Michael Coates
20 episodes listed below
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Discussions with industry-leading CISOs about building successful security programs, succeeding in your career, and creating amazing teams. Guests from Cruise, Splunk, Gusto, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Airbnb and more! Hosted by Michael Coates, former CISO of Twitter and CEO of Altitude Networks.
Based on 5 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Practical interviews connect cybersecurity leadership to the organizational constraints that determine whether security programs actually work.
Michael Coates turns conversations with security leaders into clear accounts of how cyber risk is managed inside real organizations. The direct interview format gives guests room to explain their career decisions, the programs they inherited, and the constraints behind choices…
A sugar-packet trick meets 25-year-old devices; your security checklist might need a human column.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
Higher-ed security here comes down to trust, outreach, and making room for chaos.
The piece follows Katrina Biskay, the University of Cincinnati CISO, through an immigrant path from Ukraine, an education-minded turn, and the daily pressure of securing a large university.
A candid look at honest CISO expectations and zero-to-one security judgment.
Justin Berman's conversation with Michael Coates focuses on what it really means for a CISO role to be substantive rather than cosmetic. It also circles through his work at 30 Madison and settles on a familiar friction point: security hires can burn out when a company says it…
A sharp look at social engineering, hiring, and how security judgment gets built.
Steve Tran comes across as a CISO with a clear point of view, and the opening coffee-house magic trick makes social engineering feel unsettlingly ordinary.
Startup security feels concrete once modems, cloud sharing, and small-team access habits come into view.
Michael Coates, CEO and co-founder of Altitude Networks and formerly CISO of Twitter, joins Will Pisano, founder at Sentent and a virtual CISO at a number of small and medium startups, in a conversation that stays firmly on the practical side of security work.
A clear-eyed talk about why security failures start long before the patch cycle.
Bob Lord and Michael Coates spend the conversation on security work that is hardest to reduce to slogans: how careers turn into security, why patching matters but never solves everything, and why the biggest leverage often sits earlier in the product and decision chain.
Technology's mechanisms, power's consequences.
Dave, Joe, and Maria break down phishing kits, deepfakes, and social-engineering scams weekly.
My advice is not to patch your Exchange server - it is to get rid of it entirely.
Michael Coates and Katrina Biskay spend the episode on the University of Cincinnati's security problem, where one freshman can bring 7 to 10 connected devices and the campus also includes a hospital, police, and a power plant.
Justin Berman says the CISO job is often misread, because leaders expect either an engineer, an executive peer, or a control that prevents every mistake.
Steve Tran turns a coffee-house magic trick into a lesson about social engineering and password theft.
CISO to CISO Episode 16 focuses on how Will Pisano thinks startups should choose security priorities, from PII handling to vendor questionnaires.
Emilio Escobar says people-focused problem-solving, not technical skill alone, moved him toward the CISO role.
CISO to CISO host Michael Coates interviews Gusto CISO Fredrick “Flee” Lee about building security into company culture.