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The a16z Show

a16z Podcast: The Hard Things about Security

The a16z Show

a16z

Culture, Innovation, Entrepreneurship, Software Eating The World, Disruption, Business, Technology, Science

4.21.2K Ratings

🗓️ 6 June 2018

⏱️ 34 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Here's the hard thing about security: the more authentication factors you have, the more secure things are... but in practice, people won't use too many factors, because they want ease of use. There's clearly a tension between security and usability,...

Transcript

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0:00.0

The content here is for informational purposes only, should not be taken as legal business, tax, or investment advice, or be used to evaluate any investment or security and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any A16Z fund. For more details, please see A16Z.com slash disclosures.

0:18.7

Hi, everyone. Welcome to the A6NZ podcast.

0:21.5

I'm Sonal.

0:22.6

Today we have one of our founder stories episodes.

0:25.0

You can find others on our website under A6NZ.com slash founder maker stories.

0:29.7

And our guest today is Tina Aronsward, CEO and co-founder of security company Ubiko,

0:35.6

makers of the hardware authenticator Ubiqui.

0:38.4

In this conversation, co-hosted by general partner Martin Casado, we cover everything

0:43.0

from the broader trends in security and authentication to the seemingly eternal tension

0:47.8

between usability and security to the role of open standards and open source in trust and

0:52.9

adoption. And finally, we discuss the challenges and realities of the long, hard slog startups face

0:59.1

with some advice for entrepreneurs shared in between.

1:02.4

But first, we talk about regional differences in innovation and how this company got started.

1:07.8

Jacob and I were working for a company doing clinical trials, and we asked them

1:13.2

if we could develop a new intelligent pharmaceutical packaging that would remind the patient,

1:20.7

you know, the compliance information directly on the package. I think we did everything wrong

1:24.7

there because we were trying to solve a super big problem

1:27.9

of a pharmaceutical packaging and a whole ecosystem, but it actually led to what we do today.

1:34.1

Because how do you then send the information between the pharmaceutical packaging to the computer

1:38.1

in a secure way? It's sort of indirectly led to what we did.

1:41.4

Isn't it funny how all those things make sense in hindsight and retrospect?

1:44.7

Yeah, that's great.

...

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