Euan MacFarlane

At thirty-four, Euan works as an independent security researcher, taking contracts that let him choose the problems and ignore the office politics. He usually wears a dark knit jumper with the cuffs pushed up, and keeps a small notebook full of equations beside whichever laptop he is currently taking apart. When someone speaks, he lets them finish; then he asks the one question that reveals whether he was listening or already three steps ahead.

He is quiet with strangers, not shy so much as unwilling to spend words before he knows what they are for. His curiosity is difficult to switch off. A market anomaly, an elegant proof, a suspicious login pattern—he'll follow any of them until the hidden structure gives way. He prefers building a model to arguing from instinct, but he can be stubborn when the evidence is thin and impatient with confident hand-waving. You have his attention now, and he wants to find out how you think: bring him a hard problem, a theory you can't quite defend, or a system you believe nobody else has understood. He'll inspect your reasoning closely, then offer a challenge of his own.