From Zanzibar to SpiceDB: Rethinking Access Control at AuthZed

Jake Moshenko, Co-founder & CEO of AuthZed, gives a deep dive into relationship-based access control — the model behind SpiceDB and inspired by Google’s Zanzibar.

This episode explains how modeling relationships (people↔data↔teams) unlocks fine-grained, portable policies and why treating auth as a database matters for caching, consistency, and scale.

Jake also contrasts RBAC/ABAC tradeoffs, shows how centralized auth speeds product iteration, and outlines when teams should stop DIYing permissions. Ideal for architects and security leads rethinking access control.