Masters of Data

We sat down with Eleanor Ezimah, a security engineer with more than six years in the field, to ask whether the cybersecurity skills shortage is real. Eleanor walks us through building a security program from the ground up with the CIS Controls, why budget and appetite for risk shape tooling choices as much as any framework does, and how AI has changed what hiring teams expect, from agent-building challenges in interviews to fluency with shadow AI. We also trade stories about getting one AI to talk to another, and Eleanor shares why she’s steering her career toward cloud and AI infrastructure security. This one is for security leaders trying to staff a team and practitioners weighing a specialty switch who want to know which skills hiring managers are asking for right now.

0:00:00 – Welcome and guest introduction

We turned the mic around for this episode, with Zoe Hawkins interviewing Adam White and Jake Lee about Sumo Logic’s redesigned free trial. The new 14-day sandbox comes preloaded with realistic data feeds, Cloud SIEM, and our AI agents, so no one has to build collectors or open tickets before finding out whether the platform fits. Adam and Jake walk through the guided “choose your own adventure” paths, the broad, open-ended questions that bring out the best in Mobot, and how the trial will keep pace with new releases. Security and observability practitioners who want to size up a logging platform in an afternoon, without kicking off a data engineering project, will get the most from this one.

0:00:00 – Introduction: Zoe takes the guest seat

We sat down with Ben Cody, SVP Product Management at Sumo Logic, to work out what data pipeline management means now that moving data from point A to point B is the easy part. Ben draws a sharp line between the two jobs AI can and cannot do here, arguing that AI should generate the configurations and flag the gaps while the pipeline itself stays deterministic and runs the same way every time. We also get into toxic data, why telemetry volumes are outrunning budgets, and the accidental coining of "vibelines." Security and SRE teams watching agent traffic inflate their ingest bill will find plenty here on shaping what they keep without giving up coverage.

On this episode of Masters of Data, we dig into what we're calling the tokenpocalypse, the real cost of running AI at the scale most of us have quietly slid into. We trace the whiplash of the past two years, from "everyone needs the AI hammer" to backlash against obvious AI slop, then get into the harder question of what happens when a mission-critical process runs out of tokens, from chaining Claude to Databricks for a custom dashboard to the eye-watering budget Uber reportedly burned through by April. We also weigh in on cheaper Chinese frontier models, the pull toward localized and specialized AI, and whether the current build-out of AI infrastructure can realistically pay for itself. If you're the one watching the AI line item on your budget, or building workflows that quietly depend on a model always being available, this conversation is a useful gut check.

0:00:00 – Intro and cohost banter

On this episode of Masters of Data, we sit down with Jake Lee to revisit one of observability's most basic questions: what exactly is a log? The conversation covers log anatomy, why logging so often becomes an afterthought until an audit or outage forces the issue, and the build versus buy debate that gets messier every time someone suggests just vibe coding a pipeline. We also dig into where AI fits, from natural language log investigations to the emerging idea of ambient intelligence quietly watching your systems in the background. Anyone weighing whether to build a homegrown logging pipeline or lean on a platform will find plenty of ammunition here for that conversation with their team.

0:00:00 – Intro banter and welcoming back Jake Lee

On this episode of Masters of Data, we dig into the eternal build versus buy debate, and why "good enough" rarely stays good enough as your needs evolve. We talk through how AI has convinced everyone they can build their own tools, why bespoke solutions still need a real data infrastructure layer underneath them, and how unpredictable AI pricing is reshaping vendor lock-in on both sides of the equation. We also get into what it actually takes for build and buy solutions alike to integrate well with everything else in your stack. If you're weighing a homegrown project against a platform commitment, or bracing for your next vendor renewal, this one will feel familiar.

On this episode of Masters of Data, we dig into what happens when AI actually delivers on its promise to eliminate busywork, and explore why removing the toil doesn't feel like the win everyone expected. We make the case that repetitive tasks build the intuition, pattern recognition, and muscle memory people need to do the harder work well. Security and engineering leaders rethinking how much triage and busywork to hand off to AI will find plenty to chew on here, especially anyone staring down a task list where every single item feels like the hardest one.

On this episode of Masters of Data, we sat down with Patrick Kobly, who runs security for a boutique MSSP serving fintech, crypto, and gaming clients, to dig into how phishing has evolved past the obvious tells. Kobly walks through how attackers spin up reverse proxies behind Cloudflare, route through residential IPs to dodge reputation-based blocking, and can take a fake domain from registration to full attack in under five hours. The conversation turns into an unexpected case for treating SEO as a security discipline, since search rank and AI-generated results are now part of the attack surface too. Security and marketing leaders who assume their worlds don't overlap will want to hear how closely those teams need to work together before the next big campaign launches.

On this episode of Masters of Data, we tackle breaking into cybersecurity. David shares his journey from welder to AppSec manager, proving that career pivots are tough but doable. We explore entry points like SOC analyst, GRC, and application security roles, noting that penetration testing gigs are fiercely competitive. AI is reshaping the landscape, making technical skills more accessible while amplifying the need for critical thinking. Networking beats degrees. Side projects and hands-on certifications matter more than credentials. We discuss role bleed, where security professionals need broader skill sets than ever, and why initiative plus continuous learning are non-negotiable.

We sat down with AJ Bean from Sumo Logic's EMEA team to unpack why AI perception splits so sharply between the US and Europe. The conversation moves from job-security anxiety versus data sovereignty concerns, through the rise of homegrown challengers like Mistral and Dust, to why European labor protections change the shape of AI-driven layoffs entirely. We also get into why Reddit shows up so often in UK AI answers and what that means for anyone tracking AI visibility. This one's for marketers and GTM teams building regional strategy, especially anyone who's assumed "AI adoption" means the same thing on both sides of the Atlantic.

0:00:00 – Introduction: tomato, tomato and transatlantic AI perception