Jay Chaudhry: From humble beginnings to security billionaire
Can success be achieved regardless of previous experiences? Jay Chaudhry, the 65-year-old founder of cloud security company Zscaler, has proven that it can. He took the risk of starting a business in the cybersecurity industry. Today, his net worth is estimated at $11.5 billion.
Chaudhry's story demonstrates how determination and market insight can lead to extraordinary success in the technology business. CNBC featured his story in a report.
Jay Chaudhry grew up in India, in a family of small-scale farmers without a tradition of entrepreneurship. He studied engineering and marketing after moving to the United States in 1980. He then worked for technology giants like IBM and Unisys. He didn't initially plan to become an entrepreneur; the tech boom of the mid-90s inspired him to start his own company.
In 1996, Chaudhry, fascinated by the success of Netscape, decided to resign from his position as a director at IQ Software. His wife Jyoti also resigned from her job as a systems analyst. Together they invested all their life savings – about $685,000 CAD – in the startup SecureIT, which focused on cybersecurity software. They founded it in 1997.
Risk that paid off
Chaudhry's decision to start SecureIT was primarily based on intuition. He noticed that with the growing popularity of web browsers, companies would need protection against online threats. At that time, less than 5 percent of the Fortune 500 companies were using firewalls. In just 18 months, SecureIT implemented firewalls in about 50 percent of the companies on this prestigious list.
The market insight proved to be spot on. In 1998, he sold SecureIT to VeriSign for nearly CAD 96 million in stock. This success began a series of successful ventures in cybersecurity and e-commerce that Jay and Jyoti Chaudhry founded and sold over the next decade.
In 2007, already wealthy entrepreneurs, the Chaudhry couple decided to start "one big company" and focus all their attention on it. This is how Zscaler was born, a company aimed at helping businesses transition from outdated firewalls to the cloud era. Chaudhry invested $68 million CAD of his own money into this project.
From startup to billion-dollar giant
Zscaler turned out to be a tremendous success. The company generates annual revenues of $2.2 billion CAD and has a market capitalization of about $41 billion CAD. Forbes estimates Jay Chaudhry's personal wealth at $15.6 billion CAD. This is an impressive increase compared to the CAD 685,000 he invested in his first venture.
Chaudhry emphasizes that the key to success is a deep conviction in the rightness of your idea and the willingness to invest your own money. He advises aspiring entrepreneurs to thoroughly understand the field they want to enter and be ready to risk their funds. According to him, investing your money demonstrates genuine commitment and helps make independent business decisions.
