Founder’s Field Guide
Episode 11 Protecting the Internet
Founder’s Field Guide

Episode 11: Protecting the Internet

Protecting the Internet

Michelle is the co-founder and COO of Cloudflare, a now $25 billion dollar business which she helped take public last year. We cover the catalyst for starting CloudFlare, the future of distributed storage and computing power, and the importance of great co-founders and partners.

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[00:02:52] – (First question) – Project Honeypot and how it started

[00:03:39] – What question was Honeypot solving 

[00:04:59] – Working through the idea maze of Cloudflare

[00:07:30] – The first iteration of Cloudflare

[00:08:15] – An overview of the cybersecurity market and why more leaders need to pay attention

[00:10:33] – First big break for the company

[00:12:50] – Risks they help mitigate

[00:16:42] – Cyber weapons that Cloudflare protects against

[00:20:14] – Hardest part of the building process

[00:24:06] – Effective marketing lessons

[00:25:41] – The sharks vs mosquitoes concept 

[00:27:53] – How do decide where to focus next

[00:31:34] – The Cloudflare workers program

[00:36:33] – Their scale vs other cloud providers

[00:42:21] – The finance side of Cloudflare and their relationship vs Wall Street

[00:42:40] – John Collison Podcast Episode

[00:44:47] – Relationship with their founding partners

[00:50:46] – What about the future is most excites them

[00:52:32] – Kindest thing anyone has done for her

Protecting the Internet

Introduction

Patrick
My guest today is Michelle Zatlyn. Michelle is the co-founder and COO of Cloudflare, a now $25 billion business which she helped to take public last year. Cloudflare helps businesses make their websites faster and more secure, and over 25 million websites are running Cloudflare today. In our conversation, we discuss the catalyst for starting Cloudflare, explore the layers of the internet and the future of distributed storage and computing power, and discuss how and why Cloudflare operates its network across 200 cities globally. We close with the importance of finding and working with great co-founders as partners as you build the business, I hope you enjoy our conversation.

Catalyst for Cloudflare

Patrick
Michelle, I would love to begin by setting some context around Cloudflare and its history. And I thought a neat place to begin would be with you describing Project Honey Pot. What was Project Honey Pot, and how did it start?

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