Your Digital Infrastructure Is a Ticking Clock & Guest Eric Wenger

This week, host Ian Heller asks a question that sounds like it belongs in a boardroom but lands in everyone's living room: why do we keep using technology that's quietly falling apart? Ian is joined by his cousin Eric Wenger — Cornell and George Washington Law grad, former DOJ trial attorney in the Computer Crime and Intellectual Property section, former assistant attorney general of New York where he created the first statewide law enforcement unit focused on e-commerce, and now senior director of technology policy at Cisco Systems, the company whose hardware quietly powers nearly every corner of the internet. Together, Ian and Eric explore why corporations and governments — just like people — are neurologically wired to fight today's fires instead of tomorrow's, and why that instinct is becoming genuinely dangerous. From outdated routers running critical infrastructure to the looming threat of quantum computing that could render today's encryption obsolete almost overnight, Eric explains why the window to act is narrowing. And in a moment that reframes the whole conversation, Eric shares the deeply personal reason he now chairs a major fundraising gala for Children's National Hospital — and what losing his daughter Kayla to brain cancer at 12 taught him about urgency, purpose, and showing up before it's too late.