Ignite Startups: AI-Driven Defense and Continuous Security with Derek Foster | Ep264

Episode notes

Most teams don’t have a security problem. They have a timing problem. By the time vulnerabilities are found, the code is already live. By the time reports are written, attackers may have already moved. And by the time fixes are prioritized, the damage is often done. That’s the gap Derek Foster is focused on closing. Derek is the Co-Founder and CTO of Best Defense, an AI-driven cybersecurity platform built for a world where software ships fast and breaks faster. His background spans SRE, penetration testing, and large-scale infrastructure security across fintech and enterprise systems. Across those roles, he kept seeing the same pattern: security was always behind. In this conversation, he breaks down why that keeps happening and what needs to change. The Core Problem: Security Is Still Too Slow Modern development cycles have changed. Teams now deploy code daily, sometimes multiple times a day. AI tools are pushing that even further. Some teams report 2x to 10x increases in output. Security hasn’t caught up. Most companies still rely on periodic checks like annual or quarterly penetration tests. That model assumes systems stay stable between audits. They don’t.