Uploaded March 2026 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago
Cybersecurity is entering a new phase: machine vs. machine.
On this episode of Builders, Travis Lanham and Evan Pena discuss how Armadin is building AI that thinks like attackers to uncover vulnerabilities and help companies stay ahead of cyber threats.
Inside the conversation:
“The barrier to entry for a sophisticated threat actor is now a little bit lower because you don't really have to be the best exploit developer to now use AI to create an exploit. ” — Evan Pena
“Historically the issue with red teaming and proactive security has been, if you go and do a human led assessment you might cover 1% of your attack surface. We can cover 100% of your attack surface without costing you $100M.” — Travis Lanham
“We know exactly what customers want. Instead of giving you a list of like a hundred different findings, you really wanna have that prioritized list of what's gonna be the most critical based on those two things: exploitable risk and business impact.” — Evan Pena
“How do you have full context or full knowledge over everything that's happened in the environment? From a security perspective, it's possible for an agent to have that. A human can never have that same capability.” — Travis Lanham
Guest: Travis Lanham, Co-Founder and CTO of Armadin and Evan Pena, Offensive Security AI Project at Armadin
Connect with Travis Lanham:
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/travislanham
Connect with Evan Pena:
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/evanpena
Connect with Josh Coyne
X: https://x.com/josh_coyne
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/joshuacoyne
Connect with Leigh Marie Braswell
X: https://x.com/LM_Braswell
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/leigh-marie-braswell
Learn more about Kleiner Perkins: kleinerperkins.com
00:00 Intro
01:12 AI Hackers and New Attacks
08:17 CISO Playbook for 2026
09:26 Armadin: Security AI Age
15:22 Training Safe Autonomous Agents
22:21 Human Loop Safety
25:00 Fixing and Prioritizing Risk
28:13 Trust and Economics Shift
31:08 Hard Problems in Agent Swarms
35:13 Hack Stories and Wrap Up
Cybersecurity is entering a new phase: machine vs. machine.
On this episode of Builders, Travis Lanham and Evan Pena discuss how Armadin is building AI that thinks like attackers to uncover vulnerabilities and help companies stay ahead of cyber threats.
Inside the conversation:
“The barrier to entry for a sophisticated threat actor is now a little bit lower because you don't really have to be the best exploit developer to now use AI to create an exploit. ” — Evan Pena
“Historically the issue with red teaming and proactive security has been, if you go and do a human led assessment you might cover 1% of your attack surface. We can cover 100% of your attack surface without costing you $100M.” — Travis Lanham
“We know exactly what customers want. Instead of giving you a list of like a hundred different findings, you really wanna have that prioritized list of what's gonna be the most critical based on those two things: exploitable risk and business impact.” — Evan Pena
“How do you have full context or full knowledge over everything that's happened in the environment? From a security perspective, it's possible for an agent to have that. A human can never have that same capability.” — Travis Lanham
Guest: Travis Lanham, Co-Founder and CTO of Armadin and Evan Pena, Offensive Security AI Project at Armadin
Connect with Travis Lanham:
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/travislanham
Connect with Evan Pena:
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/evanpena
Connect with Josh Coyne
X: https://x.com/josh_coyne
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/joshuacoyne
Connect with Leigh Marie Braswell
X: https://x.com/LM_Braswell
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/leigh-marie-braswell
Learn more about Kleiner Perkins: kleinerperkins.com
00:00 Intro
01:12 AI Hackers and New Attacks
08:17 CISO Playbook for 2026
09:26 Armadin: Security AI Age
15:22 Training Safe Autonomous Agents
22:21 Human Loop Safety
25:00 Fixing and Prioritizing Risk
28:13 Trust and Economics Shift
31:08 Hard Problems in Agent Swarms
35:13 Hack Stories and Wrap Up
