Nico Sell is the firm’s co-founder and CEO.[12] She has a bachelor’s degree in government (with a focus on nuclear strategy) from Dartmouth.[12] She is a self-described hacker (described by one source as a white-hat hacker).[10] and is the organizer of the world's largest hacker conference, DEF CON.[6] According to Fortune Magazine, Sell “has staunchly advocated for security education” and “runs a white-hat hacking camp for children and teenagers at the Def Con conference in Las Vegas every year.”[12] She is also the co-founder and CEO of nonprofit organization r00tz which teaches kids to hack for ‘good’.[10] Sell has a strong sense of personal privacy, keeping details of herself and her family private.[14] The Wall Street Journal stated in June 2014 that Sell “carries black business cards with no phone number or email address, refuses to say her age and wears sunglasses in photos to thwart facial-recognition technology.”[22] Inc.com called Sell “part of an idealistic but ambitious movement in Silicon Valley looking to flip the switch on how we live and share and do business online. These entrepreneurs see the status quo--in which users have signed away the rights to their data and online existence to Facebook, Google, Apple, Twitter, and a few other supremely powerful companies--as not just a violation of privacy but also as fatal to innovation.”[14] Sell told Inc.com that she considers herself a “venture catalyst”[14] and said she had invested in over 20 “successful security companies.”[14]