a16z Podcast

a16z Podcast: Taking the ‘Cyber’ Out of Cybersecurity

Martin Casado

Posted June 15, 2017

Nearly every cybersecurity discussion/presentation follows this formula: We don’t know what we’re doing; the bad guys are getting smarter; our defenses are getting worse; everything’s more connected than ever; we’re heading towards a digital <insert explosive analogy here>. But even though security itself has obviously changed in many ways and not in others, we — as an industry — have actually gotten pretty good at doing our jobs, argues a16z general partner Martin Casado in this segment excerpted from a talk he gave at our recent Tech Policy Summit in Washington, D.C.

That’s not to minimize the seriousness or cost of cyber attacks! It’s just that changing the conversation here will let us pay attention to the fact that “cybersecurity” these days is really… “security”. Because we shouldn’t isolate the “cyber”; we need to always think of digital assets, physical assets, and human assets together. Especially as cyber — or rather, just security — has become more physical than ever (and not in the obvious Internet of Things sense).

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The a16z Podcast discusses the most important ideas within technology with the people building it. Each episode aims to put listeners ahead of the curve, covering topics like AI, energy, genomics, space, and more.

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