2025-06-13
30 分钟We were sitting in this makeshift van, you know, mortar fire,
rocket fire, machine gun fire all in the near distance.
And day by day, week by week, it was failure after failure after failure after failure.
But there was no failure of imagination.
We really believed that we could get the system up and running and after six grueling weeks we were able to do it.
And it ended up providing a capability to the troops on the ground that helped them take thousands and thousands of insurgents off the battlefield and save thousands and thousands of lives.
And that, you know,
I talk about that point in my career as kind of the beginning of my love affair with technology and my obsession with the power of data and the reinforcement of the power of imagination to do hard things and solve hard problems.
When Armageddon is imminent,
my guest on today's Big Interview is someone you want to have living next door.
As director of the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency,
it was her job to keep America safe from attack both in the cyber and physical domains.
Before coming to CISA, she was the global head of Morgan Stanley's cybersecurity division,
navigating the bank's response to the Covid pandemic.
A senior figure in the Bush, Obama and Biden administration,
she's also a former combat veteran conducting tours of the likes of Iraq,
Afghanistan and Haiti.
Jen Easterly describes herself as a proud mother, mental health champion,
electric guitarist and is rarely without a Rubik's Cube in her hand.
I'm Emma Nelson and my guest on today's Big Interview is Jen Easterly.