Success in security often means nothing happens. In Inverted Podcast #1, the hosts open the series by defining inverted product management: why metrics, strategies, personas, and roadmaps look different when your product wins by preventing damage rather than driving engagement.
The conversation covers who inverted users really are, the idea of an invisible line of badness in systems, strategy decisions unique to security and trust products, critical attacker journeys versus classic user journeys, when to let users customize security, and early thoughts on AI in identity products.
About this episode
This inaugural episode introduces the Inverted Podcast and its hosts: Jeroen Kemperman, Dana Kaufman, Dario Salice, and Tom Williamson. They define inverted product management for security, privacy, and online safety, and set up themes the series returns to throughout later episodes.
Key takeaways
- Inverted products succeed when bad outcomes stay rare, not when engagement climbs.
- Metrics, personas, and communication differ sharply from traditional growth-oriented product teams.
- The invisible line of abuse or failure is hard to see but central to how you measure progress.
- Critical attacker journeys flip user-journey thinking toward how adversaries move through your product.
- User customization of security features has trade-offs for both safety and usability.
- AI already shapes identity and security product choices, even in this first episode.
Topics covered
- What inverted product management is and who it serves
- Different users and personas in security and trust products
- The invisible line of badness in systems
- Strategy decisions in the inverted space
- Critical user journeys vs critical attacker journeys
- User customization of security features and AI in identity
Chapters
00:00 Introductions
06:54 What is Inverted Product Management?
08:06 Different Users
09:52 The Invisible Line
14:24 Strategy Decisions in the Inverted Space
18:02 Critical User Journeys vs Critical Attacker Journeys
21:09 Allowing User Customization of Security features
27:16 AI in Identity products
28:46 Wrap Up
For inverted product managers, the practical test is whether your roadmap reduces measurable damage for real users without inventing vanity metrics. Use the chapters above to jump to the sections most relevant to your team, then bring one concrete change into your next planning cycle.
FAQ
What is inverted product management?
It is product work in security, privacy, online safety, and related areas where the primary goal is inverted: success is when nothing bad happens. Metrics, personas, and roadmaps therefore differ from classic engagement-driven product management.
Who hosts the Inverted Podcast?
Jeroen Kemperman, Dana Kaufman, Dario Salice, and Tom Williamson. Later episodes also feature industry guests when the topic calls for it.
Who should listen to episode 1?
Product managers in security, identity, trust and safety, privacy, fraud, and infrastructure security, plus leaders who need a shared language for inverted products.
Related on Inverted PM
- Podcast #2: The Invisible Line
- Podcast #3: Critical Attacker Journey
- Podcast #4: Damage as the Ultimate Metric
- Podcast #12: Using Risk to Quantify Security
- Meet the hosts
- All Inverted Podcast episodes
Connect with the hosts and guests on the video or on LinkedIn to continue the conversation.
🎧 Find the Inverted Podcast on LinkedIn, Spotify, YouTube, Amazon Music/Audible, iHeartRadio, or invertedpm.com.
Explore more
Browse all Inverted Podcast episodes, read the blog, or meet the hosts.
Related: Episode 2 – The Invisible Line · Episode 14 – Business Model Canvas Part 1