From Romanian Kid to Cybersecurity Veteran | Liviu Arsene, Two Decades in Cyber | The Mikey G Podcast Experience

What up folks!Liviu Arsene grew up in northern Romania, less than 100 miles from the Ukraine border, with parents who didn't speak a word of English. Today he's spent two decades in cybersecurity, has more thoughts on AI than most people in San Francisco, and just announced he wants to get his pilot's license. This is his human story.Chapter 1, Liviu learns English from movie subtitles before he can read, drives his mom crazy taking apart his first computer, and tells me about the grandfather who chased every new piece of technology that came out.Chapter 2, he stumbles into a coding-only university with two weeks notice, takes a Windows tester job over a more technical one because they offered meal vouchers, and tries to build a startup at 21 working 16-18 hour days. They built quality. They didn't know how to sell it.Chapter 3, he opens up about the F1 car analogy for AI development, why CISOs should be hiring more headcount not less, and what a Cambodian fishing village taught him about happiness.What stayed with me from this conversation: when he said his entire horizon, growing up, was what he could see out his window. Then he left, and it opened up.Subscribe for the human story behind every builder. Mikey G and Liviu are out.TIMESTAMPS:0:00 — The cold open0:30 — Welcome, brother4:00 — He used to arm wrestle (and yes, Over the Top is the reason)9:00 — Anthropic's Mithos, 181 vulnerabilities, and the F1 car with no seatbelt17:00 — The format question17:55 — Chapter 1: Learning English from subtitles in northern Romania26:00 — The grandfather who chased every new technology33:00 — Chapter 2: A coding-only university and a binary first-job decision40:00 — The startup that worked too hard and couldn't sell anything47:00 — Two decades watching cybersecurity evolve1:01:00 — Why AI exposed cybersecurity's messy basement1:18:00 — Chapter 3: The pilot's license and a second childhood1:25:00 — Critical thinking as a survival skill1:27:00 — The recap1:39:00 — Sign-offLINKS:Liviu on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/adrian-liviu-arsene-85083922/Mikey G on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/mjgcreative/The Guardrails Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/1vTlFUt8pK5h662UEsmzop?si=f15e7c5ca46b4bc5TOPICS: cybersecurity, AI safety, founder story, human story, Romania, first generation American culture, language learning, startup lessons, MVP, fail fast, AI displacement, CISO hiring, vulnerability patching, Anthropic, critical thinking, Diary of a CEO, builder podcast, long form interview, AI age, philosophy of AI