Shift Left, Real Moats, and Where Your Data Actually Goes, with Chris Bollerud

Most security leaders come up through IT or risk. Chris Bollerud came up through code, and it changes how he sees the entire field.Chris is the CISO at AppZen, an AI-driven finance platform, and a software engineer of more than twenty years before that. In this episode he explains why AI gives attackers and defenders the same speed boost, why shifting left only works when you automate the catch instead of training developers and hoping, and how a single dinner with two competing vendors reframed his view of application security.From there the conversation widens out. Chris makes the case that third party risk management is overdue for a reset, that frameworks like ISO 42001 and the NIST AI RMF have not earned enterprise trust, and that nearly every security questionnaire reduces to one question: where does my data go. He also shares the one line from an early career review that reshaped how he communicates, why he thinks AI slop is the next propaganda problem, and what makes a real moat when a buyer can rebuild most of your tool in weeks.A wide-ranging conversation for anyone in or around cybersecurity, from practitioners and vendors to investors and regulators.Listen and follow so you don't miss what's next.