Cyber Security

JAY CHAUDHRY: SECURING THE CYBER WORLD

An Indian-origin US-based entrepreneur, who grew up in the Himalayan foothills, scales the wuthering heights in the US. Zscaler's CEO, Chairman, and Founder Jay Chaudhry struts across the US security technology sector by his visionary innovations, with a net worth of $11.5 billion.

Jagtar Singh Chaudhry, known in the industry as Jay chaudhry, was born in 1958 in Panoh in Una District of Himachal Pradesh, India. Traditionally, Panoh was known as Pana Nagari. It has a famous temple of Maa Ashtbhuja, which, according to tradition, was built by the Pandavas during their exile. The Sombhadra (Swan) flows through the picturesque village. During his early childhood, Jay's village faced challenges of irregular electricity supply and a scarcity of drinking water resources. Hailing from a farming family, he used to often study under trees. Recalling his journey, he once shared in an interview how he used to travel 4 km everyday to attend a high school located in Dhusara in the neighbouring village. Today, the former village has grown into a modern town. 

On completion of his pre-university as a gold medalist at Himachal University, Jay wished to join an engineering college. At the time he was unfamiliar with the Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT). But a teacher who noticed his potential encouraged him to pursue studies in the IIT. He was soon admitted to IIT (BHU), Varanasi. He was the first person in his village to go to an engineering college. At IIT (BHU) he studied Electronics Engineering alongside some of the best and the brightest students across India. His association with them resulted in a lifelong friendship, some of whom would play a big role later in his career. After completing his engineering, he received a scholarship from the University of Cincinnati, which covered his full tuition. Besides, he got a grant from Tata Industries, with which he bought air-tickets. In 1980, at age 22, he moved to the US to attend the University. At the University of Cincinnati, he went on to earn a Master's degree in Computer Engineering, as well as a degree in Industrial Engineering, and an MBA in Marketing.

Careers And Ventures

Jay set out by working in the US in engineering, sales, marketing and management divisions of IBM, Unisys, and NCR. In a short span of years, he founded five security software startups. In 1996, he and his wife Jyoti after selling their personal savings founded Internet security service SecureIT. After SecureIT was acquired by Verisign in 1998, Jay moved to San Francisco to lead Verisign’s security services division. In 2000, he launched an email security company, CipherTrust. The idea for setting up CipherTrust came from his earlier work at SecureIT, wherein he familiarized himself with various types of security issues, vulnerabilities and possible cyber attacks. The technology he built from scratch was later acquired by Secure Computing Corporation in 2006 for $274 million. In 2000, he also launched CoreHarbor, a managed e-commerce platform, which was later acquired by USi/AT&T. In 2002, he launched wireless security company AirDefense. The firm operated as a provider of a wireless intrusion prevention system, which monitors airwaves and traffic between laptops and WiFi access points. AirDefense was later acquired by Motorola in 2008. 

Zscaler Inc.

After successfully setting five security startups, Jay set his sights on a more ambitious idea: he wanted to do something that lasted. Hence, with a different mindset he ventured into something new. It was traditional at the time for businesses to install security appliances at their network gateways, such as building a security wall around their internal network. But by then business applications were increasingly moving to the cloud, and business traffic was becoming increasingly mobile. These two trends were creating major gaps in the traditional 'walled' network security paradigm. In 2007, he teamed up with K. Kailash, his former classmate at IIT (BHU), and started Zscaler. The company has its headquarters in San Jose, California, US.

Key Products

Zscaler Inc's key product offering is the Internet Access, which includes a spectrum of AI-powered solutions in the area of security and data protection. They help to stop cyberattacks and data loss. As a fully cloud-delivered SaaS solution, you can add new capabilities without any additional hardware or lengthy deployment cycles. It connects users to applications, applies advanced cyberthreat and data protection policies, and optimizes digital experience for a secure hybrid workforce. It empowers a secure, user-focused hybrid workforce to support employees and third-parties wherever they work, regardless of devices they use. It prioritizes a user.experience that offers fast, secure and reliable access to apps and data without compromises. A unique solution that scales with the business and protects data.

The company offers Zscaler Internet Access solution that provides users, workloads, IoT, and OT devices secure access to externally managed applications, including software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications and internet destinations. Zscaler Private Access solution, which is designed to provide access to managed applications, is hosted internally in data centers and private or public clouds. The firm also provides Zscaler Digital Experience that measures end-to-end user experience across business applications, besides providing an easy-to-understand digital experience score for each user, application, and location within an enterprise.  

Moreover, the company offers Posture Control solutions comprising Cloud Security Posture Management. This identifies and remediates application misconfigurations in SaaS, infrastructure as a service, and PaaS to reduce risk, and ensure compliance with industry and organizational benchmarks. Zscaler Cloud Infrastructure Entitlement Management detects and remediates excessive or unused cloud permissions and enforces least privileged access without disrupting productivity. Also, it offers Infrastructure as Code (IaC), which analyzes IaC templates to identify misconfigurations and other security issues prior to deployment to cloud infrastructure. And Vulnerability Scanning and Data Loss Prevention solutions. Its platform modules include Zscaler Central Authority, Zscaler Enforcement Node, and Zscaler Log Servers.

Customer Base

Zscaler has wide customer base, serving across various industries and sectors. They include airlines and transportation, conglomerates, consumer goods and retail, financial services, healthcare, manufacturing, media and communications, public sector and education, technology, and telecommunications services industries. 

Financials

Zscaler revenue for the 12 months ending April 30, 2024 was $2.030 biliion, a 37.16% increase year-over-year. Its annual revenue for 2023 was $1.617 billion, a 48.22% increase from 2022. Its annual revenue for 2022 was $1.091B, a 62.08% increase from 2021. For the fourth quarter of fiscal 2024, the company expects revenue of $565 million to $567 million. Non-GAAP income from operations of $107 million to $109 million. Non-GAAP net income per share of around $0.69 to $0.70, assuming about 165 million fully diluted shares outstanding.

The most significant news was Zscaler's Q3 net income of $19.1 million, which marked the first profitable quarter. The shift into profitability was perfect timing, since the firm's rate of year-over-year revenue growth has been slowing down for the past year. The company has a market capitalisation of $30.48 billion. Its revenue expectation is around $2.118 billion to $2.122 billion, calculated billings of $2.55 billion to $2.57 billion, and non-GAAP income from operations of $395 million to $400 million.

Family

Jay Chaudhry is married to Jyoti. The couple met while they both were students at University of Cincinnati. They live in Reno, Nevada along with their children..

Major Achievements:

Jay has made great achievements as an industry leader, which include:

• Becoming a billionaire after Zscaler's successful IPO in 2018.

• Being selected as a finalist for the EY Entrepreneur of the Year Award program in Northern California in 2018.

• Being included in the 2021 Forbes 400 list of richest people in America, with a net worth of US$16.3 billion, ranking 45th. He is one of only seven Indian-Americans on the Forbes 400 list.

Major Awards:

• The Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award in Northern California (2018).

• The Asian American Engineer of the Year Award (2019).

• The Padma Shri Award, India's fourth-highest civilian honor (2020).

Jay has made significant contributions to various educational institutions and charitable organizations. His legacy as a successful entrepreneur and visionary leader continues to inspire aspiring innovators and business leaders.

In 2022, Jay donated $1 million to his alma mater, IIT-BHU, to fund the school’s Entrepreneurship Center and Software Innovation Center. In the same year, he also donated $3 million to the Bay Area Chapter of the American India Foundation (AIF), an organization committed to improving the lives of India’s underprivileged, to support Covid relief fund. In 2023, he donated $1 million to the Sankara Eye Foundation, an organization whose mission is to eradicate curable blindness in India.

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