The Wake UP X Podcast - With Efren L. Salazar | Securing Tomorrow, Empowering Today

Horse Cart to Moon Landing to Waymo: Larry Switzer on AI, Innovation Cycles and the Future of Jobs

Larry Switzer opens this episode with a story about his grandfather, a man born in western Pennsylvania who never left except to fight World War II, and who lived to see humans walk on the moon. Larry's point is simple and powerful: the innovation cycle is only accelerating from here. At RSA 2026 in San Francisco, that acceleration was on full display. Autonomous Waymo vehicles navigating live city traffic. Larry rode in one and came away with an unexpected feeling: he trusted the computer's data driven decision making more than he would a stranger behind the wheel. Smoother. More consistent. No stop and start. And behind every one of those decisions? Data. Massive amounts of it. In real time. That is the backdrop for the second half of this conversation, where Larry addresses the question everyone in tech is wrestling with: is AI taking jobs? His take is grounded and clear. AI is automation. Just like mechanical automation before it, the result is not the elimination of work but the redirection of smart people toward harder, more valuable problems. The challenge is not a lack of work. It is a shortage of technically trained people ready to take on what is next. Featuring Larry Switzer and the team at Ziggiz.AI. 🙏 Thank you Larry Switzer for this incredible conversation on Wake Up X. From horse carts to autonomous vehicles to petabyte scale cybersecurity, your perspective on where we are and where we are going is something everyone in this industry needs to hear. Proud to feature you and the work at Ziggiz.AI. 🎙️ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLODZHZk6rF5j9esSSLcFbvDGJSqlhs2ZM Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/wake-up-x-securing-tomorrow-empowering-today-with/id1792821643

Be Comfortable Being Uncomfortable: Larry Switzer on Growth, Grit and Getting in the Room

A baseball player who hits .300 is a superstar. That means they fail 7 out of 10 times. In this closing segment of our RSA 2026 conversation, Larry Switzer of Ziggiz.AI shares the mindset that separates the people who make it in cybersecurity from those who burn out or give up: be comfortable with being uncomfortable. Larry breaks down why discomfort is not a problem to fix but a signal that you are actually growing. His advice for breaking into or leveling up in the industry is simple and direct. Watch where the top investors are putting their money. Get in local rooms with people doing leading edge work. Find experts who have done it, not just taught it. Keep adding. Keep showing up. And when you fail, which you will, remember that life is about what you do after the fall. We also share the story of how this conversation started: a chance encounter at RSA 2026 in San Francisco, a great person in a great conversation, and a simple hello. That is Wake Up X. Real conversations. Real people. Real cybersecurity. Connect with Larry at Ziggiz.AI — larry.switzer@ziggiz.ai 🙏 Thank you Larry Switzer for closing out this conversation with so much honesty and heart. The work you and the team at Ziggiz.AI are doing matters and we are grateful you took the time to chat with us at RSA 2026. 🎙️ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLODZHZk6rF5j9esSSLcFbvDGJSqlhs2ZM Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/wake-up-x-securing-tomorrow-empowering-today-with/id1792821643

From corporate professional to cybersecurity entrepreneur serving the state of California, this week's guest is proof that curiosity is the first step to building something meaningful.

A huge thank you to ISACA Sacramento for hosting an incredible appreciation event and welcoming the WakeUpX team in to capture some amazing conversations. The energy in that room was something else, packed with passionate professionals, emerging talent, and leaders who genuinely invest in this community. We walked away with outstanding interviews and video content that we can't wait to share with you. More episodes from this event are coming, so stay locked in. 🔒 I sat down with Anil Reddy (Kondakrindi), founder of ARK Strategies Inc., a CMAS-certified small business IT consulting firm that works directly with state and local government agencies across California, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, and beyond. Anil brings over 25 years of corporate experience and 10 years of deep focus on cybersecurity, in a space that desperately needs leaders who understand both the technology and the public sector mission behind it. What started as a leap of faith during the pandemic has grown into a firm specializing in cloud security, penetration testing, vulnerability assessments, security policy development, and digital transformation, powered by platforms like Microsoft Power Platform, Salesforce, ServiceNow, and Workday. We talked about: 💼 Why he left the 9-to-5 to build his own consulting firm 🏛️ How he landed his first public sector engagement with zero prior policy writing experience (and scored perfectly on the CISM to prepare) 🤝 Why relationships, integrity, and community are the real foundation of a consulting business 🔐 How he handles the stress of security breaches at 2am 🤖 His perspective on where AI is headed and what it means for security 🌐 Why he's expanding ARK Strategies beyond California and what "serving the citizens" actually means to him One moment that stuck with me, Anil said, "Don't just bring the problems. Bring the solutions." That's the entrepreneurial mindset right there. For anyone looking to break into cybersecurity, he had this to say: start with education, get certified, then go show leaders what you know. Simple. Actionable. Real. 🎧 Listen on Spotify, watch on YouTube, and follow along at wakeupxpodcast.com for more conversations with CISOs, CTOs, CEOs, serial entrepreneurs, and the professionals shaping the future of cybersecurity. This is just the beginning, we have major guests coming up across tech leadership, cyber defense, and entrepreneurship. You don't want to miss what's next. 👉 Connect with Anil: linkedin.com/in/anil-reddy-kondakrindi-1933891🌐 Learn more about ARK Strategies: ArkStrategiesInc.com🎙️ More episodes: wakeupxpodcast.com #WakeUpXPodcast #Cybersecurity #Entrepreneurship #PublicSector #ISACA #ISACASacramento #CyberLeaders #SmallBusiness #ITConsulting #ARKStrategies #CISM #SecurityPolicy #DigitalTransformation #CloudSecurity #SacramentoTech #CyberCommunity #PodcastAlert

The Innovator's Dilemma, Pure Consumption and How to Stay Sharp in Cyber with Larry Switzer

Why can the biggest companies in cybersecurity see disruption coming and still not stop it? In this episode, Larry Switzer breaks down the innovator's dilemma and why business model is the real battleground for the next generation of cyber companies. When an incumbent is locked into how they charge customers, a startup running pure consumption pricing can win ground they simply cannot defend without burning down their own revenue engine. Larry also shares his playbook for staying ahead in one of the fastest moving industries on the planet. Follow the top venture capital firms. Study what the leaders at Palo Alto Networks, CrowdStrike, and Zscaler are doing and why. And above all else, find people who have actually done the work and get in the room with them. Training is useful. Experience is irreplaceable. This is a conversation about disruption, business model innovation, and what real growth looks like in cybersecurity. Featuring Larry Switzer and the team at Ziggiz.AI. 🙏 Thank you Larry Switzer for another phenomenal conversation on Wake Up X. Your perspective on business model innovation and staying ahead in cybersecurity is exactly what this industry needs to hear. Honored to have you on the show. 🎙️ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLODZHZk6rF5j9esSSLcFbvDGJSqlhs2ZM Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/wake-up-x-securing-tomorrow-empowering-today-with/id1792821643

25x More Efficient Than Any SIEM: How Ziggiz.AI is Redefining Cybersecurity at Petabyte Scale | Larry Switzer

⚡ 25 times more efficient than any SIEM. 980 times faster threat detection. Petabyte scale data ingestion at a fraction of the cost. In this episode of Wake Up X, Larry Switzer goes deep on the technology behind Ziggiz.AI and why it represents a fundamental rethinking of how cybersecurity platforms are built for the AI era. Most security platforms were designed around search. You collect logs, store them, and search for threats after the fact. That model is broken at modern scale, especially for healthcare organizations and highly regulated industries dealing with AI driven attacks and massive data volumes. Ziggiz.AI does detections on the stream. As data flows in, threats are identified, data is enriched with geolocation and threat intelligence in real time, and insights surface immediately. No waiting. No prohibitive storage costs. No leaving critical log sources unmonitored because ingestion is too expensive. Larry walks through exactly what that unlocks for security teams: Full visibility into every asset across the environment. Instant blast radius analysis when an intrusion occurs. Toxic combination detection before incidents escalate. New use cases built with Databricks, SQL, or Sigma without rebuilding from scratch. And a fully open, plug and play architecture built on Databricks Spark with Delta Share, so teams can connect any tool and any partner instantly, including AlphaLevel for advanced ML and statistics based detection engineering. You own your data. You control who sees it. You can revoke access at any time. One source of truth at petabyte scale. This is what it looks like to build security infrastructure that is actually ready for the world we are living in now, not the one from ten years ago. 🙏 Thank you Larry Switzer for bringing this level of technical depth and clarity to the Wake Up X podcast. The work being done at Ziggiz.AI is genuinely moving the needle for healthcare and highly regulated industries that need it most. Grateful to have you on the show. 🎙️ 👇 Subscribe and listen on your favorite platform so you never miss an episode. Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/28GZnRBrIV2efHOhZdiftt YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLODZHZk6rF5j9esSSLcFbvDGJSqlhs2ZM Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/wake-up-x-securing-tomorrow-empowering-today-with/id1792821643 #Cybersecurity #ZiggizAI #SIEM #DataLake #AI #Databricks #HealthcareSecurity #ThreatDetection #InfoSec #WakeUpX #LarrySwitzer #CyberDefense #DeltaShare #StreamProcessing #RSA2026 #PetabyteScale #MachineLearning #AlphaLevel