Justin Gardner - $1mm Hacker/Bounty Hunter

Hacker - Bug Bounty Hunter

My first million dollars was made by hacking some of the most hardened companies in the world: Google, Amazon, Facebook, Uber, the list goes on and on.

Good, now that I've got you reading, I can drop the hooks and tell you what's up. I'm a full-time bug bounty hunter and podcast host. I hacked PodPage and invited myself as a guest to this podcast for the story (thanks Shaan) - and I think we'd have a great conversation on the podcast. I've been a hacker since I was 12, and a white hat hacker since I was 18.

For the past several years, I've been a full-time bug bounty hunter (someone who is paid for each vulnerability one finds, not the time spent) and live hacking event competitor. This is a form of solopreneurship - and since Pieter Levels is one of your top-performing episodes, I think people might be interested in the security version of this.

The bug bounty industry has a lot of interesting business opportunities:
1. Being a bug bounty hunter
2. Bug bounty program marketing (what I'm attempting to do with Critical Thinking - Bug Bounty Podcast)
3. Bug bounty consultancies (how to generate engagement for a bug bounty program, triage (assess the validity of) vulnerabilities, and incentivize/draw the attention of hackers to your program)

Additionally, bug bounty results in an extremely varying amount of income - some months I make 200k, some months I make 0, and it varies dramatically. There are some fun conversations we could have surrounding dealing with that variance of income and converting this into wealth.

Finally, I'd also be able to give informed opinions on practical security from a hands-on-the-keyboard hacker. I can give insight into how to keep your data safe and how not to get hacked.

I also hope to pick your brains a bit on growing your podcast, as I've got a growing podcast (30k monthly listens).

LMK what you think.
Justin