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Owen Colby

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@OwenColby

Investing Partner a16z - Investing in Cybersecurity Cos

| Prev: Founding Team @AdaptiveSec, Consulting @Bain, VC @MIT. Alum: @BrownUniversity, @Stanford.
SF Bay Area + NYC linkedin.com/in/owencolby/ Joined January 2013
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Owen Colby Verified account @OwenColby
AI is fundamentally changing cybersecurity, so we surveyed 100 security leaders to see how. Here's what we learned:

-- Last year AI was not a priority. Now AI initiatives are ALL of the top 7 priorities for cos: AI SOC, AI code sec, AI observability, etc.

-- Orgs want AI + humans in the loop today, but security leaders think they will increasingly trust AI to do more of the work. 36% are comfortable letting agents take on low risk actions today, thats expected to rise to 60% next year.

-- Humans are still important! About half of orgs expect to expand their security teams. Only 4% expect teams to shrink. There is just more work to do.

-- As cybersecurity risk increases, budgets are going up too. 87% expect to spend more on security next year, driven by both AI threats and the need to secure their own AI deployments.

-- A lot of this is still early. For most AI security categories, just 10-20% have AI tools in production, but over the next 1-3 years, that is expected to increase to 40-60%. Many are piloting now and deciding what to buy over the next year.

This was an incredibly fun survey to run with @steph_zhang. Special thanks to @zanelackey, @YODELAGARZA, & @DavidGeorge83. Check out the link in the comments for the full article!
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Owen Colby Verified account @OwenColby
“A lot of China’s research is just spoofing our models”

This is wrong.

US Politicians have long underestimated China. For decades they said the Chinese just copied the US for advanced manufacturing, cars, software...

China is now clearly a leader in all of these sectors.
Ori Nagel Verified account @ONagel33303 Nov 3
Abdul El-Sayed is the Pause AI candidate:
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Owen Colby Verified account @OwenColby
The most common discussion topic I hear in cybersecurity is practitioners asking when AI will replace their jobs...

Turns out AI is creating far more cybersecurity jobs!

As AI creates more risk -> more people are needed to oversee and control systems
a16z @a16z Oct 30
The AI jobs panic peaked in May and has faded fast since:

- News reports on AI job loss are down ~65%, back to year-ago levels

- Layoff announcements that cite AI are down ~90%, near the lowest of the year

Charts of the Week: a16z.news/p/charts-of-th…
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