Ask Sage's Nicolas Chaillan on moving the DOD to zero trust and deploying Kubernetes in space

In this week’s episode of The Future of Security Operations podcast, Thomas is joined by Nicolas Chaillan. Nicolas is a security leader who has held several high-profile roles in US federal agencies including Chief Software Officer for the US Air Force and Space Force, Special Advisor for Cloud Security and DevSecOps at the Department of Defense (DOD), and Special Advisor for Cybersecurity and Chief Architect for Cyber.gov at the Department of Homeland Security. He is also the founder of no less than 13 companies, including Ask Sage, a GPT-powered platform that brings Generative AI capabilities to government teams.

Nicolas and Thomas discuss:

- Building the US government's first zero trust implementation

- Putting Kubernetes on jets and space systems

- The challenges of bringing new technologies to the federal government

- How the threat landscape will continue to evolve for US federal agencies

- The biggest mistakes entrepreneurs make

- How cross-team collaboration helped him create meaningful change at the DOD

- The future of AI in security

- The inspiration behind his AI-powered platform, Ask Sage

The Future of Security Operations is brought to you by Tines, the smart, secure workflow builder that powers some of the world’s most important workflows. https://www.tines.com/solutions/security

Where to find Nicolas Chaillan:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicolaschaillan/

Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/NicolasChaillan

Nic's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCt7jKHaxWS8W_4rcKGg7X9w

Ask Sage: https://www.asksage.ai/

Where to find Thomas Kinsella: 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomas-kinsella/

Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/thomasksec

Tines: https://www.tines.com/

Resources mentioned:

Making An Impact: Nicolas Chaillan, CEO Magazine: https://www.theceomagazine.com/executive-interviews/government-defence/nicolas-chaillan/

In this episode:

[02:20] Becoming a self-taught coder at 7 and founding his first company at 15

[05:02] Shipping 187+ technology products as a founder, in verticals as varied as healthcare, retail and banking

[07:08] The biggest mistakes entrepreneurs make

[08:40] His latest product, generative AI platform Ask Sage

[11:30] The challenges of bringing a new product to the US government

[13:45] Building the first zero trust implementation in the government as Special Advisor for Cybersecurity at the Department of Homeland Security

[15:20] Advocating for new technologies at federal agencies

[19:40] Deploying Kubernetes on 50-year-old hardware on the F16 jet at the Department of Defense

[22:02] Dealing with pushback and internal resistance to change

[24:50] Recruiting internal help to establish force-wide DevSecOps at the DOD

[29:00] Becoming Federal Chief Technology Officer at Qualys

[30:30] Reflecting on the changes he implemented while working for the US government

[33:12] Deciding which companies to work with as an advisory board member

[36:40] How the threat landscape will continue to evolve for US federal agencies

[40:50] TikTok as a channel for misinformation and national security weapon

[44:18] Nicolas' predictions for the future of security

[47: 10] Connect with Nicolas