EP 80: Govern Before You Buy: Walter Haydock on AI Governance, Risk, and Agent Security

Walter Haydock has spent his career helping data and security leaders deploy AI without fear. A former U.S. Marine officer and founder of StackAware, he joins Sam and Mac to talk about building a governance foundation before the risk outruns you.
Topics covered:
The biggest mistake in starting AI governance: policies that are unrealistic and unenforceable
Why your industry’s risk appetite should drive your AI decisions
Quantitative risk: comparing the cost of a risk with the cost of the control
People, then process, then tools, and why it applies to companies of every size
Why risk avoidance is the simplest and cheapest control
The Marine Corps model: one accountable leader, advised but not vetoed by security, privacy, and legal
Who owns AI governance: five patterns, and the trade-offs of each
The EU AI Act delay vs. the U.S. patchwork of state laws
How NIST AI RMF and ISO/IEC 42001 work together
“AI canaries” and indirect prompt injection against agents
Three human-in-the-loop models: default deny, default allow, and post hoc review
Where a security leader should spend this quarter’s AI budget
Why running AI on your own hardware isn’t automatically more secure
Guest Bio: Walter Haydock is the founder of StackAware and author of the Deploy Securely newsletter. A former U.S. Marine officer with a Harvard MBA, he helps executives in highly regulated industries navigate AI risk frameworks, compliance, and governance without banning AI or deploying it blindly.
Connect: Find Walter on LinkedIn. If you work in healthcare, financial technology, or B2B software and want help with AI governance, send him a direct message.
Be Brave.
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