Recorded live at F5 AppWorld 2026 in Las Vegas, this episode of Pop Goes the Stack puts Field CISO Chuck Herrin in the hot seat for a fast-moving conversation on what security leaders are really dealing with right now. Joel Moses kicks things off with the agentic AI debate: if teams bypass structured tool interfaces and let agents “just use the CLI,” what happens to authentication, observability, and predictability when autonomy accelerates faster than humans can keep up?

From there, Chuck makes the case that fear is a poor long-term strategy for running a business, even when the threats are real. He unpacks the tension he’s seeing across organizations, where executives are driven by FOMO while employees wrestle with FOBO (fear of becoming obsolete), and argues that companies get results when they redesign how they operate rather than bolting AI onto old structures.

The conversation shifts to post-quantum cryptography and why it still isn’t getting the attention it deserves. Chuck explains how “future tech” framing, short CISO tenures, and the pressure of today’s fires keep PQC from becoming a priority, even as harvest-now-decrypt-later attacks make it a present-day risk. His advice is practical: assign clear ownership, treat the effort like business continuity planning, and include your supply chain in the readiness scope.

Finally, they touch on a new class of concern for CISOs: kinetic targeting of data center infrastructure, and how sovereignty requirements can constrain options when physical risk rises. If you’re navigating AI adoption, cryptographic transition, or resilience planning, tune in for a grounded perspective from the show floor.