#271 Damien Lewke: Pro Football to CrowdStrike, Why the Best Cybersecurity Still Fails + Building Nebulock Alone

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Damien Lewke is the Founder & CEO of Nebulock, an AI-native cybersecurity company building autonomous technology to find threats before they become major attacks. Previously, he worked across CrowdStrike, Palo Alto Networks, Arctic Wolf and Northrop Grumman, four leading names across cybersecurity and defence, and studied AI at MIT. Nebulock has since run 300M+ AI-powered investigations and surfaced 4,000+ security incidents missed by existing tools.

In this conversation with Vidit, Damien traces the unconventional journey that led him there, from pursuing professional football in Germany and selling shoes in Los Angeles to discovering cybersecurity through an internship, working in Asia Pacific, and eventually quitting his job without a perfect plan to start Nebulock as a solo founder.

They unpack why cybersecurity is harder today than 12 years ago, how AI could automate hacking at scale, and why even the world’s best security tools still miss attacks. Damien also shares why he interviewed 90 customers in 90 days before writing a line of code, the 30-page manifesto that helped launch Nebulock, what he learned inside some of cybersecurity’s defining companies, and why he still runs 1,000 miles every year.

Please enjoy exploring your curiosity. ________

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