The Identity Jedi Show

About The Identity Jedi Show

Identity was built for people. Most of what asks for access now is not a person, and the old playbook does not hold. The Identity Jedi Show is where that gets worked out honestly. Host David Lee talks with the founders, architects, and practitioners building and breaking these systems. Non-human identity, agentic AI governance, runtime authorization, and the permission boundaries nobody has solved yet. No vendor gloss. You will hear your own problems here before you hear a pitch. New episodes bi-weekly.

Publisher

David Lee

Category

news

Language

en

Explicit

Yes

First episode

1 Oct 2022

Latest episode

7 Oct 2026

Latest episodes

76 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   7 Oct 2026

   Identity runs in cycles, and we're standing at the next turn.

   Rohit Agnihotri, VP of Identity and Access Management at one of the largest insurance companies in the US and host of the Identity Navigator podcast, joins David Lee for a conversation with no script and no prep. Just two practitioners who have lived through every era of identity, talking about where it goes next. SOX gave us IGA. The cloud forced us to rethink access. Now AI is making us start from first principles: what is an agent, what is autonomy, what is intent? Rohit and David get into IGA and PAM converging into one platform, why founders are nervous when a hyperscaler's "good enough" is free, and how AI reopens the build-versus-buy debate that CFOs are about to start asking about. They also cover why information is cheap but expertise isn't, why you have to embrace the chaos, the most common mistake identity leaders make (talking business in the tech room and tech in the business room), and why identity is still the best place to start a career. "You can be frugal, but you cannot be cheap." This episode is sponsored by Gartner. Register with code IAM21P2 and save $400 on the standard rate. Explore Conference (https://www.gartner.com/en/conferences/na/identity-access-management-us?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=EVT_NA_2026_IAM21_PP_MP7_IDJEDI) CHAPTERS 0:00 Intro 7:52 Meet Rohit Agnihotri 10:01 Identity's inflection points: SOX, cloud, and AI 13:46 IGA and PAM converge into a platform 18:16 The founder's dilemma: fast exits and "good enough" 20:44 Build vs. buy in the AI era 28:56 Frugal, not cheap 34:15 Strategy first: cutting through the acronym soup 41:55 Information is cheap, expertise isn't 44:37 Embrace the chaos 53:47 Why identity is the place to build a career 58:20 Closing Listen to Rohit on Identity Navigator, available on Spotify and all major podcast platforms. theidentityjedi.com New episodes every other Wednesday.

2. 

   29 Sept 2026

   Identity Runs the Business

   Your IAM program covers 35 critical apps. The company runs 550. Brad Kirkpatrick has heard that pitch more than once, and his answer never changes: if the other 515 have identities, they're in scope. Brad has run global-scale identity programs as a practitioner and advised dozens of companies across industries as a consultant. His new book, The 7 Pillars of IAM Success, lays out the IAM Value Engine: identity that enables the business, strengthens security posture, and accelerates digital transformation. This episode kicks off the Identity Jedi Show Author Series. We get into why you define value before you pick a tool, how to get a CFO to fund a program they'll never fully understand, where AI could finally fix connector sprawl, what an IAM degree should teach, and the Sunday night a missed contract renewal terminated an entire call center. Plus: what writing a book really takes, and why agentic AI is breaking the identity playbook we've used for twenty years. 📘 The 7 Pillars of IAM Success: https://books.manuscripts.com/product/the-7-pillars-of-iam-success/ 📬 Brad's newsletter, 7 Pillars Insider: https://7pillars.kit.com/signup 🔗 Connect with Brad: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bradkirkpatrick/ CHAPTERS 00:00 Cold open: so you want to write a book? 00:40 Welcome to the Identity Jedi Show 02:00 What writing a book really takes (and where AI fits) 05:15 Identity news: why AI agents break the old identity playbook 08:00 Kicking off the Author Series with Brad Kirkpatrick 10:30 The lessons that kept repeating across dozens of IAM programs 11:00 The IAM Value Engine: business, security, IT 13:30 Define value before you pick the technology 15:00 ITDR, ISPM, SSPM: how do the acronyms fit together? 17:30 Speaking the CFO's language with business use cases 20:00 "We cover 35 apps. We have 550." 22:00 AI as electricity, and the end of point-to-point connectors 24:30 How a new identity leader proves value 26:30 "No one is coming to save you" 28:00 Run IAM like a business inside the business 28:45 Be the emissary: listen before you pitch 31:45 The call center ride-along 33:30 Designing an IAM degree from scratch 38:00 Learning Unix, LDAP, and the identity lexicon the hard way 40:15 Writing the book: a 20-page outline before page one 42:30 6 to 8 AM every day, roughly 800 hours total 44:00 Why editing was the real nightmare 47:00 Working with a publisher and an author cohort 50:00 IAM horror story: terminating an entire call center 52:45 It always comes back to data and humans 53:30 Wrap-up 54:15 Closing thoughts What's your IAM horror story? One sentence. Drop it in the comments. 🎙 Subscribe for more conversations on identity, AI, and leadership. 📰 The Identity Jedi Newsletter: https://www.theidentityjedi.com 🎧 Listen on all platforms: https://identityjedipodcast.com #IdentityJedi #IAM #IdentitySecurity

3. 

   28 Aug 2026

   Inspect the Action, Control the Action: Amit Saha on Runtime Authorization for AI Agents

   Static policies were built for identities that do one predictable thing. AI agents break that model, chaining across sub-agents, borrowing permissions, and deciding on the fly. In this Identity Jedi Show conversation from Identiverse, David Lee sits down with Amit Saha, co-founder and CEO of Reva, on why runtime authorization is becoming a real requirement for agentic AI, and how you secure the action instead of trying to pre-write a policy for everything an agent might do. We get into the delegation chains that quietly escalate privilege, why identity is only about 30 percent of the visibility you need, the move from policies to guardrails plus intent, and how you make an allow, deny, or defer decision fast enough to survive at machine scale. If you are trying to let agents move fast without handing them the keys, this one is for you. Stay in the loop The Identity Jedi newsletter breaks down non-human identity, agentic AI security, and where identity is heading, in plain practitioner language. Subscribe: [newsletter link] Subscribe to the channel for more Identity Jedi Show conversations, and drop a comment with the one thing about securing AI agents that is keeping you up at night. What would you have to change in your own stack to let an agent move fast without handing it the keys?

Who has been a guest on The Identity Jedi Show

Names identified in recent episode analyses. Showing up to five guests.

• Brent Hamilton
• industry experts
• Mohit
• Steven Washington
• Ashish Haw

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

YouTube views

502,308

Score snapshot 15 Sept 2025

Apple Podcasts (US)

5.0 / 5

1 ratings

Spotify

5.0 / 5

2 ratings

Podcast Authority Score: 48 / 100

A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.

Quality

59

Social presence

0

YouTube

93

Engagement

0