What's Up with Tech?

Evan Kirstel

Tech Transformation with Evan Kirstel: A podcast exploring the latest trends and innovations in the tech industry, and how businesses can leverage them for growth, diving into the world of B2B, discussing strategies, trends, and sharing insights from industry leaders!With over three decades in telecom and IT, I've mastered the art of transforming social media into a dynamic platform for audience engagement, community building, and establishing thought leadership. My approach isn't about personal brand promotion but about delivering educational and informative content to cultivate a sustainable, long-term business presence. I am the leading content creator in areas like Enterprise AI, UCaaS, CPaaS, CCaaS, Cloud, Telecom, 5G and more!

  1. 20 HR AGO

    Why Modern Buyers Hold The Power And What Marketers Must Change

    Interested in being a guest? Email us at admin@evankirstel.com Tired of chasing downloads that never turn into deals? We sat down with Refine Labs’ CEO Megan Bowen to unpack why so many B2B playbooks still assume the seller holds the power—and how to rebuild your go-to-market around the way buyers actually make decisions today. From redefining MQLs to recognizing meaningful intent, this conversation is a straight path from vanity metrics to qualified pipeline. We break down the Brand–Demand–Expand model in practical terms. Brand ensures you land on the day-one consideration set with clear, memorable narratives. Demand translates attention into real sales conversations by removing friction and aligning to buyer timing. Expand focuses on adoption, retention, and account growth, turning customers into advocates who fuel word of mouth. Along the way, you’ll hear why aggressive outreach erodes trust, how to design self-serve paths that respect buyers, and where most teams underinvest when it comes to lifetime value. Pulling it all together, we explore Refine Labs’ rigorous onboarding: multi-quarter revenue analysis, funnel diagnostics, and creative audits that produce a focused roadmap instead of a one-size-fits-all playbook. We also dive into an AI strategy that actually matters—AI-powered benchmarks from first-party data, automation that frees humans for strategy, and structured experiments that prove lift before scaling. Add in concrete steps for aligning sales and marketing around shared pipeline and revenue goals, and a people-first culture that compounds performance, and you get a blueprint for modern B2B growth that’s both human and high performing. If you’re ready to move beyond form fills and start building buyer intent, hit follow, share this with your team, and leave a quick review to tell us what you’ll change first. Your feedback helps more leaders find these conversations and modernize their go-to-market. Inspiring Tech Leaders - The Technology PodcastInterviews with Tech Leaders and insights on the latest emerging technology trends.Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify Support the show More at https://linktr.ee/EvanKirstel

    24 min

  2. 1 DAY AGO

    From Ransomware To Resilience: Unifying Data Security And AI

    Interested in being a guest? Email us at admin@evankirstel.com We’re joined by **Anand Eswaran**, CEO of **Veeam Software**, and **Rehan Jalil**, CEO of **Securiti AI**, following Veeam’s bold acquisition of Securiti—a move that fuses data protection, security, and AI governance into one platform. Together, they unpack why GPUs alone can’t fix untrusted data and why 80–90% of enterprise AI projects fail, exploring how unifying data security and resilience lays the groundwork for AI that’s safe, compliant, and genuinely useful. GPUs don’t fix untrusted data. We dig into why 80–90% of enterprise AI projects falter and how bringing data security and data resilience together creates the foundation for AI that’s safe, compliant, and actually useful. Our guests break down a data command graph that maps files, tables, permissions, sensitivity, and regulations across on-prem, cloud, SaaS, and modern warehouses, then uses that context to enforce the right controls and power rapid recovery. We explore how DSPM fits inside a larger platform that understands data relationships, flags toxic connections, and automates remediation. From ransomware and exfiltration to model poisoning, the graph approach speeds both prevention and incident response. You’ll hear how to prioritize the crown jewels, set dynamic resilience policies, and hit aggressive RPO/RTO targets so the business stays online. We also dive into safe AI enablement: find the sensitive “needles,” mask or tokenize them, and let the “haystack” fuel conversational search and agents without leaking secrets. The conversation goes further into operational reality: low-friction adoption for existing environments, visualizing which datasets train which models, and rolling back AI pipelines with precision when bad data slips through. We talk timelines for integrating the platforms and why this unified view unlocks better security, stronger governance, and smarter storage tiering. If you’re ready to raise AI success rates, reduce blast radius, and move faster with confidence, this one lays out the playbook. If this resonates, follow the show, share it with a teammate who owns AI risk, and leave a quick review telling us which challenge you want solved next. --- Would you like me to format it as a LinkedIn or YouTube post (optimized for engagement and readability on those platforms)? Inspiring Tech Leaders - The Technology PodcastInterviews with Tech Leaders and insights on the latest emerging technology trends.Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify Support the show More at https://linktr.ee/EvanKirstel

    26 min

  3. 4 DAYS AGO

    How Agentic AI Turns Fleets Of Macs Into Enterprise Muscle

    Interested in being a guest? Email us at admin@evankirstel.com What if your next high-performing hire never sleeps, knows your stack, and ships secure environments in hours? We dive deep with Chris Chapman CTO of MacStadium to map the shift from brittle automation to agentic AI running on fleets of Macs, where outcomes replace step-by-step scripts and digital employees take on repeatable, high-value work. Chris opens the hood on Orca, their software-defined Mac platform, and shares how customers virtualize thousands of machines to train agents, spin up secure developer workspaces, and deploy specialized small language models that thrive on Apple silicon. We explore why early movers gain an edge: building agents around their policies and workflows instead of bending to generic tools. That means using standards like MCP and A2A for reliable tool use, embracing hybrid architectures that keep sensitive data sovereign, and bringing compute to the data rather than hauling data to the cloud. The result is practical speed: fleets that scale on demand, agents that verify progress at checkpoints, and environments that remain auditable and compliant. Add the efficiency of Apple silicon—high performance per watt, unified memory, and strong on-device inference—and you get meaningful cost control without sacrificing capability. Security stays front and center. We unpack a security-by-design approach where agents inherit guardrails, act on alerts, remediate drift before rollout, and document every change. We also talk shop about the road ahead: M5-based clusters for training and inference, deeper graphics and AI integration in Orca, and Apple’s unique edge-to-cloud continuity that unlocks multimodal workflows from Vision Pro and iPhone to Mac mini clusters. If you’re weighing how agentic AI will reshape roles, budgets, and delivery, this conversation offers a clear blueprint: encode goals, codify guardrails, and let agents do the heavy lifting while your team moves upstream to architecture and strategy. If this resonated, follow the show, share it with a colleague, and leave a quick review to help others find it. Support the show More at https://linktr.ee/EvanKirstel

    19 min

  4. 5 DAYS AGO

    Crypto Safety, Finally

    Interested in being a guest? Email us at admin@evankirstel.com What if your crypto wallet felt as safe as your bank account? We sit down with Crypto Insurer BDIC Insurance Founder and CEO Jeffrey Glusman to unpack a bold plan to bring deposit insurance to digital assets and unlock mainstream confidence. Instead of chasing whales, the model targets the everyday holder with clear, affordable coverage tiers, vetted wallets, and a focused list of insurable coins. The goal is to turn fear, uncertainty, and doubt into transparent rules and reliable protection that stands up when it counts. We dig into how coverage works, what’s actually insured, and why solvency signals matter—sovereign fund commitments, bank guarantees, and established carriers. Exchanges are watching closely. With regulators weighing in and users demanding safety, supplemental insurance could become table stakes. Using the Bybit hack as a reality check, Jeffrey explains how an insured framework could have reimbursed most losses, protected AUM, and kept trust intact. Insurance can’t stop every breach, but it can turn catastrophic events into recoverable ones. Education plays a starring role. We break down hot versus cold wallets, key custody, tokenization, and the small habits that prevent big losses. Jeffrey shares a painful personal phishing story and a recent large-scale fraud involving a spoofed bank and forged policies—then maps out the steps that stop most attacks: a dedicated wallet device with no SIM, no socials, no SMS 2FA; SIM locks at the carrier; $1 test transfers; and on-chain verification. Finally, we talk go-to-market: why Hong Kong and Pan-Asia come first, why Latin America is primed, and how a utility token and partner exchanges could kick off a domino effect toward industry-wide normalization. If you care about crypto adoption, user protection, and credible risk management, this conversation brings clarity and a practical path forward. Subscribe, share with a friend who trades, and leave a review with your take: should exchanges be required to offer deposit-style insurance? Support the show More at https://linktr.ee/EvanKirstel

    21 min

  5. 6 DAYS AGO

    From Hype To ROI: Making Enterprise AI Work

    Interested in being a guest? Email us at admin@evankirstel.com Most AI pilots impress in a demo and stall in production. We wanted to unpack why. Joseph Kim is the President and CEO of Druid AI joins us to break down the real blockers to AI readiness and the playbook that moves teams from wow to working systems. We talk candidly about market hype, sobering stats on failed deployments, and the ingredients that make enterprise agents safe, accurate, and compliant at scale. We start with first principles: define the business case, choose the right capability for the job, and decide if AI is even necessary. Joe draws a clean line between generative tasks and agentic tasks, explaining why a passable answer is fine for search but dangerous for automated actions. He shows how Druid engineers fidelity with background subroutines that pre-check identity, history, and likely intent, so the first response is accurate and the downstream steps are auditable. That control layer—complete logs, policy dials, and compliance hooks—turns black-box models into systems you can govern and certify. From there, we tackle data hygiene, hallucination traps, and how to measure success beyond vanity metrics. Joe lays out a practical path: start small with a high-value workflow, track NPS, deflection rates, and accuracy, then expand into adjacent use cases. For enterprises running dozens of agents from different vendors, we dig into orchestration. Druid’s Conductor acts as a control plane that routes tasks, mediates context, and prevents lock-in, so you can swap components without burning time and budget. We close with a grounded take on the AI bubble: yes, excitement inflates expectations, but the durable gains will mirror the early internet—messy at first, transformative over time. If you’re ready to turn experiments into outcomes, this conversation will help you align technology with ROI, design for compliance, and scale with confidence. Subscribe, share with a teammate who owns an AI pilot, and leave a review with the one blocker you want us to tackle next. Support the show More at https://linktr.ee/EvanKirstel

    16 min

  6. 28 OCT

    Building An Open Agent Mesh For Real Enterprise Workflows

    Interested in being a guest? Email us at admin@evankirstel.com What happens when agents can talk to agents—securely, asynchronously, and at scale? We sit down with Edward Funnekotter Chief Architect and AI Officer from Solace to unpack the architecture behind an open agent mesh and why event-driven design is the key to turning AI hype into dependable workflows. Instead of a single chatbot, imagine a network of specialized agents that advertise their skills, discover each other, and coordinate like a high-functioning team. They fetch data from Salesforce and support systems, compile a customer health report, rank the urgent accounts, and hand you the three actions that matter. We get practical about where to start. Dynamic dashboarding and interactive analysis are low-lift, high-impact wins, and they translate smoothly into scheduled reports and triaged alerts. Using an event broker lets you subscribe to only the events you need, template them into agent requests, and run parallel tasks without disturbing existing integrations. The philosophy is simple and powerful: make LLMs do less. Reserve the model for judgment and planning, then let deterministic tools handle transformations, queries, and updates. You’ll cut latency and cost while improving reliability. Security isn’t an afterthought. We dig into prompt injection, data leakage, and how to enforce tainted-context policies so confidential data never escapes to public tools—and external data never triggers risky internal actions. Lineage and audit trails make decisions explainable. We also explore the role of standards like A2A and MCP, why big-tech sponsorship accelerates adoption, and how open-source on-ramps paired with enterprise hardening create trust. Looking ahead, we see an AI org chart that mirrors the human one: layered roles, clear responsibilities, and shared context running on faster, cheaper infrastructure that prioritizes answer quality over raw speed. Ready to build with confidence instead of cobbling in the shadows? Listen now, subscribe for more conversations at the edge of AI and architecture, and leave a review with the first agent workflow you’d deploy. Inspiring Tech Leaders - The Technology PodcastInterviews with Tech Leaders and insights on the latest emerging technology trends.Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify Support the show More at https://linktr.ee/EvanKirstel

    26 min

  7. 27 OCT

    How AI Is Changing Cyberattacks And How Enterprises Can Proactively Test Defenses To Stay Ahead

    Interested in being a guest? Email us at admin@evankirstel.com The fastest way to lose a security battle is to wait for it to start. We pull back the curtain on a proactive strategy to break the attack chain—disrupting reconnaissance, lateral movement, and exfiltration—by uniting offensive testing with integrated blue team defenses that actually prove what works. John Grancarich Chief Strategy Officer Fortra, joins us to explain how red and blue can operate on a single vision that prioritizes the real prize: protecting data wherever it lives. We dig into the AI-fueled threat surge—hyper-personalized phishing, deepfake-driven social engineering, and automated vulnerability discovery—and get specific on how to respond. John walks through a three-part AI model security of AI to safeguard gen AI pipelines from prompt injection, data leakage, and shadow tools security from AI to detect AI-powered threats with behavior-led models and security with AI to augment SOC teams by automating triage and enrichment. The result is a realistic path to faster incident response, fewer false positives, and more time for human judgment. Data sits at the center of the story. John shares why Fortra acquired Lookout’s cloud security business and how capabilities like CASB, secure web gateway, and ZTNA now pair with endpoint and network controls to create a unified data security approach. With consolidated discovery, classification, and policy enforcement through one console, teams can spot risk sooner and stop exfiltration with less friction. We also talk culture: practical awareness programs, phishing simulations, and the simple discipline of slowing down before clicking. Finally, we look ahead to a unified platform that brings red and blue together, a new DSPM rollout, and the bold goal of enabling the 10x security engineer. Support the show More at https://linktr.ee/EvanKirstel

    16 min

  8. 23 OCT

    From Threat Intel To Unified Cyber Risk Intelligence

    Interested in being a guest? Email us at admin@evankirstel.com Noise is the enemy of good defense. We sit down with Jawahar Sivasankaran President of Cyware to unpack how a threat-centered architecture, powered by agentic AI and rich collaboration, can turn scattered data into clear, prioritized action. Rather than adding yet another dashboard, the strategy puts high-fidelity intelligence at the core of the SOC so every control—detection, response, and exposure management—makes smarter moves, faster. We trace the evolution from a classic TIP to unified cyber risk intelligence, where enrichment, STIX-based normalization, and context from compromised credentials, domain sightings, and digital risk protection reshape triage. You’ll hear why many enterprises still drown in alert fatigue, how agent frameworks outperform simple LLM wrappers, and what it takes to route Tier 1 work to autonomous agents so analysts can focus on adversary mapping, hunting, and enterprise risk decisions. The result: measurable reductions in mean time to detect and respond, plus clearer board reporting on actors, TTPs, and shifting exposure. Trust and speed also come from the community. We dig into bidirectional sharing with ISACs and focused sector hubs, and how downstream organizations with limited staff can turn shared intel into executable actions, not just headlines. We explore the twin pillars of AI for security and security for AI—covering model and agent risks, governance, and the practical wins of AI-driven SOC transformation. Finally, we look ahead at strategic partnerships and a platform approach that pushes beyond legacy TIP capabilities to meet how attackers operate today. If you’re ready to cut the noise, put intelligence in the driver’s seat, and let agents handle the grind, this conversation offers a clear blueprint. Subscribe, share with your team, and leave a review with your biggest alert-fatigue challenge—we’ll tackle it in a future show. Support the show More at https://linktr.ee/EvanKirstel

    19 min
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About

Tech Transformation with Evan Kirstel: A podcast exploring the latest trends and innovations in the tech industry, and how businesses can leverage them for growth, diving into the world of B2B, discussing strategies, trends, and sharing insights from industry leaders!With over three decades in telecom and IT, I've mastered the art of transforming social media into a dynamic platform for audience engagement, community building, and establishing thought leadership. My approach isn't about personal brand promotion but about delivering educational and informative content to cultivate a sustainable, long-term business presence. I am the leading content creator in areas like Enterprise AI, UCaaS, CPaaS, CCaaS, Cloud, Telecom, 5G and more!

Information

  • Creator
    Evan Kirstel
  • Years Active
    2024 - 2025
  • Episodes
    546
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2025 TechInfluencer
  • Show Website
    What's Up with Tech?

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