#282 Nik Seetharaman - Former SpaceX's Head of Cybersecurity Critical Warning on AI Swarms

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Feb 23, 2026

Nik Seetharaman, special-operations–trained cyber leader and founder formerly running cybersecurity at SpaceX and Anduril. He warns about AI agent swarms and emergent behaviors. He recounts high‑stakes military and cyber tradecraft, building defensive AI at Wraithwatch. He also shares personal stories about immigrant life, fatherhood, and mountaineering.

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ADVICE

Preempt With Defensive Counterpressure

Build defensive counterpressure: instrument, fuse, and orchestrate defenses to act faster than attackers.
Use AI to simulate attacker behaviors and pre-deploy mitigations before exploitation occurs.

INSIGHT

Kill-Switches Won't Stop Open Source

Labs can kill proprietary frontier models but open-source versions and local runtimes reduce control.
Democratisation means dangerous capabilities will escape centralized kill-switches quickly.

ANECDOTE

Early Nights Calling In Assaults

At 23, Nik called in assaults nightly from aircraft for task force operations in Iraq, executing fine-fix operations.
The role was addictive and gave him direct, immediate operational impact night after night.

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Nik Seetharaman is a special operations–trained cyber leader turned founder, known for bringing an operator’s mindset to some of the most sensitive security programs in American industry. A former JSOC advance‑force operator attached to an East Coast Naval Special Warfare squadron, he ran advanced cyber warfare and close‑range reconnaissance missions before crossing over into the world of high‑stakes defense technology and enterprise security.

In industry, Nik helped build and lead security at three of the most influential defense‑tech companies of the last decade. He served as head of cybersecurity operations at SpaceX and later led international cyber defense programs at Palantir, giving him a front‑row seat to how software, data, and security shape modern national power. He then became CIO and CISO at Anduril Industries, where he built the company’s cybersecurity and weapons‑system security programs from the ground up while Anduril was racing to field autonomous systems for the Pentagon.

Today, Nik is the founder and CEO of Wraithwatch, a cyber defense company born from his frustration that defenders are almost always forced to react second. At Wraithwatch, he is focused on “weaponizing” AI for defense at scale—using advanced models to help blue teams pre‑empt and out-iterate attackers instead of learning only from breaches and red‑team reports. Across each chapter of his career, he has carried forward the same core idea: apply special operations discipline, speed, and clarity of mission to how software, security teams, and AI‑driven defenses are built and run.

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Nik Seetharaman Links:

LI - https://www.linkedin.com/in/nikseetharaman

Wraithwatch - https://www.wraithwatch.com

X - https://x.com/nikseeth

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