Speaking
Talks & Keynotes
Available for conference keynotes, corporate events, executive roundtables, and panel discussions on AI-driven security operations, data infrastructure, observability, and digital operations.
Topics
Observability at Internet Scale
How the largest systems in the world approach observability — and what you can apply to your own architecture. Covers data collection strategies, storage architecture, query patterns, and the real economics of running observability at scale. Draws on experience across Hydrolix, Sumo Logic, and PagerDuty.
AI-Driven Security Operations
AI is fundamentally changing how threats are detected, identified, and remediated — but most organizations are not yet equipped to take advantage of it. This talk draws on first-hand experience co-inventing and launching Dojo AI, Sumo Logic's first agentic security operations product, to explore how AI agents are transforming SOC workflows, what the data and analytics infrastructure requirements actually look like at scale, and how security teams can move from reactive to autonomous operations.
Digital Operations Maturity
A practical framework for understanding where your organization sits on the digital operations maturity curve — and a clear roadmap for advancing. Business-focused and tool-agnostic. Suitable for executive and mixed technical/business audiences. Based on work done at PagerDuty scaling ARR from $130M to $300M+.
The Economics of Telemetry Data
Log and metrics data is growing 30–40% annually. This talk breaks down the real costs of telemetry — storage, query, tooling, and engineering time — and presents a framework for building programs that deliver insight without runaway spend. Includes case studies from Sumo Logic and Hydrolix.
Past Appearances
Digital Operations at Scale
PagerDuty Summit·San Francisco, CA·2022
The Future of Digital Operations
theCUBE / SiliconANGLE·San Francisco, CA·2022
Logic at the Event Layer
Techstrong TV·Virtual·2022
Managing Tech Burnout
The Cloudcast Podcast·Virtual·2021
Perspectives on Digital Operations: Real-Time Work on the Front Lines
PagerDuty Webinar·Virtual·2020
Automation for the People
PagerDuty Webinar — Forrester·Virtual·2020
Autumn Product Launch: New Capabilities for EMEA
PagerDuty EMEA Product Launch·Virtual·2020
Pivotal's Big Data Platform Strategy
O'Reilly Strata + Hadoop World·New York, NY·2014
Pivotal's Hadoop Ecosystem Strategy
Hadoop Summit / theCUBE·San Jose, CA·2015
Open Source and the Future of Enterprise Infrastructure
EMC World / theCUBE·Las Vegas, NV·2015
Marketing & Messaging at Hydrolix
Digital Doorways Podcast·Virtual·2026
Modern Data Architecture in Practice: What's Actually Working in 2026
DBTA Webinar·Virtual·2026
Book Michael to Speak
For conference keynotes, corporate events, or executive roundtables, please include your event date, expected audience size, and topic focus when reaching out.
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