the Soccket ball. Essentially, she inserted a micro-generator inside a soccer ball that harnesses energy from play. The Soccket can produce three hours of light from each hour on the field.
This is the point where most of us would call it a day. She had created a great soccer ball company that had the added benefit of generating electricity. Jessica’s Harvard training would tell her to pursue distribution channels, maximize profits, and refine production for scale.
But Jessica didn’t think that way. She didn’t think of her company as a soccer ball manufacturer, but instead she was building an organization committed to using movement to create energy. The next invention came quickly, an energy-producing jump rope that could be used indoors. The logical next step would be to expand her business into other energy-creating toys. The company’s mission was to use play to create energy. Or was it?
Remember, she didn’t set out to build a toy or fitness company. Her mission was to generate electricity through movement. The Soccket was just the first stop-off, not the destination on her journey. So her next move was to use her core technology called MORE (Motion-based Off-grid Renewable Energy) and expand into other concepts that could generate power. What about strollers or suitcases that could charge a mobile phone as they are rolled about? The product ideas started to flow. What about licensing their micro-generating systems to other manufacturers so they could be integrated into thousands of products around the world?
Deeply connected to her purpose, Jessica’s company has taken off. Inc. named Uncharted Play one of the “Top 25 Most Audacious Companies in the World.” Fast Company included them among the “World’s Top 10 Most Innovative Companies,” while Popular Science added them to the “10 Best Things” list. Uncharted Play has been profitable for the last three years, with profit margins doubling each year. At the time of this writing, Jessica is about to close “The largest Series A financing that any black woman has ever raised.” After learning about, and subsequently playing with Jessica’s first invention, President Barack Obama commented, “The Soccket turns one of the most popular games in Africa into a source of electricity and progress.”
Capturing the attention of world leaders, building a remarkably successful company, and driving game-changing humanitarian impact was propelled by the core hacker mindset of Compasses Over Maps. Shifting terrain, unexpected roadblocks, and surprise attacks can be conquered only by travelers who can think and act without detailed instructions. Creativity over compliance. Empowerment over control. Thinking over following. Compasses over maps.
The leaders at software giant Intuit have a saying: “Fall in love with the problem, not the solution.” Jessica’s success was fueled by her relentless focus on the problem – overtaxed electrical grids and a need to produce clean energy with non-traditional methods. Had she fallen in love with the solution – a soccer ball that generates electricity – she would have never expanded her company or been able to leave a gigantic, non-carbon footprint on our planet.
Hackers are drawn to problems over solutions. In fact, the art of hacking involves seeking to uncover the most elegant solution by trying numerous approaches to overcome an obstacle. Even if an approach delivers a positive result, the relentless pursuit of a better way drives the hacker to continue her craft in search of an even better approach.
Inherent to core mindset #2 is a willingness to take on pursuits without a charted course. In the same way a football team takes the field with a general strategy, but may need to change plays on the fly, hackers look at their sport as unscripted play. Rather than a detailed master strategy followed by mindless execution, these innovators journey down an unmarked trail with creative confidence.
THE BIGGEST BANK HEIST IN HISTORY
A masked man walks into a bank, hands the teller a note demanding that unmarked bills be placed in a paper bag and handed over. Or else. For many of us, this is what comes to mind when we think of a bank robbery. It’s been done the same since long before the days of Bonnie and Clyde.
Perhaps the most famous bank robber of all time, the notorious John Dillinger robbed 13 banks across five states in the Midwest, making away with over $300,000 in loot. His criminal feats were so compelling that his exploits have been glamorized in 14 star-studded motion pictures.
Compare that to the 2015 heist that most of us never heard about. Over 100 banks across 30 countries were taken for over $1 billion. Though robbers like Jesse James are more infamous, even his spoils pale in comparison to these perpetrators, who have never been identified or caught. Russian cybersecurity firm Kaspersky issued a report that documented these new robbers’ exploits. Thought to be a gang of hackers from Russia and China, they leveraged hacker mindsets to perpetrate the biggest heist in history.
Studying the crimes, Kaspersky reverse-engineered their approach. It began not only with a clear motive (stealing money) and target (banks), but also with intense curiosity. Rather than following a traditional approach, the hackers relentlessly questioned conventional tactics. They dared to try completely new strategies.
One part of their scheme involved breaking into the source code of ATM machines, allowing them to be remotely controlled. From thousands of miles away, the gang instructed specific machines to literally spew cash at exact times. They enlisted ‘money mules’ to approach the ATM machines at a precise time and collect the cash without even pressing a single button. Another aspect of the plan included deducting small amounts from thousands of accounts and then routing these funds from one account to another, through a series of inter-connected servers, making the eventual flow of funds untraceable.
To accomplish this historic heist, the robbers first had to get inside the fortress. To do this, they sent thousands of emails to unsuspecting bank employees around the world. The emails lured bank employees to open an attachment. With a single click, secretive malware was installed on the banks’ computer systems, providing the hackers unfettered access from the inside.
Rather than executing a quick grab-and-go, the patient hackers used their newfound access to study the inner-workings of each target bank. Their sense of exploration drove them to find new, better possibilities. They carefully studied each bank’s security protocols, audit trails, reporting structures, and asset flows. Their underlying quest for more insight led them deeper into their victims’ cyber-vaults, allowing them to reveal unprecedented access to near limitless funds.
Hacker mindset #2, Compasses Over Maps, enabled a crime of epic proportion and allowed these deviants to cover their tracks for a clean getaway. Rather than locking on a plan before launching their scheme, they learned and adapted along the way. They playfully taunted bank security professionals by rigging ATMs to spit out cash, and they harnessed curiosity to walk away unscathed, with over a billion dollars.
We should all feel uncomfortable here. There were real victims in this crime, and the criminals who committed these thefts should be brought to justice. I certainly don’t condone their crimes and am not encouraging you to break the law. But if we put aside their malicious intent, this small group solved a very complex problem in a novel way. Their innovative hacks outsmarted their competition and enabled them to achieve, if not exceed, their desired outcome. Embracing the hacker mindset of Compasses Over Maps can empower you to achieve your own outcomes with the same skill of these notorious criminals. But please direct your hack toward positive, legitimate ends.
NOTHING
