A senior executive at a fintech started vibe-coding a capacity model. The agent had access to the HR system. It began forecasting which women in the company were going to get pregnant.

That is a real story, told on this episode by Mark van Oppen, Chief Revenue Officer at SecureAuth — and it is not even the most alarming one. Mark has spent his career selling the least optional technology on earth: the critical-path infrastructure companies literally cannot run without. Primary seller at Blue Box Group before it sold to IBM. First go-to-market hire at Heptio, the startup founded by the creators of Kubernetes. Then a global sales team at VMware after the acquisition. Today he is leading SecureAuth into the newest and thorniest problem in identity: securing the AI agents we are all handing our access and our judgment over to.

In this conversation with LeanScale co-founder Anthony Enrico, Mark explains why identity used to be a red light, green light decision and what broke the day agents started acting on our behalf. They get into the three vectors that actually cause breaches, why the CISO became the department of no, and how you turn them into the department of yes. Then the second half turns to go-to-market: the spam cannon now sitting on every employee's desktop, whether cold email is dead, and what a $30 prospecting list says about who your best rep will be six months from now.

WHAT YOU'LL LEARNWhy one-time authentication broke the moment agents started acting on your behalfThe three vectors that actually cause AI incidents: credential theft, prompt injection, and rogue behaviorWhat continuous authority means, and why it will show up in SOC and ISO standardsHow an identity broker gives every agent its own downscoped, time-bound, attributable identityWhy the CISO became the department of no — and the specific controls that make them the department of yesThe vibe-coding C-suite problem: what happens when senior execs click through consent screensTwo real incidents: an agent inferring pregnancy from HR data, and one exposing a CEO's exit packageWhy every employee now has a spam cannon, and how over-personalized outbound became a tellHow to build pipeline in 2026 when cold outreach stopped working: anchoring everything to trust

CHAPTERS00:00 — Cold open + intro02:03 — Identity used to be red light, green light03:44 — What your employees are already doing without telling you07:05 — Three vectors: credential theft, prompt injection, rogue behavior08:36 — The CISO squeeze: becoming the department of no13:28 — Continuous authority — and who feels it first17:03 — The vibe-coding C-suite and the pregnancy forecast20:23 — The agent that exposed a CEO's exit package25:00 — Every employee now has a spam cannon28:26 — Is cold email dead? Building pipeline on trust31:10 — AEO, indexed content, and scaling the warm intro38:21 — Does AI raise the floor or 10x your best reps?40:59 — The $30 prospecting list43:13 — You can't teach give a shit

ABOUT THE GUESTMark van Oppen is Chief Revenue Officer at SecureAuth, where he leads global sales and marketing as the company takes on agentic identity — securing the AI agents now acting on behalf of employees, customers, and applications inside the world's largest enterprises. He has spent his career on critical-path infrastructure: primary seller at Blue Box Group (acquired by IBM); first go-to-market hire at Heptio, the startup founded by the creators of Kubernetes; and a global sales leader at VMware following the Heptio acquisition.

ABOUT THE LEANSCALE PODCASTThe LeanScale Podcast is the show for GTM operators building the next generation of revenue infrastructure. Hosted by Anthony Enrico, co-founder of LeanScale.

▶ Learn more: https://www.leanscale.team▶ Follow Anthony on LinkedIn▶ Follow Mark on LinkedIn

#AI #AIAgents #AgenticAI #IdentitySecurity #CISO #Cybersecurity #RevOps #GTM #B2BSaaS #SecureAuth #LeanScale

Your AI Agents Have God Mode (And Nobody Vetted Them) | Mark van Oppen, SecureAuth

The LeanScale Podcast with Anthony Enrico

Your AI Agents Have God Mode (And Nobody Vetted Them) | Mark van Oppen, SecureAuth