m. Um and if not earlier in some cases. Um and so it's uh yeah, we're we're pretty dead by the end of the day. So with it being that much work, what's keep what keeps you coming back from time to time or Yeah. keeps coming you back time to time? I mean, it's a labor of love. I think it's, you know, um like Yeah, it's it's the people. It's the people. It's an incredibly rewarding experience, too.

Like, absolutely. I I thoroughly enjoy it. Even the leadup to it, the event itself, even if we're not going to talks, being able to walk around and see it come to life and see how other people are experiencing it is really fun to see. It's like if you have a child and you see them succeed and you feel happy. It's like that. Yeah, I agree. It's it's that it's that sensation. And then we hear stories from attendees, right? They got their first job out of this conference. They have this whole career. We'll see them five, seven years later, right? They've had built a whole career because they met someone at this show. This is it's really heartwarming. It

makes you feel good inside. It makes you feel like you're helping to build this community. Yeah. Or they they started here, they founded a company, they were they had a successful exit, they're still coming back, you know, they're enjoying it. I I think for me it's the we start off with basically in city view bare walls in a floor and we go from that to what you see today in a very short amount of time and then tonight I guess it's it is sun Sunday right back to bare walls we will take it back down to bare walls in a floor and that whole process is just very detailed and it's amazing to see it come together after

all the planning that we do. Yeah. And then Reed gets to walk around and look at how many dings we put in the walls. All those expensive expensive dings. Yeah. I will say we also do things that I would never do in my day job. There's so many skills and things I know about lighting and event planning that I would never do. So, it's been really interesting to have like a completely new skill set that you wouldn't get to experience anywhere else. Absolutely. And then outside of this stuff too, I've learned so much again as you know the president and such and everything else because uh for legacy reasons the legal entity that is the San Francisco Bides

is also the global bides. Um this is all predates me. Um but basically we also manage all the trademarks and intellectual property for bides worldwide uh falls under us. So, I've learned way too much about this. Um, you know, and and then also as a nonprofit, as 51c3, then all the kind of uh, you know, nonprofit specific things like we still have to file tax returns every year and, you know, do our books and all the the financial stuff there with accounting and such. And so, that takes a lot of time. And I've learned a lot about like, okay, it has to be done a certain way that is very different from like normal business accounting. Um, so

there are very specific rules on things that uh and this also affects like the types of sponsorships that we can have. Um, there's certain things that are just like would be in violation of IRS rules and so we have to be very careful about that as well. Yeah, I have to admit that we learned about 501c3s from BIDS, right? And was we're were able to build the 501c3 that we have that runs other community organizations because of Bides. We learned that here, right? I wouldn't have had the chance to learn that if it wasn't here. And we donate all of the t-shirt funds that we make because then we don't have to pay taxes on them. No, we Yeah. Well, we

still we still pay sales tax. Well, that's California for you. In California, you have to pay sales tax. So, Shmukhan does it that they do it for that reason. Yeah. And then they started it for that reason. Yeah. Well, no, that Shukhan does it for that. And then basically I was like, I love the idea of of being able to uh to support uh the charities and so but we still have to do the the sales tax. Unfortunately, Nevada, you don't That's That's California for you, though. Yeah. So, yeah. So, we did have the question of what is Bides and how does that relate to Bides SF, which I think you just covered. Um, how are bides venues cities

selected outside of SF? Is there anywhere you'd like to see a Bites event? Well, I think going back to your previous question, and please y'all the speed especially, but like um my understanding again, I was not at the first Bides. Again, I got involved my first Bides was in 20 Well, I went to Vegas previous previously, but my first beside San Francisco was 2014. Um, but my understanding is that back in 2009, um, basically, you know, a group of folks were in Vegas at, uh, for for besides, I'm sorry, for Defcon and Black Hat and, uh, weren't able to get they had some talks, but they just weren't able to get accepted. And so they were

like, "Hey, why don't we just like rent like an Airbnb or something and just kind of have uh talks there and kind of like an unconference." Um, and basically they were like, "Okay, well, we need a name for this." And so we're like, "Okay, let's, you know, oh, Bides, like the Bside of a cassette." And so, and we've also learned like again cuz Bides has been around for so long that I've I've run into folks that don't know what a cassette is. Um, 45 RPM record. Yeah. Or 45 RPM record. Yes. And so I have to explain this concept to them and I feel very old uh when I do this. I love when I see like on a Reddit post that someone

has suddenly discovered where Bside what the name Bites might be related to. I'm like, "Yep, you got it." But we knew that the person who started this, Jack. Yeah. He's a musician. He knows what a bside is. Yeah. No, that's very accurate. That's actually how this got started. It really was a We could They didn't want to hear our talks, right? They didn't want to hear what we had to say and we thought it was worth it was worth hearing. Right. And so the best way to do that if you're organizer type your brain thinks like that. They don't want to hear me. I'm going to do it myself. Right. Yep. And that's the thing that you learn

about Bside. So the go that leads directly into the second question like where would you want to see more? What is Bides and how do you make more? You pick where you want to make a bides. You want to make a bides in Reno? Make a bides in Reno. You want to make a bides in Tari County, make a Bides in Tari County or Witchita or wherever you want to do it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. On the on the bsites.org website there's a checklist. There's a you do a little bit of a phone conversation about an hour with uh one of the lead global organizers and you're ready to go. It's just up to you to

stand it up and the community is here to help you if you want to do that. Every single besides is separate and so like we're all separate entities all do our own thing. We kind of live by a set of kind of guidelines and like ways of thinking about things. you know, the kind of the Bides ethos and kind of the what Bides is and the code of conduct. Yeah, framework, I guess, is the right word. It's a framework. Yeah, it really is a framework, right? And it's and they run all sorts of sizes. The smallest B size I ever went to had, I think, 30 people, right? And then the biggest B sites in the world now is

Cber biggest is Cber. And the last number I heard for Camber, anyone can correct me if this is not right. The last number I heard for Camber was it's over 6,000. Whoa. I heard that. Wow. And I so the reason I heard why is it's apparently the only community infosc conference in the entire continent. That's not quite true. We learned earlier today. There's actually one in Brisbane. Brisbane. Another one in Brisbane too. Awesome. That's what I've heard today. That's awesome. From the organizer of Brisbane. I No. No. That was not Never mind. Okay. But that's cool. Yeah. That was the original reason I heard Camber was just enormous compared to all the other B sites. I had

somebody come to me today and say, "What what does it take to do something in Thailand? So in Thailand, yeah, I put them in touch with somebody. Yeah, do it. Yep. Do it. Go check the website. I'll totally be down. Check besides.org. Again, there's some information on kind of how to start a besides event. And you basically just reach out to info@bsides.org. Um have that conversation and kind of go from there. And you know, we give you some tools and resources and like uh some guides that people have written. Um but you're on your own too to kind of like self self get something going um there because again we're all independent and we all

kind of do our own thing. Yeah. But also don't feel like you have to make it all all yourself, right? Like Seattle for example, Seattle actually operates their safety ops on my on the manual we wrote for Vegas and San Francisco. Oh yeah, we definitely shared stolen so much. Definitely share. Yeah. Oh yeah. Graciously borrowed sorry graciously borrowed so much stuff from Vegas uh and from Shukan both. Yeah. Um, so yeah. Yeah. Cool. Sarah asks, "What's unique about the SF hacker community? How do you lean into that?"

I mean, I think one thing that we've I don't know about the hacker community, but one thing we've we've been trying to do for years and continue to expand it this even this year is our community organizations. Um and so being able to bring the kind of the local organizations uh that are in the area um just off the top of my head in no particular order um we've had you know we have OASP we've had uh you know the uh Pacific hackers uh we've had you know obviously EFF um and is ISC squared girls who hack yeah all this kind of yisp and so uh we um and just all these different kind of

groups that are in the the global or in the kind of like greater Silicon Valley area. And so just giving them a place to kind of be there and be present at the event. Um that's just kind of our way of kind of giving back um to the to those communities as well and giving them a a place to you know meet meet folks in the the like-minded community. All right. Uh last question. Rorow asks, "Can we have a throwback party at the DNA lounge and next door bars? I loved how chaotically wonderful it was. Felt very punk rock. I was actually teasing that earlier that it would be kind of fun to go back to

those stays. Oh, a mid year. Oh, and a second event. I love that Tanya organizes over to DNA and we rock the place. I was I was kind of thinking it'd be fun to like do a a besides like in some place that has like a bunch of theaters and a bunch of venues around it that like it's not go to theater for it's go to, you know, that bar or that bar or go to that particular art theater or that particular art theater. Okay. And I I haven't found it in San Francisco yet. I haven't found the right place. I'm still looking. You can organize that one. Yeah, that that that was like I had a vision of a bides in

the shuttered shopping mall. Oh, that could actually work out really well cuz then we could also do laser tag or Exactly. Right. You could have laser tag on one end, bar on the other end, the whole thing, right? You can see where these conversations go every time we have them. Uh how they spiral all sorts of ways. This is how the chaos starts. This is how seaside starts. Um so, right. Yeah. If you're into that, I recommend talking to Ricky. He's a big fan. He wants to captain. That could be the That could be the offseason bides. We could have the offseason bides. All right. I uh I think that's our time. So, thank you all for joining us. you

have further questions ready to answer your question. Please come and find us some later time. Yeah.