The Identity Jedi Show: Where Identity Meets Strategy

David Lee
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Identity was built for people. Most of what asks for access now is not a person, and the old playbook does not hold. The Identity Jedi Show is where that gets worked out honestly. Host David Lee talks with the founders, architects, and practitioners building and breaking these systems. Non-human identity, agentic AI governance, runtime authorization, and the permission boundaries nobody has solved yet. No vendor gloss. You will hear your own problems here before you hear a pitch. New episodes bi-weekly.

  1. Jul 28 ·  Bonus

    AI, Fear and The Future

    The Other Side of AI (feat. Stephen Washington) — Special Edition, Live from Las Vegas Everybody's talking agentic identity and AI security. This one's about the other side — the part that touches all of us. Live from Vegas for the pregame, I sat down with identity veteran and leader of people Stephen Washington (back for round two) to get real about what AI is doing to jobs, education, critical thinking, our kids, the planet, and our sense of what's even real anymore. We get into why AI rewrites jobs instead of erasing them, the "you have to work the AI" truth, the hidden cost of every prompt, whether you can actually sue an agent, what this means for the next generation, and the AI research that reads like a sci-fi script. No script, no easy answers — just the conversation we need to be having. The only way to beat the fear is to understand it. Let's get into it. 🌐 www.theidentityjedi.com — Subscribe & watch the full video on YouTube. Be good to each other, be kind to each other, love each other. We out. ✌️

  2. Jul 14

    Why AI Agents Need a New Security Blueprint

    Your AI agents are doing things you didn't ask them to do. The question is: did you give them permission? In this episode of The Identity Jedi Show, David Lee sits down with Matt Topper, President of Onboard.ID, to tackle one of the hardest problems in agentic AI: how do you give an agent enough freedom to be useful without giving it enough rope to burn your environment down? They get into "authorization boundaries," the idea that agents should have limited agency with hard stops and an obligation to report back on what they did with the access you granted. Matt shares a wild real-world example: sub-agents that didn't have Supabase access, so they spun up Docker and a local database on their own to run a full test suite. Impressive? Absolutely. Terrifying without boundaries and audit trails? Also yes. From there they connect the dots to zero trust fundamentals (least privilege, fine-grained per-transaction controls) and dig into whether SPIFFE and workload identity standards can extend to agents: unique identifiers, credentialing, and provenance through trusted hardware, signed packages, and org-owned repos. They also break down how agents should act on your behalf, whether that's OAuth tokens delegated from a user or enterprise-issued credentials. Plus: why specs, constitutions, and a clear definition of done are the difference between an agent that ships and an agent that wanders off. And the tragic tale of the lost "Identity After Dark" recording from Identiverse Boston. In this episode:How authorization boundaries give agents agency without chaos | Why obligations and reporting are the missing piece of agent access | Mapping SPIFFE and workload identity to AI agents | OAuth, delegation, and enterprise tokens for agents | Spec-driven development: constitutions, scope, and definition of done | The real cost of agent tooling and where guardrails pay for themselves Chapters:00:00 Season Four Intro00:29 Authorization Boundaries02:14 Docker Surprise Demo04:13 Obligations and Zero Trust05:01 SPIFFE for Agents07:54 OAuth and Credentialing10:15 AI Native Building Specs11:22 Agent Constitution and Scope13:36 Tooling Costs and Guardrails14:51 Identity After Dark Story17:00 Wrap Up and Farewell Connect with Matt Topper:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matttopper/Onboard.ID: https://onboard.id/ Join the Identity Jedi community:Newsletter: www.theidentityjedi.com #IdentityJedi #AgenticAI #NonHumanIdentity #SPIFFE #ZeroTrust #IAM #AISecurity #Cybersecurity #WorkloadIdentity

  3. May 26

    The Co-Inventor of Tor on Why Your NHI Strategy Is Already Behind

    The Co-Inventor of Tor on Why Your NHI Strategy Is Already Behind Most organizations have spent the last 20 years getting really good at human identity. 2FA. Biometrics. Face ID. Ephemeral tokens. They did the work. And the whole time, they were quietly pushing every ounce of that compressed risk onto the non-human side of the house. Service accounts with username and password. API keys that never rotate. Credentials hardcoded in pipelines. Long-lived tokens that were supposed to be temporary. Eventually is here. In this episode, David Lee sits down with David Goldschlag, CEO and co-founder of Aembit and one of the original inventors of onion routing — the technology that became Tor. With 20+ years building security companies, David G brings a perspective on non-human identity and AI agent security that very few people in this industry can match. They get into why NHI is not a new problem but a neglected one, what it actually means to build a zero trust framework for AI agents, the concept of blended identity and why your existing IAM stack is only part of the answer, why workforce agents and customer agents are fundamentally different and why treating them the same is a mistake, and why data is still the new oil and why that matters more now than ever. If your org is spinning up agents and hasn't had a real strategic conversation about what those agents can access, who they're acting on behalf of, and what happens when something goes wrong, this episode is exactly where you need to start. Topics Covered The origins of Tor and why onion routing still matters 30 years laterHow Aembit went from "Okta for workloads" to purpose-built AI agent identityThe three types of agents: autonomous, workforce, and customer-facingBlended identity and blended policy in practiceWhy ephemeral credentials are non-negotiable for agent accessZero trust for AI: the three pillars (identity, prompt security, data security)Non-repudiation in the age of agentic AIWhy vibe coders are making the NHI problem exponentially harderData security as the ultimate endpoint for every breach scenario Stay ConnectedSubscribe to the Identity Jedi newsletter at theidentityjedi.comFollow on LinkedIn, YouTube, and SpotifyRate, review, and share if this episode hit different

  4. May 12

    AI Agents Will Lie to Your Face. Here's the Lab Proof.

    In this episode of the Identity Jedi Show, David Lee sits down with Brook Lovatt — identity veteran, former CEO of Cloud Identity, and co-founder of Interrogate — to get into one of the most important and least-discussed problems in enterprise AI: what happens when an AI agent is incentivized to lie. Brook and his co-founder Eric Moss have been running behavioral assurance tests on AI agents in the lab, and what they're finding should concern every security leader, auditor, and IAM practitioner paying attention to agentic AI. What we get into: The healthcare claims adjudicator demo — why an AI agent denied a legitimate $72,000 treatment claim, blamed the doctor, and changed its story every time it was interrogatedIn-context scheming: what the Apollo Research paper revealed about AI agents scheming post-training when placed in a conflict of interestThe Ship of Theseus problem applied to agentic identity — if you replace the LLM, the tools, or the context, is it still the same agent?Why non-human identity controls don't account for agents that change capability over timeThe ZIP code redlining demo: two identical mortgage applications, one ZIP code difference, denied every single timeWhat Interrogate is actually building: interrogation + ablation testing, immutable audit trails, and compliance mapping to the EU AI ActWhy the legal community is already saying if you're not collecting behavioral evidence, you're exposedAir Canada, Cigna, Workday — the AI lawsuits that are setting the precedent right nowDavid's upcoming Identiverse talk on bias in AI — and why this conversation is part of it Referenced in this episode: Apollo Research — In-Context Scheming paper https://arxiv.org/pdf/2412.04984Interrogait - https://www.interrogait.com/OIDF AI Identity Management Community Group — https://openid.net/cg/artificial-intelligence-identity-management-community-group/theidentityjedi.com — subscribe to the newsletter

  5. Apr 28

    The AI Agent Security Problem Nobody's Talking About

    AI agents don't follow rules — they follow intent. That makes every governance model your identity team built last year incomplete. Guest: Ido Shlomo, Co-Founder of Token Security — one of the leading voices on non-human identity and AI agent security in the enterprise. In this episode, Ido and I break down what most organizations are completely missing when it comes to securing AI agents — from why visibility has to come before policy, to why the identity stack your team built wasn't designed for something that makes its own decisions. What you'll walk away with: Why your NHI strategy is already behind — and what to do about itThe one concept that changes how you think about agent access foreverYou can't secure what you can't see — and most teams can't see it yetWhy the old enterprise sales model is dead and what buyers actually want nowIf this episode made you think differently about AI agent security, share it with your identity team. Chapters: 0:00 Why AI Agents Break Traditional IAM1:32 Real Agent Examples From the Field3:40 How to Define and Classify an Agent6:31 What Agentic AI Means for Identity Teams13:15 Non-Human Identity, Tokens, and Autonomy14:41 Intent-Based Access Control Explained19:39 AI Agents as the New Operating Layer26:32 How Buyers Are Changing Because of AI41:00 AI Impact Predictions for Identity Security47:34 Real World Agent Story: Clare Hepburn's Agent Connect: Newsletter + Digital Products: www.theidentityjedi.comLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/identityjedi/Guest — Token Security: https://www.token.security/#IdentityJedi #IAM #IdentitySecurity #AgenticAI #NonHumanIdentity #CISO #ZeroTrust #IGA #TokenSecurity

  6. Apr 21

    Identity Jedi Show Season 4 Premiere: Building IAM Programs, AI, and Practitioner Insights with Clarence Chase

    David Lee kicks off season four of the award-winning Identity Jedi Show with a new theme and updates, previews a guest lineup spanning AI, leadership, authors, innovators, and startups. He explains a season focus on practitioner realities of running identity and access management programs—funding, proving value, team structure, day-to-day operations, and onboarding applications—alongside ongoing AI discussions, including productivity gains, product prototyping, startup speed to product-market fit, and security and agentic AI concerns. The first interview features practitioner Clarence Chase (Silika Solutions), who emphasizes IAM as a program requiring governance, outcome-based requirements, innovation, staging, and strong change management via business engagement roles. They discuss adoption, centralized visibility, identity’s security value, analytics for leadership buy-in, and a directory outage recovery. David closes by recommending Jerich Beason’s leadership book, “Lead Better Sooner,” reading an excerpt, and inviting community engagement across YouTube, TikTok, and email. The Identity Jedi Universe → www.theidentityjedi.com Jerich Beason —> www.leadbettersooner.com 00:00 Season Four Kickoff00:47 Show Welcome and Hype01:58 Where to Find the Podcast03:10 Season Theme Practitioners05:08 AI Productivity and Risks11:53 TikTok Growth and Plans12:40 Meet Clarence Chase14:17 How They First Met18:21 Identity Program Essentials23:07 Change Management in Practice23:20 Business Engagement Team33:34 Product Mindset for Identity35:59 Defining and Proving Value37:42 Proving Identity Value39:24 Rapid Access Shutdown41:48 Identity Meets Security43:48 Retraining Identity Talent48:56 Leadership And Hiring53:04 Rapid Fire Team Design55:57 Identity Degree Blueprint01:02:25 Directory Outage Lessons01:06:48 Why Identity Matters01:10:04 Leadership Season Tease01:10:53 Book Excerpt And Wrap

  7. Apr 8

    Harnessing AI for Next-Gen Identity Security

    Wrapping Up 2025: AI Advancements and Future of Identity Security | Identity Jedi Show In the final episode of the Identity Jedi Show for 2025, host David reflects on the rollercoaster year in identity and AI, explaining his plans to release a video on 2026 trends later on. He encourages listeners to subscribe to the channel to not miss out on the upcoming content, including a top 10 highlights video. The episode features an insightful interview with Raz Rotenburg, CEO and co-founder of Fabrics, discussing AI's explosion in recent years, its impact on cybersecurity, the potential of AI in revolutionizing identity and access management, and the concerning speed at which AI-driven attacks can occur. David and Roz delve into how AI can automate and enhance security processes, reflecting on the need for the industry to adopt more sophisticated tools for real-time security. The episode concludes with David expressing gratitude to his audience, urging everyone to cherish every moment as we head into the new year. Don't miss this thought-provoking wrap-up of 2025 with exciting insights into the future of AI and identity security! www.theidentityjedi.com 00:00 Introduction and Welcome00:46 Year-End Reflections and Upcoming Trends01:53 Housekeeping and Announcements02:16 Special Guest Interview Teaser02:55 AI and Identity Management Insights07:12 The Future of AI in Cybersecurity11:06 In-Depth AI Discussion with Special Guest33:25 The Exciting Potential of AI in Cybersecurity34:00 Sophistication and Speed of AI-Driven Attacks35:21 The Role of AI in Enhancing Defense Mechanisms38:24 Challenges in Identity and Access Management41:43 The Future of AI in Cybersecurity45:06 Personal Anecdotes and Industry Insights48:44 The Vision for AI-Driven Identity Security59:08 Closing Thoughts and Future Outlook

  8. 12/23/2025

    The Identity Jedi Show: Big Bucks in Identity Security & Hard-Hitting Industry Real Talk

    In this holiday-themed episode of The Identity Jedi Show, we delve into major developments in the identity security industry. Host David kicks things off with holiday greetings before diving into significant recent events, including a whopping $700 million series B funding, a billion-dollar acquisition, and an $11 billion buyout. He also emphasizes the importance of staying plugged into The Identity Jedi community. Later, David introduces special guest Lee Header for a no-holds-barred interview about the state of the identity and access management industry—discussing the persistent challenges and necessary improvements. David and Lee cover everything from the 'enterprise SSO tax' to the gaps in standards adoption, and the role of AI in the future of identity security. Don't miss this insightful and honest discussion, plus tips on how the industry can better serve both security experts and end-users. Stay tuned and let's make the most of this festive season! https://saviynt.com/press-release/saviynt-raises-700m-in-kkr-led-round-to-establish-identity-security-as-the-foundation-for-the-ai-era https://newsroom.ibm.com/2025-12-08-ibm-to-acquire-confluent-to-create-smart-data-platform-for-enterprise-generative-ai https://veza.com/company/press-room/servicenow-to-expand-security-portfolio-with-acquisition-of-vezas-leading-ai-native-identity-security-platform/00:00 Holiday Greetings and Show Introduction00:24 Upcoming Topics Teaser01:55 Housekeeping and Announcements02:53 Big News in Identity Security06:37 IBM's Strategic Acquisition11:40 Interview with Lee Tschetetter14:37 Enterprise SSO Tax Discussion37:20 Exploring the Higher Ed Ecosystem38:26 The Role of Grad Students in Higher Ed Projects39:00 Shared Signals Framework and Its Importance39:38 Challenges in Information Sharing40:56 The Need for Human-Friendly Standards42:15 The Complexity of Security Standards49:58 Real-World Examples of Security Mishaps55:25 The Importance of User-Friendly Security01:09:47 The Future of Identity and Security01:11:47 Final Thoughts and Reflections

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Identity was built for people. Most of what asks for access now is not a person, and the old playbook does not hold. The Identity Jedi Show is where that gets worked out honestly. Host David Lee talks with the founders, architects, and practitioners building and breaking these systems. Non-human identity, agentic AI governance, runtime authorization, and the permission boundaries nobody has solved yet. No vendor gloss. You will hear your own problems here before you hear a pitch. New episodes bi-weekly.

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