The Signal · Column 108

Access Is the Asset, and Every Hire Near It Is a Security Decision

Andrei van Noordt · 8 November 2026 · 2 min read

A US intelligence memo circulated earlier this year reportedly claimed that China's Ministry of State Security recruited a technology executive to spy on Nvidia's CEO. It is a claim, reported secondhand, and it deserves to be read with that caution. Even so, it says something the hiring world has been slow to say out loud.

Most people will file this under geopolitics. I read it as a talent story. The memo does not describe anyone going after a chip company's servers. It describes someone going after the people around a person who knows things. In AI, the most valuable knowledge does not sit in a data center. It sits in a few calendars, a few dinners, a few relationships, and in the judgment of the small number of leaders whose decisions set the direction for everyone else.

When the knowledge that matters lives in a handful of heads, every person near those heads becomes part of your security perimeter.

This is the uncomfortable side of the repricing of senior judgment I keep writing about. If a handful of people carry the knowledge that moves an industry, then proximity to those people is an asset in its own right. Chiefs of staff, partnership leads, senior engineers in the room where the roadmap is decided, executives at companies that sit close to a leader: these roles now carry a weight that rarely shows up in the job description. The candidates who will be worth the most are the ones whose histories can actually be verified, whose track records are long and legible, and whose references hold up when someone takes the trouble to call them.

This is not an argument for suspicion by passport. That would be wrong, and it would also miss the point, because the risk travels through access, not origin. What I see too often is that the roles closest to sensitive knowledge get filled fastest, through a warm introduction and a good conversation, while the deepest checks are saved for roles that matter far less.

For hiring leaders, the practical read is simple. Map which roles sit closest to your most sensitive people and knowledge, and give those hires the most rigorous vetting in your process, with references properly verified, before the offer goes out rather than after the access is granted.