Joel Fulton’s journey began in Alaska as a free range kid with dreams of becoming a fireman to ultimately find him in one of the most prestigious CISO roles in cyber security at Splunk. Our conversation twists through his time as a computer auditor, MMA fighter, an author, a salesman, a PhD student and a few other positions in between.  As far as origin stories go, even the late Stan Lee would be impressed.

Our dialogue with Joel showcases the breadth of his interests as well as his gift for taking seemingly unrelated concepts and connecting them to illustrate a point. Choke holds and incident response? School grades and asset discovery? The application of Philosopher’s Toolkit to breach analysis? Systematic dismemberment as a means of determining priorities? Somehow Joel pulls off all of these analogies and more in a narrative that is as insightful as it is colorful.

Joel’s interview also offers plenty of practical examples for aspiring and longtime CISOs, breaking down how he thinks about discovery, orchestration and security training. And yes, he weighs in on how to be successful with Splunk, including reducing the cost.  The episode is our longest to date at 80 minutes and it still felt far too short.

Note: Our interview with Joel took place at the Los Gatos Cigar Club this past Summer at the same time the US Women’s Soccer team was playing England in the semifinals of the World Cup. This was completely unintentional and resulted in a fair bit of background noise. While we edited out as much as we could, the result is a little like listening to 2 people chat at busy café. Not ideal, but we think it’s ok. Grab a latte (or a cigar) and join us!

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