From India to Silicon Valley: The Jay Chaudhry & Zscaler Story

Before Zscaler was a $32B cloud security giant, it was just 10 engineers—half in Bangalore, half in a borrowed U.S. office. As founder and CEO of Zscaler, Jay Chaudhry bet $50M of his own money on one radical idea: secure the internet in the cloud. Born in a Himalayan village with no electricity, he built Zscaler into one of the world’s top cybersecurity giants. In this episode, Jay breaks down why 50% of the Fortune 500 trusts Zscaler, why he still interviews candidates, and how he’s incubating the company’s next big AI bet. Chapters: 00:00 Trailer 00:42 Introduction 01:21 His fifth company 04:26 Entrepreneurs’ existential fear 10:53 Customer engagement and new innovations 12:46 No private jets, no business class 19:34 “I never used money” 23:38 Born and raised in India 26:17 Hiring legends 30:35 Walking on water 35:09 “Dolphining” 39:55 Areas of weakness 42:11 Passionate even on the weekends 44:56 Work during roller coasters 47:35 The weight of the world is on your shoulders 49:21 Leveraging AI 56:20 Outro Mentioned in this episode: Elon Musk, Microsoft, Bill Gates, BlackBerry, Steve Ballmer, Satya Nadella, Hewlett-Packard (HP), IBM, John Fellows Akers, Steve Jobs, NeXT, Inc., Linux, Cisco, United Airlines, San Francisco International Airport, Sundar Pichai, Ravi Mhatre, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Six Flags, AI (artificial intelligence), security Links: Connect with JayLinkedIn Connect with JoubinXLinkedInEmail: grit@kleinerperkins.com  Learn more about Kleiner Perkins