🎙️ From Hacker to Security Pioneer & Community Leader in Michigan w/ Dug Song, Co-Founder & fmr CEO, Duo Security
Listen on: Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music
In this episode of Outsider Inc., host Ian Hathaway interviews Dug Song, co-founder of Duo Security, which sold to Cisco for $2.35B in 2018. Dug shares his unconventional journey from latchkey kid and hacker to leading one of Michigan’s biggest tech exits — and building a culture-first cybersecurity company grounded in empathy, usability, and trust. He reflects on the lessons of skateboarding, the art of abating risk, and why sharing the stoke matters more than chasing hype. Dug also dives into his post-exit mission: fueling Michigan’s startup flywheel and building community wealth through the Song Foundation.
Show Notes:
(02:31) Dug Song's Early Life and Skateboarding Passion
(06:09) Dug's Introduction to Computers and Early Tech Experiences
(08:34) The w00w00 Collective and Early Hacking Days
(15:04) Founding Duo Security: The Vision and Challenges
(21:30) Scaling Duo Security: Success Factors and Michigan's Role
(33:41) Building Community and Cultivating Talent
(35:36) Song Foundation's Mission and Vision
(40:16) Advice for Aspiring Entrepreneurs
(43:29) Beyond the Bio with Dug Song
✅ Host: Ian Hathway - Co-Founder & Managing Partner, FOVC
✅ Guest: Dug Song - Dug Song, Co-Founder & former CEO, Duo Security
Produced by Spellbinder Media. Executive Produced by Bridge Five Ventures. Copyright ©️2025, Bridge Five Ventures, LLC, All rights reserved.
Listen & subscribe wherever you get your podcasts or at outsiderinc.substack.com.
AI-Generated Transcript
Dug Song: [00:00:00] Entrepreneurs don't just take risks, they abate risk. That's really the skill. And anyone can just take risks. Right? Blow it all right. That's not a skill. The skill is actually an ab baiting risk. Right. How do you ensure that that doesn't kill you? If you're just going for a broke every time, you would just kill yourself, right?
Like. It's always this kind of path of sort pushing past those boundaries incrementally and in a way that you're learning from. And that's really something that is better done with other people, right, than just kind of yourself. 'cause you, you progress much faster and you benefit from all the pain and suffering and learning that they've had.
Ian Hathaway: Welcome to another episode of Outsider Inc. I'm your host, Ian Hathaway. Today's guest is Dug Song. A true visionary in the cybersecurity industry and a model for building great tech companies outside of Silicon Valley. Dug co-founded Duo Security in Ann Arbor, Michigan in 2010 and transformed it into a multi-billion dollar company with a mission to democratize information security for businesses of all sizes.
Under [00:01:00] Dug's leadership duo grew from a modest startup into a company that achieved nine figure annual recurring revenue in just a few short years, all on a relatively modest amount of external capital. In 2018, the company was acquired by Cisco for $2.35 billion, marking the largest tech exit in Michigan's history.
Dug's journey is as unconventional as it is inspiring from his early days as a hacker with the legendary woowoo collective, alongside the founders of Napster and WhatsApp, to his hands-on approach of building user friendly design first security solutions for all. Dug made a reputation for challenging industry norms, but his story isn't just about cutting edge technology.
It's about building a better company and giving back to nurture a thriving local ecosystem. After leaving Cisco in 2022, Dug's remained deeply involved in the Michigan startup community, investing in local founders championing initiatives like the Michigan Founders Fund and leading philanthropic efforts through the Song Foundation to support community wealth and [00:02:00] expand access to opportunity across southeast Michigan.
Most recently he advised then Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, on a national innovation and entrepreneurship strategy. Today we'll dive into Dug's evolution from his early childhood experiences in the family business to his hacker roots at the University of Michigan, to co-founding duo security, scaling a billion dollar business on his own terms, and finally to his ongoing commitment to giving back and shaping Michigan's future.
Dug Song, welcome to Outsider, Inc.
Dug Song: Thanks, Ian.
Ian Hathaway: I'm really excited to have you here. Dug, there are so many layers to you, founder operator, investor, philanthropist, and community builder, but there's one more that stands out to me, which is skateboarder. You are, in fact, an avid skateboarder. You have a half pipe in your backyard.
Now, you said before that 80% of skateboarding is falling on your face, and you embrace that reality as a part of learning. It's not hard to see the metaphor for [00:03:00] entrepreneurship in there. So maybe to begin, I'd love to hear about how you got into skateboarding, why the passion for it, and then maybe what you've learned from it that's carried you in business and in life.
Dug Song: Yeah. Thanks Ian. Well, you know, I'll just start by saying I was, uh, in the eighties, a latchkey kid. Probably many of us were of, of our generation where we had working parents and a lot of time on our hands. And so yeah, I found myself after coming home, feeding my sister, uh, typically out of a can, we had a dti, more beef stew or Hormel chili.
Typically I'd be outside in the, in the streets. And you know, in those days we were all kind of free range children, if you can imagine. That doesn't happen as much anymore in the era of helicopter parenting. But yeah, I've left in my own devices for most of the time and, uh, typically not seeing my parents until dinner or, or sometimes, um, bedtime.
And so yeah, with a lot of time on my hands, skateboarding was one of the more productive of, of the, uh, hobbies I had. In terms of, you know, what I think it, it taught me, you know, skateboarding gave me a community in a way that I didn't really, [00:04:00] uh, have otherwise. Skateboarding is a community of misfits, right?
It's a community of outsiders in, in many ways, and it gave me a community of really learning, because as you said, you know, skateboarding, 80% of it's falling in your face, pushing past those boundaries. You know, not just physical, but, but psychological and sometimes even social. But then psyching yourself to get back up and friends across generations Race.
Gender. There were homeless philosophers I met, there were PhD musicians, you know, they were angels and devils. But you know, armed with a skateboard, we were all, all one. And punishing our bodies this way was kind of a form of group therapy and a large part of what I really enjoyed about skateboarding was this mudita, which is this sense sort of idea or term of taking joy in other people's, you know, success And, you know, skateboarding is that.
Y'all share the stoke. Everyone gets really excited, you know, and find friendship in both, uh, the joy and the pain. But also it felt like it gave me some of the courage I needed, actually, I didn't realize until later how useful it would be to beate yourself publicly. [00:05:00] And so it's that kind of basic humility and, and, and also courage I, I think is really important in leadership, but, but also the empathy, right?
The empathy to be able to identify with sort of other people's sort of struggles and plights. And maybe the last thing I'll say also, you know, skateboarding with respect to entrepreneurship, but this is not unique, maybe just to skateboarding. I think it's also true of, of these other things like graffiti or hacking or punk rock.
They, they have this culture appreciation for what makes others unique, what they bring. I really feel blessed to have been part of that sort of community and have that kind of foundational experience growing up.
Ian Hathaway: There's so many things packed into that that I feel like we're gonna revisit throughout this episode.
Community outsiders taking joy in the success of others. You mentioned being a latchkey kid in the eighties. I can definitely relate to that. Helicopter parenting, I can definitely relate to that as well. Overcorrecting, uh, but sticking with those kind of early roots, you started working on computers at the [00:06:00] age of eight, doing data entry in your dad's liquor store in Baltimore, which may not be the typical tech origin story, but it's certainly an impressionable experience for you.
How did that experience spark your passion for computers and how did it maybe help shape you as a builder and a leader early on?
Dug Song: Yeah, well, I mean my, my, my dad was a gadget freak, so, uh, he didn't have much. And what, what we did choose to spend on was, was totally ridiculous. You know, like you, anytime there's a new thing out, you know, we bought, like the first VCRs, we had all the Beta Max stuff.
We had, uh, first Betamax camcorder, the first bread machine with the first, uh, CD player. You know, anything like that my dad got, but in, in the store even, you know, 'cause this is, this is a liquor store in, in Baltimore. He, he did end up with a computer, an early P-C-X-T-A maybe, and it ran a, some software called Retail Mate.
I don't know where he found it. I don't know, you know, how he got it. But you know, he was really intent on sort of using this kind of digital tooling, right. To manage his [00:07:00] inventory and had me do all the data entry for this as well as, uh, do all the invoices, all the RP kind of stuff, right. For all of all the suppliers.
And I got really kind of hooked on kind of the, just the logic and the systems and it's just fascinating to understand kind of how things worked in that way. It kinda opened a whole new world to me. You know, technology for its own sake wasn't necessarily the thing, but it was sort of the. I guess of, of productivity and, you know, just fascination, right?
With how things could be done differently because my dad had all these records and stuff, but when the CDs came out, we can just stack so much more of them. But, you know, he, he was just always intent on kind of having this stuff around and always be grateful for that.
Ian Hathaway: I definitely remember getting my first CD from my dad, dark Side of the Moon.
I was probably a little too young to receive that as a gift, but that was pretty much a theme in my dad's life, pushing those boundaries. So you had this great, you know, sort of impressionable experience, young getting into computers growing up in the Gadget House, and then you went on to the University of Michigan to study computer science and liberal [00:08:00] arts and.
During that period, you joined a group called Woo woo, which is not really well known outside of information security circles, but within it, it's deeply influential. You went on to, you know, work alongside with folks who started companies like Napster and WhatsApp. What was that community like and how did it shape you for what you were going to do in the future?
Dug Song: Yeah. Woo, woo woo was basically kind of the Switzerland of computer security in a way, and ended up being something of like a, uh, computer security super group. The only kind of real rule there was, you know, you had to be recommended in by somebody. So there's sort of the social filter that way, but also be a contributor.
People were valued for their unique contributions and what, what they could build upon. And in, in the early days of hacking, it wasn't. Possible for one person to be an expert at everything. And as a hacker, if you're trying to navigate things, you, you'd run into things you, you couldn't get past or get into and you'd find your way to people who did, and you would all sort of exchange kind of knowledge access tooling, [00:09:00] right?
To be able to do so. W Woo did that in a way that wasn't specifically kind of oriented around literally hacking systems and so forth, but really advancing sort of the state of the art of, of security. So, you know, kind of developing novel exploit techniques and uh, or defenses and going beyond that. So that's, that's where, you know, we end up becoming sort of impactful more than security in that we had a lot of us that were just thinking really big ideas about the world and how technology could impact it.
And we're, we're, we ended up just building things for ourselves and a lot of people needed. Right? So Napster was, it was example of that. We were all limited the number of, uh, CDRs that we could burn and send to each other via, you know, mail. So, you know, doing this. Digitally as, as a peer-to-peer sharing sort of system was, was what Sean Fanning was, was looking to do in college.
And many of us joined him before that ride and much later, you know, WhatsApp and some of these other systems were same, the same idea, you know, just sort of scratching our own issues. But, you know, I think the thing that was again, really in common is you had optimists, you know, technology optimists, but also folks who were realists [00:10:00] about this stuff.
We knew how things were built and we, we knew because we could break them. Or deconstruct them in a sense, in many cases, you, you, you know, hacking is about sort of understanding systems better than the folks who designed them, because many systems in this world, whether technical or political, otherwise, I, I, I, I, I'd say Steve Bannon is actually one of the most remarkable political hackers, for better or for worse.
But we have had, you know, this. Sort of evolution and the hacking, right, and, and going beyond technology, like social engineering and all these other kind of things, finding ways to make the world do things right that it never sort of intended to do. And so that's where like a bunch of us end up doing stuff that was, was kind of beyond just the security domain.
Ian Hathaway: So you, you've had this experience in college and after, you know, working in security, it's basically been your, your whole career. Somewhere along the way, you know, you talk about this, these poorly designed systems, or at least ineffective systems, and you referred to them as security as being kind of [00:11:00] the classical lemon market.
What did you mean by that? And how do you think that realization shaped ultimately what you were gonna do next in founding Duo?
Dug Song: So my early experience in security was on the offensive side, right? Breaking those systems and getting past them. I don't tell this story very often, but I got caught hacking when I was a freshman in the University of Michigan and, uh, got in some trouble and ended up having to work through university as a result of it for four years.
But honestly, it was the best thing that ever happened to me and the, the fellows whose systems I was hacking, deaf system administrator and Paul Anderson, who I will forever be grateful for giving me this chance and opportunity in life. Decided to, uh, have the university hire me. To be a security administrator, to stop people like me from breaching the organization that played into a, a career early career, straight out outta college, maybe during college, actually in security consulting, you know, everything from the UN to, you know, casinos in Las Vegas we were doing this kind of consulting for.
And she realized really quickly that most technology is flawed and you know, our responsibility is to protect others from harm. That sort of got me on [00:12:00] this. Path of really starting to think about security as a commercial opportunity as something that could make a living doing instead of just screwing around.
So, you know, having spent my early career in security, you know, again, breaking through it, we realized quickly on their side that once it became an industry that many people were profiting from. The challenge of a value proposition that was untestable. Someone would sell you an appliance, hardware appliance, a box that you put in the path of your traffic and your network, and nothing would happen.
And the vendor would say, see, you're more secure. Nothing's happening. And of course for the, the customer, you know, they're, they're like, I just bought air. What's even happening here? And again, having spent enough time analyzing and exploiting these kinds of systems, you sort of realized that a lot of people were making money from things that actually were not effective, but the customers did not realize it.
In fact, they, they didn't realize until they were hacked. So that's where, you know, this notion of a kind of a used car or lemon market. You know, it really comes from [00:13:00] that. You don't know the car is bad until after you've driven off the, the lot and it breaks down halfway to your house. So that was a challenge I saw in security and uh, and some of the disillusionment I had from it.
As an industry, I think many of us who grew up in this kind of era of, of security all have lived this and felt this, right? Is, is, there's so much money coming into this industry, but not a lot of real. Provable impact from it. You know, a lot of these products kind of were the solutions, they call them really creating their own problems.
I remember, uh, hacking what was the, the industry leading security product at the time, the checkpoint firewall one product, and finding like nine different ways through this thing. And it was sort of like realizing that has no clothes, right? Because this is the thing that's protecting all these organizations from people like me.
But you know, we, we publish all that research. We work with the vendor to get all those things fixed. They end up actually rewriting the whole product. But those are the kind of things that really taught me a lesson about how the, the world really works, right? Which is, it's, it's not actually a completely efficient [00:14:00] market right there.
There are these ways in which these information asymmetries create a tremendous opportunity for some and at the expense of many others.
Ian Hathaway: Makes a lot of sense. I feel like Efficient Markets hypothesis is a, is a theory. And little more. Little more than that. So, you know, flashing forward to 2010, you and John Oberheim launched Duo Security with a relatively simple yet radical idea, which was making security easy.
What did that mean? Why did you decide to start the company and why did you think that was the right time to do so?
Dug Song: Yeah. Yeah. If you ask my wife, it was the worst possible time to do so. 'cause she was six months pregnant with our second child. And the story kind of begins with a, a detour I'd made, you know, I'd left security actually from, from doing companies outta college to do something else, which internet tv trying to be more useful in, in, in a sense.
But then getting our ass handed to us by.
And then, so I kinda went back to security [00:15:00] doing this at a different company that I thought was doing something interesting. I joined a company called Barracuda Networks, and they were building, not the Walmart, maybe like the target of computer security and like everything you could buy and from like a Cisco or like one of these enterprise kind of companies, Barracuda is making a a cheaper, easier version of.
And so instead of like a 25,000 blue coat box, you could. About like a couple thousand dollars, you know, Barracuda box and democratizing kind of that opportunity in that market was something I thought was really interesting. As, as I'd seen the, the shift of attackers go after the long tail of customers.
'cause at the time when, when the internet was really sort of becoming commercialized, I. It was only the big banks, big businesses, hospitals, governments really that had to worry about internet security. But when the internet transformed everyone's lives, um, even your corner coffee shop has a point of sale system now probably toast, right?
That is, that's running, that's internet connected and therefore everyone sort of has this internet security problem. So is there long enough to help them prepare for was their eventual IPO And it was [00:16:00] good for them. But I left before that, and so I started Duo because I, I had seen sort of the, the scope and scale of the, the problem and the market opportunity from Barracuda.
There were so many customers that they had and so many more beyond them that couldn't even buy a Barracuda product that, that needed this kind of help. And so when I decided to leave and try to explain to my wife why I'm not sticking around this, this company for this IPO, and instead I'm gonna start something new, and my argument was that we, we, we sort of needed to do this for the good of, you know, good of humanity, whatever, right?
That didn't go very far with her, but, you know, at the end of the day, she supported me in all this. I was very fortunate that she didn't divorce me, but we did start the company and it took me a while to bring my, my old. Student intern John on board to go after. But at the time we really didn't know what we would build.
We just knew who we were doing it for and why.
Ian Hathaway: So the mission was democratizing access to state-of-the-art security for the long tail of businesses. One of [00:17:00] the principles that stands out to me is you took this very design forward approach. What was the reason for doing that? I mean, I read somewhere that you had, you know, one designer for every five engineers, which is really rare for enterprise software, let alone in security.
So. Why was usability so central to the product that you were making?
Dug Song: First, it was driven by the attackers. Defense is always sort of the cousin or child of of offense in a certain sense, and attackers have figured out that rather than bang their head on the firewall, that's protecting the organization coming in, they could simply tailgate the users right past all that.
And so it's kinda like you're breaking into a casino. You, you put on the janitor's uniform, right? Sort of sneak in the back and then wander freely. You're not sort of, you know, dealing with all the security guards and all this sort of stuff at the front door. So with the phishing attacks, it started really with the Nigerians in 2005.
I. Which originally just kind of scams, right? Those, those Nigerian print scams, all this kind of stuff. But it demonstrated that, again, it was just much easier, right, to go after [00:18:00] people, right? Versus application systems or networks to get into organizations because people are soft and squishy, right? And, and fallible and gullible and, and, and all the rest.
And, and also trusting right? In ways that sometimes they, they shouldn't be. And so if you're attacker, you can follow this path of trust in, if you can sort of get the initial entry point from the user and become them. And so with users being targeted and us. As a company with a purpose really of, of protecting others from harm.
I guess that's hopefully the purpose of every security company, but as you say, really a mission of democratizing security by making it easy and effective for all. You know, the how was really important that security was not working for people, and a strong authentication was failing because again, the, the form of it.
Which are these so-called RSA tokens that would, you know, generate one time passwords, six digit numbers that you would've to type in within 30, 60 seconds before they roll over. All this was deeply unusable and unaffordable UNEP deployable, which is why it ever only stayed a domain of the banks in hospitals.
And so we would talk about [00:19:00] DU as being two factor as a reference for that name, but also being the. The duality, right, of security and usability. Security engineering and design engineering are just two sides of the same coin, which is about making the right things happen by default. And, and to do that, you have to sort of be empathetic, which not caring about other people, but actually seeing things through their point of view, right?
Watching what people do, understanding why a doctor would ask hospital staff to keep a, a workstation open and logged in with their login, even though. It violates all matter of kind of things, right? In terms of compliance, because they're saving lives and they're busy and they've got a, they got a job to do and every second matters.
And so, you know, we, we had to solve right for those kinds of constraints that users actually had in real world around their use of technology. I. Their organizations and their businesses and and delivering their mission. That's how we sort of thought about the problem. We also watched, frankly, as this Apple, you know, sort of demonstrated initially right to the world how design could really be the real X factor, right?
[00:20:00] For, for product value. They didn't invent the computer or laptop or cell phone or watch or MP three player. They dominated all of that. They made it usable and they figured out also how to integrate in a way that would mirror your needs and world. And so we took some lessons from that as well. And what we're doing,
Ian Hathaway: what maybe is obvious now in hindsight wasn't then.
That was a bold vision. Thankfully it worked. The company scaled fast. You reached a hundred million in annual recurring revenue, and just about seven years from starting, the company used seven to X head count. Just a few years over that time, and you did it while being incredibly capital efficient, utilizing just about 14 million in venture capital to fuel that growth.
Pretty unusual to get that kind of traction so quickly. What were the biggest factors behind the success that you had at Duo?
Dug Song: I think is, was being in Michigan because, you know, not being part of the echo chamber right. Of Silicon [00:21:00] Valley. And also having come from a a, a history and background of consulting, you know, we were more intent on, on making money.
Right. Such a foreign concept. Infectious is, but. No, I mean, there's a point every year at which deal was WSO positive and again, it, it, it was very slow, right? Our first year was like 50 K. Second year is 500 k, third year was a million. Fourth year was 3 million, then 10 million, then 31, then 73, then 129, then 200 plus.
So it's an exponential curve and it's a hockey stick. Everyone forgets that long, flat part of the hockey stick up front. But I do think necessity is a mother of prevention, all this kind of stuff. But I think scarcity drives so much in the way of sort of operational sort, rigor and discipline, all that kind of thing.
We didn't get sort of ahead of ourselves or over our skis on this stuff. Right? And this is advice I gives the founders as well when they're building businesses. You know, you don't have to starve, but maintain optionality, right? Like rightsize the business for your learning entrepreneurship is really the art of executing without all the resources needed.
There's a discipline that that really drives. 'cause you have to focus on what [00:22:00] matters, right? When you, when you're flush with cash and someone else's cash particularly, you know, you end up sort of spending it like drunken sailors. 'cause there's just no feedback mechanism right around this. And there's no more, um, sort of internal locus, right, of accountability.
It's just very easy to go in and spread it around like peanut butter, you know, all the kind of trivial kinda many things that you could do instead of really focusing the few things that. Actually, you're moving the needle right for you. So being in Michigan where there was not a lot of venture capital around, there was not a lot of founders, a lot of hype.
There's not what I call sometimes the shiny object syndrome of the valley, where I sometimes feel like out there founders and particularly investors, there's just this rampant distraction. And you get these people sort of jumping between organizations like you're lucky to hold anyone for 18 months in a business.
And everyone's sort of chasing each other's ideas and dreams and there's, there's a lot of. Good things, right, that come from the crucible right of, of perspectives and, but sometimes. Building something really requires kind of, uh, intent focus, [00:23:00] maybe, you know, isolation. So I don't like business books generally.
Ian, I like yours. I'll say that.
Ian Hathaway: Thank you.
Dug Song: But the other one I'd actually recommend to people, which you know, maybe is sort of a funny one, is, is, is actually Wu Tang Manual by the Rizza, who talks about how he kind of built this whole rap dynasty. Right. Wu-Tang built like a, a, a platform for shared work and shared opportunity.
It was highly integrative for like all these crazy ideas and perspectives and people and all this kind of thing. But one of the things that the Rizza points out is that it couldn't have happened anywhere, but Staten Island, which was not where rap started, where hip hop really began, which was in the Bronx.
And it's hard sometimes, right? Being in other places where I. There's just so much other stuff going on that, that, that can distract. So Michigan was that in terms of that kind of opportunity to build and focus and all this. But the second thing it also has is, has a culture of, of, of a really deep work ethic and one of pride, right in, in building these sort of generational businesses.
People call Meyer Meyers, and I know Peter Meyer, the brand is Meyer, but [00:24:00] still call it Myers 'cause it's associated with. His family or, or Ford. Some people still call Ford Ford's, which I think is so bizarre. But it's 'cause Reel is still family, like family members are still a space of the company. And, and what that does for people in, in terms of their orientation toward work, they're, they're part of something larger than themselves.
It's something that also has, it's not just the math of a business that, that matters to them. It's the soul of a business, right? Like we're, we're, we're building something. We're taking great pride in. It's building our community. You know, we have generations of people here that are either Ford families or GM families who don't even work there.
They just, you know, this loyalty right to, to these brands, uh, and the promises that those brands represent. But that was the large part of what we wanted to do with Duo. We wanted to build a platform opportunity for others. And so, again, I do credit that to the, the culture of what's here and, and the kind of people and what motivates them just 'cause.
Man, I never had any problems hiring engineers and I kept most of them. I think we had a, a very, very low attrition rate. In many cases. I had people as average, average tenure was like seven years, right? So like, it's, it's very different because we took care of them and they, [00:25:00] they took care of the customer and they took care of business.
And so I really find this to be true, right in places like Midwest, where that kind of perspective still dominates in a lot of ways. And then the last thing is, you know, just the, the privation, you sort of learn a lot from other people on how to build great. Generational business here because there hasn't been as much sort of venture capital flooding this.
So, you know, so I think sometimes in the valley there's, there's a lot of weird sort of management fads or ideas that don't really sort of make sense or work, whatever that, that sort of get. Promulgated, right? Is, is is sort of truth. We took as many lessons from Zingerman's, right? A Jewish deli down the street from us as any tech company.
And a lot of these things were like the basic kind of rituals and sort of operational kind of behaviors, right? Like we had open book finance, right? Everyone in duo knew all of our spend and you know, our revenue numbers, all this stuff. And same thing that this, this Jewish de did, they were focused really on, on, on place and other people.
Another thing we took from [00:26:00] them that I was, you know, I think is also sort of very Midwestern, is this, uh, ritual appreciations where every team meeting we started or ended with three to five minutes, thank each other for the. Other team members do that made the team successful and that really is what I think drove a lot of the, the success in learning our business.
Because if I organized on All Hands to try to impart to the company some knowledge or understanding of like what I think we're doing and headed, that's sort of one thing. But how do leaders ever hear what's important in the business from I. The company at large, but appreciations were how we did that in a way that elevated a standardized excellence.
Because when we saw that, when someone would say like, oh, you know, hey, thanks Patrick for uploading those leads. You sort of gotta understand quickly how people were successful and other people would model, and everyone did it. Together and we all learned together. And that was core value of the company, engineer the business, do a lot of data-driven sort of approaches to, to finding new paths of progress that we didn't have learn together.
It's not about who's right, but what's right. And then the last was, you know, the one everyone remembers of our corporate values, but to make all the possible, which [00:27:00] is to be kind to the necessary, that to really be an effective team, we have to go out of our way to help each other be successful. And so we, we were to hold kinda this way and, and really be thoughtful, intentional about.
The kind of team work by defining kind of our culture, we defined our behavior and that ultimately led to our results.
Ian Hathaway: Yeah, so many amazing things in there. Less of an obsession with capital, more of an obsession on revenue and customers, less of an echo chamber. You could stay focused. Work ethic, loyalty of, and longevity of employees.
Gratitude, empathy, supporting team, kind of those Midwest values. I mean, those are all very compelling reasons to build any kind of business in a place like Michigan. Did you ever feel like there were constraints? I. From being there. Oh
Dug Song: yeah, of course. Plenty. And, and for all the right reasons, you know?
Yeah. I mean, to be honest with you, like I never had any problems hiring engineers because I didn't have to compete for them. Right? Like I'd show up at Michigan Tech University [00:28:00] in Houghton, Michigan, where right now they still have probably eight feet of snow and you know, we'd show up and at the career fair would be us, John Deere and gm.
And you know what, the lineup was out the door for us, you know, for the longest time. Michigan honestly was one of my, my best kept secrets. I really didn't talk about it very often or to anybody 'cause we were doing fine. And, and also sort of the culture. We made a kind of Midwest thing. We, we choose to get big before we get loud, which is the opposite of California maybe.
And, and even then, we don't even necessarily get loud. Right? Like we, and that's, that is actually one of the bigger constraints I think we've had on our EQ system. Right. That we, we've not been willing, willing to tell these stories of our success like we should because it almost feels impolite. That's the part I feel we have to change a little bit.
Ecosystems require network effects, right? And that, those, those happen when you create those pathways. I mean, when people show up in the valley, everyone knows, right? Like your, your, your job is to be an introduction machine, right? No matter what your job is, you're constantly doing that and paying it forward that way and all that.
And that's, that's an aspect of some of the Silicon Valley and tech culture. I really [00:29:00] do appreciate. Yeah. I think the other constraints, I, I think we saw that were, were more difficult, and these are ones again, I, I don't think are, are specific to just Michigan, but maybe everywhere. Everywhere else that's not, the Valley is taking a chance on others defines sort of Silicon Valley and, and tech.
It's not the technology, it's the behavioral. Sort of profile, right? Of, of attracting folks and engendering sort of this motion of flywheel effect, right? People taking chances on others and in some level, you know, I would say Michigan was that in the earlier era of its economic development, right? Where this was Silicon Valley, right?
The 20th century, like in the early 19 hundreds, we had hundreds of car companies here, not three. You know, I think we end up being victims of our own success. Companies got really big and when you have that, people get comfortable maybe complacent. What got you there is not what you get you to the next level.
And so corporatism sort of sets in and also sorts zero sum mentality, but that kind of zero sum thinking is just. Toxic. Right. For startup ecosystems, as you know. [00:30:00]
Ian Hathaway: Yeah.
Dug Song: I like the way Victor Huang talks about this. He says, if you, you get really good at a thing, it's like you get really good at factory farming, like you know how to grow corn, but then anything that's not corn that pops outta the ground, you weed, you pull out or you, you know, and all you're doing is you're fertilizing corn when someone comes up with like a better variant.
Of corn or like, so some D disease wipes out your monoculture, you don't have a lot to fall back on. And so that's, that's kind of what's happened here in Michigan. You know, we've had to sort of, we're knocked back on our heels, right, with all this over. Decades, right. Of challenges to our dominant industry.
But that's, that's what creates now the, the tritus of all this just amazing opportunity for real growth, innovation and 'cause we have so much infrastructure, so much human capital, intellectual capital, fiscal capital actually, and financial capital from that legacy. And, and the real trick now is to, to rebuild and really focus on our, our cultural capital and rebuilding our social capital that could connect all that.
Ian Hathaway: Yeah, look, I grew up just down the down I 75 in Ohio, part of the Detroit supply [00:31:00] chain. So I know that culture all too well. I think a big part of it is not having seen what's possible, and I feel like in 2017, duo became the first tech unicorn and Michigan's history. A year later, the company was acquired by Cisco for two point.
Three $5 billion, which is an amazing statement for a place that is most defined by industries from a hundred years ago, the Silicon Valley of a century ago. So obviously that success had a big impact on you, your co-founder, your early employees, investors, and so on. But I also wanna ask, what has been the impact of that event on.
Tech entrepreneurship in the region?
Dug Song: Yeah. I
Ian Hathaway: mean
Dug Song: a lot I think, but it's hard to attribute directly. The only thing I can say is we, we created, you know, nearly a hundred millionaires, which is, you know, pretty cool, but also in, in a very personal sense, right? The, the [00:32:00] legacy I'm, I'm most proud of is that we set so many people on these sort of paths and journeys that, that go well beyond us.
I always wanted duo to be not just a great company to work at, but a great company to be from. And our broader duo diaspora has just done an amazing job sort of helping to cultivate the next. Generation of, of hopefully proto duos. And, and so though we were the first unicorn or first multi band at our exit here, you know, we, we weren't the last, since then, there have been 10 more I think.
And the challenge we have is they're not all staying here. Our greatest export actually from Michigan is not cars or, or any of this stuff. It's actually. Brains. You know, all, all of our, we research universities and University of Michigan alone. I think we're the number eighth university globally in terms of, uh, the number of graduates that start venture-backed companies.
We just don't stay here. We've had four of them, like myself, we were first, but only four of those U of m you know, originated unicorns out of 46 have stayed in Michigan. And so, you know, we have a lot more work to do to make sure that this is the kind of place that can help companies not just start, but really scale.
But that's, that's a solvable [00:33:00] problem. A lot of your work is so critical for folks to understand, not just for ecosystem builders, but for company builders. To build a company, you have to really help build a community. 'cause a community is where customers come from. It's where employees come from, right?
It's where, uh, your own understanding of what good business looks like and what other tips and tricks or strategies and tactics you can employ or borrow right into your business can come from. 'cause there's something strategic about every place. You could set up, and I think your job as an entrepreneur is to find it right?
Whether it's the talent, whether it's the capital, whether it's the customer's, an opportunity and the problems to solve, or whether it's, whether it's technology or whether it's just the knowhow of what others founders and CEOs and company builders have done before you. I, I always encourage people to, to really take the time to kind of invest in kind of understanding and building community.
'cause that's, there's so much wisdom. Like why, why learn on your own dime when you can learn in someone else's.
Ian Hathaway: I have to say, it's all too rare for someone with your profile. This is the next career of yours, which is giving back [00:34:00] and helping others succeed. I know after the acquisition, you spent about 40 years at Cisco, left in 2022 to embark on a sabbatical that really isn't much of a sabbatical from what it sounds like.
But at the center of that is your foundation, the Song Foundation, which you started with your wife Lynn in 2019. Just tell us a little bit about. What is the foundation's core philosophy, mission and things that you're focused on right now?
Dug Song: There's kind of two sides that we're doing really as a family, uh, with a family office, which is more of our, our, our private investments and activities.
And then our foundation, which has a board, you know, has a exec director and little Bears our name, but has a, a, a strategy and, uh, and a direction and a governance entirely its own, but it's congruent with our intent and vision of, of really building community wealth. We mean not just sort of economic wealth, which is sort of obvious, but how do we leverage [00:35:00] social, cultural, and environmental wealth to really build a just and inclusive future for everybody here?
Because one of the things that I think unfortunately also defines Southeast Michigan is a real difficult history of social division unrest and injustice. Growing in places like Baltimore and then coming to places like, like Detroit. These cities keep you honest because you see the legacy of injustice in your face every day.
And so being good neighbors are trying to, we're here to build a community that we wanna be part of. I do take seriously, MLK's sort of vision of, of a beloved community, right? When we're, everyone's cared for, free from poverty, hunger, and hate. I want my kids to, even if they don't stay here, right? To have grown up and, and been.
Part of a community where we've, we've, we've had, that is a shared set of values and conviction, um, and I believe deeply in, uh, McKay's, um, notion of, again, integration, right. Being a moral imperative. And so, so yeah, our foundation really focuses on that. Um, in terms of three pillars of its work and social justice, youth and emergent leadership, and frankly, on, on inclusive tech, in, in entrepreneurship.
So, yeah, so our [00:36:00] foundation is really focused on, on, again, addressing those problems as a, it exists kind of in the world today. Uh, 'cause again, you, you have to sort of, um, alleviate suffering where it exists. But in many respects, you know, we're trying to on the private side of our family office as well and try to get ahead of that.
We're trying to be the friends and family of money for a lot of. Founders here whose friends, family don't have money, right. To get them started. And, you know, I didn't, and so I, I just wanna make sure that we see that flywheel effect really sort of take root. And so we started some things like the Michigan Founders Fund, that was one of the early investments from the Song Foundation, a peer network of 150 founders of high tech, high growth business this year on the angel and venture sort of track or journey, but really creating all the new jobs and tax base in every, every district across Michigan.
Elevating those founders building sort of a community, creating a lot more interest and awareness from the public at large that these companies even exist. And because, you know, when you see those founders taking risks, right, personally, on behalf of, of their [00:37:00] customers or their communities, we have to wrap around those people and protect them.
We have to support them, right? That's, that's how progress happens, right? In our community, we try to be the catalytic capital, taking the risks on other people that a lot of the. The, the other big foundations won't, and, uh, a lot of the other big investors won't.
Ian Hathaway: Well, I think it fills a big need, specifically as it's relating to tech world, a constant refrain of raising friends and family money.
You've coined this phrase, friends of family. You mentioned it before. Most people don't have access to that kind of capital, and there's an intergenerational inequity that just continues because of that. Right? And so. I love that you coined that phrase. I love that you're trying to fill that niche in very early stage or very underfunded opportunities, whether it's helping Main Street businesses, helping individuals or getting that early capital to to local startups.
Maybe zooming out a bit on your journey, I feel like there's these consistent themes, right, which is community, [00:38:00] family. Equity, helping others. Empathy. You talked a lot about family. You have this foundation that you run with your wife, Lynn, and your supportive team. You have two kids, you both have had busy careers.
You know, you mentioned early on you're founding this company at a very inopportune time, very inconvenient time. How did you make it work as a family? Do you have. Any tips for founders out there who I, I know there are many listeners who are in that exact seat that you've been in. It's never the right time, but how did you navigate it and what, if any, tips do you have for folks who are facing the weight of all those challenges, entrepreneurship and family?
Dug Song: My best advice, really best advice in life and in business and everything else is just choose well, right? Like you. The job is get the right partner. I tell my kids like the most important decision you ever make in your life is who you to spend with. That one decision impacts everything. And so I was just [00:39:00] lucky, you know, and then I, I, I met my wife in Michigan.
She was in Michigander, but we met in a Chinese bakery during my first startup when we were doing all the security consulting. I was working for food in this, in this, uh, Chinese bakery in, uh, in Arbor with the, the, the Chinese family had grown up in Korea, so they were making also Korean meals. But yeah, I was a line cook and I would come in, make the meals, um, on my.
Lunch shift right from, from the startup. And, uh, my wife was working the front. I was working it back and sort of the rest is history. She also joined me on that first security consultancy, and then when we built products, she ended up selling the product for us and, you know, tripled business on us. And, and so she was on that journey with me so she knew the deal, what that would look like, and, and also why that, you know, you can only really figure anything out by doing.
But you know, for other founders or the folks contemplating entrepreneurship, I see a couple things. One is obviously everyone says, you know, you need safety net and all that kind of thing. All true, you know, it's just definitely important. And maybe one, one way I would say it's sort of learning to navigate difference.
I'll just say a plug here just because I feel like it's, it's important to [00:40:00] do at this time where deis is under attack and all this stuff. But you know, like diversity, equity, inclusion are super important to your success in, in life and in business, right? Because that's how you learn. You know, you, you sort of learn across difference, right?
And pushing past boundaries with other people Right. And celebrating kind of others. And, and you can sort of be an entrepreneur. You can sort of join others on, on their journey. There's so much more to learn on someone else's dime right. Than, than a trickle your own. It's like the thing, whatever Edison said, or found a thousand ways not to make a light bulb or something.
I think it's Silicon Valley glorifies failure in this kind of. Perverse way, like, oh, so much more to learn to failure than for the success. I'm like, that doesn't make any sense. You know, there's just like, there's, there's an infinite number of ways to fail. Infinite, right, infinite ways to fail. But you know, people who have figured something out, like you can learn a lot from them and you can, you don't have to do it.
You can put it in your pocket, save for rainy day, but you know, expanding your toolbox of options. But if you keep your mind open to it, and I think there's truly something to learn from any person you [00:41:00] meet in this world. I mean, I always tell people, you know, part of being a CEO E is just being humble enough to realize that you're always gonna be the, the dumbest one in the room.
It's true because like any meeting you're in, like all these people, you're, you're leading are all the front lines of your business. Right. They're the ones with direct. You know, daily interaction with customers, all this kind of thing. I mean, you have a unique vantage point, right, as a leader, but you have to actually be willing to sort of actually see the forest for the trees that sometimes takes that, that sort of journey of experience and so forth to lead to, you know, I mean, you know this better than anyone, right?
Like I'd say the most successful businesses or whatever tend to be from founders who started their s in their forties, right? Which totally. The startup Valley kind of lower or mythos and then your fifties, you should as, as Jack Ma say, your job is to bet on young people. Right. Like that's your job. Like you're, it's you're being that person, right.
That others will follow. But yeah, the other thing I'd say is also, it is in general, and this is something that a lot of early founders or first time founders, [00:42:00] particularly outside the valley, don't understand as much socialize. Socialize that journey and your ideas and everything else, and also give first, as they say, Techstars in Boulder, being that person in the community who helps others.
Will lead lots more help to you. Right. And, and my dad, who ultimately was a failed Buddhist monk, but you know, still believed in karma, you know, rubbed off of me in this sort of real way. But he says, if you're a good person and you help others right in, in life, we're in business, the universe won't let you starve.
And, and I believe that deeply. I believe that deeply. And there's nothing else. You know, there's a very practical matter of like, your, your, your ideas are only are honed. Right in conversation with other people, particularly customers, but many others. And so again, the the, the business of building a company, no matter what, it's technology company, right?
It's still a people business. So you have to sort of put yourself out there, put your ideas out there, test them. It's a constant conversation that you're sort of convening around this stuff. And that's actually how you de-risk all this, because, you [00:43:00] know, that's because there is, there's tons of risk, right?
But you know, entrepreneurs don't just take risks. They abate risk. That's really the skill. Anyone can just take risks, right? Blow it all right? That's not a skill. The skill is actually an ab baiting risk, right? How do you ensure that that doesn't kill you if you're just going for broke every time, you would just kill yourself, right?
Like it's always this kind of path of to pushing path those boundaries. Incrementally and in a way that you're learning from. And that's really something that is better done with other people, right, than just kind of yourself because you, you progress much faster and you benefit from all the pain and suffering and learning that they've had.
So that's my best advice.
Ian Hathaway: One last kind of question here. Looking back on. Your whole journey, right? From scanning barcodes to building a multi-billion dollar company, to now investing in and uplifting the community and people you love so much, what do you hope that people will most take away? From your experience, what I've
Dug Song: found most fulfilling right in my life and [00:44:00] career has been the ability to share a bit of what I have been blessed to receive with others, and then to find great joy mudita, if you will.
Right? You know, again, this joy in others success. That's the kind of legacy that cannot be built by yourself alone. I feel like a steward. Right. Not an owner, right. Of of, of not just the business or this capital or any of this, but really a, a steward of, of, of all this because there were many amazing businesses and leaders and, and people, right, that came before me that I learned from, that I benefited from.
And so, again, fundamentally, and my my hope is that, uh, folks kinda do that same thing. We have a, an event here, uh, still 15 years later every month called the in New Tech meetup. It was based on the Boulder New Tech meetup. And my opening for that event when I was mc was always the same thing. Like, you're not here to meet a bunch of people.
You're here to introduce a bunch of people, even if you just met them, you know? And then five minutes later you meet someone else and they're like, oh, you need to meet this person. I just met them. [00:45:00] But here, because that's, that's how you build community. That's, that's how you build the mesh of relationships through which, you know, people need opportunity and resources all find each other.
And if we're all doing that. Then what, what, what an amazing place and what amazing joy it is, right. To, to be in a, in a community where again, it's, it is getting more efficient. You know, ironically, by, by doing all these things that feel inefficient, right? Of spend less time and effort in community, but that's the infrastructure, that's the social capital, right?
That, that provides connection to all the rest.
Ian Hathaway: Efficiency is the enemy of innovation. I was once told, and I love that. So I couldn't think of a better note to end on. But before that, you know, we're about out of time. But to end each episode of Outsider Inc. We have a, a short segment called Beyond the Bio, which is just some quick hit questions that let us step away from the resume a little bit and help listeners understand a little bit more about you.
So what's a quick piece of advice a mentor gave that stuck with you along your journey?
Dug Song: Yeah. [00:46:00] Best piece of advice I ever got on Journeys, 'cause I had a difficult one when I was choosing to start a start or knot was, uh, my friend Ian Rogers, who ended up ultimately building beats with Dr. Dre, sold to Apple, all this stuff.
But really we started, I met him skateboarding in Ann Arbor. He was a single dad, dropped outta Indian University, had a girlfriend in Ann Arbor, went, toured with the Beast Boys and he never looked back. I give that background to you because he, he told me once. When faced with two choices in life, do whatever makes for the better story.
Because at the end of the day, that's, that's all we have. All we have in our lives are stories. Right. And so I, I've always believed that and always abided by that.
Ian Hathaway: I love that. Who is an unsung hero in your life and what has been the impact they've had on you?
Dug Song: An hero in my life was, was Paul Anderson, who gave me my first actual office trial.
He was the, the, the deaf system administrator at University of Michigan whose systems I hacked and took pity on me. I was on academic probation for four years, but you know, I was gainfully employed and that's, I mean, honestly, that's what I. Saved me. 'cause [00:47:00] I, I, I lost my dad when I was 18. He was carjacked, you know, stabbed 11 times all this.
And so I couldn't pay for college. I was grateful for that opportunity. I was very fortunate years later to be able to hire him. He worked there for two other companies, so I was, you know, kinda came full circle on that. But the chance he took on me, I, I hoped to be able to pay forward. To others in the same way.
I've never really talked about it that much with him in this regard. He just knows who he is and, you know, and he was a, a good mentor for me on, on how to build things with intention. He helped me to high standards and he cared about me.
Ian Hathaway: Well, based on everything I know about you and what we've discussed today, I'm sure he's awfully proud about, you know, how much you're giving back to others.
So who's someone in your local startup community or your broader network who doesn't get enough credit and deserves a shout out?
Dug Song: Oh my goodness, there's so many. We've been, be very intentional about. Trying to elevate and uplift some of those stories in ways that others actually can see and, and follow and emulate.[00:48:00]
So maybe I would say is that the ung hero for your listeners, but one I would encourage to consider or or think about is there's actually Detroit in, in Michigan. It's just really a story of people in place because. The narrative here has been so difficult From the outside it's like, oh, poor Detroit. You know, Detroit the first com, you know, city go bankrupt and blah, blah, blah, and all this kind of thing.
And everyone's sort of thinking about sort of this place from a perspective of sort of loss and scarcity and or, or conflict and all this kind of thing. But really, you know. What you have here is sort of this, this amazing sort of community and place where there's this popular history of Michigan, the things that we, we have been known for, for, for success.
Like cereal, furniture, cars, unions, building the American middle class, the rock and roll, you know, punk rock, Motown pizza, you know, all this stuff, right? So that's the good stuff. But underneath that. Is actually the secret history of Michigan that I, I, I used to talk to Steve Blank about, you know, 'cause there was a secret history of Silicon Valley that actually mirrors it.
Where in the forties, you know, we built the first tank plant here, [00:49:00] right? And shortly thereafter, you know, the third largest air research lab, but also we built a bomber here, right? Rosie Riveter, all that, the whole thing, all this stuff was here and against all that was a bunch of defense r and d and engineering.
And so. Military computing as much as tanks in aerospace was on the tier. Timeshare computing, remote sensing complex systems work, you know, small doppler radar, um, computer vision, a bunch of artificial intelligence in the eighties, right? The birth of. We have had so much of this stuff here. It is what led to what we did.
Some of my, my old colleagues at these other companies, they, you know, they're older than me, but they, they all had these shared experiences and histories, right? For, for me and for our companies. And so those for me are the kinda unsung heroes, the folks I really looked up to and really benefited from everything else.
And, you know, I, I, I think that. I encourage everyone, wherever you are, those people exist, those kinds of heroes and you know all the histories that built the place that you're in, they're there and they matter. And you know, get the, get to [00:50:00] them. Get to them before that history is lost and before the wisdom and knowledge that you could apply to your business and what you're doing is lost.
There's so much to learn from, from those folks.
Ian Hathaway: That's beautiful. Tell us something. Most people don't know about you. Something outside of work, maybe other than skateboarding. Uh, a hobby, a travel spot, a guilty pleasure, maybe even a hidden talent.
Dug Song: Lemme think about that. I have cultivated lots of dumb tricks over the lifetime.
Like, I, I can spin things on my fingers. I can make like weird sounds with my mouth. Like what? These are all like things you learn in the course of being a dad. Right? Like stupid dad tricks actually. Right? So, oh yeah. I've amassed a lot of that stuff. Dumb tricks that you know, good are useful in various context.
Good. Dad? Dad
Ian Hathaway: tricks. Party tricks. Dad tricks.
Dug Song: Yeah. Party tricks. Yeah, party
Ian Hathaway: tricks. Okay. What are one or two songs that you'd like to add to our Spotify founders playlist? Something that fuels your day [00:51:00] or has inspired you on your journey as an entrepreneur?
Dug Song: When I was growing up, my first concert was a punk DC band called, uh, Fugazi.
I was imprinted on them. That was hugely impactful to me in so many ways in, in life and in in the business. But anyway, the one song that really stuck with me growing up was a waiting room from their first waiting room by Fugazi. But this idea that life is. You don't wanna get sort of stuck in sort of the waiting room of life right.
Started. Just, just do it right. DY punk rock.
Ian Hathaway: I love that I might throw this in just because we talked about Wu-Tang. My partner Jonathan, one of the things he's always saying to founders is, you know, cash rules everything around me. And one of our portfolio companies, a company called uh, flex Point, they do vertical payments for MSPs.
Now, when they go to these trade shows to meet customers, they have these. [00:52:00] T-shirts that say cash flow rules everything around me. That's good. So that's great. I wouldn't, uh, maybe we can add that song to the list as well. Okay. Last question. If you could give one piece of advice to someone who's about to start their founder's journey, particularly someone who's an outsider like you, what would it be?
Dug Song: I know this is so much trite, but it really just to just start, but just start, might even mean start in figuring out like what you need to be able to, right. Take the jump and leap successfully. Right. Like, you know, I, ideas are cheap, right? So you just have to get going and, and again, it's easy to say if, if.
You know, you, you are a repeat founder or you one who has access to capital from fans or family, all kind stuff versus whatever. But, but again, part of that starting journey then may even sort of. Figuring out how you will extract yourself, how you'll sort of free up your time, energy to go do a thing again without harming yourself or your family and all that along the way.
But just start [00:53:00] because your ideas aren't gonna improve, sort of sitting there. You know, in your head, they'll improve through you socializing them, getting them out in the world, working toward that, getting other people kind of to dream a little bit with you in the same direction, whether they're part of your company or not.
Um, but that's, you know, that's, that's the real path of entrepreneurship. Until you've really done that, you're, you're not really on the path. You're sort of just looking at it. Wrap yourself up. Right. That sort of social commitment right. To, to that. And then, and get going. 'cause you know that that's, that's how something will take on the life of its own beyond you.
You have to be the one to it and you have to get it going and, and it's hard. But my best advice is really just to get started and you'll figure it out as you go.
Ian Hathaway: That's a great way to end. Amazing conversation. Dug, thank you so much for joining us, sharing your time and wisdom. I can't wait to share this episode with our listeners.
Dug Song: Thanks, Ian. That's great.
Ian Hathaway: That's a wrap for today's episode of Outsider [00:54:00] Inc. A big thank you to Dug Song for joining us and sharing his incredible story, one that is filled with overcoming adversity, building companies through the lens of customer empathy and giving back to his community and a new generation of entrepreneurs coming up behind him.
Dug's journey from the pumpkin hacker scenes of Baltimore and Ann Arbor to founding duo security and selling it for over $2 billion shows what happens when you combine technical brilliance with deep civic purpose. He didn't just build a security company, he redefined what trust and usability could look like in enterprise software, all while staying anchored in community mission and humility.
What stands out most to me is Dug's insistence that building a company should also be an act of public service. Whether it's mentoring founders, shaping policy, or investing in Detroit's future, Dug has stayed relentlessly focused on using entrepreneurship as a tool for inclusion, justice, and long-term value.
His legacy won't just be measured in wealth [00:55:00] generated or jobs created, but in the people in ecosystems, he's lifted up along the way. If you want more from outsider, Inc. Don't forget to subscribe to the platform@outsiderinc.substack.com. It's packed with highlights from today's episode and bonus insights you won't wanna miss.
You can follow Outsider Inc on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, and LinkedIn at Outsider Inc. Pod. You can also follow me on X at Ian Hathaway Outsider, Inc. Is produced by Spellbinder Media. We'll be back soon with another fascinating outsider conversation. Until then, thank you so much for listening, and remember, great entrepreneurs can come from anywhere.
See you next time.