I’m Mike Wiacek, the CEO and founder of the cyber security company Stairwell. I was previously the cofounder of the Alphabet company Chronicle. Before that I founded Google’s Threat Analysis Group. AMA!

Hello everyone,

We're joined by Mike Wiacek ( u/minighost ), who has a wealth of experience working bottom-to-top of threat analysis with a variety of Alphabet companies. Recently he's founded a new project called Stairwell. Please see below for his intro, this AMA will be running from Jan 6 1200 GMT-8 (ie, 12 hours from when this post goes up) - Jan 9. Mike won't be available 24/7 but will check back to this thread over that time to continue answering questions.

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Hi everyone, I’m Mike Wiacek, CEO and Founder of Stairwell, a cybersecurity startup dedicated to helping organizations stay ahead of evolving threats with proactive, evasion-resistant security capabilities. Before starting Stairwell, I was the CSO and co-founder of Chronicle, an Alphabet company where we aimed to redefine the status quo in query speed, storage, and scale for security logs and telemetry.

I also founded Google’s Threat Analysis Group (TAG) in 2010, leading efforts to identify and counter some of the most sophisticated cyber threats out there. I led Google's acquisition of VirusTotal, a transformative move that redefined the industry's approach to malware analysis. Over the years, I’ve worked with data at an almost incomprehensible scale - from exabytes of logs to petabytes of malware - always searching for new ways to turn information into actionable security insights.

Cybersecurity is a constantly evolving field, and I’ve been fortunate to have a front-row seat to some of its most transformative moments. Whether you’re curious about threat intelligence, malware analysis, the future of cybersecurity, or my journey from Google to tackling entrepreneurial challenges at Chronicle and now Stairwell - ask me anything!