Fresh out of the studio with John Morgan, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Splunk Security at Cisco. The conversation unpacks the AI inflection point reshaping security operations — from the explosion of machine data (set to more than double in three years) to the rise of the agentic SOC, where AI agents handle detection, investigation, and response while humans focus on high-stakes decisions. John breaks down why attackers armed with AI now exploit zero-days in hours instead of weeks, why security must start with observability (including the challenge of "shadow AI"), and how CISOs are evolving from technical gatekeepers into board-level business enablers. His parting message: the entire world is learning AI together — get to it with his perspective on what great looks like for Splunk Security moving forward.

Episode Highlights:
[00:00] Quote of the Day by John Morgan from Splunk Security
[00:50] John's path from technologist to cybersecurity leader
[01:35] Leading Splunk Security: the mandate and mission
[02:20] Why Cisco and Splunk have a disproportionate AI advantage
[03:18] It's not the technology — it's the human beings
[04:26] Why more data demands better curation and context
[05:00] AI as both signal generator and attack surface creator
[06:12] Where the bottleneck sits: ingestion, analysis, or response
[07:10] Splunk at the intersection of observability and security
[08:29] The evolving CISO role: gatekeeper to board-level risk officer
[10:22] Defining the agentic SOC and where it's heading
[12:00] Alert fatigue and how agentic approaches change the dynamic
[13:56] Singapore Airlines: real customer outcomes from AI security
[14:47] The AI arms race: who has the structural advantage
[16:11] What a mature AI-native security platform looks like
[17:19] How AI is changing detection from rules-based to correlation
[18:35] Advice to CISOs: observe, trust, automate
[19:41] The one question John wishes more CISOs would ask
[20:22] The next five years — and why five years is too slow
[21:20] Closing

Profile: John Morgan, GM and SVP, Splunk Security, Cisco

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnmorganinc/

Podcast Information: Bernard Leong hosts and produces the show. The proper credits for the intro and end music are "Energetic Sports Drive." G. Thomas Craig mixed and edited the episode in both video and audio format. This episode is recorded in Poddster Singapore.

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Fresh out of the studio, Borko Kovacevic, Co-founder of Poddster and Podyx, joins us to explore how he is building the world's largest podcast studio network and the operating system behind it. He shares his career journey from nearly 17 years at Microsoft across Central Europe and Asia Pacific, to making the entrepreneurial leap and launching Poddster's first flagship studio in Dubai, followed by Singapore. Borko explains how Poddster scaled by treating operations like software — standardizing over the operational framework to run studios from UAE and Singapore to now globally across the world while building a flywheel connecting corporate brands with authentic content creators. He unpacks how Podyx, the software spinoff, hit 24 markets with zero churn on day one. Closing the conversation, Borko shares why frequency and consistency in content creation — not polish — is the single most underestimated edge in the AI era, and what great looks like for Poddster and Podyx as a global studio network and platform.

Episode Highlights:
[00:00] Quote of the Day by Borko Kovacevic [01:00] Introduction: Borko Kovacevic [03:17] The danger of corporate complacency & achieving success too early[07:00] The leap: why he finally decided to leave Microsoft and build something[10:13] The origin story of Poddster — not planned, born from a co-founder complaint[13:00] Building a mini studio prototype inside Microsoft; discovering the market gap[16:33] Modelling Poddster like McDonald's: 90% of operations standardized and repeatable[18:23] Building the flywheel: connecting corporates with content creators at scale[23:00] The global studio partner network — a community of 150+ studio owners globally[26:12] The roadmap: New York by September, then Los Angeles and London[32:10] How Podyx was born — a prototype to solve Poddster' own booking chaos[33:47] Why existing booking tools (Calendly, Acuity) didn't fit the podcasting workflow[36:55] Podyx metrics: $6M+ in transactions, 160 paying studios across 24 markets, zero churn[37:15] Stripe named Podyx fastest-growing vertical SaaS startup from Singapore[38:34] Founder-led sales: Borko personally onboarded the first 50+ studios on calls[42:23] Making a services business operate like software — what can actually be productized[44:48] The test for every new process: can you repeat it 10 more times across locations?[49:48] The one thing most people don't know about podcasting: frequency beats polish[50:42] LLMs and agents will train on your content — why posting consistently is the real SEO[54:14] Creators vs. corporates: fundamentally different problems.[56:00] Corporates discovering long-form: the end of scripted media interviews[58:22] The AWS-Cisco example: executive dialogue that earns trust without selling[01:03:13] What great looks like for Poddster and Podyx in the next few years

Profile: Borko Kovacevic, co-founder of Poddster and Podyx

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/borko-kovacevic/

Poddster Website: https://poddster.com

Podyx Website: https://podyx.com

Podcast Information: Bernard Leong hosts and produces the show. The proper credits for the intro and end music are "Energetic Sports Drive." G. Thomas Craig mixed and edited the episode in both video and audio format. This episode is recorded in Poddster Singapore and full disclosure: Bernard is an investor to Podyx.

Fresh out of the studio, Ken Exner, Chief Product Officer at Elastic, joins us to explore how Elastic evolved from the world's most popular open-source search engine into the context layer powering modern AI applications and agent systems. He shares his career journey from database programming to over 16 years at Amazon building AWS resilience practices, and now leading product strategy where search, observability, and security converge into a unified AI platform. Ken explains why context engineering is the defining discipline of the AI age, where developers become managers of agents, and how Elastic's 15-year enterprise head start positions it as the foundational retrieval layer between enterprise data and LLMs.

Episode Highlights:
[00:00] Quote of the Day by Ken Exner from Elastic
[00:51] Ken's origin story: database programmer to Amazon
[02:07] What attracted Ken to Elastic
[02:51] Lessons from building resilient systems at AWS
[04:34] How Elastic evolved from search to AI infrastructure
[07:06] Elastic today: context engineering, observability, security
[09:42] Why observability will be fundamentally transformed by AI
[10:48] How early vector search prepared Elastic for GenAI
[12:53] Context engineering: ingestion, retrieval, evaluation
[15:39] The 10-year head start over purpose-built competitors
[20:57] A developer's day is now all context engineering
[24:16] Elastic as the bridge between enterprise data and LLMs
[26:13] Agent Builder capabilities for customers
[28:09] Data, tools, and context in the Elastic framework
[29:39] Elastic on battleships and a Mars rover
[31:00] The disorienting acceleration of AI coding models
[32:07] Developers will be managers of agents
[34:00] Authentication and identity for autonomous agents
[35:30] Great in five years: the foundational AI layer
[36:14] Disrupting observability and security from within
[36:36] Closing

Profile: Ken Exner, Chief Product Officer, Elastic

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ken-exner-b914542/

Podcast Information: Bernard Leong hosts and produces the show. The proper credits for the intro and end music are "Energetic Sports Drive." G. Thomas Craig mixed and edited the episode in both video and audio format.

Fresh out of the studio, Nir Eyal, best-selling author of "Hooked," "Indistractable," and the forthcoming "Beyond Belief," joined us in a conversation to explore how deeply held beliefs quietly shape our attention, decisions, and success. Nir shared his personal origin story of childhood obesity that revealed how we escape uncomfortable feelings through habitual behaviors, and progressed through the Hook Model that democratized Silicon Valley's habit-formation secrets for building products like Duolingo and Fitbod. He unpacks the critical insight that the opposite of distraction isn't focus—it's traction—and introduces the Motivation Triangle framework explaining why knowing what to do isn't enough without belief. Throughout the conversation, Nir demonstrates how 90% of our distractions stem from internal triggers rather than technology itself, and challenges the moral panic around AI by drawing parallels to historical fears from the written word to social media. Last but not least, he argues that beliefs are tools, not truths, revealing how our hidden convictions fundamentally alter what we see, feel, and do—and provides a science-backed path for transforming limiting beliefs into liberating ones that unlock previously impossible performance.

Episode Highlights
[00:00] Quote of the Day by Nir Eyal
[01:02] Introduction: Nir Eyal
[04:45] Hook model democratizes habit-forming product secrets
[06:42] Startups sell painkillers not vitamins
[08:59] Traction versus distraction defines intentional living
[10:24] Distraction is behavior not medical addiction
[11:28] AI triggers predictable moral panic cycle
[14:21] First generation without mass starvation faces excess
[16:58] Hook model: trigger action reward investment
[23:26] Persuasion helps people achieve their goals
[29:39] Internal triggers cause ninety percent of distractions
[32:36] Indistractable readers didn't implement the steps
[34:46] Motivation triangle requires behavior benefit belief
[36:19] Steve Jobs willed reality through liberating beliefs
[43:43] Facts beliefs faith require intellectual humility
[45:41] Beliefs are tools not truths
[48:32] Beliefs reshape attention anticipation agency
[51:30] Closing

Profile: Nir Eyal, author of "Beyond Belief", "Indistractable" and "Hooked"

Main Site: https://www.nirandfar.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nireyal/

Podcast Information: Bernard Leong hosts and produces the show. The proper credits for the intro and end music are "Energetic Sports Drive." G. Thomas Craig mixed and edited the episode in both video and audio format.

Fresh out of the studio, Patrick Kelly, Vice President for Asia Pacific at Arize AI, joins us to explore the critical world of AI observability, evaluation, and infrastructure and how Arize AI will start their go to market across the region. Beginning with his transition from Databricks to Arize AI, Patrick explained how the company's mission centers on making AI work for people by helping teams observe, evaluate, and continuously improve their AI agents in production. Emphasizing that evaluations are the most important requirement for AI systems in 2025-2026, he revealed a striking insight: approximately 50% of AI agents fail silently in production because organizations don't know what's happening. Through compelling case studies from Booking.com, Flipkart, and AT&T, Patrick explained how Arize AI enables real-time observability and online evaluations, achieving results like 40% accuracy improvements and 84% cost reductions. Patrick concluded by sharing his vision for success across Asia Pacific's diverse markets - from regulatory frameworks in Korea and Singapore to language localization challenges in Vietnam - emphasizing the three pillars that remain constant: helping customers make money, control costs, and manage risk in an era where AI governance has become paramount. Last but not least, he shares what great would look like for Arize AI in the Asia Pacific

Episode Highlights:
[00:00] Quote of the Day by Patrick Kelly
[01:10] Bernard introduces AI evaluation and infrastructure topic
[02:24] Patrick's journey from Databricks to Arize AI
[03:20] Arize AI's mission: making AI work for people
[04:00] Understanding agentic systems and their complexity
[05:18] Observability, evaluation, and development framework explained
[06:27] Creating continuous feedback loops for AI improvement
[07:00] On-premises and air-gapped deployment capabilities
[08:00] Open Telemetry and Open Inference standards
[09:08] Evaluations are critical for 2025-2026 success
[10:36] Booking.com case: real-time production AB testing
[14:36] Phoenix open source and Open Inference: entry to Arize ecosystem
[16:00] Travel industry use cases: Skyscanner and Flipkart
[17:53] AT&T case: 40% accuracy improvement, 84% cost reduction
[19:36] 50% of production agents fail silently
[20:26] Korea and Singapore MAS launches AI risk management framework
[22:08] Arize AI CEO's 10 predictions for AI 2026
[22:41] Cursor for X: AI engineering everywhere
[24:06] Context and session state matter critically
[26:27] Harness: new buzzword for agent orchestration
[34:13] Three pillars: make money, control costs, manage risk
[36:00] Asia Pacific diversity: India to Japan
[37:12] Language and cultural nuances in evaluations
[38:00] Closing

Profile: Patrick Kelly, Vice President, Asia Pacific, Arize AILinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/patrick-kelly-aab6168/?ref=analyse.asia

Podcast Information: Bernard Leong hosts and produces the show. The proper credits for the intro and end music are "Energetic Sports Drive." G. Thomas Craig mixed and edited the episode in both video and audio format.

By popular demand, Michael Smith Jr., co-host of The Generalist podcast, and Daniel Cerventus Lim, semi-retired entrepreneur and community builder in Malaysia, return for another candid deep-dive into Southeast Asia and India tech landscape. Fresh off India's record-breaking IPO wave that's drawing regional companies like Pine Labs to redomicile, they dissect what this exit boom means for a Southeast Asian ecosystem still struggling with venture returns. Michael delivers his characteristically unflinching take on why "the year of [insert country]" never materializes beyond Singapore and Indonesia, while making the provocative case that most VCs fundamentally misunderstand B2B distribution strategy—specifically how hyperscaler marketplaces like AWS and Microsoft provide the GTM playbook that separates successful exits from perennial fundraising. Daniel shares emerging insights from the SME acquisition space, revealing the stark reality that traditional businesses are "seeing black" while venture-backed startups continue "seeing red." Together, they debate whether we're witnessing an AI infrastructure bubble that will pop or simply taper, examine why Southeast Asia leads globally in AI adoption despite the disconnect with venture outcomes, and question the fragility of cloud infrastructure after recent AWS and CloudFlare outages. The conversation culminates in a sobering assessment: the region has achieved a remarkable $300 billion digital economy milestone, but the path forward may require accepting longer timelines, smaller profitable exits over unicorn dreams, and modernizing traditional businesses rather than building the next ByteDance.

Episode Highlights: [00:00] Quotes of the Day by Michael, Daniel & Bernard[02:12] Record India IPOs signal redomiciling trend from Singapore[03:53] Pine Labs exit provides significant Southeast Asia returns[04:41] Indonesia's venture funding freeze despite strong exit activity[11:29] Year of whatever narrative never materializes for any country in ASEAN[15:05] AI infrastructure bubble debate: does it pop or fizzle?[18:42] OpenAI's unprecedented growth speed creates new tech pantheon[21:00] Recent AWS and CloudFlare outages highlight infrastructure fragility[24:00] AI agents remain in early stages of development[28:00] Real-world robotics models still lack adequate data foundations[34:00] AppPoint's dual NASDAQ-SGX listing demonstrates successful B2B strategy[38:00] B2B marketplace strategy provides essential distribution for startups[44:00] Reflections on eConomySEA 10th Year Report 2025[53:00] SME market offers modernization opportunities with lower risk[54:00] Southeast Asia modernization surprises many American visitors[56:00] SME acquisition market shows profitability versus startup losses[57:00] Closing

Profile: Michael Smith Jr., Tech Evangelist from Oracle & Co-Host, LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/smittysgp/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheGeneralistsPodcast

Daniel Cerventus Lim, semi-retired entrepreneur, Community Builder in Malaysia and TEDxKL founder. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cerventus/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/80164351656

Podcast Information: Bernard Leong hosts and produces the show. The proper credits for the intro and end music are "Energetic Sports Drive." G. Thomas Craig mixed and edited the episode in both video and audio format.

Fresh out of the studio, Jay Parikh, Executive Vice President of Core AI at Microsoft, joins us to explore how Microsoft is fundamentally transforming software development by placing AI at the center of every stage of the development lifecycle. He shares his career journey from scaling the internet at Akamai Technologies during the dot-com boom, to leading infrastructure at Facebook through the mobile revolution, and now driving Microsoft's AI-first transformation where the definition of "developer" itself is rapidly evolving. Jay explains that Microsoft's Core AI team, is moving beyond traditional tiered architecture to a new paradigm where large language models can think, reason, plan, and interact with tools—shifting developer time from typing code to specification and verification while enabling parallel project execution through specialized AI agents. He highlights how organizations like Singapore Airlines cut project timelines from 11 weeks to 5 weeks using GitHub Copilot and challenges both individuals and enterprises to raise their level of ambition: moving from being amazed by AI to being frustrated it can't do more, while building cultural experiments that unlock this exponential technology. Closing the conversation, Jay shares what great looks like for Microsoft's Core AI to enable AI transformation for every organization around the world.

Episode Highlights:
[00:00] Quote of the day by Jay Parikh
[01:00] Introducing Microsoft's Core AI strategy and transformation
[02:34] Career philosophy: pursuing hard problems and discomfort
[04:08] Core AI team's mission: empowering every developer
[06:00] Reinventing the entire software development lifecycle
[09:17] Parallel projects and agents transforming development workflows
[12:12] AI first strategy across Microsoft's product ecosystem
[15:37] GitHub platform beyond code: context and orchestration
[20:33] Building AI platforms: lessons from scale experience
[21:00] Two mindsets: amazement versus frustration with AI
[22:15] Raising ambition and pushing AI tool boundaries
[25:00] Enterprise adoption challenges: tools and cultural transformation
[28:00] Learning loops: shrinking circles to accelerate growth
[31:00] Alignment without tight coupling across global teams
[36:56] Concrete trends: use tools, understand model development
[40:27] Responsible AI and security built from start
[43:30] Asia innovation: two thirds of developers here
[46:19] Raising ambition to unlock human creativity collaboration
[48:35] Goal: AI transformation for every global organization

Profile: Jay Parikh, Executive Vice President, Core AI, Microsoft

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jayparikh/

Podcast Information: Bernard Leong hosts and produces the show. The proper credits for the intro and end music are "Energetic Sports Drive." G. Thomas Craig mixed and edited the episode in both video and audio format.

Raghav Kapoor, CEO & co-founder of Smartkarma, joined us for a conversation on the launch of PvtIQ and the structural transformation of Asia's private markets. Drawing from his experience building Smartkarma's independent research platform, Raghav explained how client demand for pre-IPO coverage led to creating PvtIQ, an intelligence platform designed to bridge the critical information gap in Southeast Asia's private markets. We discussed the striking imbalance where $74 billion has been invested into the region's tech ecosystem but only $23 billion has been returned through exits, highlighting the urgent need for better data infrastructure and price discovery. Raghav shared unique insights on how families dominate the region's investment landscape, why private and public markets are converging into one, and his vision for PvtIQ to become the intelligence backbone supporting companies, investors, and regulators in bringing more transparency and efficiency to Asia's rapidly evolving private market ecosystem.

Episode Highlights:
[00:00] Quote of the Day by Raghav Kapoor
[00:57]] Smartkarma launches PvtIQ for Asia's private markets
[03:11]] Investors requesting coverage three years before IPO
[04:08]] Supporting MAS equity market development program
[05:24]] Singapore's public markets languished despite private growth
[06:13]] Path from fundraising to public listing explained
[08:37]] $74 billion invested, only $23 billion exits
[09:45]] Companies need support to achieve IPO readiness
[11:00]] Capital chasing deals shifted to improving disclosure
[11:57]] Southeast Asia's extreme market fragmentation challenges
[13:23]] Families dominate and influence Southeast Asian markets
[14:38]] Lack of data creates serious structural challenges
[19:01]] Private market investors transitioning from momentum investing
[20:18]] Digital banks provide disclosure model for research
[21:24]] Late stage private rounds resemble public IPOs
[23:26]] Liquidity without information is just volatility
[24:06]] Private and public markets converging into one
[25:30]] Information gap is the single biggest opportunity
[27:00]] Private market research TAM already $8 billion
[28:57]] What great looks like: intelligence backbone for Asia's private markets
[30:57]] Closing

Profile: Raghav Kapoor, CEO and co-founder, SmartkarmaLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ragkap/

Podcast Information: Bernard Leong hosts and produces the show. The proper credits for the intro and end music are "Energetic Sports Drive." G. Thomas Craig mixed and edited the episode in both video and audio format. Recorded in Poddster Singapore