Inside the Network

In this episode, we sit down with Kumar Saurabh, CEO and co-founder of AirMDR, which provides a new approach to managed detection and response with an AI-powered virtual security analyst. A serial entrepreneur, Kumar has been at it for two decades. Before AirMDR, he co-founded Sumo Logic, the first cloud-based SIEM, and LogicHub, one of the pioneers of SOAR. Kumar’s journey as an immigrant founder offers a unique perspective on why immigrants often succeed as entrepreneurs and how institutions like the Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) have produced some of the world’s most successful tech leaders. Drawing on his experience, Kumar explores why large companies struggle to innovate, the competitive edge startups hold over established players, and how founders can identify opportunities in markets that may appear crowded. He also shares actionable insights for founders on hiring top talent from leading companies and scaling a startup with the right team.   Having collaborated with premier venture capital firms like Greylock, Sutter Hill, Sequoia, and Accel, Kumar provides invaluable advice on selecting the right VC partners, what to look for, and common mistakes to avoid.  Kumar’s story is a testament to resilience, innovation, and the power of identifying opportunities in enterprise tech, making him a leading voice in the startup ecosystem.

In this special election episode, we sit down with Gov. Rick Snyder, an entrepreneur, a former VC, and a leader whose career is unique in depth and breadth, spanning both the public and private sectors.  Rick Snyder initially made his mark as COO of Gateway, where he helped the company grow revenue from $600 million to $6 billion to IPO. He then co-founded venture firm Ardesta, which stands for “spark” in Greek. After two fund cycles, he transitioned from business to politics, serving two terms as Governor of Michigan. Post-governorship, Rick Snyder returned to the entrepreneurial world, co-founding SensCy, a cybersecurity company focused on helping small and medium-sized businesses defend against growing digital threats. Drawing from his experience in both public office and tech entrepreneurship, our episode with Rick Snyder brings unique insights into the intersection of technology, government, and cybersecurity. We speak with Rick about cybersecurity, its importance in elections, and what startup founders need to keep in mind when selling to the public sector. In addition, we cover the importance of securing small and medium-sized businesses, and what startup entrepreneurs should do to develop personal resilience.

In this episode, we sit down with Slavik Markovich, CEO and co-founder of Descope, a low-code/no-code Customer Identity Access Management (CIAM) platform. A serial entrepreneur, Slavik has been at it for two decades and over this time built three companies. Before Descope, he was co-founder and CEO at Demisto, a leader in the SOAR industry that was acquired by Palo Alto Networks for $560 million. Before co-founding Demisto, Slavik was VP & CTO of database technologies at McAfee (Intel Security). He joined McAfee via the acquisition of Sentrigo, a database security startup, where he was a co-founder and CTO. Slavik also served in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) for 5 years as a team leader. He graduated with a degree in computer science from The Technion (Israel’s MIT). We speak with Slavik about his childhood and what got him hooked on cybersecurity. We cover Slavik’s learnings on how to identify early product-market fit and define a category like what he did with SOAR (Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response). We discuss the art of negotiating a VC fundraise and M&A exit. And of course, we touch on how Slavik’s love for good coffee has played a key part in building friendships including with one of his co-founders Rishi Bhargava.

In this episode we have a special guest - Doug Merritt - who has shaped not a unicorn but a decacorn - a company valued at more than $10 billion. As the former CEO of Splunk, he steered this big data company to extraordinary heights. In just six years under Doug's leadership, Splunk's market cap soared past $25 billion, and its annual recurring revenue skyrocketed from $200 million to a staggering $3 billion. At its peak, over 50% of Splunk revenues came from security applications. Doug's journey began as a coder and developer before transitioning to sales leadership and eventually CEO of a publicly traded company. His entrepreneurial roots trace back to founding a company called Icarian, which was acquired by WorkStream. He then went on to hold senior management positions at tech giants like Cisco, SAP, and PeopleSoft. Today Doug is the Chairman and CEO of Aviatrix, a secure cloud networking leader that has raised over $350 million in venture funding and serves over 500 global customers. Throughout his time at Splunk, Doug hired, mentored, and promoted well-known executives in the infrastructure and cyber industry, from Haiyan Song to Jason Child to Snehal Antani. In this episode, Doug discusses what he looks for in executives, how he evaluates their ability to succeed, and what founders should keep in mind when building their leadership teams. As the CEO of Splunk, Doug led several acquisitions including SignalFx and Phantom Cyber. On Inside the Network, he shares how founders should think about M&A and what they need to do to achieve successful exits. In our conversation, we'll explore Doug's career evolution, insights from his founder experience, and key lessons learned while scaling Splunk into a decacorn. We'll also discuss his current role at Aviatrix and his vision for the future of cloud technology and generative AI.

Our guest in this episode is Jon Gelsey. Jon was the first CEO of Auth0, a leading identity-as-a-service platform, which grew from 5 to 300 employees during his four years at the helm. Auth0 was acquired by Okta in February 2021 for $6.5B. After Auth0, Jon served as CEO of Xnor, a computer vision and machine learning spinoff of the Allen Institute. The company was acquired by Apple for ~$200M in January 2020.  When Auth0 first started in 2013, there were already several authentication vendors in the market. Okta, ForgeRock, and OneLogin had all built considerable scale by the time Auth0 launched its product. Not only did Jon and the team build a successful company in a very crowded space, but they also did it their way. While all of Auth0’s competitors were running a top-down GTM motion, Jon made a critical decision to adopt a bottom-up, product-led growth (PLG) strategy. Instead of relying on traditional marketing tactics for demand generation, Auth0 built an extensive content rollout plan to help drive inbound interest in the product. To date, Auth0 is the only PLG company in cybersecurity to achieve a multi-billion dollar exit. On Inside the Network, Jon talks about building go-to-market strategies, identifying the right buyer personas, and establishing success metrics for customer acquisition.   In addition to his experience as a serial entrepreneur, Jon worked on the M&A and strategy team at Microsoft from 2007 to 2014 where he led several acquisitions for the company. Jon shares the tips and tricks founders need to know to plan, negotiate, and successfully close acquisitions with potential buyers.