Jon Sakoda of Decibel joins me to break down AI's impact on cybersecurity startups, venture funding, and why endpoint is the Super Bowl of cyber.

Jon is the Founding Partner at Decibel, an early-stage firm backing technical founders in security and infrastructure. He started his career founding IMlogic, an IM security company acquired by Symantec, then spent over a decade at NEA working with companies like Cloudflare, MongoDB, and HackerOne before launching Decibel. We got into why he thinks AI is only magical if you have a magic power, why Decibel led a $100M seed into Ent, and where the firm is placing its next bets.

In this episode:

  • Why Decibel operates like the Navy SEALs next to the big platform funds
  • The founder community model and finding the early believers among CISOs
  • What separates the founders who finish now that AI lets everyone start
  • Ent's $100M seed and the self-driving moment for endpoint security
  • Telling genuinely AI-native companies apart from AI washing
  • AI eating venture capital and why cyber's best years are ahead
  • Open models, frontier labs, and why the cat is out of the bag
  • The agentic SOC, Dropzone AI, and driver assistance vs. self-driving
  • Startup consolidation cycles and being an N of one
  • How buyers and job seekers should evaluate early-stage vendors
  • Decibel's next bets, from novel AI models to resilience and cyber insurance

Chapters:

0:00 Intro
 0:32 Jon's background and founding Decibel
 2:25 Big platform funds vs. specialized firms
 3:56 Founders helping founders and early believers
 6:22 Scaling beyond the early adopters
 7:40 Who finishes the marathon in the AI era
 10:19 Founders from outside cyber
 12:21 Ent's $100M seed and the endpoint bet
 14:53 AI-native vs. AI washing
 17:04 AI is eating venture capital
 18:55 Open models vs. frontier labs
 22:41 The agentic SOC and Dropzone AI
 26:03 Consolidation and the startup cycle
 29:22 How buyers should evaluate young vendors
 31:43 Decibel's next bets and cyber resilience
 34:11 Game Day at Black Hat

Connect with Jon:
 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonsakoda/
Decibel: https://www.decibel.vc

Subscribe for more conversations with security practitioners and leaders, and find my writing at https://www.resilientcyber.io

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