
Interview at Adobe
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Across the past 20 years, Michael Coates has been a CISO, an entrepreneur, a board chair and an investor across the cybersecurity industry.
Michael served as Twitter’s first Chief Information Security Officer leading a security program to protect hundreds of millions of people worldwide. Coates was also previously the head of security at Mozilla where the Firefox browser was entrusted by half a billion users globally.
In addition to leading cybersecurity at some of the most impactful technology companies, Michael is an entrepreneur. He was an early employee at Shape Security where he worked with a specialized team to drastically change the way organizations defend their applications against modern application attacks. Shape Security was acquired in 2020 for $1B.
Michael was also the co-founder and CEO of Altitude Networks, a silicon valley venture backed startup. This revolutionary company redefined how data could be protected in cloud platforms and was acquired in 2022 by CoinList.
Outside of Silicon Valley, Michael also served as the Chairman of OWASP, the largest nonprofit organization in the world focusing on software security.
Before building and leading security programs, Coates was a hands-on hacker. He assessed, compromised, and secured applications and networks for some of the largest banks, governments, and enterprises around the world. Coates was also honored in 2012 when he was selected as an SC Magazine “Influential Security Mind.”
Today, Michael Coates is the founding partner of Seven Hill Ventures, a San Francisco based venture firm dedicated to supporting the next generation of industry-defining cybersecurity companies.
Exclusively represented by Leading Authorities speakers bureau, Coates draws on his vast experience securing the world’s most complex networks to bring to light the threats that exist and provide a roadmap for securing the future of technology.
(in)Security Is Eating The World: How To Build A Security Program That Succeeds. Technology has transformed nearly every segment of our lives and will continue to dramatically impact the future. From transportation, to medicine, to communication, technology underpins every aspect of how we interact with the world, and with each other. However, every day we see examples of critical security failures impacting technology, and ultimately our lives. The fundamentals of security may be simple, but the implementation is far from it. There is a massive interconnection of technologies, an explosion of data, time to market drivers, and human interpretation is mixed throughout. The solution to this chaos is not to employ more humans toiling for security. Automate or die. The future of security is a dramatic shift to autonomy, scale, and speed. Join Michael as you journey through a talk of controversial stances and hard realities to uncover a strategy for securing the future of technology.
Web3: The Opportunities and Challenges of a Decentralized Digital World. Web3 is among the most discussed topics in tech and has the potential to change the way we live, work, and do business. As we enter this next evolution of the internet, the digital world is being opened up to new technologies that can depict ownership in the form of digital assets, decentralize and record all data transfers over blockchain networks, protect intellectual property through nonfungible tokens (NFTs), and create graphic-rich metaverses where people can immerse themselves in life-like virtual experiences. But, what does this all mean for organizations, businesses, and the future of our systems? In this talk, cybersecurity and digital asset expert Michael Coates provides a high-level overview of the innovations, applications, and opportunities of Web3 in organizational operations and strategy, as well as everyday society. He also shares important insights related to the challenges Web3 presents, and puts forth practical solutions for ensuring the security of our systems in this newer, more intelligent iteration of the digital world.
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