# Mike Malone

> Mike Malone is the San Francisco-based founder and CEO of Smallstep. A software engineer with a Business Information Systems degree from Virginia Tech, he worked at Pownce, Six Apart, SimpleGeo, Urban Airship and Betable before founding Smallstep in 2016. His work spans web standards, open source certificate management and hardware-backed identity for devices and AI-agent environments.

- **Role:** Founder & CEO at Smallstep
- **Organizations:** Smallstep, Betable, Urban Airship, SimpleGeo, Six Apart, Pownce, Accenture, Open Web Foundation
- **Education:** Business Information Systems, Virginia Tech - Pamplin College of Business
- **Known for:** Co-author of the oEmbed specification with Cal Henderson, Leah Culver and Richard Crowley., Founded Smallstep in 2016 and led its development of open source certificate-management infrastructure., Led Smallstep through $26 million in disclosed seed and Series A financing, announced April 2022.

## Career timeline

- **2007-2008** — Analyst at Accenture.
- **2008** — Web developer at Pownce.
- **2008-2009** — Software engineer at Six Apart.
- **2010-2011** — Lead architect at SimpleGeo.
- **2011-2012** — Engineer at Urban Airship.
- **2012** — Became CTO at Betable; public directories disagree about the end date.
- **2016** — Founded Smallstep.
- **2018** — Published the TLS-everywhere argument and introduced open source step Certificates.
- **2020** — Presented on SSH certificates at BSidesSF.
- **2022** — Announced $26 million in combined seed and Series A financing.
- **2025** — Presented Smallstep as an RSAC Innovation Sandbox top-ten finalist.
- **2026** — Smallstep announced an AI-agent security integration with Keycard.

## Achievements

- Co-author of the oEmbed specification with Cal Henderson, Leah Culver and Richard Crowley.
- Founded Smallstep in 2016 and led its development of open source certificate-management infrastructure.
- Led Smallstep through $26 million in disclosed seed and Series A financing, announced April 2022.
- Presented Smallstep at the 2025 RSAC Innovation Sandbox as one of ten finalists.
- Published technical explanations of TLS, PKI, SSH certificates and passive revocation.

## Latest updates

- **2026-05** — Published After Mythos: Identity Has to Anchor in Hardware, arguing for hardware-bound keys, short-lived certificates and continuous verification.
- **2026-03** — Smallstep and Keycard announced an early-access integration for AI-agent runtime governance rooted in verified infrastructure.
- **2026-02** — Appeared on Mac Admins Podcast episode 450 to discuss device attestation and certificate authorities.
- **2025-10** — Reflected on Smallstep’s RSAC finalist experience and plans to focus on identity for agentic AI.

## Links

- Website: https://immike.net/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mmalone/
- Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/mjmalone
- GitHub: https://github.com/mmalone

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/mike-malone
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-10-11