Your Tech Story

palo alto networks

Nikesh Arora – A Man from being jobless to lead Palo Alto Networks

There are very fewer people in the world who steps down from a higher position. Most of the successful people run behind more power and fame. In this world, it’s rare to find someone who quits and not chooses to compete.

Nikesh Arora is one such legendary figure who stepped down twice from an honorable position. He chose to leave Google and joined SoftBank. He resigned from SoftBank as well. Last year, Arora became the Chairman and CEO of Palo Alto Networks.

Childhood

Born on 9th February 1968, Arora became a worldwide significant figure. He was born into a family in Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh. Arora is the son of an Indian Air Force officer and he also has a sister.

Education

Arora did his schooling from The Air Force School, Delhi. After completing his high school Arora pursued engineering. He picked up the common choice of all the Indian youngsters. But, it worked out differently for him.

Arora went to IIT Varanasi (IIT BHU) which is one of the best Indian institutes for engineering. He graduated with a degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering in 1989. After graduating he started working at Wipro.

Higher Studies

Arora quit his job shortly as he wanted to pursue higher education. In 1990, he left for Boston. He joined Northeastern University and acquired an MBA degree in 1992.

After completing his MBA in Marketing, Arora joined Fidelity Investments as an analyst. But, he wanted to continue his studies. So, he joined Boston College in the same year and attended classes at night. He went to a job and side by side studied for Master’s. He topped the class.

In 1994, he acquired a Master’s degree in Finance and became CFA. He struggled a lot during these two years. Arora’s job was going well. He received promotions several times. His last post in Fidelity was Vice President, Finance.

Early Career

After completing his Masters, he decided to leave Fidelity Investments. Arora joined Putnam Investments but left shortly. After this, he joined Deutsche Telekom.

In 2000, Arora founded a company, T-Motion PLC. He built the company mainly to provide services to the newly launched 3G products of Deutsche Telecom. After two years, these two companies merged. Arora stayed as a Board Member.

For the next couple of years, Arora didn’t take any big steps. In 2004, he came to know that Google was hiring. The company went public and it was hiring for its European office.

The Big Decision

When Nikesh joined Google it was a young company. So, this decision was life-changing. Arora chose to join Google over founding a new company.

He started managing the operations in Europe and continued for three years. Under his leadership, the success of Google in the European market grew rapidly. In 2007, he started managing the Middle East and European markets as well.

Promotions

Nikesh Arora got a big promotion in 2009. He became the President of Global Sales Operations and Business Development. In 2011, he got promoted to Senior Vice President and Chief Business Officer of Google. And this year he became the highest-paid executive of the company.

SoftBank

After working in Google for almost a decade, Arora resigned in 2014. He immediately joined SoftBank, a Japanese multinational company.

Nikesh Arora stepped up as the President and Chief Operating Officer of the company. Under Arora’s supervision, SoftBank grew bigger. Arora suggested the company to invest in start-ups. SoftBank invested in Ola, Grofers and etc.

Arora became the third highest-paid executive around the world after he received $73 million from SoftBank in 2016. This became very big news for the business world.

Palo Alto Networks

After achieving one of the most dignified positions in SoftBank, Nikesh Arora chose to resign. He joined Palo Alto Networks in June 2018 and currently serves as the CEO and Chairman of the company.

Palo Alto is a Santa Clara based company founded in 2005. The main products of the company are cybersecurity and cloud computing.

After Arora joined the company, it made the biggest acquisitions in its history. In 2018, Palo Alto ranked 8th in Forbes Digital 100. The company acquired Demisto for $560 million, Twistlock for $410 million and recently Aporeto for $150 million in 2019.

Nikesh Arora is a great leader. Under his leadership, Palo Alto is doing excellent. He has proved himself as a truly skilled individual.

Personal Life

Nikesh Arora’s first marriage didn’t work out. He later married Ayesha Thapar in 2014 who is a businesswoman. Arora has a daughter.

Nir Zuk : The Founder of Palo Alto Networks, the American Cybersecurity Company

Another college drop-out and one of the most successful tech entrepreneur, Nir Zuk, always had a dream of starting his own business. It can be judged through his career graph that he likes to handle things on his own rather than following the order of some superior authority. This genius kid from Israel is a serial entrepreneur, who is really allergic to bureaucracy. The founder of Palo Alto Networks is happy in running a small business than working for a multimillion company.

Early Life

Zuk was born and brought up in Rehovot, Israel. He was in high school when he convinced his parents to buy him a Dragon 64 computer, as a few years ago, one of his friends has also got one. He started learning computer programming by reading books and was capable enough to write small codes, only in a year.

zuk_nir
Image Source: crn.com

When he was sixteen, he started writing commercial programs and earned enough money. At the same time, the first computer viruses very emerging, which caught Zuk’s attention immediately, and he became of the first persons who wrote one of the earliest virus programs.

According to the rule of the Israeli government, Zuk had to go through military training. But as he was a whiz kid, he got a job in the military’s IT department. Alongside his job in the military, he started going to college, where he took mathematics as his majors.

Career

Zuk spent a whole five years in the military, and before he could complete his degree, on the basis of his experience, he was recruited by Checkpoint, in 1994. Here he became the part of the team that was handling a major project and along with them, invented a technology called stateful inspection, which is the basis of network security technology today.

In 1997, Zuk moved to the US, to work at the U.S. head office of CheckPoint in Redwood City, California. After moving to the US, he worked with the same company for two more years and left the job.

Soon after leaving Checkpoint, Zuk went on to found his own startup company OneSecure, in 1999 and started working on the intrusion prevention system that sits behind the firewall, to make sure that the traffic passing the firewall is attack free. The system is the first of its kind.

In 2002, OneSecure was acquired by NetScreen. Even after the acquisition, Zuk retained his position of CTO in the company. Being in the company, Zuk had adviced NetScreen, to build their own firewall, such that it would be more profitable for them, but NetScreen was not ready to take the risk. Hence, after a year, Zuk left the company, to found his own company, and to build its own firewall.

Founding Palo Alto Networks

In 2005, Zuk, after teaming up with 25 of his colleagues from NetScreen, founded Palo Alto Networks. He had raised a total amount of $9.4 million for the startup. Within two years of the inception of the company, in 2007, it released its first firewall product, which was the world’s first “next-generation firewall”.

By 2011, Palo Alto Networks had become one of the most prominent cybersecurity firms and was listed as a leader on its enterprise firewall Magic Quadrant by Gartner. The company went public on the NYSE on July 20, 2012, having raised $260 million with its initial public offering.

In 2014, along with Fortinet, Mcafee, and Symantec, Palo Alto Networks founded the Cyber Threat Alliance, a not-for-profit organization for improving cybersecurity.

The revenue earned by the company in 2018, was estimated to be over US$2.27 billion. Currently, it is providing its service in the field of network security, cybersecurity, cloud computing. The company has got its headquarters situated in Santa Clara, California, U.S.