SCW Turns 11: A Realtime Lesson in Adaptability and Continuous Improvement

An individual who decides to plunge headfirst into a startup venture is called many things, from the aspirational moniker “entrepreneur” to the decidedly less glamorous “freaking crazy.” After eleven years at the helm of Secure Code Warrior, I’m happily somewhere in the middle. 

The past five years have been a lesson in resilience for many, with curveballs thrown, economic and otherwise, in ways that some of the smartest people on the planet failed to predict. “Survival of the fittest” may come to mind here, but I prefer this quote:

"It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change."

(This is often misattributed to Charles Darwin, but it was actually said by Professor Leon C. Megginson, who was summarizing Darwin's work, Origin of Species. Hopefully, that will win you a great pub quiz prize sometime in the future.)

Now, what better example of change and adaptability is there, in our world, than artificial intelligence? More than three years since the LLM bomb dropped, and we’re still scrambling to understand what this iteration is, what it can do, and how it can best serve us in virtually every role that exists today. Regardless, it is here to stay, and as cybersecurity practitioners in particular, we need to stay one step ahead to safeguard it, even in the absence of official guardrails and regulations.

2025 was a big year for AI, for cybersecurity, and for SCW. I’m approaching 2026 with quiet confidence, and the optimism that only hard work paying off can bring. 

We hit some major milestones, including our foray into safeguarding AI-powered software development. We:

• Released Trust Agent: AI into beta testing: With new research from the CCIA confirming that generative AI is the fastest-adopted technology in history, it’s no great shock to see the huge uptake of AI coding agents and assistants among developers, including hasty enterprise-level rollouts that are moving faster than their security programs.
  
  Our latest technology, Trust Agent: AI, provides the missing ingredient of visibility and governance over AI-generated code. It affords enterprise security leaders the deep observability and control they need to confidently manage AI adoption in their software development lifecycle (SDLC) without sacrificing security.
• Surpassed our latest major revenue milestone: Exceeding our revenue goal is a testament to the tenacity and innovation of the entire Secure Code Warrior team. When we started this journey, our mission was to move beyond the "checkbox" approach to security and actually empower developers to write secure code from the very first line.
  
  Seeing that vision resonate with so many global enterprises proves that the industry is finally shifting its focus toward developer-centered security, and I couldn’t be prouder of how our Warriors have leaned in to make software safer for everyone.
• Expert integrations with strategic partners: Our partnerships with great companies like Aikido, OpenText and Black Duck, represent a significant step forward in our mission to create a seamless, developer-centric security ecosystem. By bridging the gap between identifying vulnerabilities and providing the specific skills needed to fix them, we are effectively closing the loop on developer-oriented software risk.
  
  I am incredibly proud of this partnership, which signifies a strategic shift away from fragmented tooling toward a unified experience where security is a natural extension of the development workflow.

As we dive into another big year, I’d like to thank our growing swell of supporters, especially those in the wider cyber community, who continue to take charge in the fight against recurring vulnerabilities, low security awareness, and poor-quality code output. By adopting a new, safer standard, we can start to see real improvements in the security of our software, services, and technology. 

We’re surging ahead with full investment in a future where AI writes the majority of the code, under the watchful eye of skilled humans. Our SCW Learning is evolving quickly to meet the requirements of this new world, and our SCW Trust Agent: AI will be made available in the next three months to support the safe operation of LLMs, MCPs, and more in the SDLC. We’re also poised to announce an exciting new partnership with a major market player very soon.

Stay tuned!