- I run an executive protection firm
for corporate executives out of Silicon Valley.
“We build a very proactive model around our executives”
and their families to where we try to make it as bulletproof as possible. - Wayne DeCost is a security executive entrepreneur and the founder and CEO of Rescore Group. He helps corporate leaders, families and organizations
navigate complex security challenges through strategic executive protection, risk management and personalized security solutions. - People are designed to protect. People that look forward to excitement
and a rush, people that are calm and chaos, especially breed like, we can teach the hard skills all day long. - The soft skills that make the best agents. - The new modernized way of doing this
is really trying to figure out how you can add value to them as a business executive, right? - So. (dramatic music)
- It spans the goal, like a super high as coal.
- Internet helpers? - Ready? - Ready? - Today, Apple is going to reinvent the phone. - It's not over!
- I'm telling how we're... - The living your legacy podcast for those who live to leave a legacy. (crowd cheering) (crowd cheering)
- Oh, that is sensational. (crowd cheering) - Open. (crowd cheering) - You can live your dreams.
- Welcome to another episode of the Living Your Legacy Podcast for Insight's Access, I'm Riggs Harris. Moments before filming his episode of Operation CEO with our fearless leader, General Coffian Studio III.
I am joined by the rhythm Wayne the Coast.
- Yes, sir. - I nailed it right on. - Go ahead. - He is today's Operation CEO. Wayne, welcome to the show.
- Thank you for having me. - What are we going to learn about you today in your episode of Operation CEO?
“- Yeah, no, honestly, it's kind of an uncharted territory.”
I run an executive protection firm for corporate executives at a Silicon Valley. What you explained it to New York and Florida and Texas. So, not just a lot of veteran run company. I've got a lot of veterans that work for me
and we have fun every day. Like we're still kind of in the military. - Right on, yeah, I have in terms. - Oh, for sure. It's funny that military, I would call it Gopher Gusto.
You find that energy synergy and sales teams and like pits that like demand come water to you. Like we're leading on each other's backs to move forward. How do you do what you've been taught in the service and how do you talk, excuse me?
How do you use what you've been taught in the service and use it in your day to day as an entrepreneur? - Yeah, a lot of it. It's just the brotherhood, I would say, working with people that have your back
and you have their back. So, especially in the security space, right? So, it kind of gives myself and other veterans kind of a motive to get up
“and be excited for what they do every day.”
- Right on, and it's funny, you say security. You don't like, God, these are events. These are giant military weaponized human beings. - Right. - Like arc angels and nothing in security.
But you are helping your clientele ascend, to talk about how a veteran finds you and how you use them for good. - Yeah, a lot of us just getting started, it was similar to just simple network in LinkedIn
and going online and kind of, you know, I had a friend in the army who had a friend in the army and then his friend. So, it's very much like full-true system. - Yeah, sir.
- The military is kind of a small community when people start getting out, especially from the GWAT era. But, no, it's one of those things where we still keep in touch. It was a lot of this was transitional. Oh, yeah, I started contracting after the military
with the State Department and I met a lot of people through that that I still work with today. - Wow, you mentioned the barrier. - Yeah. - Are you there now? - Yeah, it's just where you're being had quarters out.
- So, yeah, that's where our corporate headquarters is mainly at Bay Area Silicon Valley. I got brought out there almost 10 years ago now. So, I was working for a lot of the major, you know, organizations, Facebook and, you know,
tech talk and those types of companies out of the bay and that's really kind of where I hit the ground running and created my own firm out of there. - I was just gonna say, you know, starting a firm in the Bay's dramatically different
and then starting a firm in Miami versus New York. - Yeah, it's like, 'cause it's funny. You said 10 years ago, I had left the Bay Area 10 years ago and I was there for it. - Congratulations.
- Yeah. - I know it's been a lot. - But being born and raised in Miami and then moving out to the West Coast and truly, very all the life works,
especially living in the bay and that in that time and then moving back to Miami. Almost feel like I have graduated.
Back to you, my friend.
There is a big difference.
“Starting a company in the Bay versus in Miami.”
And then even add that to it where it's like, veteran, you don't think, you don't think that's the same for Francisco and veterans a lot too. - No, no. - So that's a good question.
And yeah, if I could go back and start my company anywhere, I'd probably come back to the East Coast or just make that look. - Yeah, one of those things, it's the Bay Area. Obviously, we deal specifically with tech executives.
We don't do a lot of celebrity work. - Sure, sure. - And we deal with business CEOs. - Yeah, but the tech, but the tech, but the celebrities are the tech CEO,
but they are now, right? - Yeah, yeah. - But it's funny 'cause I grew up in Boston. - So, I couldn't tell you when I, when I talked to people out in New York
about a security program or a contract, I feel like we'd mash a lot better.
- First of all, we call it kind of old money
versus new money for New York to the Bay Area. - I'd probably run into a bar fight in Boston. - And I lost. (laughing) - Right, I've been in any in the last 10 years.
- Oh, okay, good to see you. - As a matter of fact, my last bar fight wasn't, well, 10 years ago, that was a good strategy. - Yeah, it's a strategy that we would show down. - Anyway, so back to the bank, but now using that,
and your knowledge of your downloading your servers, into spreading that synergy energy into your other states, into other companies.
“What does that like to you and how have you scaled?”
- Yeah, that's a good question. And Canada's circle and back to the old question to the veterans in the Bay Area. You're 100% right, there's not a lot of us out there, right? So, we found that we're traveling so much with work,
anyways with executives and going globally, that we didn't want to tie people down in the living in the Bay Area, 'cause of the cost of living so high. - Oh, yeah, so with Redscore Group, one of the things we strive for is flying flying in veterans.
You can live in Arizona or Nevada or Texas, somewhere with a lower cost of living, and we put you up in a teamhouse for two weeks, and then if you're in the Bay, you're good, and then if you're traveling, you're traveling.
But it's kind of like a two week on two week off rotation for most of our guys. Right on, and that just builds that camaraderie real well. - Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's almost like a boys club or a treehouse rules, but it's like,
this is some of the SOP standard operating procedures that I'm sure that you adapted from, in the military, where it's like, all right, we're gonna station you here, live here, consume the energy of the culture, around you, learn the enemy, weaponize it, and then monetize it.
So instead of trying to kill your training to monetize it, but that skill now is far more valuable, absolutely. - Yeah, we'll talk about the transitioning, not even transitioning, the ascension of veterans and going, wow, I have this really unique power,
and I can use enough for a greater good. - Yeah, the military really kind of sets you up for success in a sense of being disciplined and confident and across the board and really kind of get you ready for that next step in your life.
The problem is like certain certain MLSs and jobs
in the military, there isn't a lot to do. Like when I was in the infantry, there's a lot of special operation, veterans, and stuff like that, who struggle, getting out, but they think they're good to go, and then you do an interview
and it's like, yeah, sure you have a lot of war medals and badges and accommodations, but you've never worked in the corporate world before. So you're gonna go back to making $20 an hour, doing, you know, bootlaid work, and then work your way back up.
So yeah, it is kind of tough, it's difficult, but this is a science, right? So we want kind of to start people kind of slow and work them up. - Yeah, we'll talk about the science
of the human behavior being on site, weaponized versus being in a corporate room, but they'll be weaponized in a different way. Talk about what some of the curriculum of somewhat what you do with your clientele,
your home base, if you will. What is that like? What is day one hour one? - Yeah, so a lot of it, a lot of it out to gate when we bring on a new client,
“it's just trying to figure out where the risks are, right?”
What's the biggest threat to you right now?
What's most important to you, is that your family,
is it your job, your career? So we kind of look at everything through a risk matrix and try to establish what we want to do to start making your life more safe and secure. A lot of that starts sometimes with some residential security,
having somebody staged at the house and checking IDs for the landscapers and all that stuff, and then it grows to drive and drive in YouTube and from the office to do an actual executive protection work. But a lot of the stuff that goes into it
is kind of in the background too, is the Intel. - Oh yeah. - The dark web scrubbing and everything else that you need to do to be proactive to not only secure the principles of life,
but everyone around them. And then kind of the new modernized way of doing this is really trying to figure out how you can add value to them as a business executive, right?
It's mostly security and you're trying to build
a security circle around this person and their family.
But you're trying to find the ways to make them the most productive.
“So you're trying to prove to stakeholders”
how have an executive protection can get you from point A to point B quicker. - Oh yeah. - Oh yeah. - They're safer across the board and your life gets significantly better.
- You're gonna love this story. The previous gas operations CEO was well a sat in that chair about an hour ago and he was talking about cybersecurity. - Yeah. - And I blew his mind going,
yeah, it wasn't San Mateo working at PlayStation when PSN got hacked. (laughing) - Absolutely. - And I was part of PR social media
and we have read new rules and new regiments and I'm under NDA that this is how we operate now. - We just got hacked. - This is the rules here. The procedures, the FBI is in the office
with the CEOs and we, there's a plan of a hack now because we have been attacked. - Yeah. - To be part of PlayStation and that environment is amazing.
You learned a lot, quick, and I'm not allowed to say it, but boy, you go from employee to samurai real quick and those disaster crisis is that we enjoy so much. But now we're talking about the in-person security and I go back to PlayStation.
We open up a factory in Brazil and it's like no one's gonna buy a $3,000 PS4 so we got a build a factory here so they can sell it for $1,000. But boy, we flew in fully militarized
'cause we were in Brazil, oh there's an American executive, that is a high risk target and we're gonna ransom you. We flew in from the airport chopper to the press event,
fully alarmed, flew out, but it we never touched ground.
It was all secure, we had three C.L. Sony plate. - Yep, we did the presentation, Arnold Garg, that the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, that fluid procedure was done. - Perfect, thank you.
- Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. - We put a magic correct. - We do, we that's part of the magic, right? So that's, that's one of the biggest things we do is build in relationships around the world.
Whether you're going to Brazil or you're going to, I ran, whether you're going to Russia, we're gonna, or, or Paris, right? Like we're gonna, we're gonna build a circle around you. And yeah, and everything strategic too,
'cause sometimes like you could go to Brazil and you could have, you know, a bunch of armored vehicles and armed guards, but like maybe now you're causing more of a risk for yourself because you're, you're gain and attention, right?
Compared to where if you just kind of went a little bit more slick and rolled right through, nobody would have known better.
So it's always kind of trying to play proactive
or reactive and putting the right, the right, you know, gameplay in a place. - But it's, it's interesting you mentioned that, 'cause the quality clients recognize that effort. Like some of our clients, well, I'm building a sound studio
near the airport, near my property. I'm like, well, a lot of our quality clients don't want to go through the hustle and bustle of Miami, all that chaos on the answer. They just want to fly in, make a left, make another right.
Do shoot and then do that backwards and get on their plane and leave. (laughs) - Yeah, don't care, it's Miami, they don't care. They just care that they exist, that they're happy,
and that they have children, they have legacy, they have family, they have their own thing. They don't care, then divide tomorrow morning, they don't care for the most reala, they are just alive. To operate a debt consciousness requires
woo, a different percentile, right. Use of that one percent, that high security, like high risk, precious cargo, which happens to be
“one individual that happens to be a CEO of a company, correct?”
- Yeah, absolutely, I mean, mark clients. They get so used to us, it's hard to kind of live without us, right? They don't check you know who tell us anymore. They land and we hand them their room key. It's already been marked, like we usually have someone
stable after to make sure you didn't leave any notes that were trade secrets behind, and some shred that up, or to check you to make sure you didn't leave your phone in a car, like it's the little things that that make a big difference when dealing with,
you know, real executive protection teams, and what we call like buddyguards, right? You'll see a lot of celebrities that had their boy that they grew up with that roles around with them, - David Funtel, right? - David Funtel, right?
- David Funtel, right? - David Funtel? - It's a different man. - David Funtel, right? - David Funtel, right? - David Funtel, right? - Exactly, so it's just kind of, it's the size behind that, and it's the relationship, right?
It's, you're also kind of managing their reputation, right? So a lot of people don't realize if they're high profile, and they go to a restaurant, and they just leave a 20% tip, but you have billions in the bank account,
that could go viral on social media, right? - So I'll have a look at you go. - Yeah, right? - Yeah, come on in. - You're like here's a couple extra on a box,
“and you know, it's a lot of the risks, and that's it, you know?”
- So it's everything, it's reputation or risk, financial risk, personal security, physical security, and it all goes in, it all goes in no one big scientific method. - Wow, and that's the beautiful thing. It really is science, it's frequencies, it's things that,
it's things that are a little eyeball really can't see or perceive. This is where the Bay Area science comes in, it will. Where it's like, no, they're being in the trenches with homies like you, and the Bay, there's a different mythology to things,
there's a different, there, there's a reason why I was called
The Tech Bubble, and so it was very much a bubble.
And it's the CNA, how AI has ascended.
“It's like, well, now you're grabbing all this tech,”
to the Silicon Valley Boys in 2000s, and the mid 2000s are now just amplified, because now we've got cyber trucks, and Microsoft is opening nuclear power plants to power AI, and Google's released nano bananas, it's a lot of noise, man,
which makes it a security risk. - And a lot of these people, they gain their wealth so quickly, right? - Yeah, you have so many billionaires in the Bay Area. - They're very nice.
- That are overnight, they still live in their town home in Oakland. - The marina isn't that bad for us. You know what, you know what, you know, you've got, you know, a six billion dollars, you can afford any of that.
- You don't just sit there in the Lord's Park, expect, no, it's almost happy. - Yeah, it's almost, someone's gonna kid that. - They're gonna want to hurt you to take that, and monetize your pain.
- Absolutely. - Because a lot of folks, some quite understand, you know, that person walks in a divine north star. I want what they want, and we villainize them, create villains, and then the cycle continues.
You help prevent that. - Yeah, absolutely, we help prevent that. We keep an eye on it, and it's, we also, we're constantly looking,
it's not necessarily always targeted, right?
- Sure, sure. - Sometimes it's just, you're in the Lord's Park at the wrong place, the wrong time, you know? There's something going on. So, no, yeah, we build a very proactive model
around our executives and their families to where we try to make it as bulletproof as possible. But it's not, it's, everything's custom. Everyone's different, right? - Right, so it takes a lot of attention
with every specific person we take on. So, when you say custom, actually, maybe we went to the previous question that had a main path.
“How does the entrepreneur, the CEO, sign off on this?”
And go, oh, this is a little good. And then not have this sort of vivid image like now, I've got like eight people constantly watching me. Later, there's a code name, and I just signed off on this. Now, how does the CEO, and pretend that you're not there?
- Yeah, we try to make them really like the code name. That's the first step. But honestly, what we do is a lot of these executives don't have a choice anymore, right? So they're boarded directors or the stakeholders
of the company. They're like, it's all in shit. Listen, you're gonna, you're gonna get an executive, you're gonna have an executive protection team. This happened when, you know, the incident with the United
Healthcare CEO was gunned down in Manhattan.
Like the stock of the United Healthcare went down $10 billion
overnight, right? So simple measures to go into place. And for us, it's, we try extremely hard to not push security on you. We did, it's kind of like a crawl walk, run phase where it's like,
all right, let's just start slow. We want to, we want to kind of become a part of your life, not necessarily hinder it. So we find ways to work in, and sometimes that's in a covert capacity where we're wearing plain clothes,
and they don't even recognize us. - It doesn't work out. - You know, maneuvering around them, right? If you're eating at a restaurant, you're not a very high profile person.
You're executive protection team could be sitting at the table next to you, and you don't even know that they're your agents, right? So there's a lot of ways to go about it. We got to get creative with kids, because a lot of people
want their kids to kind of grow up in a normal fashion and not have someone within your piece on them all times. But yeah, no, everything, like I said, it's all customized, and then we slowly work our way in. And then once you start building that rapport with them
and their family, and they start to see you more of as an asset, then they start asking for things a little bit more. And then before you know it, you're just part of the family. - Yeah, I have no idea what you're talking about. - Yeah, you're right here, it's like my baby brother went.
- Yeah, yeah. - There's a, there's a web protection. There's like a comrade like, no, no, no, no. We're all eating dinner, we're breaking bread, we are a tribe, we are a singular legion,
and we do this together. We rise and fall as one. That kind of mythology is really not taught. You kind of sort of have to fall into it as life. But of folks like you that have that serve, that are veterans,
that was sort of instilled in you. But not in a way where it was indoctrinated, it was sort of like a, a right of passage, like you are now following a legacy that is magnified way beyond your time, way beyond the time that we've actually stood here.
“How does that feel knowing that you are a real life super hero?”
And what you're doing every day is super hero, blessings. - Yeah, and honestly, I don't think we really think about it like that that much, it's one of those things. We just love what we do, right? So we loved, we loved, you know, serve in our country,
we love serving in the military, and we love the brotherhood. - Yes, sir. - So we try to find other ways to keep people safe, right? And at the end of the day, you could be a billionaire,
you could believe in their views or not believe in their views, but like at the same day, there's still people. - Yes, sir. - So I treat my clients, like I would want someone to treat my family, and that's just how it goes.
And it's one of those things that the people, they see that, and they appreciate that, and you know, you just have each other's backs. - Yeah, you know, and it's really, really cool to be kind of,
To take, you know, people from blue collar areas,
like, you know, the East Bay, or, you know,
self-shore, boss, and, oh, yeah, stuff like that, and now all of a sudden you're sitting in, you're sitting in the room, and thought, you know, in Davos at the World Economic Forum, going over how the next 20 years of the world
“is gonna be around, and it's a cool experience, right?”
So you kind of can sit back and travel the world, and really kind of so get in, live a lifestyle, but not a lot of the people get to live through a billionaires, you know, life, but it's also, it's very important,
and it's hard to keep people from getting complacent. - It's difficult to train, not train, but really coach people into excellence. - Yeah, yeah. - There's a caliber of excellence
that people can achieve. It just requires grit, pain, blood, sweat, and tears, but you can achieve it. Is this, are humans designed for that set calling,
or is this pain designed for everyone?
What's your philosophy? - Yeah, I think people, I think some people are designed to protect, right? - Right, I think there's people that are designed in world, to be protected.
There's people that, you know, look forward to excitement and a rush, people that are calm and chaos, and people that, you know, will live to prepare for those opportunities, right? - That's true.
- Yeah, no, I do think it's a special breed, like we can teach the hard skills all day long, that's something that a lot of people talk about in our industry, it's the soft skills that make the best agents.
- Yeah, sir. - If people that can communicate well and things like that, and, I mean, you'll see it, you'll see the other security companies and you'll see the military,
they're at the range shooting three days a week,
like, and that's a great deal. - You gotta, you gotta, you gotta do that, it builds team rapport, but... - Absolutely. - There's more to do that, especially in art,
like the things we focus on, yeah, we'll still have the range and do that stuff too, but I wanna focus on drive it, I wanna focus on medical skills. - Yes, sir.
“- It's not very often we get in shootouts these days, right?”
So it's, it's someone's seven-year-old who gets a belly ache in Mexico that you gotta deal with. - Yeah. - Or it's, you know, someone's wife who was on a run and rolled her ankle and, you know, you gotta deal with that.
So it's, it's, the train goes very far in the left and very far in the right, and it's fine and ways to be proactive with modernized techniques of the industry. - Very cool.
- So what happens for you now, it's Wayne, like when you step out that door, besides filming your episode, what happens next? What's your big next step? - Yeah, no, that's a good question.
Right now, we're doing a really strong push in the AI sector, and really cryptocurrency sector. So there's a few conferences I'm attending, regarding that specifically today, I'm going up to North Carolina after this
for an executive protection conference, right? But yeah, no, a lot of it has been a good year, a lot of growth, and I'm just trying to finish this year strong, go back to the family, back, back on the West Coast and have a little red core Christmas party
and get ready for big, big things next year. - Right on the way, is that it for? - That's awesome, man. I'm really happy that I'm sort of kind of a whole boom, a sending you to that with this podcast
and you're filming your episode. - Absolutely, I think you have it, man. - Yeah, right on, man. Thank you for being such a great energy and bring you a little bit of the bay back to my head.
- Yeah, yeah. - Very much needed, even though you spent some time in Brooklyn, you're like, "Oh, wow, it's the mission." - Anyway, sorry. (laughing) - Actually, no, it's a financial district.
It's in my knees of all, that's a separate podcast. With that, my friend, how can people learn more
“about you and find you a runaway after this podcast?”
- Yeah, I'm pretty easy to get a hold of. I'm on LinkedIn. I don't have all the Instagrams and all that stuff. I need to be better about that. - Yeah, but in your kind of fielding,
your niche way up, the less you know about your better. - Yes, always. - Right, so you can go to our website. - Yeah, you can go to our website and find some speaking events that we're doing.
You can see us on YouTube. We've got a couple YouTube videos and Spotify episodes of a few podcasts. - Right. - Find me on LinkedIn, find me on our website.
Send me a message and email and I definitely love to help you if you're a veteran transition answer. Or if, you know, you struck an edge and you're looking for a security. - Although, or you get to hang out with
this dude with his appointment, Wayne. - Yeah. - He's a pleasure. I'm not going to win. - I'm not going to win.
- This is Wayne, I'm Ray, and we are inside Cess. - Appreciate it. - Inside Cess. This is Wayne, I'm Ray, and we are inside Cess. (upbeat music)
