Technology isn't enough to win. Gal Elbaz, co-founder and CTO of Oligo Security, breaks down why the technical founder's biggest mistake is confusing a great product with a great business.

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In this episode of The Generalists, Gal takes us inside the journey of scaling a cybersecurity startup from founding team to market leader. He shares the brutal realities of building a security company in production environments, how Log4Shell validated Oligo's runtime security vision, and why solving a problem isn't the same as solving "the" problem.

We get into:

- The CTO's responsibility to look six months ahead of the market

- What Got You Here Won't Get You There: evolving leadership as you scale

- The best interview question Gal uses to separate brilliant talent from the right fit

- How research (like the ShadowRay attack on AI workloads) builds credibility marketing can't buy

- Whether AI really makes developers 10x faster — and where it falls short

- Selling security inside production when everyone calls you crazy

Hosts:

Michael Smith Jr.: https://www.linkedin.com/in/smittysgp/

Raz Kotler: https://www.linkedin.com/in/razkotler/

Guest:

Gal Elbaz: http://linkedin.com/in/gal-elbaz

🔗 Links & Resources From This Episode

• Oligo Security: https://www.oligo.security

• ShadowRay Research: https://www.oligo.security/blog/shadowray-attack-ai-workloads-actively-exploited-in-the-wild

• ShadowRay on MITRE ATT&CK: https://attack.mitre.org/campaigns/C0045/

• AirBorne Research: https://www.oligo.security/blog/airborne

• Log4Shell Guidance from CISA: https://www.cisa.gov/news-events/cybersecurity-advisories/aa21-356a

• Check Point Research: https://research.checkpoint.com

• eBPF: https://ebpf.io

• Wiz: https://www.wiz.io

• MITRE ATT&CK: https://attack.mitre.org

• Black Hat: https://www.blackhat.com

• The Hebrew University of Jerusalem: https://www.huji.ac.il