The Brave Technologist

Cisco Aguilar, Nevada's Secretary of State, shares what it's like to run a government office with the discipline of a technology company, and discusses how that mindset led Nevada to overhaul both its statewide voter registration system and its business filing infrastructure at the same time. He explains how the state survived one of the largest cyberattacks in US history without its systems being touched, and why he refused to hand over Nevada voters' personal data to the federal government.
Key Takeaways: 
How Nevada survived a major cyberattack by turning to the private sector rather than waiting for federal support

Why Cisco refused a federal request for Nevada voters' Social Security numbers, birthdays, and driver's license numbers

How Nevada consolidated 17 separate county voter systems into one statewide platform in just 14 months

What happened when Nevada's old business filing system went down for an entire month and what the Orion system is designed to prevent

Why centralized systems can actually protect privacy (rather than threaten it)

Guest Bio:
Cisco Aguilar serves as Nevada's Secretary of State. As Secretary, he is focused on three major principles: modernization, innovation, and transparency. With an understanding of the office as a technology company, he has spearheaded two major projects to overhaul the state's business licensing and elections systems.
As an entrepreneur, he understands that time spent navigating red tape and complicated systems means less time invested in your business. Leveraging emerging technologies, he seeks to make Nevada the best place in the country to do business.
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About this Show:
The Brave Technologist is here to shed light on the opportunities and challenges of emerging tech. To make it digestible, less scary, and more approachable for all!
Join us as we embark on a mission to demystify artificial intelligence, challenge the status quo, and empower everyday people to embrace the digital revolution. Whether you're a tech enthusiast, a curious mind, or an industry professional, this podcast invites you to join the conversation and explore the future of AI together.
The Brave Technologist Podcast is hosted by Luke Mulks, VP Business Operations at Brave Software—makers of the privacy-respecting Brave browser and Search engine, and now powering AI everywhere with the Brave Search API.
Music by: Ari Dvorin

Margi Sheth, Head of AI Governance & Enablement at Novo Nordisk, shares what it takes to build AI governance inside one of the most heavily regulated industries in the world. She explains how pharma's long history of bioethics gives organizations a strong compass for navigating AI decisions; why governance that feels like a checkbox will always get bypassed; and why the field of AI ethics needs people from every background.
Key Takeaways: 
How pharmaceutical companies balance the ethical obligation to accelerate medicine with the obligation not to compromise patient safety

What other industries can learn from pharma's method of adopting AI across multiple global jurisdictions with different regulatory requirements

Why the stakes of AI governance in healthcare go beyond fines, and how that shapes the way Novo Nordisk approaches regulatory preparedness

Why having people from diverse backgrounds (not just technical expertise) in the room is essential when AI governance decisions get made

Guest Bio:
Margi Sheth is the Head of AI Governance & Enablement at Novo Nordisk. She's an AI ethics champion within the pharmaceutical industry, previously serving as Senior Director of Data Policy and AI Governance at AstraZeneca. She specializes in building operational governance frameworks for large global organizations, navigating the practical and ethical complexities of AI adoption.
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About this Show:
The Brave Technologist is here to shed light on the opportunities and challenges of emerging tech. To make it digestible, less scary, and more approachable for all!
Join us as we embark on a mission to demystify artificial intelligence, challenge the status quo, and empower everyday people to embrace the digital revolution. Whether you're a tech enthusiast, a curious mind, or an industry professional, this podcast invites you to join the conversation and explore the future of AI together.
The Brave Technologist Podcast is hosted by Luke Mulks, VP Business Operations at Brave Software—makers of the privacy-respecting Brave browser and Search engine, and now powering AI everywhere with the Brave Search API.
Music by: Ari Dvorin
Produced by: Sam Laliberte

Cody Carbone, CEO of The Digital Chamber, shares what the digital asset industry has been fighting for in Washington, and explains why clear, durable legislation is the only thing that can give builders, developers, and investors the confidence to operate in the United States long-term. He breaks down what the CLARITY Act does for builders who have been operating without legal certainty; how the stablecoin market responded when the GENIUS Act passed; and why the current regulatory environment is insufficient.
Key Takeaways: 
What the CLARITY Act does for developers and token issuers

How personnel changes at the SEC and CFTC shifted the regulatory environment for digital assets

What the passage of the GENIUS Act demonstrated about the relationship between regulatory clarity and market growth

Why durable progress in digital assets requires legislation that can withstand changes in administration, not just favorable appointments

Guest Bio:
Cody Carbone is the CEO of The Digital Chamber, the world's largest digital asset and blockchain trade association, representing the industry in Washington with the White House, Regulators, and Capitol Hill.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
About this Show:
The Brave Technologist is here to shed light on the opportunities and challenges of emerging tech. To make it digestible, less scary, and more approachable for all!
Join us as we embark on a mission to demystify artificial intelligence, challenge the status quo, and empower everyday people to embrace the digital revolution. Whether you're a tech enthusiast, a curious mind, or an industry professional, this podcast invites you to join the conversation and explore the future of AI together.
The Brave Technologist Podcast is hosted by Luke Mulks, VP Business Operations at Brave Software—makers of the privacy-respecting Brave browser and Search engine, and now powering AI everywhere with the Brave Search API.
Music by: Ari Dvorin
Produced by: Sam Laliberte

Mark Henderson, Engineering Manager at Shielded Labs, shares what it looks like to build privacy infrastructure on a hundred-year time horizon. He also breaks down two of Shielded Labs' most significant technical bets: the Network Sustainability Mechanism, and Crosslink. Mark makes the case that financial privacy and surveillance-based business models are structurally incompatible—true privacy means building systems where the choice not to look is enforced by the protocol, rather than a company promise.
Key Takeaways: 
How Zcash is planning for long-term sustainability beyond its fixed 21 million coin supply

What Crosslink could bring to Zcash by combining proof-of-work with a proof-of-stake finality mechanism

Why Zcash's renewed momentum reflects growing demand for privacy-focused technology

Why financial data is behavioral data, and how it can be used for profiling and influence

Why truly private systems need privacy built into the protocol rather than relying on companies to protect user data

Guest Bio: Mark Henderson is the Engineering Manager at Shielded Labs, where he obsesses over permanence. He works on the privacy infrastructure meant to keep Zcash secure for a zillion years: the Network Sustainability Mechanism, the dynamic fee market, and the Crosslink consensus upgrade. All are designed to protect invariants on the Zcash blockchain (such as the hard 21-million supply cap). Mark is also a polymath who runs a 4,000-piece art catalog powered by AI visual search, and he treats privacy, art, and AI as the same puzzle in different clothes.
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About this Show:
The Brave Technologist is here to shed light on the opportunities and challenges of emerging tech. To make it digestible, less scary, and more approachable for all!
Join us as we embark on a mission to demystify artificial intelligence, challenge the status quo, and empower everyday people to embrace the digital revolution. Whether you're a tech enthusiast, a curious mind, or an industry professional, this podcast invites you to join the conversation and explore the future of AI together.
The Brave Technologist Podcast is hosted by Luke Mulks, VP Business Operations at Brave Software—makers of the privacy-respecting Brave browser and Search engine, and now powering AI everywhere with the Brave Search API.
Music by: Ari Dvorin
Produced by: Sam Laliberte

Howard Wu, CEO of Provable and Shield Wallet, makes the case that full, on-chain transparency was never a design principle—it was a limitation that mainstream finance cannot build on. He draws a direct line from the internet's switch from HTTP to HTTPS to where crypto needs to go next, and argues that the biggest obstacle to private stablecoins isn't the technology. Instead, it's the assumption that compliance and privacy are fundamentally at odds.
Key Takeaways:
Why on-chain transparency creates broken user journeys for everyday payments, payroll, and institutional trading

How zero-knowledge proofs enable compliance without risk of traditional KYC data collection

What distinguishes the Shield Wallet's approach to privacy from that of a standard crypto wallet

What Howard predicts will be mainstream by 2030 that almost no one in the industry is building for today

Guest Bio:
Howard Wu is the CEO of Provable and Shield Wallet. He's also a founder of the Layer-1 blockchain, Aleo. His contributions to zero-knowledge proofs and elliptic-curve cryptography have been adopted across the industry, including by protocols such as Ethereum and Zcash. Howard graduated from UC Berkeley with a research background in cryptography, computer security, and verifiable computing.
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About this Show:
The Brave Technologist is here to shed light on the opportunities and challenges of emerging tech. To make it digestible, less scary, and more approachable for all!
Join us as we embark on a mission to demystify artificial intelligence, challenge the status quo, and empower everyday people to embrace the digital revolution. Whether you're a tech enthusiast, a curious mind, or an industry professional, this podcast invites you to join the conversation and explore the future of AI together.
The Brave Technologist Podcast is hosted by Luke Mulks, VP Business Operations at Brave Software—makers of the privacy-respecting Brave browser and Search engine, and now powering AI everywhere with the Brave Search API.
Music by: Ari Dvorin
Produced by: Sam Laliberte