16 Minutes News by a16z

The Case of Zoom and Scaling Cloud Security

Episode Summary

with joeldelagarza @davidu @smc90 Zoom has been in the headlines a lot lately for security related issues and concerns, while experiencing unprecedented growth as well as shift in its user base from enterprise to consumer due to the coronavirus pandemic. What's hype/ what's real, and what does it tell us about bottom-up SaaS and cloud security?

Episode Notes

Zoom has not only experienced unprecedented, rapid growth (from 10M to 200M daily active users) due to the coronavirus pandemic and shelter-in-place -- but is also seeing a shift in use cases from primarily enterprise to more consumer as well. At the same time, there have been several security issues and concerns around Zoom, including "zoombombing" porn; home-grown encryption; and key-management systems, servers, and engineers in China.

The company had to correct and clarify the record as a result, but what does it mean to have enterprise-grade security How worried should we be (and who should worry) given that everyone from cycling classes and children's classes are now all online, many on Zoom or on related remote communication tools and applications? Especially now that healthcare providers (thanks to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Civic Rights loosening up its enforcement of HIPAA regulations and related rules) are also serving patients "wherever they are during this national public health emergency”... 

What's hype/what's real in the headlines here? In this episode of 16 Minutes, a16z general partner David Ulevitch (former SVP/GM at Cisco), and operating partner for security Joel de la Garza (former CSO of Box) break it all down in 16+ minutes with Sonal Chokshi. What does it all mean for related tech trends in bottom-up SaaS -- from user onboarding and the flip side of "earning the right to be complicated" to pricing & packaging -- as well as for open source; and cloud security, particularly when it comes to video?