Beyond the Alert

Vulnerable U’s Matt Johansen on Capturing Cybersecurity's Authentic Voice

Listen Later

Matt Johansen, Founder of Vulnerable U, built a following of 133,000 cybersecurity professionals by abandoning corporate messaging for authentic practitioner-to-practitioner communication. His systematic approach combines daily content creation with AI workflows that transform security operations. This proves his "humans to the power of AI" framework, where teams multiply capabilities without losing the human insight that threat actors can't replicate.

Matt's transition from finance industry silence to social media leadership offers a blueprint for cybersecurity professionals who want to share knowledge without corporate constraints. His routine of content creation — recording daily videos for over 2 years — demonstrates how consistency beats perfection when building industry influence.

 

Topics Discussed:

  • Building authentic cybersecurity influence through daily content creation and practitioner-to-practitioner communication.
  • Implementing Claude,  Obsidian, and Whisper AI workflows for voice-to-research automation using GitHub issues to trigger autonomous investigation.
  • Overcoming cybersecurity AI resistance by testing new models weekly rather than dismissing tools based on outdated experiences.
  • Achieving sub-30-minute incident response times through natural language AI queries that eliminate variable name and IP lookups.
  • Applying "systems not goals" framework to SOC operations by removing superhero dependencies and building automated processes.
  • Creating vulnerability-focused content that addresses mental health challenges and burnout endemic to cybersecurity professionals through authentic storytelling.
  • Using AI as a communication thought partner for security teams struggling to articulate budget requests and demonstrate value.
  • Transitioning from finance industry PR restrictions to social media leadership by leveraging Instagram's untapped cybersecurity practitioner audience.

    • Listen to more episodes: 

    Apple 

    Spotify 

    YouTube

    ...more
    View all episodesView all episodes
    Download on the App Store
    Beyond the AlertBy Dropzone AI