Tech Talks Daily

Have you ever wondered whether the skills that build a company are the same skills needed to scale it?
In today's episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Hadi Moussa, the newly appointed CEO of Oyster, the global employment platform helping businesses hire, pay, and support talent in more than 180 countries. The conversation comes at a fascinating moment for the company, following founder Tony Jamous' decision to step into the Executive Chairman role and hand over the CEO position from a place of strength rather than necessity.
What makes this leadership transition particularly interesting is that it challenges many assumptions about founder succession. Rather than waiting for investor pressure, market turbulence, or burnout, Tony recognized that the next chapter of Oyster's growth required a different operational skill set. Hadi shares what he learned from a succession process that centered on mission alignment, alongside leadership assessments, case studies, and extensive feedback.
We also explore Hadi's own journey from Lebanon to leadership positions at Facebook, Airbnb, Deliveroo, Coursera, and now Oyster. His personal experience of leaving home to pursue opportunity has given him a deep connection to Oyster's mission of making global employment accessible regardless of geography.
The discussion moves beyond leadership transitions and into the future of work itself. As artificial intelligence reshapes hiring, productivity, and workforce structures, Hadi explains why he believes there is a real risk that AI could concentrate opportunity within a handful of established technology hubs. He shares Oyster's vision of using technology to more broadly distribute opportunity, enabling companies to access talent wherever it exists while maintaining trust, compliance, and human support.
We also discuss what businesses continue to underestimate about managing distributed teams at scale. From culture and communication to trust and compliance, Hadi argues that remote work success requires far more than technology alone. Companies must be intentional about how they build relationships, create alignment, and support employees across borders and time zones.
For founders and business leaders, this episode offers thoughtful lessons on self-awareness, leadership evolution, and knowing when a company's needs may outgrow the strengths that originally built it. It is a conversation about growth, opportunity, and the difficult decisions required to put mission ahead of personal attachment.
How should leaders know when it is time to pass the baton, and can AI help create a more globally distributed future of work rather than concentrating opportunity in a few select places? Share your thoughts and join the conversation.

Are organizations investing enough in cybersecurity, or are they simply spending more money while falling further behind?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I speak with Martyn Ditchburn, CTO in Residence for EMEA at Zscaler, about the findings from the company's latest Ripple Effect Report and what it reveals about the growing gap between cybersecurity investment and true organizational resilience.
Drawing on insights from more than 1,700 IT leaders across 14 countries, Martyn explains why many organizations are still struggling to adapt to a threat landscape that is evolving faster than their security strategies. While cyber resilience budgets continue to rise, many leaders admit their approach remains too inward-looking, leaving critical vulnerabilities across supply chains, cloud environments, third-party ecosystems, and emerging AI deployments.
We explore why shadow AI is rapidly becoming the new shadow IT challenge, with employees adopting AI-powered tools faster than governance frameworks can keep pace. Martyn discusses how AI is quietly being embedded into countless business applications, creating visibility and security challenges that many organizations have yet to recognize fully.
The conversation also examines the growing importance of supply chain resilience. As businesses become increasingly dependent on external providers, cloud platforms, and interconnected digital services, traditional security perimeters continue to disappear. Martyn shares why third-party risk remains one of the biggest blind spots in modern cybersecurity programs and how organizations can better understand their expanding attack surface.
Agentic AI is another major focus of our discussion. As AI systems move beyond assisting users and begin taking autonomous actions, security teams face entirely new challenges around identity, governance, accountability, and risk management. Martyn explains why many organizations are racing ahead with adoption while still lacking the guardrails needed to manage these emerging technologies safely.
We also discuss lessons from previous technology shifts, including cloud computing and shadow IT, and why history keeps repeating itself when innovation outpaces security planning. Martyn offers practical advice on limiting risk, reducing blast radius through segmentation, and treating AI agents as digital identities that require the same controls and oversight as human users.
As organizations pursue AI-driven growth and competitive advantage, are they building resilience into their foundations or creating new risks they cannot yet see? And in a world where AI is becoming embedded in everything, how can security leaders stay ahead of threats that are evolving faster than ever before?

At Cisco Live, I sat down with Papi Menon, Vice President of Product Management at Outshift by Cisco, to explore one of the most ambitious ideas emerging in the AI world today.
While much of the industry remains focused on larger models and individual AI agents, Outshift is asking a different question. What happens when millions of AI agents need to collaborate across organizations, platforms, and industries?
Papi joined me to explain the thinking behind Outshift, Cisco's emerging technology and incubation group, and the work they're doing to help shape the next era of AI. Our conversation explored concepts such as the Internet of Agents, the Internet of Cognition, and AGNTCY, an open-source initiative designed to create the foundations for agent-to-agent collaboration at scale.
We discuss why connecting AI agents is only the first step, why shared intent and shared context could become as important as connectivity itself, and how organizations may need entirely new infrastructure to support an increasingly agent-driven future. Papi also shares his perspective on the challenges of interoperability, governance, trust, and security as AI systems become more autonomous and interconnected.
The discussion moves beyond today's AI headlines and into the bigger questions facing the technology industry. If the internet connected people and systems, what infrastructure will be needed to connect intelligence itself? And what role can open standards play in ensuring that future remains collaborative rather than fragmented?
Whether you're a technology leader, developer, strategist, or simply curious about where AI is heading next, this conversation offers a fascinating glimpse into how Cisco is thinking about the future of agentic computing and the foundations that may underpin the next major platform shift in technology.
How do you think AI agents will collaborate in the future, and should that future be built on open standards or closed ecosystems?

Can businesses embrace AI without surrendering control over their data, technology choices, and future direction?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Sachin Agrawal, Managing Director of Zoho UK, to discuss one of the biggest challenges facing organizations today. As AI adoption accelerates, many leaders are finding themselves caught between the pressure to innovate and the responsibility to maintain trust, transparency, and control.
Sachin shares his perspective on what separates successful AI adoption from costly experimentation. Drawing on his experience leading Zoho's growth in the UK, he explains why organizations achieving the best results are focusing on clearly defined business outcomes rather than chasing headlines or reacting to fear of missing out. We discuss how AI is already improving customer service, sales operations, application development, and decision-making, while also highlighting the importance of digital maturity as a foundation for meaningful AI success.
A major theme throughout our conversation is the growing concern around black-box AI systems. Sachin explains why transparency, explainability, and contextual intelligence are becoming increasingly important for businesses operating in regulated environments. We explore how organizations can build trust by keeping AI close to the systems where their data already resides, thereby creating more auditable, accountable outcomes.
The discussion also turns to digital sovereignty, a topic that has rapidly moved from technical teams into boardroom conversations. Sachin outlines the different dimensions of sovereignty, including data residency, infrastructure, model choice, intelligence ownership, and vendor flexibility. As geopolitical tensions, regulatory expectations, and concerns about technology concentration grow, organizations are taking a closer look at how dependent they want to become on a small number of technology providers.
We also examine whether AI will strengthen the dominance of major technology firms or create new opportunities for diverse software providers. Sachin argues that while the largest players may own much of the underlying infrastructure, customers are increasingly focused on practical outcomes, transparency, and flexibility rather than simply choosing the biggest platform.
Along the way, we discuss cloud fragmentation, governance, responsible AI adoption, data privacy, and the importance of challenging AI rather than unquestioningly trusting its outputs. Sachin offers practical advice for leaders who want to balance innovation with accountability while maintaining independence in an increasingly interconnected technology environment.
As AI continues to reshape business software and digital operations, how can organizations remain agile without sacrificing control? And what role will digital sovereignty play in determining who succeeds in the next era of enterprise technology?

What happens when the weakest link in your technology supply chain becomes the entry point for a national security incident?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I welcome back Haydn Brooks, CEO and founder of Risk Ledger, to discuss why supply chain security has moved from an IT concern to a boardroom and government priority. As organizations race to adopt AI, connect more systems, and depend on increasingly complex ecosystems of vendors, partners, cloud providers, and third-party services, the attack surface continues to expand in ways many businesses still struggle to understand.
Haydn explains why supply chains remain one of the largest blind spots in cybersecurity, despite years of warnings and a growing list of high-profile incidents. We explore how attackers increasingly target smaller suppliers that lack the resources and expertise of larger enterprises, using them as stepping stones to reach critical infrastructure, government agencies, and major corporations.
The conversation also examines how AI is reshaping the risk equation. As organizations rapidly integrate AI tools, APIs, and third-party models into existing technology stacks, many are creating new forms of concentration risk. What happens when multiple services rely on the same AI provider? And how can businesses maintain visibility over technology dependencies that are constantly evolving?
Haydn shares his perspective on why collaboration and information sharing have become far more common across the cybersecurity community, and why security leaders are beginning to recognize that defending against modern threats requires collective action rather than isolated efforts. We also discuss accountability, resilience, and why organizations must move beyond simply identifying risk and develop the ability to understand the impact of incidents when they occur.
Along the way, Haydn offers practical advice for security leaders, explains why now is the time to reassess supply chain security strategies, and shares insights into Risk Ledger's international expansion as the company grows its presence in the United States.
As AI accelerates innovation and organizations become increasingly interconnected, are businesses truly prepared for the risks that come with that progress? And could an overlooked supplier become the starting point for the next major cybersecurity crisis?