How can product leaders balance customer identity and security in technical products? In this episode hosted by Products That Count CEO Hoda Mehr, Okta CPO Cassio Sampaio speaks on the challenges of balancing customer identity, security, and privacy in technical products. The discussion covers topics such as building complex B2B SaaS products, technical considerations for cloud computing, and the future of product management. Tune in for valuable perspectives on navigating an evolving technical landscape.
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Show Notes:
- Balancing customer identity, security, and privacy is crucial for technical products.
- Regulatory requirements are increasing complexity for cloud and SaaS products.
- Edge computing may improve security by bringing capabilities closer to users.
- Customer expectations around privacy are shifting but full control remains important.
- Personal experiences highlight ongoing risks of fraud and importance of authentication.
- Specialization is growing in product management due to technical complexity.
- Engineering ownership of product is rising but strategy capabilities are still needed.
- Technical expertise is highly valued for complex problems over traditional PM skills.
- Career paths often involve diverse experiences across industries and problems.
- Project opportunities can arise unexpectedly from overseas contacts.
- Infrastructure experience provides valuable perspective for product roles.
- Patience and depth of knowledge are important for hard technical problems.
- Multiple perspectives are needed from varied implementation approaches.
- Discovery methods differ for technical versus consumer products.
- A/B testing has limits for validating technical solutions.
- Latency and availability demands are stricter for identity technologies.
- Non-hyperscalers face pricing and scale challenges for infrastructure.
- Edge networks may improve performance for authorization use cases.
- Geopolitical shifts increase compliance complexity globally.
- Early careers require experimenting across roles rather than fixed timelines.
About the speaker
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.