Built to Defend, Wired to Lead.

What if building stronger security started with building stronger people? We sit down with founder and researcher Shira Shamban to explore the human engine behind cloud security: courage, bias, pivots, and the relentless focus required to turn signal into action. From a values‑driven upbringing and early community projects to leading a startup through the 2020 lockdowns, Shira’s story pulls back the curtain on what it really takes to ship meaningful outcomes when the odds say don’t.

We unpack her first thesis—PLG and shift‑left for developers—and why it crashed into day‑to‑day incentives. Then we trace the pivot: keep the core engine that analyzes cloud infrastructure and auto‑remediates misconfigurations, but deliver it to the security teams who own risk, reporting, compliance, and budgets. Along the way we confront the market reality of CSPM saturation, where category leaders win on brand safety as much as features, and how “nobody was fired for buying IBM” still shapes enterprise cybersecurity. The result is a candid look at tool sprawl, alert fatigue, and the real metric that moves CISOs: hours saved and friction reduced between security and engineering.

Shira also shares why Israel keeps producing high‑impact cybersecurity startups—mandatory service, hands‑on constraints, and a figure‑it‑out mindset that mirrors startup life. We look ahead to AI in the cloud and quantum timelines without the hype, balancing today’s phishing and misconfigurations with tomorrow’s decryption risks. Most of all, we talk advocacy: saying yes to the stage to make women visible, mentoring through communities like She Codes and Cyber Ladies, and treating karma as infrastructure for a healthier industry.

If you care about cloud security, startup execution, and the people who make both possible, this conversation will sharpen your lens and expand your playbook. Subscribe, leave a review, and share it with someone who needs a push to take the next step.

Transcript

Jess Vachon: 00:34

Hello, and welcome back to Voices of the Vigilant, where tech toughness meets human truth. I'm your host, Jess Vachon, and today we're talking about what it takes not just to build a future of security, but to build yourself while doing it. My guest today didn't just enter cloud security. She helped reshape it. She's a founder, a researcher, a community builder, and someone who has consistently opened doors for other women in an industry that doesn't always make space. But beyond the titles and the awards, today is about the person behind the platform. Shira Shamban, welcome. Shira is co-founder and former CEO of Solvo, a company that reimagined cloud security posture and entitlements management and later became part of CYE. Welcome to the show.

Shira Shamban: 01:16

Thank you, Jess. It's great to be here.

Jess Vachon: 01:19

It's so good to have you. We were we were talking excitedly before we went live with so much about the industry and the frustrations in the industry. And we'll go, we're going to get to that, but I want to talk about you and your background. And I'd like to start what I call in the way back machine. So before Solve, before all the awards, before the funding rounds, what shaped you growing up? Were you the kid who questioned everything? Did you take things apart to understand them? Did you challenge authority? Paint a picture for us.

Shira Shamban: 01:51

I wasn't a techie kind of kid, not a script kiddie, not a PC kid, didn't have a strong affinity to technology. But yeah, I used to challenge authority all the time. If you ask my parents, I'm sure they will say I was a rebel from a very young age. And I guess this is this is one of the you know characteristics that uh that I still hold today challenging authority, challenging the system, asking why, trying to go my way, trying to improve what I see, like not to settle for something that is like working, like it's half baked, and let's try to make it better. And so, this is something I constantly do. Um, I think that my first entrepreneurial experience was back in high school. I got accepted to a program that chooses 120 teenagers every year for a two-year program where we learned today. You can say it's entrepreneurship, but we're talking about more than uh 20 years ago. Uh I don't want to disclose the exact number, but uh this was a while back, so it wasn't called this way. But I built a project for underprivileged kids from a difficult background. I was in 11th grade and they were in elementary school. These kids came from a difficult background. I raised some money uh from donors, and we're talking about a few thousand dollars, that's it. I hired, I raised volunteers, high school students my age. I just you know came to a school in the city where I was doing this. This wasn't my high school. I came, I talked to the principal, I told him about my vision and this project, and he let me go into the classrooms, present the project, and ask who wants to join. I had about 15 volunteers and 15 kids, and the project was about being an older brother or sister and teaching them some things that their parents didn't teach them because they were too busy, you know, working really hard. So, things that sound very trivial, like go buy a popsicle and make sure you get change or ride the bus. So, things that sound very trivial to many of us, but are not trivial to some people who grow up in a in a different reality.

Jess Vachon: 04:30

So, what influenced that compassion in you at such an early age?

Shira Shamban: 04:38

I'm not sure why exactly, but I was always I am I'm a very compassionate person. I like animals and I like I have two dogs. And whenever I see injustice, I feel like I need to do something about it. This is not fair; this is not right. What I understand today is the scale where I want to work and where and how I want to create impact. So, I can help one person, I can give them money, or I can get them clothes, or I can, you know, help, depending on whatever it is that they need, but I would prefer to create some kind of scale and a system that can help many people. It will take me the same effort, but the impact is going to be much bigger.

Jess Vachon: 05:29

I love that. So, you're speaking a lot about courage and fortitude. Was there someone in your early life, a parent, a teacher, or mentor, who modeled that courage or intellectual independence for you?

Shira Shamban: 05:44

My grandfather was an educator. He was uh a simple man in the sense that you know he didn't appreciate anything fancy. There was nothing fancy back in those years, but he had, you know, a very small car, very basic clothes, always wearing sandals and shorts. And he was all about education. He did education through sports. He believed that this is a way to create impact. He actually built the volleyball and basketball in Israel. Like he built different clubs all over the country. Back, you know, when the country was just established, he traveled all around and created basketball and volleyball teams. And for children, I think that sports are something that builds character. And he used to tell the kids like; you have to do homework if you want to play basketball. Because you have those kids that say, I'm not going to school, I'm going to be a football player, I'm going to be a basketball player, I don't care. He said, No, no, no, no. First, you have to behave, you have to be like, you have to do what your parents tell you, you have to do homework. Only then can you come and play basketball. A year ago, I came across a very successful Israeli entrepreneur. I actually reached out to him because you know I wanted his advice. He didn't, I didn't know him, he didn't know me. And he said, you know, your grandfather really influenced me when I was a teenager playing basketball. I have a story about him that I always tell my employees about how he educated us to do for others. And I was really touched. I felt like my grandfather is sending me a message from the next world because I never thought I would come across his legacy in the tech industry. So, I was really moved by this. And I think that his values, even though I never became a basketball player, I still live them in a different way.

Jess Vachon: 07:58

That's a beautiful connection. I and I would have never figured that was the story that was going to tie everything together. It's very interesting, and I'm so happy that you felt comfortable enough to share that with our listeners. We'll move now into cybersecurity because somehow you found your way there. It's not always the most welcoming field for women, especially in the deep, deeply technical roles. Uh, when did you first become aware that entering these spaces where you might be perceived as a minority in those spaces would be an area that you were going to be working in? What attracted you to technology? And I suspect I might know the answer. We might know the answer. But what change did you want to create? Because obviously you saw something there that you thought you could do better.

Shira Shamban: 08:45

Yeah. So again, I did not imagine this path. I did not think of myself as a very technical person. I did earn my engineering degree that cost me a lot of uh blood, sweat, and tears. So, because of that, because of all the effort, I didn't think I would find myself in a very techy business at the end. But I just realized that uh um you cannot ignore the fact that the military service gives you an advantage that other people don't have. Back when I decided I want to pursue a different career, I went uh I went and asked for advice from a lot of different people because I wanted to you know have a lot of different perspectives before I craft my own. And someone told me, I actually wanted to do like something uh in the social world, impact investing, helping animals in Africa. And this one investor told me, you need to go and build a cybersecurity company, sell it, make a lot of money, and then go do your impact investing. So, I was like, okay, this this kind of makes sense. I'm going to try and do that. So again, cybersecurity was not my first passion, but again, I wanted to use my advantage at the time that I was fresh out of the military. Um, and that was what I thought was my relative advantage in in the market.

Jess Vachon: 10:30

Do you think your time in the military gave more focus and prepared you for the challenges that you wanted to solve, or do you think you already had that and it just gave you the framework, kind of pulled everything together for you?

Shira Shamban: 10:47

Definitely gave me the framework because I didn't do anything that was very cloud specific in my service.

Shira Shamban: 10:54

 Basically, when I landed my first job at Dome 9, the CEO told me, Listen, we have this data in the cloud. Can you figure out something to do with it? And again, I had no background in cloud and in cloud security. But I took a look at the data, and I said, “Well, you know what? This kind of reminds me of other things I used to do and other different types of data I used to analyze, but the framework and how you do it is similar. So, I'm just going to use the practices I learned in call it anomaly detection, and I will implement this knowledge in cloud security”. This is what I did, and this is how it happened. One thing I can also add is that, at least for me, like the cloud service made me almost blind to the gender issue. At least at the time, I believed that uh when you are good, you will be noticed, and you will be promoted. Like, there is no need to create, I don't know, like groups of supporters, islands of supporters. Because if you are good, you will be promoted, you will be noticed. This is what I thought. Only when I came out, I was able to understand and accept that even in the military doesn't work this way, and definitely not in the private sector and the tech industry. But the fact that I was unaware of this made me like it didn't stop me. I was not stopped by thinking, oh, people are not going to appreciate me, or they will look at me differently because I'm a woman. Nothing stopped me, at least not the gender, not these kinds of thoughts.

Jess Vachon: 12:56

That's interesting, and I don't disagree with you. I come from a different background than most women who make it to the Cecil role. And I know I come with a lot of privilege, but I also approach it where I'm so focused on my work and just doing good work that I want that to speak for me. I want that to be what people see. So, I hear some of that in what you're saying. Were you just so focused on your goal that you didn't have time for any of that distraction? And you know, it sounds like when you've you reached that first goal, you turned around and kind of said, “Oh, I didn't realize all this other stuff was going on. Am I on the right track there, or was there something else?”

Shira Shamban: 13:45

At some point, I just started realizing that reality is not as romantic as I thought it is. The world is biased, all of us are biased. The most intelligent and sensitive men are biased, and I'm saying men because today most leaders, security leaders, business leaders, investors are men, and we are biased in the way we think. For example, very often when you think about a doctor in your mind, you see a male person. Just because we're biased. When you think about a teacher, you see a woman. When you think about a nurse, you see a woman. So, at some point, I realized that when I go and pitch to investors, I can be the most professional cloud person and the most talented entrepreneur, but they will always see me against the benchmark in their mind of what does an entrepreneur look like, and he's going to look like a man.

Jess Vachon: 14:56

So, I have to look and sound and act like what they expect or better in terms of bias, you've identified that you have bias, I have bias, and I think everyone who's listening would agree everyone has bias. How do you work at overcoming your own personal bias?

Shira Shamban: 15:27

Over time, I learned I'm still working on it, it doesn't always work, but I try not to make assumptions. And definitely after Sovo was acquired, I have more time to just meet other entrepreneurs and talk to them and see how I can help. So, I don't assume what your background is and what you know, and how you want to build it and how you want to go about it. I come and I listen. I'm not even giving an advice if you didn't ask for it. Like depending on why we are meeting, but I'm just, you know, I learned that what I am used to or the thick thought patterns I have are mine, and other people might look at the same situation and make completely different conclusions out of it. So, I understand that what I see is my reality and maybe my truth. And if I'm not sure about something, at the very least I can ask if it's important enough to bring it up. And if it's not important enough to ask, then I will not bring it up, and I will like we will not dive into that you know specific spot.

Jess Vachon: 16:41

Sounds like a lot of learned experience in that in that reply. Let's move forward to 2020. So, it's challenging enough for someone to bring a new company forward when there's not a pandemic going on, when you can meet people face to face, and you can show them a product that you've already developed. What how you sound like a person who enjoys a challenge, but how did you overcome the challenge of a pandemic not being able to meet people face to face? You might not have had a fully fleshed out product that you could demonstrate at a time. How did you do that? And what was the learning experience from that period of time that you were able to apply later on in your career?

Shira Shamban: 17:27

It's very simple, but it's very hard. The fact that David, my co-founder, and I quit our jobs made this like this this has to work. There is no way we're not doing this. This was our approach. We burned the ships like there is no turning back. We are here 100%. This has to work. This was our approach and let me just remind you back in early 2020, not only were there all the lockdowns, people were indoor, we couldn't meet face to face, but there were a lot of layoffs, and like we knew the chances for us to find a different job now are close to none. So that's it. Like, this has to work. This was our approach. Like, we're 100% on this. David is building the POC, I'm working my ass off to raise money. That's it. And this is the approach. If you want to build something, you need to be able to like you have to think you've already lost everything. Now it has to work. Now you have to build it. There is no other option. If you come in a different approach of let's see, if it doesn't work out, this is fine, no big deal. I'm not saying it's not going to work, but you will definitely get a different output, outcome.

Jess Vachon: 19:06

I want to use the word fortitude. A whole bunch of other words came to mind about what it takes to be successful in that scenario. I mean, pandemic, and you quit your jobs and you put all your money on this working. And from what I'm hearing you say, you didn't look back, like there was no looking back, there was only forward, and that's just truly incredible. And I think that paints a good picture for people who say, I'm frustrated in my day job, I want to go do something on the side. Like, this is what it takes, it takes everything, it takes everything. And if you're not willing to do that, maybe you're not cut out to be an entrepreneur. And I think that's I think that's a reality check, but I think it's great advice for people who are thinking of going out there and doing something different. But I see more and more people now that are taking up that that challenge, and I think it's because they have examples such as yourself that are out there saying you can do it. Here's the reality of the situation, but you absolutely can succeed, you just you can't accept anything less than success.

Shira Shamban: 20:19

So yeah, and by the way, the statistic statistics is against you, most chances are that you're going to fail, but um David and I were we're also in for the challenge and for the journey. For me, failing was not an option, like I never even considered it. And you know, maybe I did a mistake in in 2021. There was like a celebration of acquisitions because there was so much money in the market. Early-stage startups were acquired for you know for a lot of money

Shira Shamban: 21:03

 when it was a small team, no, no real revenue. And when I even like when some people brought this option, I was like, no, absolutely not. I'm building a big company. Like, don't talk to me about this acquisition, it sounds stupid. And you know, if I had taken this path, maybe my answer, you know, would be different for this today. But at that time, I was like, absolutely not. I'm building a big company. I don't want to hear anything about an acquisition at this point. No, it really upset me.

Jess Vachon: 21:38

I can hear that. So, and Solva wasn't it wasn't just another, excuse me, another cloud security tool. There was a philosophy behind it around access, entitlement, sprawl, and context driven remediation. But I'm curious what personal frustration or lived experience pushed you to say this needs to be done now, and I can do it, and I can do it differently, and I can succeed.

Shira Shamban: 21:59

So again, 2019, you saw a bunch of companies in cloud security were built, acquired, and to us it felt like okay, detection is no longer a problem. I don't care what tool you use, if you're a checkpoint shop, Palo Alto, whatever it is that you're using, everyone detects really, really well. Like they can find all of your misconfigurations, it's working great. But at the end, the user is frustrated by the number of uh alerts and notifications. And if we're talking about cloud, so it's probably like a DevOps engineer, and he goes and talks to the RD and they hate him, they don't want him to interrupt their important sprints with the uh serious security questions. It was also trendy at the time uh to talk about PLG, product-led growth. A lot of companies were encouraging their users to just visit their website, sign up, and try out their product, and also shift left was very trendy. So, I thought, okay, detection is no longer a problem. Let's assume somebody can do it better than me. But there is the alert overhead, the friction between RD and security, and the whole shift-left trend where we, the security leaders, expect the developers to own what they build. So, like having all of that together, mixing it up, what we came up with was the dev tool to auto-remediate cloud misconfigurations in the PLG approach. This was our initial thought and our MVP that we showed to CISOs to get their feedback. The CISOs really liked it that security will be shifted left proactively. The problem was that the users who needed to adopt the product, who are the developers, are not interested in security, are not held accountable for security, they don't have the budget for security, and they just don't care. So, we tried the PLG for developers, but we failed. This was not the right approach for this kind of tool, so we had to pivot. But this was our first uh thesis that we tried.

Jess Vachon: 24:51

I'm smiling and laughing because you describe my experience as a security leader dealing with developers, and they're not wrong, right? Because the developers, at the end of the day, they're just they're being evaluated on what they're outputting for the business. And it's not that they don't want to do security, it's that they don't see how that fits into an epic for them. They have a limited amount of time, they have deadlines that are really short, and they're change creators, so yeah. I mean, I get that you kind of met with a I don't know, a wrecking ball with that first approach, but you obviously listened and you went back to the table, and you re-examined and you came away with something that did work. Yeah. Um what was the process like? Did you did you get scared that oh my god, we put everything into this, and we went slightly off target?

Shira Shamban: 25:51

We were not scared, no, but we said, okay, look, here is the core technology of what we built. We are able to analyze cloud infrastructure, discover the misconfigurations, and automatically build remediations. How about if we just take this core but wrap it with like let's shift it back right to the security team, see what it's what it's going to take from us to make the security team the user and not the developer the user, and make sure they can buy it. That it addresses what a security team is looking for, it's going to give the visibility, it's going to give the reporting, it's going to give compliance. So now instead of this lean dev tool, we wrapped our technology with more enterprise-ready screens and dashboards and uh other capabilities that that were required to make it relevant for the security team.

Jess Vachon: 27:02

And you were able to, I'm going to guess, show the value proposition to the CISO who needed to purchase this product. You were able to show them not just in threat reduction to the company, but in terms of dollars of potential savings protecting against those threats. We were talking about this free show and about how there's no lack of tools out there. What we need is something for CISOs to make the business case. So that had to be part of what you figured out as well. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Shira Shamban: 27:40

Yes, actually, you know, in Solvo, this was not we talk you and I talked about it because it always surprises me that you know I'm in the private sector for you know less than 10 years, but I'm hearing about the same problems over and over again. We did not quantify in dollar figures, but we were able to show how many man hours we're going to save. And this this is you know, this has a dollar value. But yeah, it amazes me that to this day you have AI security and application security and cloud security, like you have really amazing products that solve all of these problems, but at the end, the CISO's problem is the overhead, having so many screens, having so many products shouting at them, and not having enough people helping them resolve the issues. That's it.

Jess Vachon: 28:48

That that is it. For anyone listening out there, if you solve that problem, you're going to be making a lot of money. So, from what I heard you say, you founded this company, you didn't want to sell out early, so you obviously wanted to develop it and see it grow a little bit. So, you were equally committed to alignment and integrity of the product. You started to receive some awards, you and your co-founder. So, you get the gold awards, some industry validation went along with that, and you got big recognition for it as well. At what point did you decide, okay, maybe I'm ready to do something different? Maybe I'm ready to let this go to a company where I don't have to do as much of the building and I can do more of the leading aspect of it.

Shira Shamban: 29:38

A few things happened. One is that we were part of the CSPM category, and it was becoming a commodity. Some cloud vendors were providing this capability, some other bigger companies were providing this capability, and very often it doesn't matter how excellent your technology is. There is an important positioning part, like knowing who you are. Everyone knew who Wiz was, everyone knew who Orca was. And now I come to a POC uh um head-to-head with these companies. I think that my product is better. I can prove you that my product is better, I can show you what they detect and what I detect, but you know what they say, nobody was fired for buying IBM. So, you know, there is a gold standard in the market, and I felt like we needed a bigger name and a bigger operation around us or with us. And when I realized that, uh, we started looking at options until we found the right match for us.

Jess Vachon: 31:02

And CYE was that match, and certainly it's it looks like it's been a successful, I don't know if you use the term merger or acquisition or what have you. Yeah, acquisition. So that's great now. So, the acquisition happens, and you've gone from being a founder to part of another company. How did you stay grounded, you know, during that change? And was that a learning experience for you?

Shira Shamban: 31:32

Yes, of course. On the one hand, you know, I'm used to make the calls. It is what it is, I'm used to that. I'm used to set the goal, the destination, and to have people with me building or designing the road to get there. And now I don't necessarily make these calls, and I don't have a whole team around me to help me get there. But on the other hand, there are other people thinking about strategy and about the goals. It's not only up to me, and it definitely reduced a lot of stress that I'm not the only person. At the end, you know, we are a for-profit company, it's about the revenue, it's about the numbers, it's not about how happy the employees are. And now there is someone else in charge of these numbers. I can go to sleep, I can take a vacation, I can take another vacation, I can stay at home if my kid is sick. There are many things that it's not that I didn't do or couldn't do before, but even when taking a vacation, I'm always on the phone. I'm always thinking, if there is something urgent, I will hop on a call. Now it's really hard to let go of this approach. So even when I'm on vacation, if there is something urgent, I will hop on a call, but I will think about it and ask myself is this really urgent right now? Will it not wait until tomorrow or next week? Depending on the answer, I'm going to be really honest with myself because as a founder, everything was urgent, everything was important. It's about the customers. I want them to convert, I want them to uh to you know to renew, I want an upsell. So, I was always obsessed about it. And now most chances are that this will wait for next week and nothing is going to happen.

Jess Vachon: 33:46

It reminds me of my previous guest that I had, Rob Wettstein, who said the first question he asks is, Is it on fire? Because if the answer is not yes, then it can wait. So, it sounds like that's a little bit of the philosophy you have now, too. And you have the luxury of that now that you're in a bigger company, so you've gained a little bit of your life back.

Shira Shamban: 34:07

Um, even though when you have these practices of having all of your heart and mind, like this is who you are, this is who I am. I like having passion to what I do. So now I put some of this passion at Psy, and at what I do at Sci. But I can also take some of the passion, like I can put 90% of my passion there, and then take 10% of the passion and think about the future of cloud security and think about what's next for AI in the cloud and think about other things. And a founder's passion and attention are usually like it; it's a different scale than what the average person uh like the differ the average person's bandwidth. We just we're used to doing more always, like our 24 hours are someone else's uh 72 hours.

Jess Vachon: 35:14

It's very interesting. I and I'm sure you get asked too, and I get asked, like, how do I find the time to do all the things that I do? And I'm the same way, I'm like there are 24 hours, and I only sleep like six of those, so you know, I need to fill those that other block of time. And you know, you spoke about having a family, and that that takes some of the time, sure, but there's also those passions and interests that individuals have, and the difference between a full person and a person that's just kind of walking through life is knowing that hey, I can fill all these hours, I can pursue these interests, but finding that balance is the key.

Shira Shamban: 35:54

The founder's life is imbalance, and if somebody is considering this, they should also bring this into serious consideration. As a founder, you know, if you're not coming from a very wealthy family, your life is going to be very, very hectic.

Jess Vachon: 36:16

Yeah, but to that point, that's a way out for some people, right? They're so driven to get out of that life that they know they can improve that that it makes sense for them to be a fabulous entrepreneur. And sometimes that's what it takes. That drive is to your point where you when you get ready to develop your company, you just had to let everything go. It's all or nothing. And uh, I think that message is coming through loud and clear. We spoke again before we went live about the number of startups and stealth companies coming out of Israel, and it seems like it's almost on a daily basis that there's two or three new companies coming out of that stealth mode and um moving to startups scale up. Why do you think Israel is so successful in the cybersecurity industry? And you know, what do you think that means? What do you think that has meant across the broader industry? Has it actually shifted the perspective of the industry over the last five or ten years?

Shira Shamban: 37:20

First of all, the reason why you see so many startups coming from Israel is to one, the fact that as a very small country with limited uh budget, we had to come up with good technology, good security technology, cybersecurity included. So, there is just a lot of talent that uh has you know mandatory uh service. So, they gained this experience if they wanted or not. And this is like hands-on experience that for most people you cannot just gain it. Yeah, you have to go through training, maybe earn a degree, and then go and work uh for a larger cybersecurity company or work for another larger organization. And here you were drafted, you served for two or three or more years and gained that experience. Specifically, when you're in the military, maybe somewhat like in the startup life, you usually don't have the resources to do whatever you want. You're always understaffed. You don't have money, like we don't have budget to go and buy whatever we want in the cloud, or to hire more engineers, or to outsource something. You don't it's not that you have some budget, you have zero budget, like the manpower that you have is what you have. Oh, you were only assigned with uh two engineers, and this is what you have, like this has to work with two engineers. So, we always figure out a way, and this approach of figuring it out, not complaining, just you know, keep on keep on working until you find the gold is what you do, and this is exactly what entrepreneurs do. So, this is why many people with military background or intelligence background are don't only come with the relevant professional experience, but they also come with the right attitude as an entrepreneur to figure it out. I don't care how, I'll just figure it out. And this is not something you can teach in school. This is not something I can you can go and do an MBA and they're going to talk about entrepreneurship. And here's a list of things you need to do, here is a book you can read, uh, here is what Peter Thiel has to say about it. Yeah, this is all great, but unintentionally, we gained experience in in being an entrepreneur with zero budget, but goals and metrics that are not necessarily that are definitely not revenue, that needs to be met. They have to be met. So, I think that this is the main reason or reasons why you see so many entrepreneurs, especially cybersecurity, coming out of Israel. And this is not going to change for the near future. Hopefully, we'll see more AI and quantum related entrepreneurs and initiatives coming out of Israel.

Jess Vachon: 40:44

I hope so, because that's where we need a lot of the help, right? Uh I love that you mentioned quantum. Some people in our industry think that it's too early to talk about it. I think we are late. If you've been doing any reading, if you follow the technology, if you follow the leaders in that area of technology, they're saying three to five years. If you're lucky, maybe 10. What is your opinion on that?

Shira Shamban: 41:11

I'm not an expert at this. I think that this is interesting, and I think this is a risk. And we always need to think about you know the risks we're going to meet tomorrow. Tomorrow you will still meet the phishing and the malicious links. Yes, you're still going to face those. But uh in five or ten years, yes, you will have that computer that can decrypt your very sensitive top-secret database that you thought was secure. But now the technology of breaking that, breaking into that is available, and that's it.

Jess Vachon: 41:53

Well, thank you. I'm going to pivot a little bit now. So, one of the things I admire most about your career is as you were climbing the ladder, you were putting ladders down for others following behind you and helping them climb up the ladders. You found a security diva, you mentor through She Codes, Cyber Ladies, women in AppSec, and that's intentional on your part. That's not accidental. When did you decide that advocacy was a core of who you were and something that you just felt like you had to do? And how does that measure up against creating a company? Does it bring you that same level of satisfaction or more?

Shira Shamban: 42:32

I'll start with how it all began. Basically, when I started my career in the private sector, this conference reached out to me and asked me to give a talk about cybersecurity. And I said, “What do you mean? Like me? I don't think I have enough knowledge. You should probably go and find other speakers uh to do that”. Like I was so surprised. I just didn't think I have what it takes, and I assumed there are other people who are more qualified to talk about cybersecurity. So, I said no. And a few days later, I ran into an article about why we're not seeing more women in cybersecurity. And one of the top reasons was because they don't see other women in cybersecurity. So, I reached back to that conference and said, I'm going to do the talk. Of course, it was a terrible talk, but it was the first one I ever gave. And since then, I made some improvements. I never have had passion for stage or for this attention, but I felt like I'm doing this for other women. I'm here for them. Before I take the stage, I always ask myself, why are you doing this? Like all of this anxiety. Why did I agree? I don't know. But this is why I agreed back then, and I still agree to this day because I think it's important. As an entrepreneur, I have to be very careful with my time. And I very quickly learned to say no. Many people want a piece of you and a piece of your time. They want different things. Maybe they want to sell something, maybe they're just looking for some advice. Like it depends. They might want different things from you. And as we talked about just a couple of minutes ago, we only have 24 hours. I had to learn when to say no. For women who are trying to pave their way into this industry and up in this industry, I always find the time. If you're determined enough to reach out to me to grab my attention, to be able to rise above the noise and grab my attention or reach out to someone and ask for an intro. I will find a time to meet with you. And if I can help, I will figure out if I can help in any way, I'll do that. Because other people helped me. Men and women alike helped me. They didn't know me, they didn't have to help me. They owe me nothing, but they found the time to sit with me and talk to me and introduce me to other people, to give me advice, to open a door. And I want to be that person for other people. This is the karma. I feel like in the tech industry and cyber industry, sometimes it gets rough. Not all people are very supportive, but there are a lot of people who are very supportive and very friendly and very helpful. And I try to look at that. I want to be a part of that group. I think that uh karma is a real thing. And I try to spread this positive energy because I know that some people gave me uh their positive energy.

Jess Vachon: 46:14

I love it, and I could not agree with you more. As a Buddhist. I am a firm believer in karma, and you know, it's not about what you get back from it, it's about how you can create change and especially honor the fact that others have helped you succeed. So, I don't think we could end on a better note than that. Thank you, not just for the technical insights, but for the vulnerability behind it early on in our conversation. I think you've shown that building great technology and building great people are not separate tasks, they're the same task. Before we go, how can people connect with you?

Shira Shamban: 46:51

LinkedIn and Twitter are probably the best ways. Yeah, so over there.

Jess Vachon: 46:58

All right, thank you. To our listeners, if this episode resonated with you, if you believe security is about people as much as platforms, subscribe, leave us a review, and share this conversation with someone who needs to hear it. Until next time, stay vigilant. Bye-bye,