Apple's nod to secure containerization signals opportunity for the next wave of infrastructure startups

For startups trying to explain complex infrastructure problems, a nod from a company like Apple is the ultimate gift. The tech giant's latest developer tool (a secure, albeit not flawless, containerization framework) didn’t just offer hardware-enforced isolation; it created a dangerous new paradox for businesses. Suddenly, the environments where software is built are more secure than the production systems where it actually runs, leaving a gaping vulnerability where companies least expect it.

For Kaylin Trychon, CMO at security and infrastructure startup Edera, navigating these strategic shifts is familiar territory. Her background includes leading security communications at Google and heading up marketing at software supply chain pioneer Chainguard. It’s a paradox of confidence that security researchers have noted across the industry, but one Trychon sees coming to a head now.

Unsolicited validation: “Apple just created a paradox: developers can now build in an environment that is far more secure than what their own companies are running in production. That should be a wake-up call,” Trychon says. “When a three-trillion-dollar company plants a flag and says, ‘this is the right way to do it,’ it validates that foundational security can no longer be an afterthought.”

Back to the future: For Edera, that market validation wasn't a surprise, but an expectation rooted in a unique philosophy. Trychon credits the company’s foresight to its visionary co-founders, including a 26-year-old CTO she describes as a "computer history savant."

Their approach is grounded in a deep understanding of computing history to avoid repeating past mistakes. “You can see the future by drawing a line through history,” Trychon explains. “We know what’s going to happen because we’ve been there and done it before. The other shoe has dropped every single time, so why not learn and build security in with development velocity from the start?”

Hiding in the hardware: While the Apple announcement shines a light on security, Trychon clarifies that Edera’s mission is bigger. “We’re not an AI company or just a security company; we're a GPU architecture company,” she states. The immediate value for customers is cost optimization by getting the most out of expensive GPU hardware. “Right now, AI is a well-funded cost center for most organizations. They feel they have to invest, but there's no proof of ROI because they don't have the data or control to find it.” That lack of ROI is becoming an urgent, C-suite-level problem as the scale of investment becomes staggering, with SoftBank betting nearly a trillion dollars on AI infrastructure and cloud providers deploying high-security architectures like AWS Nitro Enclaves to support the demand.

The simplicity mandate: That lack of control is symptomatic of a larger issue. Trychon likens today’s cloud-native landscape to the notoriously convoluted Martech stack, with “tooling everywhere” creating layers of friction. The antidote, she argues, is a return to basics. “We’ve all made this journey to the cloud, but it’s still hard, it’s still complex,” she says. “At the heart of what we’re doing is a mission to make computing simple—because it can be.”

Humans at the helm: That pragmatism extends to the current hype around AI-driven development. While she sees value in AI tools as a starting point to overcome a “daunting blank page,” Trychon remains skeptical of their ability to handle complex infrastructure tasks. For the kind of “hardcore engineering work” her team tackles, she believes the human element—with its creativity and deep expertise—is still the most critical component, a view echoed in analyses of AI code assistants’ current limitations.

A delicate balance: Ultimately, Edera tackles the central conflict of the modern development era. And while advanced solutions like confidential computing exist in the cloud, many production systems still rely on older, more vulnerable architectures, leaving the gap wide open. “The whole rise of containers meant developers got their freedom to move fast, and we don't want to change that,” Trychon concludes. “But we want to ensure control, visibility, and security are there too. You shouldn't have to choose.”