Resist Comfort: How to Block Your Caveman Urge to Be Boring and Do the Best Work of Your Life

8:45 am
-
9:45 am
CT

As AI makes it easier than ever to create content and campaigns, it's also making it easier than ever to sound exactly like everyone else. The more marketers rely on the same tools, prompts, playbooks, and best practices, the more the market becomes flooded with safe, predictable, and forgettable work.

In this keynote, Nathan Burke makes the bold claim that discomfort is becoming a competitive advantage. That being uncomfortable pushes the boundaries of your work towards what’s actually new, impactful, and worth making.

Drawing from lessons learned building high-growth cybersecurity companies, working within cultures obsessed with continuous improvement, and embracing AI as a force multiplier rather than a crutch, Nathan will explore why complacency is the enemy of great work. He'll share practical ways to seek criticism instead of compliments, challenge conventional thinking, and push beyond the ideas that feel safe.

‍

Speakers

Nate Burke

Chief Marketing Officer

7AI

Nate Burke

Chief Marketing Officer

7AI

Nathan Burke has spent his career building cybersecurity brands that don't look like cybersecurity brands.

At Axonius, where he was the first US employee and stayed from pre-product through $100 million in ARR, that meant a campaign built around Simone Biles and adaptive athlete Amy Bream — an argument that the best don't just overcome complexity, they find a way to give back — in a category still buying stock photos of hooded figures.

At 7AI, where he's CMO, it has meant a Black Hat booth designed as an art gallery, demo stations disguised as the exhibits, sitting quiet and deliberately strange in the middle of the show floor's sensory overload. The next year, 7AI took over the Las Vegas Sphere — and put almost no words on the booth at all.

The through line is a conviction that boring is the only unforgivable marketing sin, and that the playbook everyone is running is precisely why everything in this industry looks the same.He's a three-time CMO across five cybersecurity startups and seven startups total. He also once pitched Axonius at the RSAC Innovation Sandbox on less than 24 hours' notice after his CEO's flight was canceled, and won — a story he has now told enough times that you've probably heard it and you're rolling your eyes.

Nate lives on Cape Cod full time with his wife Randi and daughter Maggie, where his primary household function is early-morning food source to Travis the dog and to Eddie and Ashley, two cats with strong opinions and no volume control. He is a rabid New England Patriots fan and an unapologetic WWE fan, and considers exactly none of those a character flaw.

About this Session's Track

Networking & Career

Connect with peers, mentors, and industry leaders in guided networking sessions designed to help you chart your career path and unlock new professional opportunities.