What happens when building a product means outsmarting an intelligent adversary every single day? In this podcast hosted by Cassio Sampaio, Tenable Vice President of Product and Program Management Matthew Frank will be speaking on the realities of creating secure B2B SaaS products. He explores how exposure management is evolving, why identity is becoming the new perimeter, and how AI is reshaping both sides of the cybersecurity battlefield.
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Show Notes
- Building cybersecurity products is fundamentally different from traditional B2B SaaS because you’re competing against both market rivals and active adversaries.
- Security teams operate in an environment where attackers constantly evolve, forcing continuous adaptation.
- The Formula One analogy illustrates the dual challenge: racing competitors while someone attempts to sabotage you mid-race.
- The cybersecurity vendor ecosystem is deeply interconnected, creating a community that responds collectively to major threats.
- Success in security is measured through proactive indicators, not visible “wins,” because the best outcome is when nothing happens.
- Key KPIs include time to detect, time to remediate, and reductions in attack paths.
- Attack paths represent chains of interconnected vulnerabilities across assets, environments, and systems.
- Prioritization is critical—if everything is important, nothing is important.
- Tenable prioritizes risks through the lens of an attacker rather than focusing solely on vulnerabilities.
- Exposure management is replacing traditional vulnerability management as the dominant approach.
- Cybersecurity product work requires an adversarial mindset—understanding how a malicious actor would exploit systems.
- Calm decision-making under pressure is essential due to rapid response cycles during major incidents.
- Curiosity fuels strong security product teams because the threat landscape changes continuously.
- Operational technology environments carry unique complexity, often involving outdated systems that can’t be patched.
- AI is becoming a force multiplier, accelerating both attack techniques and defense capabilities.
- Predictive analytics powered by AI can help identify where attackers are likely to strike next.
- AI can correlate massive volumes of noisy signals into high-confidence alerts.
- Automated, environment-specific guidance is emerging as a core feature for improving remediation.
- Identity is becoming the new perimeter as assets and environments become increasingly distributed.
- Aspiring security product managers should cultivate curiosity, study real-world breaches, and understand attacker motivations to build stronger instincts for the field.
About the speaker
With over 25 years of leadership in hardware and software development, Matthew is a seasoned executive recognized for driving innovation, scaling operations, and delivering market-defining products in high-growth environments. As Vice President of Product and Operations at Tenable, he has successfully led cross-functional initiatives at scale through every stage of the product lifecycle— from concept and design to global launch and post-market optimization. Throughout his career, Matthew has worked at the intersection of technology and business strategy, playing a pivotal role in scaling startups to mid-market leaders and navigating complex growth challenges in verticals such as telecommunications, computer architecture, healthcare, cybersecurity, finance and defense. He enjoys building company foundations from the ground up taking a pragmatic approach to problem-solving and a collaborative leadership style, building strong teams, streamlining product operations, and aligning technical execution with strategic goals. When not at work, Matthew enjoys spending time with his wife and 3 children running to a seemingly endless array of activities, participating in his basketball team’s pursuit of a championship title, and traveling with the little spare time left.
About the host
I am a product person with 20+ years of experience most recently with DigitalOcean, Apple, Auth0 and now running Customer Identity at Okta. I love technical products and my sweet spot is B2B SaaS / IaaS. I have done a bit of everything including running engineering teams, corporate development and marketing and lived and worked in Canada, US and Brazil.