Shlomo Kramer, CEO and co-founder of Cato Networks is a rare bird in the cybersecurity industry, having built three unicorns in his career. For many in the cybersecurity industry, Sholmo needs no introduction. One of the early pioneers in Israel’s cybersecurity startup ecosystem, what makes Shlomo remarkable is his ability to repeatedly build category-defining companies. He first co-founded Check Point, which pioneered the firewall category and today commands a $20 billion market cap. Then, seeing the shift to the cloud, he launched Imperva, focusing on web application security (WAF). That was his second IPO. Now with Cato Networks, he's created an entirely new category called SASE – Secure Access Service Edge – and Cato has already reached over $200 million in annual recurring revenue.
But Shlomo isn't just a builder – he's also a remarkably successful investor with an eye for transformative companies. His portfolio includes Trusteer, which IBM acquired for $1 billion, and Palo Alto Networks, in which he wrote the first angel check and sat on its board - a company now valued well over $100 billion dollars.
In this episode, we get inside the mind of the only entrepreneur we know who's on track to potentially take his third cybersecurity company public. Many founders are satisfied with one IPO, some rarely go to two and Shlomo is on track for his third IPO - a hat trick if he pulls it off. In the cybersecurity hall of fame, very few could equal what Shlomo has accomplished.
We discuss building cybersecurity companies, the evolution of the security market over the past three decades, why founders should focus on their customers instead of competitors, how building startups has changed from when Shlomo started Check Point, and many other aspects of the founder's journey.
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Episode Transcript
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Sid Trivedi (00:07):
Welcome to Inside the Network. I'm Sid Trivedi.
Ross Haleliuk (00:11):
I am Ross Haleliuk.
Mahendra Ramsinghani (00:12):
And I am Mahendra Ramsinghani. We have
spent decades building,investing, and researching
cybersecurity companies.
Sid Trivedi (00:22):
On this podcast, we invite you to join us inside the
network, where we bring the bestfounders, operators, and
investors building the future ofcyber.
Ross Haleliuk (00:33):
We will talk about the hard part of the
founder journey, launchingcompanies, getting to product
market fit, raising capital, andscaling to an exit. And, yes, we
will also be talking about epicfailures.
Sid Trivedi (00:48):
But, Mahendra, we're here to make the founder
journey easier.
Mahendra Ramsinghani (00:52):
That is correct, Sid. But we cannot make
it too much easier becausestartups are hard.
Ross Haleliuk (00:57):
And, of course, you already knew that. Alright.
You two. And now let's getstarted with this week's
episode.
Mahendra Ramsinghani (01:07):
Our guest today is Shlomo Kramer, co
founder and CEO of CatoNetworks. For many in the
cybersecurity industry, Shlomoneeds no introduction. One of
the early pioneers in Israel'scybersecurity startup ecosystem,
what makes Shlomo trulyremarkable is its ability to
repeatedly build categorydefining companies. He first co
(01:30):
founded Check Point, whichpioneered the firewall category
and today commands a$20,000,000,000 market cap.
Then, seeing the shift to thecloud, he launched Imperva,
which focused on the webapplication security, or the
WAF, marketplace.
That was his second IPO. Now,with Cato Networks, he's created
an entirely new category calledSASE, or Secure Access Service
(01:53):
Edge. And Cato has alreadycrossed 200,000,000 in ARR. But
Shlomo isn't just a builder.He's also a remarkably
successful angel investor withan eye for transformative
companies.
His portfolio includes Trusteer,which IBM acquired for
$1,000,000,000 and he wrote thefirst angel check-in Palo Alto
(02:15):
Networks, a company that is nowvalued over a $100,000,000,000
Today, we'll get inside the mindof the only entrepreneur we know
who's on track to potentiallytake his 3rd cybersecurity
company public. Many foundersare satisfied with just one IPO.
Some rarely go to 2, and Shlomois on track for his 3rd one. A
(02:38):
hat trick if he pulls it off. Inthe cybersecurity hall of fame,
very few could equal what Shlomohas accomplished in his career.
So what drives him? What has helearned along the way in 3
decades of buildingcybersecurity startups? And
while others talk aboutplatformization, if that's a
word, can KETL be the one ringthat rules them all? Without
(03:03):
further ado, let's get started.
Sid Trivedi (03:06):
Welcome, Shlomo, to Inside the Network.
Shlomo Kramer (03:08):
Hello, and thank you for having me.
Sid Trivedi (03:10):
We wanna cover a couple of different topics, and
let's just start with the bigpicture. And let's start with
the big why. Why Shlomo? You cofounded Check Point, then
Imperva, and now you're leadingCato Networks. What could likely
be your 3rd cyber IPO?
A hat trick as as many wouldlike to call it. For most
founders, one IPO would havebeen enough. What drives you
(03:33):
both in internally andexternally to keep going, keep
building these companies?
Shlomo Kramer (03:38):
The simple fact that I enjoy it. And, that's, I
really like, takingtechnological market innovation
and turning that into a realityand looking 10 years ahead and
assessing where the markets aregoing to be. You know, I've been
doing this since, you know, evenbefore my, first commercial
(04:01):
startup. I've been doing it inthe, as a high school student
and in the army. And, that's,that's what I like doing.
So I would say it's a passion.I've never viewed it as work.
Sid Trivedi (04:15):
And did you always think that cyber was a field you
wanted to focus on?
Shlomo Kramer (04:19):
You know, it's been, I think that Checkpoint
was obviously the company thatkind of focused my, my career on
cyber. Before that, I didn'tthink that cyber was going to be
the focus of my career simplybecause there was no cyber, no
real cyber category. I would saythat, JetPoint was definitely
(04:43):
one of the first networksecurity company, you know, the
1st network security company,and one of the first 10
cybersecurity companies in theworld. So, the answer is, you
know, no. But after Checkpoint,it became inevitable that, I'm
(05:04):
going to focus on it.
Ross Haleliuk (05:05):
I'm curious, before you decided to build
Checkpoint, what were some ofthe other ideas that you were
looking at? What was some of thestuff you were exploring that
could have become an alternativestory of Shlomo?
Shlomo Kramer (05:17):
I'll tell you, when we started, you know, we we
we had all sorts of, ideas andstuff that we did. But I'll tell
you, as as founders ofCheckpoint, both Gil and myself
really admired a company calledPure Software. It was a company
that, it was the lightweight itwas one of the companies in the
(05:38):
Sun, Microsystem, a universe,and, which was our world, back
in the day versus the PC world,which was more desktop, and Sun
was the network is the computer.So, in, in that world, we really
admired Pure Software, and itwas a kind of a development
tool. It found memory leaks andissues very, quickly, and it was
(06:02):
revolutionary, and we reallyliked the fact that it was a
bootstrapped startup startingfrom 0 and with very little
resources, became a significantcompany.
And years later, just recently,I found out the fact that I hope
I believe it's accurate, thatthis was the company of the
(06:24):
Netflix founder.
Sid Trivedi (06:26):
That's right. Reed
Shlomo Kramer (06:26):
Hastings. Reed Hastings. So, I didn't know
that, but that's so we had a lotof interest in software systems
in general and, not necessarilyas security folks.
Ross Haleliuk (06:39):
Shlomo, over the past 30 years, the world has
changed dramatically. Like, inboth economical sense, political
sense, like business sense, Someaspects are probably easier
today than they were before.Some are harder. Like when it
comes to the entrepreneurialjourney, now that
entrepreneurship has beenlargely democratized and
literally anybody can start acompany at any time. How has the
(07:01):
world changed for startupfounders?
Like, what aspects are hardertoday and which one's easier?
Shlomo Kramer (07:07):
So for sure, I'll talk about startup in general
and talk about cyber inparticular. The, the business of
startup has stopped being astartup. So when we started
Checkpoint, you know, we had nofunding, our first office was my
late grandmother's apartment. Wescrambled for a few $100,000 to
(07:31):
enable us to launch the product,and we kind of stumbled on Sun
Microsystem and Sun Software,actually, at the time, and were
able to do an OEM and, andlaunch the company. So it was
very much, I would say, astartup kind of foundry.
And other, other folks as well.And for many years, it continued
(07:52):
to be that way, I would say,into the 2000, 2010. I would say
that in the last 15 years, wesee that startups become really
templated and professional. Andour programmes, and it's, it's
almost like a profession. Soit's not a, it's not a, kind of
(08:14):
a hit or miss or, you know, agarage type of operation
anymore.
And, I would say in cyber inparticular, that also meant that
there is a lot of money, thatthere's a lot of funding, very
professional. And because of thecyber is the, perhaps, the most
(08:34):
dynamic field in IT, there's thebad actor that keeps things
moving and changing andinnovation happens to startups.
A lot of money in particularfocuses on startups. So if you
have a good idea, you shouldexpect that there are 10 other
startups, you know, perhaps someof them in Israel, some of them
(08:55):
in Silicon Valley, and some inin other places, that are going
to do the same thing. And it'snot only about the idea, it's
really about the, how youexecute around that idea, which
is, makes life more difficult incyber these days, both as an
entrepreneur and as an investor.
Mahendra Ramsinghani (09:12):
So in these 3 decades, Shlomo, what
has surprised you in trends,either technological, business
wise, political, financial? Arethere things that jump out at
you that, are different fromwhat
Shlomo Kramer (09:24):
you might have anticipated? There from what you
might have anticipated? Therealways is surprises. There are
things you think, hey, these aregoing to be bonanzas. And like,
I'll give you a concreteexample.
I was one of the early investorin security for mobile phones.
It was, very early when theiPhone became mainstream where,
(09:48):
you know, it kind of was clearthat it will beat Nokia and,
Blackberry. And we said, okay,it's a handheld device. It has
to have security. It's the mostprivate device that you have.
For sure, for Android and andand iOS, you need security. We
invested in a great team thatcame out with a good product,
(10:11):
and the market didn't happen.You know, it's, it's, you know,
that's, and, on the other hand,you get positive surprises where
you get huge success inunexpected areas. So, yeah,
there's, experience can take youso much. There are still
(10:32):
surprises.
Sid Trivedi (10:33):
Let's talk a little bit about building companies,
Shlomo. And, you know, back in2015, as you and your Cato co
founder, Gershotz, brainstormedideas for your next venture,
we've heard that frustrationalmost led you to give up. And
the story we've heard inparticular was that inspiration
struck while you were sitting onyour patio. Can you take us back
(10:54):
to that moment and what ideaswere you exploring? Why were
they dismissed?
Shlomo Kramer (10:59):
In general, the, the ideas, I would say, were
around the fact that, networkhave become software defined. So
there were, the, the data planewas more and more implemented by
software versus hardware. And wecame out of the, DDoS and the
cloud delivery world at thetime, and and we thought, okay,
(11:24):
that's where we experienced forthe first time that the
capability to embedsophisticated capability in the
network fabric because it'ssoftware based. And we looked
for other use cases for that.And we, actually, Cato version
1.0 was, an idea that we, thatwas more in the data center,
(11:46):
east west traffic, and, and weworked for, for a few months, 2,
3 months on that building,formalizing the idea and
building a presentation aroundthat, etcetera, and it didn't
stick.
And I remember the day that wedecided, hey, that doesn't work.
We are back to square 1. Wentback, home and, sat on the patio
(12:11):
and, was frustrated or ordisappointed. And then the idea
of Cato, came to mind, which isessentially instead of within
the data center, it's betweenthe data center and the other
parts of the organization and,and other data center remote
users, locations, and the SaaSapplication. So, that's Cato
(12:34):
version 2.0.
I immediately talked with GURand we kind of started taking
this, raw idea and developingit, and the rest is history.
What we came up with was,essentially what Gartner, Sassy
in 2019.
Sid Trivedi (12:53):
And any advice for founders who are having that
kind of block in terms of ideasand which one to go after? I
mean, clearly you took a stepback and that helped you. Any,
any advice that you have forfolks who are brainstorming?
Shlomo Kramer (13:04):
Well, I would give a general advice about
making a big decision, is that Itry to learn as much as
possible. A lot of these 3months was consuming a lot of
information. Innovation, recentinnovation in networking, and,
software defined networking,and, and learning about that,
thinking about it, and doing alot of, I would say, conscious
(13:29):
processing. But the end, thedecision needs to be a gut level
decision. And by gut leveldecision, I don't mean something
spiritual, etcetera.
I really believe that we haveprocessing capabilities that
goes beyond the kind of wherethe fleshlight of the conscious
points, which is actually verypowerful. And once you
(13:53):
internalise all this data, youneed to let other parts of your
work. So gut, gut feeling isimportant, and you need to
listen to it, I guess. That'sthe headline, thing to say.
Ross Haleliuk (14:06):
So when you tried the v one version, as you say,
it didn't stick. How did youknow that it didn't stick?
Shlomo Kramer (14:12):
It was a gut feeling. We are not feeling it.
We are not feeling it.
Ross Haleliuk (14:16):
I see. Very, very interesting. Yeah. The reason I
ask is because, like, you know,sometimes it's just like, maybe
maybe you didn't look at
Shlomo Kramer (14:22):
the consensus. It was a consensus. Both Goh and
myself did I felt the same. Sothere was no question about it.
If both of us didn't feel it,then it's a no go.
Ross Haleliuk (14:31):
Interesting. So let's talk about Cato's
foundation. Like starting thecompany, you had to essentially
start with the networking layer.You have to roll out global
points of presence. You have tolayer on security.
Like you have to do so much inorder for this vision of SASE to
get realized. How did it looklike? What were the major
challenges at the time?
Shlomo Kramer (14:50):
Actually, the, the major challenge of Cato, and
I think the major innovation ofCato, and, is not layering
security on top of networking,but actually embedding, network
security in the network. So wehave a single stack that
delivers in a single pass bothall the networking and all the
(15:13):
network, security capabilities.And it's delivered as a global
cloud service, today over 90POPs around the world, to
thousands of enterprisecustomers, millions of, users
with 5 nines at the one hand,because that's what is the num-
you ask any CIO, what's yourmost important thing? Is that
(15:37):
you don't feel it. You know,it's going to be up and working,
no hiccups, and nobody's goingto call me with an issue.
And then they want it also toprovide the best security. But
the best security requires hugeamounts of updates and upgrades
and dynamics. We do thousands ofupdates a year to the network.
(16:00):
So how do you provide 59s andthe same time provide the most
dynamic network security stack.That has been since the early
days of Checkpoint, since theCiscos, Juniper's of the world,
all in a, in a graveyard ofstartups, all tried to do this
and failed.
Essentially, Cato is a majorbreakthrough, was it the first,
(16:24):
and I believe still the onlycompany that was able to deliver
this based on the fact that, thenetwork is software based and
based on many, many innovationsalong the way.
Ross Haleliuk (16:36):
And given that you had to go out and you had to
build a lot of infrastructurefrom day 1, what has that
experience been talking to VCs?Like at the time, obviously you
have already been a successfulfounder. You have had a great
track record, but still you hadto go to investors and you have
to tell them, hey, instead of,using some underlying
foundation, we are going tobuild our own points of
(16:58):
presence. How did it look like?What were the objections from
VCs?
Were there any objections?
Shlomo Kramer (17:04):
Yeah. So, both Guo and myself had a very good
reputation in delivering on, onour promises. And, but there
were, and we were talking with anumber of VCs. And some of them
said it's a very ambitiousproject, which I guess means go
away. And they had a very goodreason for it.
(17:24):
And at the end, it was notdifficult to find the believers,
and and we got funded quickly,but there were very prominent
VCs. Actually, VCs that comefrom the old days of Cisco, you
know, were familiar with theearly June JuneOS and, what was
the name of the appliancecompany networks? One of the
(17:47):
first appliance companies thatJuniper bought for
$4,000,000,000 and tried toembed into the JunoOS and
failed. And we're familiar withACE of Cisco, was another
attempt. And we're familiarwith, any number of startups
that tried to do that andfailed.
Unfortunately, here, here isanother team that is going to
(18:07):
fail at that. And, I guess thatwas the major hurdle, convincing
the VCs that we can besuccessful. And, it's not an
easy task. Again, I am notfamiliar with any other company
that has fully embedded the fullnetwork security stack in the
network stack, in the cloud, ina way that we all implemented
(18:31):
SASE, a true SASE platform inthe way that, we did.
Mahendra Ramsinghani (18:35):
You know, that's fascinating, Shlomo,
that, you know, a lot of the VCswould look at this idea as bold,
CapEx crazy, and, sort of say,you know, no. This is not for
us. Of course, then there werethe believers, you know, Steve
Krause from US Venture Partners,Theresa from Aspect, and and
Jerry from Greylock who'vestepped in. I'm sure that the
(18:56):
ride has been fascinating forthem. Now one interesting nuance
on your cap table is that youalso have Singapore Telecom.
Singtel innovated as aninvestor. Now one would argue
that you're actually competingwith the carriers back then when
you're building the softwarelayer. You're actually competing
with the carriers. Right? Yeah.
So how how did that conversationplay out in some of those early
years?
Shlomo Kramer (19:15):
So actually, the our first competitors were the
carriers because the carriersare the ones that, you know,
there are organization that dodo it yourself. In North
America, it's about 70%. And 30%go to the carriers or, depending
on the size of the organization,perhaps large MSPs, and, have
them kind of, assemble thesolution, integrate the telco
(19:39):
bundle it's called. In Europe,it's actually the opposite. 70%
of enterprises use the telcosfor, use back then in 2015, the
telcos.
So, we were competing with thetelcos. And, actually the telcos
had their own architecture thatwas kind of the mainstream
promise for the Cloud, whichcalled NSV, Network Function
(20:03):
Virtualization, which isorchestrating single, single, 10
basically blades on thetraditional players in their
cloud. And obviously, it wasclear to us that it's not going
to happen, and it neverhappened. Although AT and Ts of
the world invested, I don't knowhow much in. And so, yeah.
(20:24):
They were the competitors.Singtel was had the vision, at
least their VC arm, that thiscan also be a partnership. And
in actual 10 years later, theywere right because we have now
quite a number of, telcopartners. And in general, the
telcos have more or lessprofited the NSV idea, and, are
(20:46):
now providing the underlay,reselling SASE solutions from
vendors, and providing themanaged service on top. And,
that's how the market playedout.
Mahendra Ramsinghani (20:59):
I think that's very interesting, Shlomo,
that, when you think about ATand T, I mean, a lot of these
carriers hired a lot of softwareteams. They had the vision. And
I think that's somewhat obviousthat the reason they could not
innovate fast enough is becausethese are legacy companies with
a certain mindset, etcetera.From your perspective, what did
you see that gave you theadvantage to run so fast ahead
(21:22):
of, of the telcos?
Shlomo Kramer (21:23):
Because the the telcos are an integrator, and we
own the IP and build the IP andare able to provide a converged
platform. And a convergedplatform, it has a huge
difference versus kind of a abundle of point solution. It is,
first of all, it's more securebecause security is a data
(21:46):
problem, and you look to get thebest converged data in real time
with context so you can make thebest decision what, what to do
here. And then save it into adata lake so you can use it, the
kind of that bulky, dataset indetection and hunting and
(22:07):
behavioral, in general AIalgorithms. And you can't do it
when you start with multiplepoint products.
So security is better. Operationis completely different. If if
you have a platform, you have asingle it's the same like
CrowdStrike in in the endpointand Wiz on the, on the cloud.
(22:31):
Platforms provide the future ofoperational efficiencies to, an
ever complex problem of thesystem. And finally, platforms
also provide the best businessagility.
Because it's not only about howmuch it costs you to do it, but
how fast can you move. Like, Iwant to acquire a company that's
(22:53):
your, you know, you need now tonormalize the security and
infrastructure. We are moving tothe cloud. We are doing the So
digital business moves at acompletely different pace that
requires digital transformationof IT security. And essentially,
the platforms are, the vehiclefor that digital transformation.
(23:14):
So, yeah, the platforms are, arethe future, basically.
Sid Trivedi (23:18):
Let's move the conversation to competition.
Yeah. Amazon founder, JeffBezos, famously says that he
focuses entirely on customers,not competitors. What's your
philosophy? How do you viewcompetition in the broader
network security space?
Shlomo Kramer (23:33):
So SASE is an interesting market. So in
general, in cybersecurity, thereare 2 types of products, right?
Either you replace something oryou are addressing some sort of
a new asset class that was notexisting. IoT, mobile phones,
Gen AI, something, cloud ingeneral. So, SaaS is very much a
(23:56):
replacement model.
It's, we are replacing theprevious generation, which by
the way is not the 1stgeneration, it's the 2nd
generation. That's theappliances and the appliance
helpers, which are the cloudproxies that were, because the
appliance overstayed thewelcome, they, they, had to be
complimented. So we take thatand replace it with, with SASE.
(24:20):
And, I would say that we are oneof the only companies that that
was built, defined SASE. Andthe, the majority of our
competition, or the vastmajority of our competition,
really transitioned from beingthe integrators, the, the
service providers, to be the,2nd generation, players.
(24:41):
You know, the Palo Alto's, theFortinet of the world. So that's
some major competitors.
Sid Trivedi (24:47):
And how do you view that customer proposition? How
do you talk to the customer andfactor their feedback in as
you're looking at thesedifferent competitors?
Shlomo Kramer (24:55):
So we we are very different than than everybody
else in the sense that we builta real cloud platform versus
bought a bunch of pointsolution. And, so we built the
the platform. We didn't buy it.And, we are not platformized.
We're doing platformization.
(25:16):
We actually have a platform. Andand that is an interesting value
proposition because it's a day 2value proposition. So the, the
main thrust is to explain it,but also to give customers the
opportunity to experience the,the solution. And we have a
(25:38):
great win ratio from POCs. Soonce a customer's experience the
solution in, 70% of the time, wewin the, the account.
Ross Haleliuk (25:49):
And to that point, it's not surprising that
Cato is now positioned as theleader in the SASE Magic
Quadrant. I've read severalstories about the fact that Cato
customers are replacing, like,you know, 9, 10, 11 different
components with Skater. And thatis fantastic. That is a major
win for you and the testament tothe great work that the company
(26:12):
has done. That said, thecustomers tend to also fear
putting all of their eggs into 1basket.
Right? Yeah. This whole idea ofhaving one single platform,
while it creates reliance on asingle vendor, it leads to
vendor lock ins and so on and soforth. How do you balance being
this one ring to rule them allwith the understanding and
(26:33):
addressing customer concernsabout the vendor lock in, and
about potentially having thenegative, like, leading over
time to negative consequences ofthat vendor lock in.
Shlomo Kramer (26:41):
So I think that the concept and the value of
platforms, as I explained therepreviously on the security
operation and in the businessside, is increasingly becoming
mainstream to the point wherepeople invent new words in order
to bridge the gap towards beinga platform. So, you know, we are
(27:03):
part of a movement that is goingto shape, I believe, the future
of cyber security, which is,And, it's not all eggs in one
basket. You're going to have aCrowdStrike, and you're going to
have a Wiz, and you're going tohave a cater, but you're going
to have 3, 4, 5 platforms inyour entire, large enterprise
(27:29):
universe and not going to have50, point products like you have
today, which is unmanaged.
Mahendra Ramsinghani (27:35):
You talked about Cato being a movement, and
that leads us to sort of thistwo questions. 1 is great
leaders inspire movements. Andso what is your leadership
style? And the second underlyingquestion to that is, which are
the leaders that you admire orlook up to?
Shlomo Kramer (27:53):
So perhaps my leadership style is the founder
CEO, which is what I'm also, isa collection of contradictions.
Right? Because as a founder, youreally have to believe in your
vision and being able toarticulate that and convince
everybody else that, sometimesthrough very hard times. And on
(28:17):
the other hand, you have to haveintellectual honesty and look at
the reality and adjust andsometimes pivot according to, to
that. You need to be a goodlistener and yet, you know,
eventually treat all advices andall external resources, not as
(28:41):
somebody you admire, which Idon't have world figures like
that, but as inputs toessentially get to your own gut
level based decision.
And you have to be, on the onehand a rebel that in order to
start something new and, and bevery scrappy and version 1.0
(29:05):
type of person. On the otherhand, you have to be very
organized and operationallyoriented in order to scale that.
So that's, the key is not tohave one or the other. It's the
key is to maintain the balanceof in all these dimensions.
Sid Trivedi (29:27):
Let's talk a little bit about lessons for founders.
Over the years, you've been avery, very active investor in
several category definingstartups, from Palo Alto
Networks to Gong to Sumo Logic.We've had Sumo Logic cofounder,
Kumar Sorab, on the podcast, andhe fondly remembered meeting you
in a hotel lobby to pitch thecompany right at the beginning
(29:47):
of of the creation of thecompany with Christian, his
cofounder. What patterns are youlooking for when you meet these
founders, and what are
Ross Haleliuk (29:54):
the red flags that you look for?
Mahendra Ramsinghani (29:56):
By the way, if I may integrate Sloemel,
you know, the way Kumardescribed was so funny. He said,
Sloemel walks down. We aresitting in the lobby, and
Sloemel is not the kind of guywho loves to chitchat. He gets
straight to the point.
Shlomo Kramer (30:09):
It's too hard. It's too hard. I I I seem more
comfortable when a conversationhas a subject than, it's free
form. I admit that. Although Ihave to, counter Kumar, and my
memory tells me it was on the2nd floor of the old Italian
coffee shop on University Avenueversus, but that's, I'll take
(30:31):
that with you.
We'll we'll take it offline. Sothat's, that's the what I
discovered is what I'm tryingto, achieve for myself, is what
I'm looking at, at others. Thatbalance of of, contradictions in
multiple dimensions in terms ofbeing able to be scrapey, but
(30:53):
being able to scale it. Beingable to, be visionary, but be,
able to accept reality andadjust. So, and all of these
dimensions is what I'm lookingat, at, entrepreneurs.
And the entrepreneur anger is byfar the most important anger
when you look at an investment,especially in cyber, where you
(31:16):
have 10 different startups. Theidea.
Ross Haleliuk (31:19):
Shlobot, you've invested in tens or maybe even
hundreds of startups at thispoint. And I know you've served
as a board director in over 15of them. Are you moonlighting as
a VC? And what's the role of anideal board member?
Shlomo Kramer (31:32):
So So I'm I'm first of all, I'm a I'm a 100%
doing CATO now. I'm not a board.I'm a in next quarter, I'm not
going to be on any boards as aboard member. And I'm not a
professional VC. I'm just anangel investor focused primarily
on areas that that I'm familiarwith, which are, you know,
(31:55):
essentially cyber.
And a little bit of, you know,what I learned from being a CEO.
So when the founders of Gongcame and pitched their idea, it
wasn't, by the way, it was farfrom obvious that it's, it's
going to be a category and it'sgoing to be very successful at
the time. But for me, it wassomething that I said, hey, I
(32:18):
want that as the VP of sale ofmy startup. I want it. I
immediately saw the value forme, so I invested with MVP, and
we doubled down, and and, therest is history there.
But I'm, I'm definitely not aprofessional VC, and I'm not a
professional board member by anyyou know, my only profession is
(32:39):
entrepreneur.
Mahendra Ramsinghani (32:40):
So Slovo, even though you're not a
professional board member, thisdynamic of board can be very
interesting. On one side, yousee a younger founder, somebody,
who's just getting started. Youwanna mentor them. On the other
side, your own board, you know,Jerry Chen from Greylock, you
know, smart, funny, absolutelylovable guy that I know
(33:01):
described you as somebody who isfast and steady. You know, you
have slow and steady, but hedescribed you as fast and
steady.
And so you have this dynamic ofyou you have your board. You
have to engage them, help them.On the other side, you have
founders that you have to engageand help them. So what are some
guidelines, both northbound,southbound APIs that you have to
that you play with, you know, inthat dynamic?
Shlomo Kramer (33:21):
It I I would say, first of all, recognizing that
the two sides of the table areextremely different in what it
requires from you. And I hopedthat on one side of the table, I
said as an entrepreneur and andI'm, more experienced. On the
other side, it's definitelyrequires more of a consultative.
(33:43):
I would say the, the solutionsneed to come, or the
capabilities need to come from,from, the CEO, founder, and you
need to be nurturing thisprocess of, giving birth to
these new capabilities withinthat side of the table. So it it
(34:04):
is more of a nurturing, guiding,putting limits, sometimes versus
a descriptive operative workthat people that are used to the
other side of the table sometimefalling.
Sid Trivedi (34:18):
We're now getting into the the closing questions.
And many who have heard aboutyou or your background, they may
just assume that success justmust have come easily for Shlomo
or even even been inevitable.But we know that's never the
case with founders. Could youshare a story when things really
didn't work and you thought youmight fail across one of these
(34:39):
companies just to humanize that,hey, the founder journey is hard
for everyone?
Shlomo Kramer (34:43):
I'll do more. I'll do one from each server.
Right? So, which is completelydifferent. So Checkpoint was we
were 3 people in the room, andSun Microsystem, signed with us
an OEM agreement.
I don't know if if Sun is nowlong gone, but it used to be the
largest network in the world anda major, major player with
(35:05):
global reach. And now you havean a demand funnel that is, you
know, the Internet was justcreated. The first browser was
just created. We had absolutelythe right product in the right
time in the biggest technologytransition, I think, since
perhaps one of the 2 biggestwith the personal computers.
(35:26):
And, and we are 3 people.
And how do you now are able tocope with it and deliver? So
running after the demand, andand it was very much a pull
experience and and, you had tobelieve in yourself that you are
able to do it, although we hadzero experience in doing it. So
(35:47):
that that was a very unique,challenge. But it was a
challenge of trusting yourselfand believing yourself. At
Imperva, the second startup thatstarted the data security
category, which is a hugecategory right now and one of
the center pieces ofcybersecurity.
It was a company that wasstarted before, PCI was born and
(36:10):
before the 1st disclosure rolewas born. And it was, premature.
It was 2 years ahead of itstime. So we had, kind of the
product out, and there werecrickets. And, now I had to
believe, and the the otherfounders, Miki and Mihai, had to
believe that the market is goingto happen and demand is going to
(36:32):
come.
And we had to articulate that tothe employees that and, it
wasn't, that was a differenttype of challenge. Then PCI came
in 1 quarter, data security washappening in a big way. And at
Cato, you know, those VCs, theywere, it's a big challenge. And
(36:53):
on, you know, every there's areason why we are the only
company. There's a reason why, Idon't know, if you take Palo or
Fortinet, they still haveessentially appliances on
somebody else's network.
And it's not a new convergedform factor of a Cloud service.
Just a single hosted, it's more,single hosted than AWS. And the
(37:17):
road from version 1.0 to version3.0 in the early years was very
challenging. Because when youhave an issue in an application
or in a then, you know, peopleare not happy, but they
recognize it. We are waiting forversion 3.0.
We are now in version 10. Right?And, those were difficult years.
(37:38):
And that journey is verydifficult, especially, now that
the market is mature. So thatwas believing that we are able
to, reach that, technologymilestone milestone was not, an
easy task at all.
And, we did it. So verydifferent challenges in each one
(37:58):
of these startups.
Ross Haleliuk (37:59):
Shlomo, you have actively shaped 3 generations of
network security. You havebuilt, Checkpoint, a company
that would go on to define the1st generation of network
security. You have then investedin Palo Alto Networks, which
essentially made, like, took thetraditional firewall and make it
application aware. And you'renow building, Cato Networks,
(38:21):
essentially moving the industryaway from traditional network
security to SASE. I know you'refully focused on Cato, but I
can't help, but wonder whatcomes after SASE.
You see, I know that every newtechnologies will solve some
problems, but it will leave gapsand it will introduce other
problems in some way. Forsomebody who is looking at
(38:41):
network security today, likefor, some prospective or young
entrepreneurs trying to find anangle and trying to see, like,
what is it about the networkthat is still unsolved or that
still presents an opportunity?Where should they be looking at?
Like, what should they belooking for? And also, how does
AI come in to the picture?
Shlomo Kramer (38:59):
So AI is part of SASE from day 1. It's it's very
much, a part of of the solution.I would I would tell you that
SASE is in the very earlystages. Only 11 or 14% of
enterprises have started usingSASE, and not to the fullest to
I'm sure not to the fullestextent. And I believe that SASE
(39:22):
is the 3rd generation, and it'sgoing to replace the majority,
80, 90 percent of the 2ndgeneration appliances and cloud
proxies.
And, there's a long journeyahead. So I'm really focusing on
that. And I think it's going totake another decade for this to
play out. So I still have timeuntil, the next idea. Catch me
(39:45):
in a decade.
We'll talk.
Mahendra Ramsinghani (39:47):
If we catch you in a decade, Shlobo,
do you think the telcos will bearound? What's the future for
telcos? I mean, they've beenstruggling to figure out what
their strategy should be. And,let's say if you were in the CEO
of, AT and T's shoes.
Shlomo Kramer (40:01):
I'm not in the telco expert. So I'm, my I
qualify my answers, you know,non expert answer. It's a they
seem to be, doing good businessin selling the underlay, whether
it's wired or wireless,reselling kind of the
middleware, and providingmanaged services on top of that.
And it's it's a very bigbusiness. Not all parts are of
(40:26):
equal, gross margin.
But if well managed, it seems tobe a very viable business. And,
you know what? So I I don't seea problem with that.
Sid Trivedi (40:35):
So, but your your close friend, your childhood
friend, Shahar Bar Khohan, saysyou'd make a great writer if you
weren't a founder. What's yourtake on that? We spoke to him
and he told us this. Okay.
Shlomo Kramer (40:48):
Perhaps in, when I retire. I don't know. I'll
I'll check. I have no, no ideawhy he told you that, and I'll
I'll I'll check it in a decadeor 2 when I retire.
Mahendra Ramsinghani (40:58):
Actually, the way Shar described Hlobo was
that he's one of the mostcurious persons I know, and he's
curious about everything in avery intellectually precise
manner. So I think he's lookingat the curiosity and say, maybe
storytelling is an attributethat you might have that he
looks at. So Thank
Shlomo Kramer (41:17):
you very much. Shacham.
Sid Trivedi (41:18):
I think we need we need a book on the history of
cyber, certainly the history ofcyber in the Israeli ecosystem.
Shlomo Kramer (41:23):
There you go. That's that's an idea.
Ross Haleliuk (41:25):
Shlomo, you were the first investor in Palo Alto
Networks and served on itsboard, the company now, worth
over $130,000,000,000. Andtoday, you compete with them.
Some might look at this and say,well, that's a healthy
competition in a big evolvingmarket, but others may feel like
it's a bit off or maybe it'sit's it's not right. How do you
(41:47):
respond?
Shlomo Kramer (41:47):
Like, Jeff Bezos said, we we really focus on the
customers and delivering the,the value to the customers. We
don't, focus on the competition.So, and seriously, Palo is a
great company. And, you know, Ithink that competition at the
end delivers value to thecompeting company. Not that, you
(42:10):
know, Paolo is such a Goliath,and we are such a David, so I'm
I'm not comparing.
But it it delivers value to thecustomer, and it delivers value
to the competing companies.Otherwise, they would stagnant
and, and not innovate. So it'sit's good for everyone.
Mahendra Ramsinghani (42:29):
I think one thing that, Palo has done
really well, Shlomo, that all ofus know is that, you know, they
have done a very good job ofacquiring and integrating
companies really well. You know,I was an early investor in
Demisto. And if you talk to someof the founders, you know,
Slavik and, Rishi and othershave, been on our podcast, They
give a lot of credit to theculture that Nikesh and Nir have
(42:52):
created where these companiesget integrated well. They tried
inside those environments. And,of course, now they're also
going down the platformizationstrategy.
Absolutely. Yeah. Palo,
Shlomo Kramer (43:02):
I would assess that they are the best portfolio
company, that cyber has everseen. Unfortunately, portfolios
are a very bad idea in thedigital, transformed the world,
and they need to be replaced byplatforms. Taking a plat a
(43:23):
portfolio of point solution andturning that into a platform,
it's impossible no matter hownice of a UI you would put in,
on top of it. So it's it's agreat portfolio company, but we
are trying to be something else.
Mahendra Ramsinghani (43:38):
Yes. I I think, each one has to adapt and
evolve. Our last question foryou, Shlomo, is that, you know,
Israel has been a cyber hub. Infact, one of the best regions in
the world that has built thecybersecurity infrastructure,
that has nurtured so manyentrepreneurs. I would say the
(43:58):
industry's early origins werealso tied to that region.
And if we look at the past,decade, even past few years,
there have been so many changes,whether it's political, whether
it's social, whether it'sunrest. If you were to look in
the crystal ball and say, hereis the next 5 to 10 years of
(44:18):
Israel and cybersecurity, whatcomes to mind? What are the
things that frustrate you? Whatare the things that excite you?
Shlomo Kramer (44:24):
I'm super optimistic about the Israel,
cyber security ecosystem. Ithink it showed tremendous
resilience in the, in the last,year plus of difficult
conditions. And this is, youknow, the outcome, talk for
themselves, I believe. And goingforward, I see continued
(44:48):
momentum. I see Israelicompanies, Israeli startups get
lots of investment at very highvaluations.
They see acquisitions at a largescale. I see many, many young
startups happening. So I would Iwould even say it's, you know,
there's always a pendulum. Iwould say the pendulum is on the
(45:13):
on the very positive side ofthings.
Mahendra Ramsinghani (45:15):
In one of your earlier podcast, Shlomo,
you talked about the loyaltyfactor is very strong in Israel,
and that's not necessarily whatyou see in other parts of the
world. Can you give us a littlemore deeper perspective on that?
Loyalty of, Loyalty of foundingteams to each other, loyalty of
employees to the founder.
Shlomo Kramer (45:36):
I don't remember the, the reference. You know,
there's a there's a tighterIsrael is a small country, a
small community. There's atighter sense of community in
Israel for for good and for badwith all of of the implications.
And perhaps that was what I Ireferred to. That sense of
(45:56):
community and everybody knowseverybody and everybody feels
part of that community, and itcreates a different type of
bond.
Mahendra Ramsinghani (46:05):
Yeah. I think it was in context of the
Silicon Valley culture wherewhen too much money flows in,
people tend to jump from onestartup to another, and, that
creates a different dynamic.But, but, no, Shlobal, thank
you, for taking the time toshare your 3 decades of wisdom
and insights. You know, audiencewould absolutely love the fact
(46:25):
that, you know, you built oneIPO, second IPO, and now
potentially the 3rd IPO. Sothere is repeat entrepreneur and
there is 3peat entrepreneurs.
So, you know, you kind ofclearly fall into this very
unique category, probably theonly individual that had
potentially the 3rd IPO in thecybersecurity world. So thank
you for sharing your insights,and we do hope that someday you
(46:46):
write some books, use yourcuriosity, and share continue to
share your wisdom with theworld.
Sid Trivedi (46:50):
Thank you, Shlomo.
Shlomo Kramer (46:51):
Thank you very much. It's been a very
interesting conversation. Byebye.
Sid Trivedi (46:54):
Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you for
joining us Inside the Network.
Ross Haleliuk (46:59):
If you like this episode, please leave us a
review and share it with others.
Mahendra Ramsinghani (47:04):
If you really, really liked it and you
have some feedback for us, wrapit on a bottle of Yamazaki and
send it to me first.
Sid Trivedi (47:13):
No. Don't do that. Mahendra gets too many gifts
already. Please reach out byemail or LinkedIn.
Welcome to Inside the Network. I'm Sid Trivedi.
Ross Haleliuk (00:11):
I am Ross Haleliuk.
Mahendra Ramsinghani (00:12):
And I am Mahendra Ramsinghani. We have
spent decades building,investing, and researching
cybersecurity companies.
Sid Trivedi (00:22):
On this podcast, we invite you to join us inside the
network, where we bring the bestfounders, operators, and
investors building the future ofcyber.
Ross Haleliuk (00:33):
We will talk about the hard part of the
founder journey, launchingcompanies, getting to product
market fit, raising capital, andscaling to an exit. And, yes, we
will also be talking about epicfailures.
Sid Trivedi (00:48):
But, Mahendra, we're here to make the founder
journey easier.
Mahendra Ramsinghani (00:52):
That is correct, Sid. But we cannot make
it too much easier becausestartups are hard.
Ross Haleliuk (00:57):
And, of course, you already knew that. Alright.
You two. And now let's getstarted with this week's
episode.
Mahendra Ramsinghani (01:07):
Our guest today is Shlomo Kramer, co
founder and CEO of CatoNetworks. For many in the
cybersecurity industry, Shlomoneeds no introduction. One of
the early pioneers in Israel'scybersecurity startup ecosystem,
what makes Shlomo trulyremarkable is its ability to
repeatedly build categorydefining companies. He first co
(01:30):
founded Check Point, whichpioneered the firewall category
and today commands a$20,000,000,000 market cap.
Then, seeing the shift to thecloud, he launched Imperva,
which focused on the webapplication security, or the
WAF, marketplace.
That was his second IPO. Now,with Cato Networks, he's created
an entirely new category calledSASE, or Secure Access Service
(01:53):
Edge. And Cato has alreadycrossed 200,000,000 in ARR. But
Shlomo isn't just a builder.He's also a remarkably
successful angel investor withan eye for transformative
companies.
His portfolio includes Trusteer,which IBM acquired for
$1,000,000,000 and he wrote thefirst angel check-in Palo Alto
(02:15):
Networks, a company that is nowvalued over a $100,000,000,000
Today, we'll get inside the mindof the only entrepreneur we know
who's on track to potentiallytake his 3rd cybersecurity
company public. Many foundersare satisfied with just one IPO.
Some rarely go to 2, and Shlomois on track for his 3rd one. A
(02:38):
hat trick if he pulls it off. Inthe cybersecurity hall of fame,
very few could equal what Shlomohas accomplished in his career.
So what drives him? What has helearned along the way in 3
decades of buildingcybersecurity startups? And
while others talk aboutplatformization, if that's a
word, can KETL be the one ringthat rules them all? Without
(03:03):
further ado, let's get started.
Sid Trivedi (03:06):
Welcome, Shlomo, to Inside the Network.
Shlomo Kramer (03:08):
Hello, and thank you for having me.
Sid Trivedi (03:10):
We wanna cover a couple of different topics, and
let's just start with the bigpicture. And let's start with
the big why. Why Shlomo? You cofounded Check Point, then
Imperva, and now you're leadingCato Networks. What could likely
be your 3rd cyber IPO?
A hat trick as as many wouldlike to call it. For most
founders, one IPO would havebeen enough. What drives you
(03:33):
both in internally andexternally to keep going, keep
building these companies?
Shlomo Kramer (03:38):
The simple fact that I enjoy it. And, that's, I
really like, takingtechnological market innovation
and turning that into a realityand looking 10 years ahead and
assessing where the markets aregoing to be. You know, I've been
doing this since, you know, evenbefore my, first commercial
(04:01):
startup. I've been doing it inthe, as a high school student
and in the army. And, that's,that's what I like doing.
So I would say it's a passion.I've never viewed it as work.
Sid Trivedi (04:15):
And did you always think that cyber was a field you
wanted to focus on?
Shlomo Kramer (04:19):
You know, it's been, I think that Checkpoint
was obviously the company thatkind of focused my, my career on
cyber. Before that, I didn'tthink that cyber was going to be
the focus of my career simplybecause there was no cyber, no
real cyber category. I would saythat, JetPoint was definitely
(04:43):
one of the first networksecurity company, you know, the
1st network security company,and one of the first 10
cybersecurity companies in theworld. So, the answer is, you
know, no. But after Checkpoint,it became inevitable that, I'm
(05:04):
going to focus on it.
Ross Haleliuk (05:05):
I'm curious, before you decided to build
Checkpoint, what were some ofthe other ideas that you were
looking at? What was some of thestuff you were exploring that
could have become an alternativestory of Shlomo?
Shlomo Kramer (05:17):
I'll tell you, when we started, you know, we we
we had all sorts of, ideas andstuff that we did. But I'll tell
you, as as founders ofCheckpoint, both Gil and myself
really admired a company calledPure Software. It was a company
that, it was the lightweight itwas one of the companies in the
(05:38):
Sun, Microsystem, a universe,and, which was our world, back
in the day versus the PC world,which was more desktop, and Sun
was the network is the computer.So, in, in that world, we really
admired Pure Software, and itwas a kind of a development
tool. It found memory leaks andissues very, quickly, and it was
(06:02):
revolutionary, and we reallyliked the fact that it was a
bootstrapped startup startingfrom 0 and with very little
resources, became a significantcompany.
And years later, just recently,I found out the fact that I hope
I believe it's accurate, thatthis was the company of the
(06:24):
Netflix founder.
Sid Trivedi (06:26):
That's right. Reed
Shlomo Kramer (06:26):
Hastings. Reed Hastings. So, I didn't know
that, but that's so we had a lotof interest in software systems
in general and, not necessarilyas security folks.
Ross Haleliuk (06:39):
Shlomo, over the past 30 years, the world has
changed dramatically. Like, inboth economical sense, political
sense, like business sense, Someaspects are probably easier
today than they were before.Some are harder. Like when it
comes to the entrepreneurialjourney, now that
entrepreneurship has beenlargely democratized and
literally anybody can start acompany at any time. How has the
(07:01):
world changed for startupfounders?
Like, what aspects are hardertoday and which one's easier?
Shlomo Kramer (07:07):
So for sure, I'll talk about startup in general
and talk about cyber inparticular. The, the business of
startup has stopped being astartup. So when we started
Checkpoint, you know, we had nofunding, our first office was my
late grandmother's apartment. Wescrambled for a few $100,000 to
(07:31):
enable us to launch the product,and we kind of stumbled on Sun
Microsystem and Sun Software,actually, at the time, and were
able to do an OEM and, andlaunch the company. So it was
very much, I would say, astartup kind of foundry.
And other, other folks as well.And for many years, it continued
(07:52):
to be that way, I would say,into the 2000, 2010. I would say
that in the last 15 years, wesee that startups become really
templated and professional. Andour programmes, and it's, it's
almost like a profession. Soit's not a, it's not a, kind of
(08:14):
a hit or miss or, you know, agarage type of operation
anymore.
And, I would say in cyber inparticular, that also meant that
there is a lot of money, thatthere's a lot of funding, very
professional. And because of thecyber is the, perhaps, the most
(08:34):
dynamic field in IT, there's thebad actor that keeps things
moving and changing andinnovation happens to startups.
A lot of money in particularfocuses on startups. So if you
have a good idea, you shouldexpect that there are 10 other
startups, you know, perhaps someof them in Israel, some of them
(08:55):
in Silicon Valley, and some inin other places, that are going
to do the same thing. And it'snot only about the idea, it's
really about the, how youexecute around that idea, which
is, makes life more difficult incyber these days, both as an
entrepreneur and as an investor.
Mahendra Ramsinghani (09:12):
So in these 3 decades, Shlomo, what
has surprised you in trends,either technological, business
wise, political, financial? Arethere things that jump out at
you that, are different fromwhat
Shlomo Kramer (09:24):
you might have anticipated? There from what you
might have anticipated? Therealways is surprises. There are
things you think, hey, these aregoing to be bonanzas. And like,
I'll give you a concreteexample.
I was one of the early investorin security for mobile phones.
It was, very early when theiPhone became mainstream where,
(09:48):
you know, it kind of was clearthat it will beat Nokia and,
Blackberry. And we said, okay,it's a handheld device. It has
to have security. It's the mostprivate device that you have.
For sure, for Android and andand iOS, you need security. We
invested in a great team thatcame out with a good product,
(10:11):
and the market didn't happen.You know, it's, it's, you know,
that's, and, on the other hand,you get positive surprises where
you get huge success inunexpected areas. So, yeah,
there's, experience can take youso much. There are still
(10:32):
surprises.
Sid Trivedi (10:33):
Let's talk a little bit about building companies,
Shlomo. And, you know, back in2015, as you and your Cato co
founder, Gershotz, brainstormedideas for your next venture,
we've heard that frustrationalmost led you to give up. And
the story we've heard inparticular was that inspiration
struck while you were sitting onyour patio. Can you take us back
(10:54):
to that moment and what ideaswere you exploring? Why were
they dismissed?
Shlomo Kramer (10:59):
In general, the, the ideas, I would say, were
around the fact that, networkhave become software defined. So
there were, the, the data planewas more and more implemented by
software versus hardware. And wecame out of the, DDoS and the
cloud delivery world at thetime, and and we thought, okay,
(11:24):
that's where we experienced forthe first time that the
capability to embedsophisticated capability in the
network fabric because it'ssoftware based. And we looked
for other use cases for that.And we, actually, Cato version
1.0 was, an idea that we, thatwas more in the data center,
(11:46):
east west traffic, and, and weworked for, for a few months, 2,
3 months on that building,formalizing the idea and
building a presentation aroundthat, etcetera, and it didn't
stick.
And I remember the day that wedecided, hey, that doesn't work.
We are back to square 1. Wentback, home and, sat on the patio
(12:11):
and, was frustrated or ordisappointed. And then the idea
of Cato, came to mind, which isessentially instead of within
the data center, it's betweenthe data center and the other
parts of the organization and,and other data center remote
users, locations, and the SaaSapplication. So, that's Cato
(12:34):
version 2.0.
I immediately talked with GURand we kind of started taking
this, raw idea and developingit, and the rest is history.
What we came up with was,essentially what Gartner, Sassy
in 2019.
Sid Trivedi (12:53):
And any advice for founders who are having that
kind of block in terms of ideasand which one to go after? I
mean, clearly you took a stepback and that helped you. Any,
any advice that you have forfolks who are brainstorming?
Shlomo Kramer (13:04):
Well, I would give a general advice about
making a big decision, is that Itry to learn as much as
possible. A lot of these 3months was consuming a lot of
information. Innovation, recentinnovation in networking, and,
software defined networking,and, and learning about that,
thinking about it, and doing alot of, I would say, conscious
(13:29):
processing. But the end, thedecision needs to be a gut level
decision. And by gut leveldecision, I don't mean something
spiritual, etcetera.
I really believe that we haveprocessing capabilities that
goes beyond the kind of wherethe fleshlight of the conscious
points, which is actually verypowerful. And once you
(13:53):
internalise all this data, youneed to let other parts of your
work. So gut, gut feeling isimportant, and you need to
listen to it, I guess. That'sthe headline, thing to say.
Ross Haleliuk (14:06):
So when you tried the v one version, as you say,
it didn't stick. How did youknow that it didn't stick?
Shlomo Kramer (14:12):
It was a gut feeling. We are not feeling it.
We are not feeling it.
Ross Haleliuk (14:16):
I see. Very, very interesting. Yeah. The reason I
ask is because, like, you know,sometimes it's just like, maybe
maybe you didn't look at
Shlomo Kramer (14:22):
the consensus. It was a consensus. Both Goh and
myself did I felt the same. Sothere was no question about it.
If both of us didn't feel it,then it's a no go.
Ross Haleliuk (14:31):
Interesting. So let's talk about Cato's
foundation. Like starting thecompany, you had to essentially
start with the networking layer.You have to roll out global
points of presence. You have tolayer on security.
Like you have to do so much inorder for this vision of SASE to
get realized. How did it looklike? What were the major
challenges at the time?
Shlomo Kramer (14:50):
Actually, the, the major challenge of Cato, and
I think the major innovation ofCato, and, is not layering
security on top of networking,but actually embedding, network
security in the network. So wehave a single stack that
delivers in a single pass bothall the networking and all the
(15:13):
network, security capabilities.And it's delivered as a global
cloud service, today over 90POPs around the world, to
thousands of enterprisecustomers, millions of, users
with 5 nines at the one hand,because that's what is the num-
you ask any CIO, what's yourmost important thing? Is that
(15:37):
you don't feel it. You know,it's going to be up and working,
no hiccups, and nobody's goingto call me with an issue.
And then they want it also toprovide the best security. But
the best security requires hugeamounts of updates and upgrades
and dynamics. We do thousands ofupdates a year to the network.
(16:00):
So how do you provide 59s andthe same time provide the most
dynamic network security stack.That has been since the early
days of Checkpoint, since theCiscos, Juniper's of the world,
all in a, in a graveyard ofstartups, all tried to do this
and failed.
Essentially, Cato is a majorbreakthrough, was it the first,
(16:24):
and I believe still the onlycompany that was able to deliver
this based on the fact that, thenetwork is software based and
based on many, many innovationsalong the way.
Ross Haleliuk (16:36):
And given that you had to go out and you had to
build a lot of infrastructurefrom day 1, what has that
experience been talking to VCs?Like at the time, obviously you
have already been a successfulfounder. You have had a great
track record, but still you hadto go to investors and you have
to tell them, hey, instead of,using some underlying
foundation, we are going tobuild our own points of
(16:58):
presence. How did it look like?What were the objections from
VCs?
Were there any objections?
Shlomo Kramer (17:04):
Yeah. So, both Guo and myself had a very good
reputation in delivering on, onour promises. And, but there
were, and we were talking with anumber of VCs. And some of them
said it's a very ambitiousproject, which I guess means go
away. And they had a very goodreason for it.
(17:24):
And at the end, it was notdifficult to find the believers,
and and we got funded quickly,but there were very prominent
VCs. Actually, VCs that comefrom the old days of Cisco, you
know, were familiar with theearly June JuneOS and, what was
the name of the appliancecompany networks? One of the
(17:47):
first appliance companies thatJuniper bought for
$4,000,000,000 and tried toembed into the JunoOS and
failed. And we're familiar withACE of Cisco, was another
attempt. And we're familiarwith, any number of startups
that tried to do that andfailed.
Unfortunately, here, here isanother team that is going to
(18:07):
fail at that. And, I guess thatwas the major hurdle, convincing
the VCs that we can besuccessful. And, it's not an
easy task. Again, I am notfamiliar with any other company
that has fully embedded the fullnetwork security stack in the
network stack, in the cloud, ina way that we all implemented
(18:31):
SASE, a true SASE platform inthe way that, we did.
Mahendra Ramsinghani (18:35):
You know, that's fascinating, Shlomo,
that, you know, a lot of the VCswould look at this idea as bold,
CapEx crazy, and, sort of say,you know, no. This is not for
us. Of course, then there werethe believers, you know, Steve
Krause from US Venture Partners,Theresa from Aspect, and and
Jerry from Greylock who'vestepped in. I'm sure that the
(18:56):
ride has been fascinating forthem. Now one interesting nuance
on your cap table is that youalso have Singapore Telecom.
Singtel innovated as aninvestor. Now one would argue
that you're actually competingwith the carriers back then when
you're building the softwarelayer. You're actually competing
with the carriers. Right? Yeah.
So how how did that conversationplay out in some of those early
years?
Shlomo Kramer (19:15):
So actually, the our first competitors were the
carriers because the carriersare the ones that, you know,
there are organization that dodo it yourself. In North
America, it's about 70%. And 30%go to the carriers or, depending
on the size of the organization,perhaps large MSPs, and, have
them kind of, assemble thesolution, integrate the telco
(19:39):
bundle it's called. In Europe,it's actually the opposite. 70%
of enterprises use the telcosfor, use back then in 2015, the
telcos.
So, we were competing with thetelcos. And, actually the telcos
had their own architecture thatwas kind of the mainstream
promise for the Cloud, whichcalled NSV, Network Function
(20:03):
Virtualization, which isorchestrating single, single, 10
basically blades on thetraditional players in their
cloud. And obviously, it wasclear to us that it's not going
to happen, and it neverhappened. Although AT and Ts of
the world invested, I don't knowhow much in. And so, yeah.
(20:24):
They were the competitors.Singtel was had the vision, at
least their VC arm, that thiscan also be a partnership. And
in actual 10 years later, theywere right because we have now
quite a number of, telcopartners. And in general, the
telcos have more or lessprofited the NSV idea, and, are
(20:46):
now providing the underlay,reselling SASE solutions from
vendors, and providing themanaged service on top. And,
that's how the market playedout.
Mahendra Ramsinghani (20:59):
I think that's very interesting, Shlomo,
that, when you think about ATand T, I mean, a lot of these
carriers hired a lot of softwareteams. They had the vision. And
I think that's somewhat obviousthat the reason they could not
innovate fast enough is becausethese are legacy companies with
a certain mindset, etcetera.From your perspective, what did
you see that gave you theadvantage to run so fast ahead
(21:22):
of, of the telcos?
Shlomo Kramer (21:23):
Because the the telcos are an integrator, and we
own the IP and build the IP andare able to provide a converged
platform. And a convergedplatform, it has a huge
difference versus kind of a abundle of point solution. It is,
first of all, it's more securebecause security is a data
(21:46):
problem, and you look to get thebest converged data in real time
with context so you can make thebest decision what, what to do
here. And then save it into adata lake so you can use it, the
kind of that bulky, dataset indetection and hunting and
(22:07):
behavioral, in general AIalgorithms. And you can't do it
when you start with multiplepoint products.
So security is better. Operationis completely different. If if
you have a platform, you have asingle it's the same like
CrowdStrike in in the endpointand Wiz on the, on the cloud.
(22:31):
Platforms provide the future ofoperational efficiencies to, an
ever complex problem of thesystem. And finally, platforms
also provide the best businessagility.
Because it's not only about howmuch it costs you to do it, but
how fast can you move. Like, Iwant to acquire a company that's
(22:53):
your, you know, you need now tonormalize the security and
infrastructure. We are moving tothe cloud. We are doing the So
digital business moves at acompletely different pace that
requires digital transformationof IT security. And essentially,
the platforms are, the vehiclefor that digital transformation.
(23:14):
So, yeah, the platforms are, arethe future, basically.
Sid Trivedi (23:18):
Let's move the conversation to competition.
Yeah. Amazon founder, JeffBezos, famously says that he
focuses entirely on customers,not competitors. What's your
philosophy? How do you viewcompetition in the broader
network security space?
Shlomo Kramer (23:33):
So SASE is an interesting market. So in
general, in cybersecurity, thereare 2 types of products, right?
Either you replace something oryou are addressing some sort of
a new asset class that was notexisting. IoT, mobile phones,
Gen AI, something, cloud ingeneral. So, SaaS is very much a
(23:56):
replacement model.
It's, we are replacing theprevious generation, which by
the way is not the 1stgeneration, it's the 2nd
generation. That's theappliances and the appliance
helpers, which are the cloudproxies that were, because the
appliance overstayed thewelcome, they, they, had to be
complimented. So we take thatand replace it with, with SASE.
(24:20):
And, I would say that we are oneof the only companies that that
was built, defined SASE. Andthe, the majority of our
competition, or the vastmajority of our competition,
really transitioned from beingthe integrators, the, the
service providers, to be the,2nd generation, players.
(24:41):
You know, the Palo Alto's, theFortinet of the world. So that's
some major competitors.
Sid Trivedi (24:47):
And how do you view that customer proposition? How
do you talk to the customer andfactor their feedback in as
you're looking at thesedifferent competitors?
Shlomo Kramer (24:55):
So we we are very different than than everybody
else in the sense that we builta real cloud platform versus
bought a bunch of pointsolution. And, so we built the
the platform. We didn't buy it.And, we are not platformized.
We're doing platformization.
(25:16):
We actually have a platform. Andand that is an interesting value
proposition because it's a day 2value proposition. So the, the
main thrust is to explain it,but also to give customers the
opportunity to experience the,the solution. And we have a
(25:38):
great win ratio from POCs. Soonce a customer's experience the
solution in, 70% of the time, wewin the, the account.
Ross Haleliuk (25:49):
And to that point, it's not surprising that
Cato is now positioned as theleader in the SASE Magic
Quadrant. I've read severalstories about the fact that Cato
customers are replacing, like,you know, 9, 10, 11 different
components with Skater. And thatis fantastic. That is a major
win for you and the testament tothe great work that the company
(26:12):
has done. That said, thecustomers tend to also fear
putting all of their eggs into 1basket.
Right? Yeah. This whole idea ofhaving one single platform,
while it creates reliance on asingle vendor, it leads to
vendor lock ins and so on and soforth. How do you balance being
this one ring to rule them allwith the understanding and
(26:33):
addressing customer concernsabout the vendor lock in, and
about potentially having thenegative, like, leading over
time to negative consequences ofthat vendor lock in.
Shlomo Kramer (26:41):
So I think that the concept and the value of
platforms, as I explained therepreviously on the security
operation and in the businessside, is increasingly becoming
mainstream to the point wherepeople invent new words in order
to bridge the gap towards beinga platform. So, you know, we are
(27:03):
part of a movement that is goingto shape, I believe, the future
of cyber security, which is,And, it's not all eggs in one
basket. You're going to have aCrowdStrike, and you're going to
have a Wiz, and you're going tohave a cater, but you're going
to have 3, 4, 5 platforms inyour entire, large enterprise
(27:29):
universe and not going to have50, point products like you have
today, which is unmanaged.
Mahendra Ramsinghani (27:35):
You talked about Cato being a movement, and
that leads us to sort of thistwo questions. 1 is great
leaders inspire movements. Andso what is your leadership
style? And the second underlyingquestion to that is, which are
the leaders that you admire orlook up to?
Shlomo Kramer (27:53):
So perhaps my leadership style is the founder
CEO, which is what I'm also, isa collection of contradictions.
Right? Because as a founder, youreally have to believe in your
vision and being able toarticulate that and convince
everybody else that, sometimesthrough very hard times. And on
(28:17):
the other hand, you have to haveintellectual honesty and look at
the reality and adjust andsometimes pivot according to, to
that. You need to be a goodlistener and yet, you know,
eventually treat all advices andall external resources, not as
(28:41):
somebody you admire, which Idon't have world figures like
that, but as inputs toessentially get to your own gut
level based decision.
And you have to be, on the onehand a rebel that in order to
start something new and, and bevery scrappy and version 1.0
(29:05):
type of person. On the otherhand, you have to be very
organized and operationallyoriented in order to scale that.
So that's, the key is not tohave one or the other. It's the
key is to maintain the balanceof in all these dimensions.
Sid Trivedi (29:27):
Let's talk a little bit about lessons for founders.
Over the years, you've been avery, very active investor in
several category definingstartups, from Palo Alto
Networks to Gong to Sumo Logic.We've had Sumo Logic cofounder,
Kumar Sorab, on the podcast, andhe fondly remembered meeting you
in a hotel lobby to pitch thecompany right at the beginning
(29:47):
of of the creation of thecompany with Christian, his
cofounder. What patterns are youlooking for when you meet these
founders, and what are
Ross Haleliuk (29:54):
the red flags that you look for?
Mahendra Ramsinghani (29:56):
By the way, if I may integrate Sloemel,
you know, the way Kumardescribed was so funny. He said,
Sloemel walks down. We aresitting in the lobby, and
Sloemel is not the kind of guywho loves to chitchat. He gets
straight to the point.
Shlomo Kramer (30:09):
It's too hard. It's too hard. I I I seem more
comfortable when a conversationhas a subject than, it's free
form. I admit that. Although Ihave to, counter Kumar, and my
memory tells me it was on the2nd floor of the old Italian
coffee shop on University Avenueversus, but that's, I'll take
(30:31):
that with you.
We'll we'll take it offline. Sothat's, that's the what I
discovered is what I'm tryingto, achieve for myself, is what
I'm looking at, at others. Thatbalance of of, contradictions in
multiple dimensions in terms ofbeing able to be scrapey, but
(30:53):
being able to scale it. Beingable to, be visionary, but be,
able to accept reality andadjust. So, and all of these
dimensions is what I'm lookingat, at, entrepreneurs.
And the entrepreneur anger is byfar the most important anger
when you look at an investment,especially in cyber, where you
(31:16):
have 10 different startups. Theidea.
Ross Haleliuk (31:19):
Shlobot, you've invested in tens or maybe even
hundreds of startups at thispoint. And I know you've served
as a board director in over 15of them. Are you moonlighting as
a VC? And what's the role of anideal board member?
Shlomo Kramer (31:32):
So So I'm I'm first of all, I'm a I'm a 100%
doing CATO now. I'm not a board.I'm a in next quarter, I'm not
going to be on any boards as aboard member. And I'm not a
professional VC. I'm just anangel investor focused primarily
on areas that that I'm familiarwith, which are, you know,
(31:55):
essentially cyber.
And a little bit of, you know,what I learned from being a CEO.
So when the founders of Gongcame and pitched their idea, it
wasn't, by the way, it was farfrom obvious that it's, it's
going to be a category and it'sgoing to be very successful at
the time. But for me, it wassomething that I said, hey, I
(32:18):
want that as the VP of sale ofmy startup. I want it. I
immediately saw the value forme, so I invested with MVP, and
we doubled down, and and, therest is history there.
But I'm, I'm definitely not aprofessional VC, and I'm not a
professional board member by anyyou know, my only profession is
(32:39):
entrepreneur.
Mahendra Ramsinghani (32:40):
So Slovo, even though you're not a
professional board member, thisdynamic of board can be very
interesting. On one side, yousee a younger founder, somebody,
who's just getting started. Youwanna mentor them. On the other
side, your own board, you know,Jerry Chen from Greylock, you
know, smart, funny, absolutelylovable guy that I know
(33:01):
described you as somebody who isfast and steady. You know, you
have slow and steady, but hedescribed you as fast and
steady.
And so you have this dynamic ofyou you have your board. You
have to engage them, help them.On the other side, you have
founders that you have to engageand help them. So what are some
guidelines, both northbound,southbound APIs that you have to
that you play with, you know, inthat dynamic?
Shlomo Kramer (33:21):
It I I would say, first of all, recognizing that
the two sides of the table areextremely different in what it
requires from you. And I hopedthat on one side of the table, I
said as an entrepreneur and andI'm, more experienced. On the
other side, it's definitelyrequires more of a consultative.
(33:43):
I would say the, the solutionsneed to come, or the
capabilities need to come from,from, the CEO, founder, and you
need to be nurturing thisprocess of, giving birth to
these new capabilities withinthat side of the table. So it it
(34:04):
is more of a nurturing, guiding,putting limits, sometimes versus
a descriptive operative workthat people that are used to the
other side of the table sometimefalling.
Sid Trivedi (34:18):
We're now getting into the the closing questions.
And many who have heard aboutyou or your background, they may
just assume that success justmust have come easily for Shlomo
or even even been inevitable.But we know that's never the
case with founders. Could youshare a story when things really
didn't work and you thought youmight fail across one of these
(34:39):
companies just to humanize that,hey, the founder journey is hard
for everyone?
Shlomo Kramer (34:43):
I'll do more. I'll do one from each server.
Right? So, which is completelydifferent. So Checkpoint was we
were 3 people in the room, andSun Microsystem, signed with us
an OEM agreement.
I don't know if if Sun is nowlong gone, but it used to be the
largest network in the world anda major, major player with
(35:05):
global reach. And now you havean a demand funnel that is, you
know, the Internet was justcreated. The first browser was
just created. We had absolutelythe right product in the right
time in the biggest technologytransition, I think, since
perhaps one of the 2 biggestwith the personal computers.
(35:26):
And, and we are 3 people.
And how do you now are able tocope with it and deliver? So
running after the demand, andand it was very much a pull
experience and and, you had tobelieve in yourself that you are
able to do it, although we hadzero experience in doing it. So
(35:47):
that that was a very unique,challenge. But it was a
challenge of trusting yourselfand believing yourself. At
Imperva, the second startup thatstarted the data security
category, which is a hugecategory right now and one of
the center pieces ofcybersecurity.
It was a company that wasstarted before, PCI was born and
(36:10):
before the 1st disclosure rolewas born. And it was, premature.
It was 2 years ahead of itstime. So we had, kind of the
product out, and there werecrickets. And, now I had to
believe, and the the otherfounders, Miki and Mihai, had to
believe that the market is goingto happen and demand is going to
(36:32):
come.
And we had to articulate that tothe employees that and, it
wasn't, that was a differenttype of challenge. Then PCI came
in 1 quarter, data security washappening in a big way. And at
Cato, you know, those VCs, theywere, it's a big challenge. And
(36:53):
on, you know, every there's areason why we are the only
company. There's a reason why, Idon't know, if you take Palo or
Fortinet, they still haveessentially appliances on
somebody else's network.
And it's not a new convergedform factor of a Cloud service.
Just a single hosted, it's more,single hosted than AWS. And the
(37:17):
road from version 1.0 to version3.0 in the early years was very
challenging. Because when youhave an issue in an application
or in a then, you know, peopleare not happy, but they
recognize it. We are waiting forversion 3.0.
We are now in version 10. Right?And, those were difficult years.
(37:38):
And that journey is verydifficult, especially, now that
the market is mature. So thatwas believing that we are able
to, reach that, technologymilestone milestone was not, an
easy task at all.
And, we did it. So verydifferent challenges in each one
(37:58):
of these startups.
Ross Haleliuk (37:59):
Shlomo, you have actively shaped 3 generations of
network security. You havebuilt, Checkpoint, a company
that would go on to define the1st generation of network
security. You have then investedin Palo Alto Networks, which
essentially made, like, took thetraditional firewall and make it
application aware. And you'renow building, Cato Networks,
(38:21):
essentially moving the industryaway from traditional network
security to SASE. I know you'refully focused on Cato, but I
can't help, but wonder whatcomes after SASE.
You see, I know that every newtechnologies will solve some
problems, but it will leave gapsand it will introduce other
problems in some way. Forsomebody who is looking at
(38:41):
network security today, likefor, some prospective or young
entrepreneurs trying to find anangle and trying to see, like,
what is it about the networkthat is still unsolved or that
still presents an opportunity?Where should they be looking at?
Like, what should they belooking for? And also, how does
AI come in to the picture?
Shlomo Kramer (38:59):
So AI is part of SASE from day 1. It's it's very
much, a part of of the solution.I would I would tell you that
SASE is in the very earlystages. Only 11 or 14% of
enterprises have started usingSASE, and not to the fullest to
I'm sure not to the fullestextent. And I believe that SASE
(39:22):
is the 3rd generation, and it'sgoing to replace the majority,
80, 90 percent of the 2ndgeneration appliances and cloud
proxies.
And, there's a long journeyahead. So I'm really focusing on
that. And I think it's going totake another decade for this to
play out. So I still have timeuntil, the next idea. Catch me
(39:45):
in a decade.
We'll talk.
Mahendra Ramsinghani (39:47):
If we catch you in a decade, Shlobo,
do you think the telcos will bearound? What's the future for
telcos? I mean, they've beenstruggling to figure out what
their strategy should be. And,let's say if you were in the CEO
of, AT and T's shoes.
Shlomo Kramer (40:01):
I'm not in the telco expert. So I'm, my I
qualify my answers, you know,non expert answer. It's a they
seem to be, doing good businessin selling the underlay, whether
it's wired or wireless,reselling kind of the
middleware, and providingmanaged services on top of that.
And it's it's a very bigbusiness. Not all parts are of
(40:26):
equal, gross margin.
But if well managed, it seems tobe a very viable business. And,
you know what? So I I don't seea problem with that.
Sid Trivedi (40:35):
So, but your your close friend, your childhood
friend, Shahar Bar Khohan, saysyou'd make a great writer if you
weren't a founder. What's yourtake on that? We spoke to him
and he told us this. Okay.
Shlomo Kramer (40:48):
Perhaps in, when I retire. I don't know. I'll
I'll check. I have no, no ideawhy he told you that, and I'll
I'll I'll check it in a decadeor 2 when I retire.
Mahendra Ramsinghani (40:58):
Actually, the way Shar described Hlobo was
that he's one of the mostcurious persons I know, and he's
curious about everything in avery intellectually precise
manner. So I think he's lookingat the curiosity and say, maybe
storytelling is an attributethat you might have that he
looks at. So Thank
Shlomo Kramer (41:17):
you very much. Shacham.
Sid Trivedi (41:18):
I think we need we need a book on the history of
cyber, certainly the history ofcyber in the Israeli ecosystem.
Shlomo Kramer (41:23):
There you go. That's that's an idea.
Ross Haleliuk (41:25):
Shlomo, you were the first investor in Palo Alto
Networks and served on itsboard, the company now, worth
over $130,000,000,000. Andtoday, you compete with them.
Some might look at this and say,well, that's a healthy
competition in a big evolvingmarket, but others may feel like
it's a bit off or maybe it'sit's it's not right. How do you
(41:47):
respond?
Shlomo Kramer (41:47):
Like, Jeff Bezos said, we we really focus on the
customers and delivering the,the value to the customers. We
don't, focus on the competition.So, and seriously, Palo is a
great company. And, you know, Ithink that competition at the
end delivers value to thecompeting company. Not that, you
(42:10):
know, Paolo is such a Goliath,and we are such a David, so I'm
I'm not comparing.
But it it delivers value to thecustomer, and it delivers value
to the competing companies.Otherwise, they would stagnant
and, and not innovate. So it'sit's good for everyone.
Mahendra Ramsinghani (42:29):
I think one thing that, Palo has done
really well, Shlomo, that all ofus know is that, you know, they
have done a very good job ofacquiring and integrating
companies really well. You know,I was an early investor in
Demisto. And if you talk to someof the founders, you know,
Slavik and, Rishi and othershave, been on our podcast, They
give a lot of credit to theculture that Nikesh and Nir have
(42:52):
created where these companiesget integrated well. They tried
inside those environments. And,of course, now they're also
going down the platformizationstrategy.
Absolutely. Yeah. Palo,
Shlomo Kramer (43:02):
I would assess that they are the best portfolio
company, that cyber has everseen. Unfortunately, portfolios
are a very bad idea in thedigital, transformed the world,
and they need to be replaced byplatforms. Taking a plat a
(43:23):
portfolio of point solution andturning that into a platform,
it's impossible no matter hownice of a UI you would put in,
on top of it. So it's it's agreat portfolio company, but we
are trying to be something else.
Mahendra Ramsinghani (43:38):
Yes. I I think, each one has to adapt and
evolve. Our last question foryou, Shlomo, is that, you know,
Israel has been a cyber hub. Infact, one of the best regions in
the world that has built thecybersecurity infrastructure,
that has nurtured so manyentrepreneurs. I would say the
(43:58):
industry's early origins werealso tied to that region.
And if we look at the past,decade, even past few years,
there have been so many changes,whether it's political, whether
it's social, whether it'sunrest. If you were to look in
the crystal ball and say, hereis the next 5 to 10 years of
(44:18):
Israel and cybersecurity, whatcomes to mind? What are the
things that frustrate you? Whatare the things that excite you?
Shlomo Kramer (44:24):
I'm super optimistic about the Israel,
cyber security ecosystem. Ithink it showed tremendous
resilience in the, in the last,year plus of difficult
conditions. And this is, youknow, the outcome, talk for
themselves, I believe. And goingforward, I see continued
(44:48):
momentum. I see Israelicompanies, Israeli startups get
lots of investment at very highvaluations.
They see acquisitions at a largescale. I see many, many young
startups happening. So I would Iwould even say it's, you know,
there's always a pendulum. Iwould say the pendulum is on the
(45:13):
on the very positive side ofthings.
Mahendra Ramsinghani (45:15):
In one of your earlier podcast, Shlomo,
you talked about the loyaltyfactor is very strong in Israel,
and that's not necessarily whatyou see in other parts of the
world. Can you give us a littlemore deeper perspective on that?
Loyalty of, Loyalty of foundingteams to each other, loyalty of
employees to the founder.
Shlomo Kramer (45:36):
I don't remember the, the reference. You know,
there's a there's a tighterIsrael is a small country, a
small community. There's atighter sense of community in
Israel for for good and for badwith all of of the implications.
And perhaps that was what I Ireferred to. That sense of
(45:56):
community and everybody knowseverybody and everybody feels
part of that community, and itcreates a different type of
bond.
Mahendra Ramsinghani (46:05):
Yeah. I think it was in context of the
Silicon Valley culture wherewhen too much money flows in,
people tend to jump from onestartup to another, and, that
creates a different dynamic.But, but, no, Shlobal, thank
you, for taking the time toshare your 3 decades of wisdom
and insights. You know, audiencewould absolutely love the fact
(46:25):
that, you know, you built oneIPO, second IPO, and now
potentially the 3rd IPO. Sothere is repeat entrepreneur and
there is 3peat entrepreneurs.
So, you know, you kind ofclearly fall into this very
unique category, probably theonly individual that had
potentially the 3rd IPO in thecybersecurity world. So thank
you for sharing your insights,and we do hope that someday you
(46:46):
write some books, use yourcuriosity, and share continue to
share your wisdom with theworld.
Sid Trivedi (46:50):
Thank you, Shlomo.
Shlomo Kramer (46:51):
Thank you very much. It's been a very
interesting conversation. Byebye.
Sid Trivedi (46:54):
Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you for
joining us Inside the Network.
Ross Haleliuk (46:59):
If you like this episode, please leave us a
review and share it with others.
Mahendra Ramsinghani (47:04):
If you really, really liked it and you
have some feedback for us, wrapit on a bottle of Yamazaki and
send it to me first.
Sid Trivedi (47:13):
No. Don't do that. Mahendra gets too many gifts
already. Please reach out byemail or LinkedIn.
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