In 1989 Stuart McClure survived United Airlines Flight 811, when an electrical short told the cargo door to open over the Pacific and a faulty latch allowed it. His talks start there and end with a question your audience can take home: what can we stop before it starts?
“It felt like building faster fire trucks instead of trying to prevent fires.”
Stuart McClure · About, stuartmcclure.ai (earlier site) · on the security industry he started in
“Ultimately, it’s all about a fundamental shift in mindset: moving from a culture of reaction to a discipline of prevention.”
Stuart McClure · About, stuartmcclure.ai (earlier site)
The program · 2025–2026
Stuart gave each of the talks below in the last year or so. Watch any of them before you book to see how he speaks and what he covers; each link opens the recording on YouTube.
Keynote · Secure Miami · FIU, Miami ·
Watch the keynote (opens YouTube in a new tab)“In a landscape defined by chaotic threats—from AI-driven attacks to operational fragility—the industry standard has settled on ‘resilience’: the ability to withstand a hit. But resilience is merely survival. To thrive, we must evolve back to the ultimate power in security and business: Prevention.”
From the Secure Miami program
TIF 2026 · April 2026
Stuart traces a line from Flight 811 to using AI to prevent failures, then explains why people remain essential: AI can’t be held accountable for a bad decision, it doesn’t carry experience, and it can’t read the room.
Watch the keynote (opens YouTube in a new tab)The Conference Board · with Rita Myerson · 2026
A conversation about why meetings so often defer to the highest-paid person in the room, what “alignment theater” costs when a team only looks aligned, and how simulating a decision ahead of time brings that friction to the surface before it becomes expensive.
Watch the conversation (opens YouTube in a new tab)WethosAI · 2025–2026
A five-part webinar series from WethosAI that takes a straight look at what AI can and can’t do.
In the series’ own words: “Not anti-AI. Anti-hype.”
PwC US · Modern Tech Leadership · Ep. 3 ·
Stuart talks with host James Shira about “trust but verify,” attacks that now move faster than people can respond, what deepfakes mean for proving who someone is, and how AI can help a company capture the institutional knowledge its people carry.
Watch the episode (opens YouTube in a new tab)For your audience
“My entire career has been about one thing: prevention.”
Stuart McClure · The Troxler Blind Spot · LinkedIn · 3 November 2025
How to spot the hidden weak point in a system, a team or a plan, like the faulty latch on Flight 811, while there is still time to fix it.
An honest picture of what AI does well and where it fails, and why people stay accountable for the decisions it helps them make.
How to simulate the options, and the people each one affects, so a team can test a hard choice before it becomes irreversible.
A small, concrete step that every person in the room can take in the week after the event, whatever their role.
For organizers and bureaus
What you need to introduce and promote Stuart: an up-to-date bio in three lengths that you can copy straight into your program, and headshots you are free to use today.
50 words
Stuart McClure builds technology that finds failure before it happens. He co-founded Cylance, which used artificial intelligence to stop malware before it could run, and co-authored Hacking Exposed. Today he is co-founder and CEO of WethosAI, which helps leaders rehearse consequential decisions with human context, and founder of NumberOne AI.
100 words
Stuart McClure has spent his career on one idea: prevention. He co-founded Foundstone, served as Worldwide CTO of McAfee, and co-founded Cylance, which used artificial intelligence to stop malware before it could run. Cylance was acquired by BlackBerry in 2019. He co-authored Hacking Exposed with Joel Scambray and George Kurtz, and later led Qwiet AI until its acquisition by Harness. Today he is co-founder and CEO of WethosAI, which models how people decide so leaders can rehearse consequential decisions before making them, and founder of the venture studio NumberOne AI. He also writes the weekly letter (un)Lonely at the Top.
200 words
Stuart McClure has spent his career on one idea: prevention. In 1989 he survived United Airlines Flight 811, when an electrical short told the cargo door to open over the Pacific and a faulty latch allowed it. He has said the experience gave him a life’s passion: finding and fixing the problems technology introduces before they hurt people.
He co-authored Hacking Exposed with Joel Scambray and George Kurtz, a book that published the attacker’s playbook for the people defending against it, and co-wrote the Security Watch column for InfoWorld with Joel Scambray. He co-founded Foundstone, which McAfee acquired, and later served as McAfee’s Worldwide CTO. In 2012 he co-founded Cylance, which used artificial intelligence to judge a file before it ran and stop malware without waiting for a first victim. BlackBerry acquired Cylance in 2019. He later led Qwiet AI, an AI-powered application security platform acquired by Harness in 2025.
Today he is co-founder and CEO of WethosAI, the human context platform, which models how people think and decide so leaders can rehearse consequential decisions before they become irreversible. He is also the founder of NumberOne AI, a venture studio for applied AI, and writes the weekly letter (un)Lonely at the Top. Through the Clavis Foundation he supports children’s health and wellness in Orange County.
You are welcome to use these photos to promote your event. If you crop them, please don’t cut through his face.
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