Rob Joyce, former cybersecurity director at the National Security Agency. Photo: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Former NSA cyber official Rob Joyce is joining Maryland-based startup foundry DataTribe as a venture partner.
Why it matters: The foundry's portfolio companies will now have access to Joyce's more than three decades of experience fighting foreign government hackers.
Zoom in: DataTribe invests in only three seed-stage cybersecurity startups each year, and the foundry plays a hands-on role in fostering the companies.
Most of the founders DataTribe invests in have a background in the intelligence community or broader national security world.
The organization is behind several top cyber startups, most notably critical infrastructure company Dragos.
Between the lines: Bringing on Joyce will help DataTribe's companies understand how adversaries think, which is the only way to build better defenses, DataTribe co-founder Bob Ackerman told Axios.
Catch up quick: Joyce left the NSA in April, and he's been consulting and advising top companies, including OpenAI, for the better part of the last year.
He was most recently the cybersecurity director at the NSA, and he spent some time as an adviser and cybersecurity coordinator in the first Trump White House.
The intrigue: This is Joyce's first official role in venture capital.
He told Axios he's eager to see what new security verticals the foundry invests in, and he's particularly interested in companies that are looking to better protect stolen data from weaponization.
"How do we ensure the integrity of data to make sure the weaponized data doesn't become a new threat vector?" he said. "We spend a lot of time thinking about cyber posture."
