What Trump’s Second Term Could Mean for the Top U.S. Cyber Agency

[00:00:00] [SPEAKER_01]: Exchanges. The Goldman Sachs podcast featuring exchanges on the forces driving the markets and the economy. Exchanges between the leading minds at Goldman Sachs. New episodes every week. Listen now.

[00:00:18] [SPEAKER_03]: Welcome to Tech News Briefing. It's Tuesday, November 19th. I'm Belle Lynn for The Wall Street Journal.

[00:00:26] [SPEAKER_03]: Forget bars and boardrooms. Techies are starting to take their meetings and networking events in saunas.

[00:00:34] [SPEAKER_03]: What's behind this hot Silicon Valley trend? We'll find out.

[00:00:38] [SPEAKER_03]: And then President-elect Trump's second term could bring about huge changes to the top U.S. cybersecurity agency.

[00:00:45] [SPEAKER_03]: Our reporter James Rundle tells us why it's facing criticism from some lawmakers and how it could change in the new administration.

[00:00:55] [SPEAKER_03]: But first, tech founders and investors are no strangers to experimentation.

[00:01:01] [SPEAKER_03]: And the newest trend they're latching onto? Networking inside saunas. Those hot, sweaty, enclosed spaces, best known as areas to relax and get away from work.

[00:01:15] [SPEAKER_03]: For more on what's behind this trend, we're joined by WSJ reporter Angel Au-Yung.

[00:01:21] [SPEAKER_03]: So, Angel, why saunas?

[00:01:23] [SPEAKER_02]: I was told that there is an anti-alcohol movement that's sweeping through the tech industry.

[00:01:30] [SPEAKER_02]: And it's making investors and founders and employees just hungry for gathering places outside of bars or restaurants where the typical activity would be drinking or eating.

[00:01:43] [SPEAKER_02]: And so one answer to that has been these social saunas.

[00:01:47] [SPEAKER_02]: And these saunas can fit anywhere from 20 to 90 people, depending on the facility.

[00:01:53] [SPEAKER_02]: And yeah, it's become a bit of a trend.

[00:01:55] [SPEAKER_02]: It does seem like it skews on the younger end.

[00:01:58] [SPEAKER_02]: The events that I saw and reported on, the age differences ranged from late 20s to 50s.

[00:02:06] [SPEAKER_02]: Where does this sort of anti-alcohol movement come from?

[00:02:09] [SPEAKER_02]: In general, it all relates to Silicon Valley's obsession with biohacking and trying to hack your own body in different ways to make yourself more efficient.

[00:02:19] [SPEAKER_02]: Efficiency is a big theme in Silicon Valley.

[00:02:21] [SPEAKER_02]: That's partially tied to why people are just turning away from alcohol.

[00:02:25] [SPEAKER_03]: So based on folks you've spoken with, how effective is sauna networking?

[00:02:31] [SPEAKER_02]: It seems like for the people who have been invited to these type of events, it has become a really good networking opportunity.

[00:02:38] [SPEAKER_02]: But what investors have told me is that it's also a way to get to know founders, both from a professional standpoint and a personal level.

[00:02:48] [SPEAKER_03]: Very personal.

[00:02:49] [SPEAKER_02]: Right.

[00:02:49] [SPEAKER_02]: And when I say personal, I mean, because you're not in a conference center or a bar where everybody's in a suit, you can ask questions like, what is your family like?

[00:02:59] [SPEAKER_02]: Do you have kids?

[00:03:00] [SPEAKER_02]: And the founder that I spoke to, who ended up taking a first founders meeting at a sauna, she told me that she got to know that the founder, who's also a woman, she had kids.

[00:03:13] [SPEAKER_02]: And they were able to talk about family life in a way that the sauna supported.

[00:03:18] [SPEAKER_02]: At the end of the day, if it is a first founders meeting, you are meeting them probably in some kind of swimwear.

[00:03:25] [SPEAKER_02]: And these saunas can get obviously very hot.

[00:03:29] [SPEAKER_02]: And so when you're meeting somebody for the first time and you've got sweat dripping down your face, I can see that being an obstacle in and of itself.

[00:03:38] [SPEAKER_02]: But if you are an investor and you find a founder who is open to having a first founders meeting at a sauna, then maybe there is an interesting synergy there that could result in some kind of an investment.

[00:03:52] [SPEAKER_02]: But it definitely takes getting used to and it's definitely not for everyone.

[00:03:56] [SPEAKER_03]: So where do you think this is all going?

[00:03:58] [SPEAKER_03]: I know we talked about the underlying anti-alcohol movement driving the move towards these alternative networking and social events.

[00:04:07] [SPEAKER_03]: Do you think we'll see more sauna type events pop up?

[00:04:11] [SPEAKER_02]: We're still pretty early stages with this trend.

[00:04:14] [SPEAKER_02]: These types of social saunas have popped up this year in San Francisco, L.A., New York, Boulder, which are tech hotspots.

[00:04:24] [SPEAKER_02]: And one of the investors that I spoke to for this story, he said that there's always going to be a scenario where somebody is going to feel uncomfortable regardless of what the activity is.

[00:04:33] [SPEAKER_02]: But right now, saunas are taking off because new facilities have just popped up.

[00:04:38] [SPEAKER_02]: There just hadn't been good saunas for people to plan these types of work events at.

[00:04:44] [SPEAKER_02]: So it could take off.

[00:04:46] [SPEAKER_03]: That was our reporter Angel Au-Young.

[00:04:49] [SPEAKER_03]: Coming up, the nation's top cybersecurity agency could see some big changes in President-elect Trump's second administration.

[00:04:57] [SPEAKER_03]: We'll find out what that could look like after the break.

[00:05:04] [SPEAKER_00]: We'll find out.

[00:05:39] [SPEAKER_03]: The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, or CISA, faces an uncertain future in President-elect Trump's second term.

[00:05:49] [SPEAKER_03]: Criticism of the agency, which was created by Trump in 2018, has come from Republican lawmakers, Project 2025 and corporate cybersecurity executives.

[00:06:00] [SPEAKER_03]: And just last week, Trump appointed Tesla CEO Elon Musk and former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy to lead an initiative to cut government spending and restructure federal agencies.

[00:06:14] [SPEAKER_03]: WSJ reporter James Rundle tells us how CISA could change under the new administration and why various groups have criticized it for overreach.

[00:06:23] [SPEAKER_03]: So, James, what are some of CISA's responsibilities?

[00:06:27] [SPEAKER_01]: So, CISA is the primary federal agency responsible for cybersecurity among civilian branch agencies in the government.

[00:06:35] [SPEAKER_01]: So, everything basically outside of DOD.

[00:06:38] [SPEAKER_01]: It's responsible for coordinating between them, making sure they have the appropriate protections in place and they're all secure from hackers.

[00:06:44] [SPEAKER_01]: But it also has a number of ancillary roles as well.

[00:06:47] [SPEAKER_01]: It's responsible for interfacing with the 16 critical infrastructure sectors, which includes things like telecommunications, gas, energy, the financial services sector.

[00:06:57] [SPEAKER_01]: And it also has a very, very important role in election security as well.

[00:07:01] [SPEAKER_01]: CISA doesn't just handle the cybersecurity aspects of that, but it also handles an element of physical security as well.

[00:07:06] [SPEAKER_01]: There have been a lot of criticisms from lawmakers around President-elect Trump over the past few years around CISA, around its role specifically in disinformation,

[00:07:15] [SPEAKER_01]: which has become something of a lightning rod for criticism from a number of congressional Republicans, not least of all, Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky,

[00:07:24] [SPEAKER_01]: who is now taking over as chair of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs, which is CISA's primary overseer.

[00:07:31] [SPEAKER_03]: And what is President-elect Trump's history with CISA?

[00:07:35] [SPEAKER_01]: In a word, it's complicated.

[00:07:37] [SPEAKER_01]: So, Trump stood up the agency himself back in 2018.

[00:07:40] [SPEAKER_01]: It was his creation, but over the first couple of years, it was a bit of a rocky relationship.

[00:07:46] [SPEAKER_01]: And it came to a head in the 2020 election when its first director, Christopher Krebs, came on to Twitter, now X, obviously,

[00:07:54] [SPEAKER_01]: and said there was no evidence of election tampering or fraud or anything of the sort.

[00:07:58] [SPEAKER_01]: And Trump famously fired him by tweet.

[00:07:59] [SPEAKER_01]: And since then, Trump hasn't said too much about CISA.

[00:08:03] [SPEAKER_01]: He's led a lot of the lawmakers I spoke about do the talking.

[00:08:06] [SPEAKER_01]: There were also pretty heavy mentions of it in Project 2025, which is a policy document drawn up by a conservative think tank,

[00:08:14] [SPEAKER_01]: including a lot of members of Trump's first administration, which he has publicly distanced himself from.

[00:08:19] [SPEAKER_01]: But that called basically for the complete gutting of CISA, for a lot of its roles to be transferred to the transportation department and for a real narrowing its mission.

[00:08:27] [SPEAKER_03]: So there are a number of parties that have criticized CISA.

[00:08:30] [SPEAKER_03]: What about corporate cyber executives?

[00:08:33] [SPEAKER_03]: What does the business world have to say about CISA?

[00:08:36] [SPEAKER_01]: They're broadly pretty positive from the people I speak to, at least.

[00:08:39] [SPEAKER_01]: CISA has done a lot over the last four years in particular to really boost its relationships with the private sector.

[00:08:44] [SPEAKER_01]: It's stood up this entity called the Joint Cyber Defense Collaborative, which is an interface between government, law enforcement and the private sector,

[00:08:51] [SPEAKER_01]: especially when things go wrong or there's a big event such as the Olympics or the Super Bowl or something like that.

[00:08:56] [SPEAKER_01]: Then they all get together and talk about it.

[00:08:58] [SPEAKER_01]: They share intelligence through it.

[00:08:59] [SPEAKER_01]: There have been some criticism of CISA that they haven't perhaps been as effective as the private sector would like.

[00:09:05] [SPEAKER_01]: But on the whole, the broad sentiment from most people I speak to is that they've done a pretty good job.

[00:09:10] [SPEAKER_01]: And their role is increasingly crucial all the time when threats from nation states,

[00:09:15] [SPEAKER_01]: which have in the past been really the government's preserve, are now increasingly faced by corporations as well.

[00:09:20] [SPEAKER_03]: Last week, Trump appointed Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to lead this new Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.

[00:09:29] [SPEAKER_03]: How could this potentially impact CISA?

[00:09:31] [SPEAKER_01]: CISA is kind of a ripe target for the kind of things that DOGE wants to do.

[00:09:34] [SPEAKER_01]: Its budget has increased over the last year from $2 billion to $3 billion.

[00:09:38] [SPEAKER_01]: It's hired pretty widely.

[00:09:40] [SPEAKER_01]: The criticism from Republicans makes it seem like it does a lot more than its core mission.

[00:09:44] [SPEAKER_01]: And some people we spoke to have said that there might be a pause in new initiatives.

[00:09:47] [SPEAKER_01]: There might be a pullback on existing ones just to make sure that, in their words, the mission is focused properly,

[00:09:54] [SPEAKER_01]: which can mean anything from reductions in headcount through to cutbacks entirely.

[00:09:58] [SPEAKER_03]: Is there a risk that CISA might go away altogether?

[00:10:01] [SPEAKER_01]: There is always a risk.

[00:10:02] [SPEAKER_01]: And Rand Paul, the senator from Kentucky I spoke about earlier, has said that he would like that in an ideal world.

[00:10:07] [SPEAKER_01]: But even he admits it's unlikely.

[00:10:09] [SPEAKER_01]: People we spoke to said that there are lawmakers on both sides of the House that would pretty much go to the map for CISA.

[00:10:15] [SPEAKER_01]: They understand its importance.

[00:10:16] [SPEAKER_01]: And also, CISA is so deeply embedded now in so many various parts of the federal government,

[00:10:20] [SPEAKER_01]: it would be hard to extract it quickly.

[00:10:22] [SPEAKER_01]: The risk is that we end up in a situation where we were maybe eight years ago before CISA was even created,

[00:10:28] [SPEAKER_01]: where there is no real coordination at the federal level.

[00:10:30] [SPEAKER_01]: And every agency does their own thing.

[00:10:32] [SPEAKER_01]: And as a result, you end up with chaos.

[00:10:34] [SPEAKER_03]: James, what has CISA said about all this?

[00:10:36] [SPEAKER_01]: CISA has remained diplomatic about this.

[00:10:39] [SPEAKER_01]: A spokesman said the agency is fully committed to a seamless transition and left it there,

[00:10:44] [SPEAKER_01]: in the same way that the Trump transition team said.

[00:10:48] [SPEAKER_01]: The American people re-elected President Trump by a resounding margin,

[00:10:52] [SPEAKER_01]: giving him a mandate to implement the promises he made in the campaign trail.

[00:10:55] [SPEAKER_01]: Everyone's waiting to see what happens.

[00:10:56] [SPEAKER_01]: Although we do know some change is coming.

[00:10:58] [SPEAKER_01]: Jenny Salih, the current director, said she will stand down on the day of President Trump's inauguration,

[00:11:03] [SPEAKER_01]: along with all other politically appointed officials.

[00:11:06] [SPEAKER_01]: So that will herald a change at the top of the agency for sure.

[00:11:09] [SPEAKER_03]: That was our reporter, James Rundle.

[00:11:11] [SPEAKER_03]: And that's it for Tech News Briefing.

[00:11:13] [SPEAKER_03]: Today's show was produced by Julie Chang with supervising producer Catherine Millsop.

[00:11:19] [SPEAKER_03]: Logging off, I'm Belle Lin for The Wall Street Journal.

[00:11:22] [SPEAKER_03]: We'll sign back in this afternoon with TNB Tech Minute.

[00:11:25] [SPEAKER_03]: Thanks for listening.

[00:11:27] Thanks for listening.