The Killing IT Podcast

Karl W. Palachuk
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IT authors and entrepreneurs Ryan Morris, Karl Palachuk, and Dave Sobel provide commentary on the changing world of technology opportunities and emerging tech. We want to expand the discussion from the SMB IT channel to all things tech - with one eye on the future and the other on profits. Join us!

  1. 19H AGO

    Episode 215 - How Power, Policy, and Private Equity Are Shaping the Future of IT Services

    Welcome to episode 215 of the Killing IT Podcast! In this lively installment, hosts Karl Palachuk, Dave Sobel, and Ryan Morris kick off the new year by comparing winter experiences across the country—from sunny California to snow-blocked Virginia and the mild slopes of Utah. The conversation quickly shifts gears to tackle some of the biggest challenges—and opportunities—facing IT businesses today. The trio dives deep into the global arms race for electricity, highlighting China's explosive growth in energy capacity and exploring what it means for data centers, AI, quantum computing, and the MSP landscape. They emphasize that reliable power isn’t just a utility, but the lifeblood of all technological progress. The hosts then dissect major investments in AI within the IT services industry, focusing on the partnership between Thrive Holdings, Shield Technology Partners, and OpenAI. Will the influx of capital and the hands-on involvement of OpenAI engineers reshape managed services—or disrupt the competitive landscape for smaller providers? Finally, the conversation turns to the hot topic of AI-driven software development and its impact on the traditional software industry. Is it hype, a genuine threat, or a new era of innovation? Dave, Ryan, and Karl share strong opinions on whether AI will augment or replace human developers, and what that means for both market leaders and scrappy startups. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

    32 min

  2. 11/13/2025

    Episode 214 - Bitcoin's Relevance, Cybersecurity's Future in Private Sector, and Innovation Outpacing Adoption

    Topic 1: Is there a valid reason for Bitcoin to exist?  You can now use Venmo (a subsidiary of PayPal) to pay for your tacos at Taco Bell. This is just the latest addition (see Apple Pay and Google Pay). Cash App is available indirectly as a card through Apple Pay and Google Pay. E-payments are expanding all the time. We can move money to relatives via apps from banks and services like Venmo. So what role does Bitcoin play other than hiding assets and transactions from the government? https://www.tacobell.com/offers-and-deals?utm_source=venmo   Topic 2: Will Cyber Security have to Be a Private Function? CMMC (Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification) became “effective” November 10th. At this point, it’s unclear whether there’s any funding for compliance with the regulations. At the same time, CISA staff and funding have been slashed and it’s not yet clear what funding will look like going forward. Is security, monitoring of foreign actors, and distribution of cyber security-related information and alerts now simply left to the private sector by default? While some vendors will see money in pieces of this puzzle, is there a financial incentive to create a comprehensive cyber security infrastructure that’s not funded by the government?   Topic 3: Innovation Outpaces Adoption … Creating a Roadblock for Growth https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/speed-innovation-outpacing-adoptionwho-you-gonna-call-geoffrey-moore-4kyef/ https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/disruptive-innovationthe-game-changing-geoffrey-moore-cjhyc/ The speed of technology innovation has accelerated. The speed of technology adoption has not. This creates a backlog of trapped value for customers and a growth obstacle for vendors. How can we solve this? It’s all about partners getting involved to deliver implementation / adoption services for emerging / disruptive technologies. Not “selling stuff” … but enabling customers to adopt stuff and get real value from it. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

    31 min
  3. Episode 213 - AI Conspiracy Theories, GTIA's ChannelCon Insights, and US-China Chip Trade Dynamics

    08/18/2025

    Episode 213 - AI Conspiracy Theories, GTIA's ChannelCon Insights, and US-China Chip Trade Dynamics

    The episode delves into the evolving landscape of artificial intelligence (AI) and its implications for businesses, particularly in the IT sector. The hosts discuss the current state of AI, emphasizing the need for IT professionals to understand and implement AI solutions effectively. They highlight the importance of training staff on AI technologies and suggest that businesses should focus on automation rather than merely labeling their services as AI-driven. The conversation underscores the necessity of engaging with clients to identify their specific needs and how AI can be leveraged to address those challenges. The hosts also touch on the recent developments in the Global Technology Industry Association (GTIA) and its efforts to redefine its mission and community engagement. They reflect on their experiences at the GTIA's ChannelCon event, noting a positive atmosphere and a renewed focus on connecting IT professionals across various sectors. Despite the enthusiasm, they express concerns about the relatively low membership numbers and the need for the organization to demonstrate its value to attract a broader audience. A significant portion of the discussion revolves around the geopolitical implications of AI technology, particularly regarding the sale of AI chips by companies like Nvidia and AMD to China. The hosts explore the complexities of international trade and security, questioning the motivations behind China's demand for assurances against backdoors in these chips. They highlight the irony of China, a country with its own history of security breaches, insisting on such guarantees, and discuss the broader implications for global technology collaboration. Finally, the episode emphasizes the critical need for security to be integrated into technology from the ground up. The hosts argue that manufacturers should not be allowed to sell products that lack inherent security features. They advocate for a shift in the industry mindset, where security is a fundamental aspect of product design rather than an afterthought. This conversation leads to a broader reflection on the responsibility of IT professionals to educate clients about security and the importance of proactive measures in an increasingly interconnected world. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

    31 min
  4. Episode 212 - CISA updates, taxing IT professionals, and standing by generative AI

    05/23/2025

    Episode 212 - CISA updates, taxing IT professionals, and standing by generative AI

    Welcome to Episode 212 At 212 degrees fahrenheit, water becomes steam. At 211 it’s hot. At 212 you can move a locomotive or make electricity. We are happy to bring you episode 212 of the Killing IT Podcast! Please share this podcast on Apple, iHeart, or wherever you listen. Sponsored by… The Small Biz Thoughts Technology Community. The best deal in online communities for IT business owners is the Small Biz Thoughts Technology Community. Memberships start at just $799 per year, and that includes a five-week course at IT Service Provider University. Grab all the details at https://www.smallbizthoughts.org.  Topics: Topic 1: CISA update If the US government is not going to be helping small businesses with security alerts, who will step in to provide this service? Is there anything we can do to get CISA to help, or will this be another function we simply defer to Europe to provide the leadership? Doing nothing is not an option? What are you doing to stay tuned to security alerts for your clients? Topic 2: Taxes for IT consultants. Maryland and Washington announce new taxes. Who's next? Not to say we told you so, but … Whether we like it or not, taxes are coming to online services and tech support. Maryland's tax appeared very quickly, and then narrowed down to only SMALL IT consultants.  Dave mentioned this in his Business of Tech podcast, and the National Society of IT Service Providers addressed this on their blog at https://nsitsp.org/those-who-do-not-organize-get-taxed-lessons-from-marylands-3-tech-tax/. Now is a great time to decide where we as an industry stand on this. Topic 3: Under what circumstances should we rely on generative AI? There's a growing disillusionment with generative AI. There continue to be problems with hallucinations and outright falsehoods. And there are continuing examples of just plain laziness - without any meaningful accountability.  We discuss a really great, Boolean decision tree. See the graphic at https://guides.lib.usf.edu/c.php?g=1315087&p=9678779. That graphic also provides a very short, very straight-forward description of the answer. Does it matter if the output is true, accurate, or helpful? Do you have the knowledge and ability to determine whether the output is accurate? Feedback always welcome! :-) Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

    32 min
  5. Episode 211 - CISA, DeepSeek, and Competing with Microsoft

    02/20/2025

    Episode 211 - CISA, DeepSeek, and Competing with Microsoft

    Topic 1: CISA Under the Microscope CISA was called out in the Project 2025 document as a left-wing organization inside the government due to their warning about election interference. It is now subject to cuts and scrutiny. In the mass firings at DHS on February 14th, 130 employees at CISA were fired as they were “probationary” employees. Many MSPs and MSSPs subscribe to CISA.gov alerts. It is unclear how this will be affected. Wherever you stand on politics or related topics, small business needs a good source of security alerts we can rely on. What's your take? Topic 2 (AI, of course): Was DeepSeek revolutionary or just the next obvious step in the evolution of AI? From Geekwire: Satya Nadella's response was, "Jevons paradox strikes again! . . . As AI gets more efficient and accessible, we will see its use skyrocket, turning it into a commodity we just can’t get enough of." What do you think. Just another step in the evolution of AI? Or is there news here? See: - https://www.geekwire.com/2025/microsoft-ceo-says-ai-use-will-skyrocket-with-more-efficiency-amid-craze-over-deepseek/  - Wikipedia on Jevon’s Paradox: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox  - ChatGPT now has 300 million users (https://backlinko.com/chatgpt-stats)  - Google Search has 1 billion regular users, and now includes Gemini results at the top of every search - Microsoft CoPilot has about 30 million users (https://www.businessofapps.com/data/microsoft-copilot-statistics/)  - Adobe Creative Cloud has about 30 million users and includes AI in all products (https://photutorial.com/adobe-statistics/)  Topic 3: Will Microsoft compete with you - or your SOC? Now available: Microsoft Defender Experts for XDR Says Microsoft: "Our expertise is now your expertise. Augment your teams across security, compliance, identity, management, and privacy with Microsoft Security Experts." See https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/security/business/services Is this service worth considering, or should Microsoft put those resources into fixing security problems in their deployed software? The pages makes it sound like this will have a major human-led component, but that's exactly what they are NOT doing. Will you jump on board or wait to see if this is real first? And will this help Microsoft cut payroll, or just require more hiring? We welcome your feedback! :-)     Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

    31 min

  6. 11/25/2024

    KIT Episode Episode 210 - Robots, Industry Finance, and a Practical Approach to AI

    The Q4 2024 Killing IT Podcast features what may be our last discussion of robots for a long time! Topic One - Where Are My Robots??? We’ve been talking about this for five years - So where are the robots? We have a massive personnel shortage on many fronts. AI is creating jobs faster and faster. So why haven’t robots evolved to serve us? We’re on the verge. What’s the holdup? If nothing else, we're tired of talking about it.   Topic Two - The Changing Economy of Our Industry In just the last five years, a layer of billion-dollar and near-billion-dollar companies are major players in our industry. This is literally a new layer of business and ownership. They are almost entirely focused on the top 3-5% of businesses in our space. In the meantime, 95% of SMB IT consists of and serves 1-4 person companies. The continued growth at the top seems unsustainable. So . . . where is all this going? Topic Three - A Practical Approach to AI  There's some (seemingly) conflicting research with AI adoption. Forrester highlighted the benefits of Copilot adoption for SMB. Lots of benefits, increased revenue, lower employee attrition, and more. At the same time, The Information reports that customers give Copilot mixsed reviews. Large corporations are increasing their usage, but tend not to use the paid version. Is this a conflict? How do we make sense? Obviously, we have three opinions. -- -- --  That's it for Q4 and for 2024. We'll be backin Q1 2025! :-)   Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

    32 min

  7. 08/20/2024

    KIT Episode 209 - AI Risk Repository, Google Monopoly, and Quantum Cryptography. Or Not.

    We're back for Q3 2024. Quick question of the day ... then onto the topics of the day. Topic 1: MIT Releases the AI Risk Repository Thanks to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for a major resource. It's definitely more for you than your clients. But we see great opportunity here.  The public database contains 700+ risks as documented by published papers. It includes many categories, based on severity and other variables.  Check it out here: https://airisk.mit.edu/ You can poke around online and gets some good information. Or download the entire database in Excel format. You can then sort, color code, or do whatever you want with the data.  And that includes providing educationi and training for your clients -- -- --  Topic 2: Shocker - Google Has a Monopoly on Search! Okay, not really a shocker. But does it matter that a judege says so? Does anyone care (other than other search engines)? Would breaking up Google change anything? What is most likely to actually happen (e.g., Microsoft-like consent decree)? The 1984 AT&T breakup into seven baby Bells may help us see 40 years into the future As usual, we discuss. Related Link: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/13/technology/google-monopoly-antitrust-justice-department.html -- -- -- Topic 3: NIST Releases Cryptography for Quantum Computing See https://www.axios.com/2024/08/13/nist-post-quantum-cryptography-encryption. Quantum computing has been ten years away . . . for more than forty years.   Besides the “no harm to update,” how much attention do we really need to give to quantum computing?    We have three different perspective on how much this "news" matters. As usual. What do you think?   Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

    31 min

  8. 06/18/2024

    Episode 208 - Botnet Battles, the State of AI, and M&A Activity in SMB

    Topic 1: Massive Botnet Network Taken Down Police coordinated by the European Union's justice and police agencies have taken down computer networks responsible for spreading ransomware via infected emails, in what they called the biggest-ever international operation against the lucrative form of cybercrime. The European Union's judicial cooperation agency, Eurojust, said that police arrested four “high value” suspects, took down more than 100 servers and seized control of over 2,000 internet domains. Related Link: https://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory/massive-international-police-operation-takes-ransomware-networks-arrests-110667670 -- -- -- Topic 2: AI Update, because We Have To Are strategies emerging?  Amazon is a brokerage for models Microsoft is doing CoPilot OpenAI is everywhere Apple just announced Apple Intelligence Cisco announces a pile of stuff Is there a “killer app” coming soon?  -- -- --  Topic 3: How is the M&A Frenzy affecting SMB IT? Google “m&a in it consulting” and you’ll find articles, events, advice, and a whole lot people scrambling for the almighty dollar. Are the KPIs used in business acquisition really the KPIs you should be using to run a solid, long-term business? The most common way that small businesses “end” are 1) Walk away, and 2) Sell the client list. None of those people are getting 3x profit or even 3x EBITDA. Should they change their business or just keep doing what they’re doing? -- -- -- Sponsor Memo: IT Service Provider University  This episode is Sponsored by Karl’s next big class at IT Service Provider University. The five-week course, Core Standard Operating Procedures for Small IT Service Providers, starts July 2nd and costs only $399. This class walks through the most important processes and procedures you need to run a successful, profitable IT company. And best of all, you get massive handouts as a "first draft" for your own SOP library. More information at https://www.itspu.com/all-classes/classes/core-operating-procedures/ :-) Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

    29 min
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About

IT authors and entrepreneurs Ryan Morris, Karl Palachuk, and Dave Sobel provide commentary on the changing world of technology opportunities and emerging tech. We want to expand the discussion from the SMB IT channel to all things tech - with one eye on the future and the other on profits. Join us!

Information

  • Creator
    Karl W. Palachuk
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    103
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Copyright (C) 2019 - 2026 MSP Radio
  • Show Website
    The Killing IT Podcast