The Decibel Podcast: Founders Helping Founders

Yaron Singer is the Founder and CEO of Robust Intelligence, the early leader in AI security that was recently acquired by Cisco. On today’s episode, Jon Sakoda speaks with Yaron on how academics need to decide on the right time to start a company, why the capabilities and risks of AI for many industries need to be approached end to end, and why startups should seek to dispel many of the myths of being acquired:

Dmitri Alperovitch is the Co-Founder and former CTO of Crowdstrike, one of the most valuable cybersecurity companies founded in the modern era that defined the Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) category. On today’s episode, Jon Sakoda speaks with Dmitri on why email security was one of the best places to learn cybersecurity, the hardest parts of finding product-market fit in a new category, and how all of his learnings inside of larger companies ultimately inspired him to start Crowdstrike:

Chris Wysopal is the Founder and CTO of Veracode, a $2.5 billion software supply chain security company that pioneered the field of application security and was one of the first companies to embrace software as a service. On today’s episode, Jon Sakoda speaks with Chris on his early fame as a cybersecurity researcher and the highs and lows of building Veracode across three decades:

Kevin Mandia is the Founder and CEO of Mandiant, the widely recognized leader in cybersecurity incident response which was recently acquired by Google for $5.4 Billion. On today’s episode, Jon Sakoda speaks with Kevin on why he founded Mandiant, and his personal journey to create a company to defend companies against cyber surveillance advanced persistent threats from Russia, China, and North Korea:

Shay Banon is the Founder and CTO of Elastic (NYSE: ESTC) the open source leader platform that enables enterprise search, observability, and cybersecurity. On today’s episode, Jon Sakoda speaks with Shay on his path to starting Elastic, and his success building a commercial open source company in the era of cloud providers:

HD Moore is the founder and CEO of Metasploit and runZero, two cybersecurity companies that are widely used to identify assets and vulnerabilities in corporate environments. On today’s episode, Jon Sakoda speaks with HD on growing up as one of the most famous cybersecurity hackers who had the courage to publish software vulnerabilities on the internet:

Bipul Sinha is the founder and CEO of Rubrik, a leader in zero-trust data security used by enterprises to defend against ransomware and to create global cyber resiliency. On today’s episode, Jon Sakoda speaks with Bipul Sinha on his unusual path from India to Silicon Valley and his unique mindset as a startup founder:

Guy Podjarney is the founder of Snyk, a leading security company building developer first security tools to help organizations develop fast & stay secure. On today’s episode, Jon Sakoda speaks with Guy about the problem-solving approach he still carries with him from his time in the IDF and the threat of playing it too safe for first-time founders. 

Nir Polak is the co-founder of Exabeam, one of the most successful and valuable private cybersecurity firms currently valued at $2.4 billion. On today’s episode, Jon Sakoda speaks with Nir about how his time in the Israeli Defense Forces prepared him for the constant battles in the early days of a startup and the importance of taking care of your mental health as a founder. 

Jesse Rothstein is the co-founder and Chief Technology Officer of ExtraHop Networks, a cyber defense platform that uses cloud-scale AI to help enterprises respond to advanced threats. ExtraHop was acquired by Bain Capital and Crosspoint Capital Partners for $900 million in 2021. On today’s episode, Jon Sakoda speaks with Jesse about selection bias for entrepreneurs and how some of his lowest moments as a founder were actually blessings in disguise. 

Ed Bellis is the co-founder and Chief Technology Officer of Kenna Security, a cybersecurity company that pioneered the risk-based vulnerability management space, and was acquired by Cisco last year. On today’s episode, Jon Sakoda speaks with Ed about his journey from skateboarder to cybersecurity expert, including his advice for first-time founders anxious about always getting it right the first time.

Slavik Markovich is the Founder and CEO of Demisto, a security orchestration, automation, and response (SOAR) platform that was acquired by Palo Alto Networks in 2019 for $560 million. On today’s episode, Jon Sakoda speaks with Slavik about how his time in the Israeli army kickstarted his entrepreneurial journey and what mistakes he made as a first-time founder.

Oliver Friedrichs is the Founder and CEO of Phantom Cyber, a four-time successful entrepreneur who has exited companies to McAfee, Symantec, Sourcefire, and Splunk. On today’s episode, Jon Sakoda speaks with Oliver about the lessons he has learned along the way, including how to cultivate partnerships that lead to successful exits and avoiding valuation traps as a first-time founder.  

Haroon Meer is the Founder of Thinkst Canary, a fast growing cybersecurity company that enables companies to put “honeypots” on their network to catch attackers in minutes. On today’s episode, Jon Sakoda speaks with Haroon Meer about how growing up during the tail end of Apartheid influenced his leadership style and how he bootstrapped Thinkst Canary to success.

Amy Chang is the Founder of Accompany, a relationship intelligence platform that uses machine learning and AI to help business professionals enhance and grow their most important relationships. On today’s episode, Jon Sakoda speaks with Amy Chang about her journey to Founder, including the unconventional way she chose between job offers at Google and Yahoo and how her husband finally got her to stop waking him up at 3 AM with new ideas. 

Andrew Peterson is the Co-Founder and CEO of Signal Sciences, the fastest growing web application security company in the world. On today’s episode, Jon Sakoda speaks with Andrew Peterson about why he calls Anthony Bourdain his career role model and how he ended up in Tanzania working without running water or power near the beginning of his career.  

Ricardo Oliveira is the Co-founder and CTO of ThousandEyes, a Cisco company providing some of the largest brands more visibility into how customers and employees use their networks. On today’s episode, Jon Sakoda speaks with Ricardo Oliveira about meeting his future co-founder in a research group at UCLA and developing a constructive mindset as a first-time founder. 

Matthew Prince is the Co-founder and CEO of Cloudflare, an internet infrastructure company that is making the internet a faster and safer place. On today’s episode, Jon Sakoda speaks with Matthew Prince on how he went from bartender to founder of one of the most successful startups built in the last decade. 

Michelle Zatlyn is the Co-founder, President, and COO of Cloudflare, an internet infrastructure company that is making the internet a faster and safer place. On today’s episode, Jon Sakoda speaks with Michelle Zatlyn on her path to Co-founder and why you have to love what you do in order to succeed. 

Marty Roesch is the founder and CEO of Sourcefire, one of the very first commercial open source companies, that was acquired by Cisco in 2013 for $2.7 billion. On today’s episode, Jon Sakoda speaks with Marty Roesch on his journey to CEO, including how laser tag became his foray into cybersecurity and why he considers himself a “particularly good benevolent dictator”. 

Jon Oberheide is the co-founder and CTO of Duo Security which was acquired by Cisco for $2.4 billion. On today’s episode, Jon Sakoda speaks with Jon Oberheide about his personal journey to where he is today, including the “not illegal” way he met his Duo co-founder in a back stairwell. 

Omar Tawakol is a serial entrepreneur whose latest company, Voicea, was acquired by Cisco in 2019. On today’s episode, Jon Sakoda speaks with Omar Tawakol about his journey to becoming a three-time founder and his advice to new founders caught up in the noise of the industry. 

Mohit Lad is the co-founder of ThousandEyes, a Cisco company providing some of the largest brands more visibility into how customers and employees use their networks. On today’s episode, Jon Sakoda speaks with Mohit Lad on how founding a company was “plan C” and why it’s important to use his role as an advisor to fight for diversity in the tech industry. 

Dug Song is the co-founder and CEO of Duo Security which was acquired by Cisco for $2.4 billion. On today’s episode, Jon Sakoda speaks with Dug Song about how he fell into a world famous hacking group made up of “angels and devils” and how he got hired by his college after hacking into their networks. 

Welcome to The Decibel Podcast: Founders Helping Founders. We're excited to launch our new podcast! Each month, we're bringing together founders from diverse backgrounds to reveal their personal journeys, words of wisdom, and lessons learned from the earliest years of their now successful startups. Join us and subscribe to the Decibel Podcast to receive updates for future episodes.

Follow Jon Sakoda https://twitter.com/jonsakoda

Follow Decibel https://twitter.com/DecibelVC