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So in DevSecCon we bring developers and security people - and operators are also in there - to give talks that are all security-related, but they come from both angles. So suddenly you're a developer, and you sit and you hear a security person talk about risk, and talk about how do they manage it. And suddenly, you're ... |
\[01:15:53.09\] So all of them are really a joint investment, and it's a commitment for us to the community. And from a business perspective, we believe that the faster the world reaches these conclusions, the faster the practices get formed, the better it is for our business, because that's the thesis on which we buil... |
**Adam Stacoviak:** It's an interesting world we're in right now, that's for sure... And the changes in just the developers and organizations - there's a lot of organizations that are being impacted, like airlines and just different sectors of business that are just severely being hit by just change; downturn in econom... |
**Guy Podjarny:** Yeah, I think security continues to be super-important. Unfortunately, history teaches us that at a time when there is a lot of vulnerability, attackers kick in. So they use this vulnerability we're seeing -- all sorts of phishing scams right now that are related to Covid-19. We've seen in past crises... |
So it's very important that companies continue to invest in that security. you also as a company don't want to go from a financial crisis to a crisis caused by a breach. You want to do it. So it's hard... Balancing budgets is hard. |
From Synk's perspective, what we did is we actually tried to help out by giving Snyk usage for free. We've actually made an offer of six months free of Snyk usage to companies in the distressed industries, and to small/medium businesses as well, trying to help people... You know, at the moment it's hard to get -- if yo... |
Thanks to the last rounds, we have enough in the bank to be able to withstand this period and allow these parts of the community and our customers as well to keep secure, stay secure as they brave through these really challenging times. We also issued these cheat sheets of ten best practices for secure development whil... |
**Adam Stacoviak:** Ha-ha! Nice. |
**Guy Podjarny:** ...from what we're doing, and running a little webinar on that topic as well, with \[01:18:36.28\] and a security lead from Envision... Just again, to share practices about what should you change. A lot of it is about developer empowerment... You know, this is a time that you can't scrutinize, you can... |
Actually, this is a great time to start a bug bounty program, because -- again, unfortunately, but still kind of turn lemons into lemonade... But there's more people at home, with the right skills, who might be interested in making a few bucks, helping you find security flaws in your system. |
**Adam Stacoviak:** Yeah. |
**Guy Podjarny:** It's a good time to do that. So we try to give back... I think people have to -- if you ignore security right now, again, you're just gonna wake up from one crisis to another. |
**Adam Stacoviak:** I like what you said there, "security hygiene." I never really considered it as hygiene. Like you wash your hands... You want to enable certain things on your home router, because so many people are operating on Wi-Fi... I hear "Oh, the Wi-Fi is terrible in this area of the house, so I have to go to... |
**Guy Podjarny:** Absolutely, yeah. |
**Adam Stacoviak:** \[01:20:03.00\] We'll link that up, for sure. Let's take a left turn back to I guess the future of Snyk. It was about -- I wanna say last year, last July I think... You'd mentioned Peter McKay earlier as humbly giving up your role as CEO and what that process was. You'd mentioned people over your hi... |
**Guy Podjarny:** Yeah, for sure. So Peter and I go way back. Peter was the CEO of Watchfire; so if I mentioned before Sanctum, Watchfire and IBM, Peter was the CEO of Watchfire when they acquired Sanctum. So we met for the first time there, and we were in touch and doing a bunch of things together over the course of t... |
When I left IBM and I founded Blaze, Peter came on my board. He at that time -- we probably got a little bit tighter, to just sort of talk through problems. And Peter is a very accomplished individual. He comes from a finance and then sales background, and then sort of really big CEO backgrounds. He's been the CEO of a... |
**Adam Stacoviak:** Wow. |
**Guy Podjarny:** So it's definitely sort of a big business, but also ran Watchfire, and ran series B companies. And he and I think nothing alike. We come at the same problem from massively different angles, but we share the same values, and over the course of the years we've learned to see that... And it makes our con... |
I really kind of got exposed to that during Blaze, with him on my board, and it was really great conversations. I had Mike Weider, my co-founder at Blaze was super-smart and taught me a ton, and he and I had great conversations as well; we were just a little bit closer. Peter was further removed in terms of how we thou... |
So when I started Snyk, Peter was always involved; at that point he was a friend. We'd do some investments together where we benefit as well from the fact that we both think very differently... So again, if we both conclude it's a good company to invest in, it's more likely to be right... And I brought him on as an ind... |
So when he ended his tenure at Veeam, which was the company where he was CEO, which I think he grew from like 400 million to about a billion dollars in revenue in like 2,5 years... And when he ended his tenure there, if I go back to that strategic opportunity-taking, I saw a widow. |
\[01:23:49.13\] At the time - to switch from Peter to me - this is the beginning of 2019, but really a few months after, so April/May of 2019... Snyk has been going through this massive growth spurt. At the beginning of 2018 we were 23 people; at the beginning of 2019 we were 84 people, so it was almost 4x the company ... |
**Adam Stacoviak:** A lot of money, yeah. |
**Guy Podjarny:** And what I found was that all of my time -- I have an amazing team; I think our team at Snyk is... I've never worked with such a capable team, and I've never been the founder that held everything on his shoulders. I think I was fortunate enough to bring great people on board, and they helped make the ... |
I literally was tracking how many customer calls I have every week, and I went from my desirable several every week, to like none. Sometimes I would have three weeks without. So I was just stretched too thin, and I couldn't let go of that, because I needed that to happen. And in parallel, I saw this opportunity with Pe... |
So we talked about it, and in July we kind of announced it to the company, and subsequently to the world, and then he officially joined in late August, beginning of September... And look, I think it's one of the best decisions I've made. First, because of Peter. I just got the benefit of this amazing individual who cam... |
**Adam Stacoviak:** A lot of wisdom. |
**Guy Podjarny:** ...the 2000 crisis, and the 2008 crisis... It really helps to just work together. So he and I in a much more intense fashion collaborate and bring those two very different perspectives into the company... Which I think makes our general decision right. |
There's specific expertise he has around scaling our go-to-market. He came in and he made a comment at some point that the R&D organization was far more mature than the go-to-market organization... And to an extent it's natural, because the company was growing so fast, but also to an extent it's my lack of knowledge. I... |
\[01:27:17.29\] So yeah, I think you always have to swallow a bit of an ego pill when you do this. There's always adjustments around finding the conversations that you can increasingly not be a part of... Like not just not be the ones leading them, but not be in the conversation; that's legit, because it's the only way... |
**Adam Stacoviak:** Very wise words, Guy. I'm glad you shared this story, because I think you have a lot of people who have a hard time replacing themselves, to some degree... And luckily, a CEO hunt can be very hard, and very taxing on an organization, and especially if you're a failure state. Not so much like failure... |
Maybe it plays a role back into your helping to help earlier on in your career, and having that mindset, because Peter was there, available, trusted, capable, already involved, you already had a lot of personal financial involvings in terms of investments, and angel funding etc. So I'm glad you shared that story, becau... |
Guy, thank you so much for sharing your story. I'm sure we could talk further and longer, but man, you've got some cool stuff happening. Snyk is doing amazing. 84 last year, to 300 this year, you're growing... This is a perfect time for being security-minded, and I'm so glad you shared your story today. Thank you. |
**Guy Podjarny:** Thanks for having me, happy to share... And I guess we've been talking about sharing learnings and hoping people can learn from them, and then do better. |
**Adam Stacoviak:** Yeah. Thanks, Guy. |
• Sid Sijbrandij's background and upbringing in the Netherlands |
• His early experiences with being teased and struggling to make friends |
• How these experiences shaped him into a resilient entrepreneur who can go against common wisdom |
• His transition from studying physics to management science |
• His entrepreneurial ventures, including selling infrared receivers on Geocities and working on a submarine life support system for U-Boat Worx |
• The influence of his past experiences on his leadership style at GitLab, prioritizing speed of decision-making and "boring solutions" |
• Importance of transparency in decision-making processes |
• Value of vulnerability in leadership and company culture |
• Low-level of shame as a key value for iteration and improvement |
• Being open about flaws and imperfections to motivate improvement |
• Study of psychology, particularly mental models and behavioral economics |
• Application of these concepts to business and organizational decision-making |
• History of GitLab's early days and its relationship with GitHub |
• Sid Sijbrandij recounts how he became involved with GitLab and its co-founder Dmitriy |
• The initial purpose of GitLab was to provide better collaboration tools at work |
• Sid discovered GitLab on Hacker News after it had already gained 300 contributors |
• He created gitlab.com as a software as a service, making it easier for users to try out the platform |
• Discussion about the similarities between GitHub and GitLab, including their interfaces and names |
• Sid explains that GitHub and GitLab share a common ancestor in GitWeb |
• Current state of GitLab: over $100 million in revenue, growing at a healthy clip, planning an IPO in 2015 (though likely delayed) |
• Discussion about the valuation of GitLab ($2.75 billion) compared to GitHub's acquisition price ($7.5 billion) |
• Reason for considering public company status to maintain independence and preserve open source values |
• Importance of transparency and the potential risks associated with being a public company |
• GitLab's decision to go public or remain private |
• Pros and cons of being acquired by a larger company |
• Impact on company culture and leadership |
• Benefits and drawbacks of being all-remote |
• Reasoning behind GitLab's decision-making process |
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