19: Cybersecurity and Innovation

“This is our world now… the world of the electron and the switch […] We exist without skin color, without nationality, without religious bias… and you call us criminals […] Yes, I am a criminal. My crime is that of curiosity” Let’s be honest, the film Hackers [1995] probably hasn’t aged well. But it introduced many of us to the notion that our virtual selves weren’t as safe as we thought we might be. As we all spend more of our time in the cloud, cybersecurity has skyrocketed to become as important (or even more so) than physical security. This episode uses the recent Twitter hack as a jumping off point to explore the murky world of cyber criminals, and the startups doing their best to counter them. There’s a rich seam of metaphors to explore, from fortresses to gendarmerie to pickpockets, and whether it’s better to rob Fort Knox or a small regional bank. Beyond just discussing cybersecurity in general, in this episode Matt and Steven discuss the tension between building things quickly and securely. When you move fast and break things, well, you break things. How can startups, particularly those using NoCode/lowcode tools, make sure they’re not setting themselves up for a fall? And where do the opportunities exist for new startups creating security tools?