> I'm not so sure about it. Did you listen to the interview of Lex Fridman with Brett Johnson? He seems like an intelligent person who could easily get an infosec job and be extremely good at it from UX/social engineering point of view, but he was socialized from being a kid to disregard authority and steal from other people in every possible way.
Be very careful about taking infosec celebrities at face value.
Social engineering is and always has been a core feature of black hat activities. When these people graduate from criminal activities to being keynote speakers and consultants, they take their social engineering skills and use them to build a personal brand.
His story is interesting and you can't deny that he's become a great storyteller. But even he admitted that he wasn't the strongest on the technical side of things.
Be very careful about taking infosec celebrities at face value.
Social engineering is and always has been a core feature of black hat activities. When these people graduate from criminal activities to being keynote speakers and consultants, they take their social engineering skills and use them to build a personal brand.
In other words: You were getting socially engineered through that podcast. Building an aura around himself is his business now ( https://www.anglerphish.com/speaking-consulting ).
His story is interesting and you can't deny that he's become a great storyteller. But even he admitted that he wasn't the strongest on the technical side of things.