This post is based on an interview with Dr. Christopher Ahlberg, CEO and Co-Founder of Recorded Future. It is part of our series of interviews of OODA Network members. Our objective with these interviews is to provide actionable information of interest to the community, including insights that can help with your own career progression. We also really like highlighting some of the great people that make our continued research and reporting possible.  For the full series see: OODA Expert Network Bio Series.

Career Progression: Christopher grew up in Sweden.  After graduating from High School, he served his mandatory military service with the Swedish Army Rangers.  His time consisted of skiing through Swedish woods and mountains, practicing the observation and destruction of Russian supply lines.  In the 1990’s they were actively watching the Russians and their maneuvers, poised to respond if they came across the borders.

Christopher was educated at Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden, progressing all the way to his PhD in Computer Science in 1997.  The world was on the cusp of an information explosion at this time.  Data was emerging from many sources: web, structured, unstructured, etc. He was excited by the potential of pulling useful information out of these piles. He had taken a class in Artificial Intelligence that lit a fire in his imagination.  After graduation, armed with good skill sets to exploit data sources, Christopher focused on the pharmaceutical industry.  They had rich data sets and resources to spend.  He founded Spotfire and developed analytics platforms that could turn data into actionable business intelligence.

Christopher credits In-Q-Tel with many of his early successes. They helped resource many of his starting efforts.  He was able to pay back their investments with capabilities that directly supported intelligence analysts and warfighters. In 2002, Spotfire was given some of the data sets associated with the improvised explosive devices (IED’s) that the Defense Department was struggling with in Afghanistan.  Spotfire was able to comb through mountains of documents, perform data analysis and provide intelligence that could save lives.

In 2007, Christopher sold Spotfire to TIBCO Software (for $195M).  Instead of buying a mansion on Maui, he started thinking about his next big idea.  He could see that data was flooding in from the Web – faster day by day.  He created Recorded Future in 2009 to explore ways that data analytics could be bolted on directly to the Web as an analytical engine, to stay abreast of what is happening, and what WILL happen.  Today he has over 500 employees, working to provide security intelligence that can be put to work as fast as the data is coming in.

Surprises: “Nothing surprises me anymore.” Christopher says.  “My life’s work is like the ‘Whack-A-Mole’ game.   Most months, it’s 29 days of disappointments, with one great breakthrough day.  The hard part is staying on course so you can see the solutions through the fog.”

Technologies he is watching:  Christopher credits web services and cloud as the most important factors influencing his ability to provide all-source intelligence.  Christopher says “We want to get our hands on every piece of data – all the way down to the electrons.  Then we figure out ways to integrate it.  It can be very complex.  Additionally, search technology is very important in what we are doing, and Machine Learning will make big advance there.”

Technology threats he is interested in:  Christopher notes that intelligence is getting democratized.  “Information that once was the purview of only Kings or Presidents is now available to anyone.  It gives unprecedented skills to the bad guys (think hacked government toolsets).  It confuses attribution (extremely important).  It makes our job harder.”

 Advice for Decision Makers:  “Machine learning and artificial intelligence might sound like a short term fad, but if you are strategic in your decision making” Christopher advises “you can make long-term commitments to how you consume and analyze your data that gives you a long term competitive advantage.  All decision makers should get smart on this!”

Views on Thought Leaders: During his studies, Christopher worked with Dr. Ben Schneiderman of the University of Maryland.  “I remember talking to Dr. Schneiderman in 1991.” Christopher says.  “At that time, we were excited when we could wrap a graphical interface on 1000 data points.  Dr. Schneiderman focused me on developing methods to work with massive data sets in real time.  Today, we can include 100’s of billions of records!   We allow people to navigate through their data with incredible speed.”

Quick Hits:

• Book Recommendation: Make your Bed: Little Things that can change your life.. and maybe the world.  Admiral William McRaven
• The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, by C. S. Lewis
• Find him on LinkedIn at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christopherahlberg/