Uploaded July 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Feross Aboukhadijeh is the founder and CEO of Socket, which he started in 2021 to help companies detect and defend against software supply chain attacks. A prolific open source maintainer whose packages are downloaded a billion times a month, Feross recently closed a Series C at a billion-dollar valuation, and Socket now protects nearly 30,000 organizations, including OpenAI, Anthropic, and Vercel.
Anne Dwane sits down with Feross to unpack why the modern software supply chain has become such an attractive target for attackers, and what companies can actually do about it. Feross walks through real recent incidents, including the Axios and LiteLLM compromises that exposed major AI labs, breaking down how attackers used a months-long social engineering play against a single maintainer to hijack a library with 100 million weekly downloads. They get into why coding agents pull in 50% more open source code than human developers and the new risks that creates, why traditional vulnerability scanners miss most real threats, and what Socket Firewall does to protect the developer endpoint itself.
The conversation also covers Feross's own path from open source maintainer to enterprise CEO, how Socket balances a free, developer-led product with enterprise sales, and how frontier AI models transformed Socket's ability to analyze code at scale. They close with practical guardrails any organization can put in place today, from lockfiles to minimum release age settings.
00:00 Cold open
00:48 Welcome to the Village Global Podcast
01:30 Congratulating Feross on Socket's billion-dollar Series C
01:39 Feross's open source origins and a billion monthly downloads
02:12 The microwave story that started his security career
03:28 Why Feross started Socket in 2020
05:36 How the number of open source dependencies exploded
06:18 The most devious supply chain attacks Socket has seen
08:35 Inside the Axios maintainer takeover
11:13 The Mercure breach that hit OpenAI and Anthropic
12:42 How Socket.dev and Socket Firewall actually work
16:00 Why coding agents pull in 50% more open source code
17:27 Why traditional vulnerability scanners miss the real threats
18:53 How gameable metrics like stars and downloads can be
21:45 A practical framework for guardrails around vibe coding
23:59 Why prompt injection hasn't taken off yet, and supply chain has
26:22 What to do if you've been hit by a supply chain attack
29:31 Advice for organizations locking down open source usage
31:31 Developer-led growth, from GitHub app to enterprise plan
34:34 Who actually buys Socket inside an organization
35:16 What Feross learned going from founder to CEO with a sales team
38:22 Balancing an engineering-first culture with going all in on sales
38:36 Building Socket's product around frontier model improvements
41:39 Why AI helps attackers with phishing and defenders with supply chain
44:14 Advice for handling sensitive data like healthcare information
46:34 Lessons on building an AI-native engineering organization
47:46 What's next for Socket
49:35 Closing
Feross Aboukhadijeh is the founder and CEO of Socket, which he started in 2021 to help companies detect and defend against software supply chain attacks. A prolific open source maintainer whose packages are downloaded a billion times a month, Feross recently closed a Series C at a billion-dollar valuation, and Socket now protects nearly 30,000 organizations, including OpenAI, Anthropic, and Vercel.
Anne Dwane sits down with Feross to unpack why the modern software supply chain has become such an attractive target for attackers, and what companies can actually do about it. Feross walks through real recent incidents, including the Axios and LiteLLM compromises that exposed major AI labs, breaking down how attackers used a months-long social engineering play against a single maintainer to hijack a library with 100 million weekly downloads. They get into why coding agents pull in 50% more open source code than human developers and the new risks that creates, why traditional vulnerability scanners miss most real threats, and what Socket Firewall does to protect the developer endpoint itself.
The conversation also covers Feross's own path from open source maintainer to enterprise CEO, how Socket balances a free, developer-led product with enterprise sales, and how frontier AI models transformed Socket's ability to analyze code at scale. They close with practical guardrails any organization can put in place today, from lockfiles to minimum release age settings.
00:00 Cold open
00:48 Welcome to the Village Global Podcast
01:30 Congratulating Feross on Socket's billion-dollar Series C
01:39 Feross's open source origins and a billion monthly downloads
02:12 The microwave story that started his security career
03:28 Why Feross started Socket in 2020
05:36 How the number of open source dependencies exploded
06:18 The most devious supply chain attacks Socket has seen
08:35 Inside the Axios maintainer takeover
11:13 The Mercure breach that hit OpenAI and Anthropic
12:42 How Socket.dev and Socket Firewall actually work
16:00 Why coding agents pull in 50% more open source code
17:27 Why traditional vulnerability scanners miss the real threats
18:53 How gameable metrics like stars and downloads can be
21:45 A practical framework for guardrails around vibe coding
23:59 Why prompt injection hasn't taken off yet, and supply chain has
26:22 What to do if you've been hit by a supply chain attack
29:31 Advice for organizations locking down open source usage
31:31 Developer-led growth, from GitHub app to enterprise plan
34:34 Who actually buys Socket inside an organization
35:16 What Feross learned going from founder to CEO with a sales team
38:22 Balancing an engineering-first culture with going all in on sales
38:36 Building Socket's product around frontier model improvements
41:39 Why AI helps attackers with phishing and defenders with supply chain
44:14 Advice for handling sensitive data like healthcare information
46:34 Lessons on building an AI-native engineering organization
47:46 What's next for Socket
49:35 Closing
