Damien Lewke could build his company anywhere. He grew up in the Bay Area, threat-hunted on a nuclear weapon system at Northrop Grumman, helped define the EDR category at early CrowdStrike, closed nine-figure deals at Palo Alto Networks, and did his graduate research at MIT's CSAIL. He chose Boston. In episode 4 of Code and Cobblestones, Damien joins hosts Matt Crane and Will Lehmann to talk about founding Nebulock, a hunt-first security operations platform that just closed a $25 million Series A led by FirstMark, and why the next generation of cybersecurity gets built here. The conversation runs from the open-source AI models rewriting the threat model, to the $40 he put in a bank account to start the company, to what a professional football career taught him about hiring. What you'll learn Why open-weight models like GLM 5.2 shift the advantage toward attackers, and what founders should do about it What a "hunt-first" security platform actually does, explained plainly The origin of Nebulock: 90 customers in 90 days, a 30-page manifesto, and a $40 bank account How Damien hires, and the most underrated seed-stage hire right now The real advantages of building a cybersecurity company in Boston Three lessons from pro football that carry into founding a company Chapters 00:00 Episode 4, and our guest Damien Lewke 01:46 Headlines: Mythos, Fable 5, and the open-source moment 06:09 Two Boston raises: Nebulock and Scaled Cognition 07:22 Inside the $25M Series A with FirstMark 11:15 A World Cup detour: football lessons for founders 15:32 From Northrop Grumman to early CrowdStrike 20:02 Palo Alto, Australia, and back to MIT 22:51 What a hunt-first security platform actually is 24:06 The spark: a manifesto and a $40 bank account 28:57 Three lessons: 90 customers, a high bar, get on a plane 33:55 Why build in Boston? 37:08 Rapid fire 40:09 One message to cyber builders Guest: Damien Lewke, Founder and CEO of Nebulock. Previously at Arctic Wolf, Palo Alto Networks, CrowdStrike, and Northrop Grumman. Graduate research at MIT CSAIL. Hosts: Matt Crane, Founder of MGMT Boston and Will Lehmann Founer of Step Function VC Mentioned: Nebulock, FirstMark, Step Function, CrowdStrike, Palo Alto Networks, Arctic Wolf, Northrop Grumman, MIT CSAIL, UCLA, Cribl, Bain Capital, Scaled Cognition, RSA, Veracode, Rapid7, Jellyfish, and Boston's security community. Code and Cobblestones is a love letter to Boston tech founders. New episodes spotlight the people building the city's next generation of companies. ▶ Subscribe for the rest of the tour. New episodes spotlight the founders and builders putting Boston on the map. Produced in partnership with OBEY Creative, a boutique authority media firm in the heart of Boston. We specialize in building Authority Capital for founder-led brands through podcasts and content engines that transform visionary builders into the primary voice of their industry. Learn more at https://obeycreative.com/
