May 2025 · Wasm I/O, Barcelona
I Wasm't Expecting This Many Apps: Scaling Without Losing Your Bytes
The platform harness: ten thousand Wasm components on a laptop, with Bailey Hayes.
Five epochs
From the wire to the sandbox
To me, my career progression still feels like I am working on the same problem, just at a different point of leverage. How do we build and run secure, performant, platforms?
Epoch I1995–1999
Network Engineering
- Where the code ran
- Building the network
- Open source
- Distributed plugins
- Company
- Xavier University
- Outcome
- Learned the power and reach of open source
Epoch II2000–2003
Online Platform
- Where the code ran
- B2B Marketplace
- Open source
- Business model, bringing together buyers & sellers
- Company
- iR2, acquired by IDSA
- Outcome
- Insight into two sided markets, platform plays
Epoch III2003–2014
Network Security
- Where the code ran
- Traffic on the wire
- Open source
- Bro, now Zeek
- Company
- Broala
- Outcome
- Became Corelight
Epoch IV2014–2020
K8s Clusters, Orchestration
- Where the code ran
- Containers in regulated enterprises
- Open source
- Kubernetes, Cloud Custodian
- Company
- Critical Stack
- Outcome
- Acquired by Capital One
Epoch V2019–now
Sandboxes
- Where the code ran
- WebAssembly components, agents and AI-generated code
- Open source
- wasmCloud, a CNCF project
- Company
- Cosmonic
- Outcome
- Building now
Through out my career I found myself at the intersection of enterprise, scale, security, and open source. I have built platforms in highly regulated environments for publicly traded companies, the largest tech platforms, US Government, and enterprises of all sorts. I have delivered solutions into the most secure and well known enterprises on the planet.
Catalog
Featured Ventures & Investments
I believe in open source and community collaboration. A few of the companies founded, projects created and early bets from across my career.
| Name | Industry | Open source | Role | Comment |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cosmonic | Sandboxing | CNCF wasmCloud | Founder and CEO | Still building: WebAssembly sandboxes for agents, untrusted code and AI-generated code. wasmCloud began at Capital One and is now a CNCF Incubating project. wasmCloud joins CNCF, 2021Seed round, 2022Desktop public beta, 2026 |
| Horizon3.ai | Security | None | Seed investor | Autonomous penetration testing with NodeZero, attacking networks the way a real adversary would. In August 2026 it raised a $250M Series E at a valuation above $2B. |
| Stacklet | Security | CNCF Cloud Custodian | Investor | Leading cloud governance, built on Cloud Custodian, the policy engine I helped bring from Capital One into the CNCF. I also joined as VP of business development. |
| ElectricSQL | Databases | Electric SyncPGlite | Seed investor | Local-first sync for Postgres, and PGlite, Postgres compiled to WebAssembly. Databricks acquired Electric in August 2026 to give AI agents their own local databases. |
| Kolide | Security | osquery | Seed investor | The first check in, and a contributor to the early osquery ecosystem alongside Dustin Webber. Kolide turned device trust into a product; 1Password acquired it in 2024. |
| Critical Stack | Orchestration | Kubernetes | Founder | The first commercial Kubernetes distribution, built security-first for banks and government. $5M in revenue in its first year, a $3M Army Cyber Innovation Challenge award, then acquired by Capital One. Army award, 2015Acquired by Capital One, 2016Launch at Capital One, 2017 |
| Broala / Corelight | Security | Bro / Zeek | Founder | An early pioneer in network anomaly detection, focused on hunting nation-state threats. Co-founded with Vern Paxson, Robin Sommer and Seth Hall to support Bro commercially; renamed Corelight in 2017. |
Transmissions
Public speaking
From a 2013 talk at Shmoocon on the Bro network programming language to a 2025 talk on sandboxing thousands of apps.
Apr 2025 · Cosmonic
Can a Platform Team Run 1,000 Apps? wasmCloud on Kubernetes as the Golden Template
The current thesis: one golden template, a thousand apps, a small platform team.
Oct 2021 · Stacklet
Continuous Compliance with Cloud Custodian
Compliance as code: Cloud Custodian policies running continuously across a cloud estate.
Jun 2017 · OpenSec 2017, Boston
OpenSec 2017 Keynote
The turn from network security toward platforms.
Sep 2014 · DerbyCon 4.0, Louisville
Advanced Incident Response with Bro
Practitioner depth: incident response, scripted live.
Feb 2013 · ShmooCon IX, Washington, D.C.
Bro IDS and the Bro Network Programming Language
The earliest receipt: Bro as a programmable platform, years before Zeek became standard.
Giving back
Teaching and community
100's workshops
Free Bro classes at security conferences, wasm workshops and more..
CNCF Stewardship
Serial volunteer, founded for the CNCF: Cloud Native Wasm Day, which I co-chaired, and WasmCon, which I chaired.
2024
Former CNCF Ambassador. Leading weekly wasmCloud community calls since 2020.
I frequently volunteer to help put on community oriented conferences in security, organization, and governanace. I am an active contributor in multiple standards bodies and open source foundations, such as the CNCF, BSides, Linux Foundation, ByteCode Alliance, and more.