From a startups management consulting shop to a $1.4B IBM acquisition — Octo Consulting Group's journey is one of the great growth stories in government IT. In Brian and Sean sit down with Jay Shah, Octo's former COO, who joined 18 months after founding and helped guide the company through every inflection point: the pivot from consulting to DevSecOps and agile software development, the move from sub to prime, the strategic use (and intentional non-use) of the 8(a) program, the 2019 Arlington Capital Partners recapitalization, four acquisitions, the launch of OLabs, and ultimately the IBM exit in December 2022. Jay shares the unvarnished playbook for small businesses trying to scale in the federal market and discusses why diversification matters more than the 8(a) badge, when to be bold with primes (and when to bluff), how to translate billable services into IP, why OLabs only worked because they had base hits first, and what most founders get wrong about working capital. Brian and Jay discuss the funk master flautist Karl Denson.

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RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

Featured Guest
- Jay Shah on LinkedIn

Capital, Mentorship & Workforce Development
- Mason Enterprise — APEX Accelerator
- Veterans Institute for Procurement (VIP)
- Andreessen Horowitz American Dynamism
- Pax Ventures

Books & Frameworks Referenced
- The Trusted Advisor by David Maister, Charles Green, and Robert Galford
- The Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe)
- Westrum Organizational Culture Typology
- Gene Kim & The Phoenix Project
- DORA (DevOps Research and Assessment)

Live Music Aside
- Karl Denson's Tiny Universe
- The Greyboy Allstars

Jay's Nonprofit Work
- The Children's Inn at NIH
- Wolf Trap Foundation for the Performing Arts
- Loudoun Hunger Relief

The Hosts & Show
- Swish
- GIST360

CONNECT WITH US

Got an idea for a future episode? Want to be a guest? Let us know.

Brian Lake - blake@swishdata.com

Sean Applegate - sapplegate@swishdata.com

Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or gist360.com.

"Chaos." "Change." "Opportunity." Three words that surfaced in a room full of federal contractors when asked to describe today's government IT environment. Sean and Brian unpack what's really driving the disruption, from RIFs and FAR overhauls to FedRAMP changes, the Anthropic supply chain risk designation, and the brain drain hitting agencies like NIST. They dig into the structural changes reshaping how government buys and builds technology — OTAs gaining momentum, Golden Dome's six-month IDIQ award turnaround, and CDOs finally getting real budget authority to break down data silos. Then they pivot to where the real opportunity lives: $50B in federal IT contracting in Q4 FY25, $13B for autonomy and AI at the Department of War, mission Genesis investments at DOE, and the massive energy build-out required to keep pace with China. Brian gets smart on Markdown files.

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RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

Federal AI Policy & Executive Orders
- OMB M-25-21 — Accelerating Federal Use of AI through Innovation, Governance, and Public Trust
- OMB M-25-22 — Driving Efficient Acquisition of Artificial Intelligence in Government
- Executive Order 14179 — Removing Barriers to American Leadership in AI
- America's AI Action Plan
- AI.gov

NIST AI Standards & Frameworks
- NIST AI Agent Standards Initiative (launched Feb 17, 2026)
- NIST AI Risk Management Framework
- NIST AI 600-1 (Generative AI Profile)

Acquisition Reform & Contract Vehicles
- FAR Overhaul (Revolutionary FAR Overhaul)
- GSA SEWP V extension and SEWP VI updates
- Missile Defense Agency Golden Dome IDIQ
- Other Transaction Authorities (OTAs) — DAU guide

Department of War / Defense AI
- DoD Chief Digital and AI Office (CDAO)
- Defense Innovation Unit

Department of Energy
- Mission Genesis

Workforce & Learning Resources
- freeCodeCamp
- Anthropic's Claude documentation (markdown skills & agent files)
- Model Context Protocol (MCP)

The Hosts & Show
- Swish
- GIST360

CONNECT WITH US

Got an idea for a future episode? Want to be a guest? Let us know.

Brian Lake - blake@swishdata.com

Sean Applegate - sapplegate@swishdata.com

Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or gist360.com.

There's a workforce inside your agency that nobody hired, no one trained, and nobody is watching. We're talking about AI agents. In Episode 2 of The GIST of Govt IT, Brian and Sean sit down with Elad Schulman, CEO and co-founder of Lasso Security, to unpack what it actually takes to secure an agentic federal enterprise that seemed to arrive on the scene overnight. They dig into AI sprawl, the new attack surface created by autonomous agents, and why traditional security playbooks don't work when the system you're defending is non-deterministic. Elad shares why "intent security" is the new frontier, how agentic red teaming finds vulnerabilities a hundred humans never would, and what happens when an agent goes rogue (hint: it doesn't have to be malicious to cause real damage). Also, what it takes for innovative non-traditional vendors to actually move at the speed the federal government now demands. Finally, if you task an AI agent to keep your house clean, you better make sure to instruct it not to kill your family.

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RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

Featured Guest
- Elad Schulman, CEO & Co-Founder, Lasso Security
- Lasso Security
- Lasso Intent Security for AI Agents

OMB Memos & Executive Orders on Federal AI
- OMB M-25-21 — Accelerating Federal Use of AI through Innovation, Governance, and Public Trust
- OMB M-25-22 — Driving Efficient Acquisition of Artificial Intelligence in Government
- Executive Order 14179 — Removing Barriers to American Leadership in AI
- America's AI Action Plan

Federal AI Use Case Inventories
- 2025 Federal Agency AI Use Case Inventory (GitHub)
- Federal AI Use Case Repository (Searchable)

AI Security Frameworks & Standards
- NIST AI Risk Management Framework (AI RMF)
- OWASP Top 10 for Agentic AI
- ISO/IEC 42001 — AI Management System Standard

GIST360 Webinar

- Securing AI at Scale: Adopting Intelligent and Autonomous Zero Trust Approaches

Hosts

- Swish
- GIST360

CONNECT WITH US

Got an idea for a future episode? Want to be a guest? Let us know.

Brian Lake - blake@swishdata.com

Sean Applegate - sapplegate@swishdata.com

Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or gist360.com.

Sean and Brian kick off The GIST of Govt IT with a conversation around why speed and real results are suddenly the only things that matter in federal IT, what's actually exciting in first response tech, and which consumer trends are about to hit the public sector harder than anyone expects. Then they turn to 2026, where app modernization, AI, and data strategy are colliding into one massive shift, all riding on the infrastructure overhaul that's been put off for way too long. Toss in a look at how recent OT acquisitions are scrambling the playing field and a frank take on what agencies need to stop wasting time on.

Thanks for listening, to learn more or engage go to www.GIST360.com