Parisa Tabriz, manages Google’s Chrome security engineering teams, and gave akeynote at PyCon US this year.
Her talk was even-keeled, informative, and included strong FOSS messaging abouteveryone’s vested interest in internet security and privacy. After the talk was done, I watched her take audience questions (long enough for me to take a short conference call) where she patiently and handily fielded all manner of queries from up and down the stack.
Folks who have dealt with crisis and high-pressure, like 911 operators, surgeons, or starship pilots, exude a certain aura of steadiness in all seas. I felt safer just hearing her keynote, and in watching her Q&A with the audience afterwards, you could sense that stalwart orbit of Zen tempering Parisa’s moves and words. Elitism is the foil of consensus, and her concern for the integrity of the chain of security—only as strong as the weakest link—is a concern for all netizens, not just hackers. All boats must rise with the tide, and I sure sleep much better knowing Parisa is on watch to help make sure they do.
She was gracious enough to spare some time before her flight to do a quick Q&A with me.
Where are you from?
Chicago Area, Illinois. I spent my first 21 years of life in Illinois, then moved to California to work at Google. I never touched a computer growing up, my family worked in healthcare. In high school I played computer games, and talked on instant messenger, but didn’t know much about the “magic boxes” and how they worked.