Meet Nikesh Arora, who faced 400 rejections, now CEO of Rs 11,21,29,22,500 company, he works for...
Success stories: Indian American business executive and the chairman and chief executive officer (CEO) of the American cybersecurity company Palo Alto Networks, Nikesh Arora says, 'Scarcity encourages you to be resourceful. It allows you to do a lot more with a lot less'. He made this observation in an interview with Karishma Mehta of Humans of Bombay. He also talked about his journey from formative years to becoming the CEO of Palo Alto Networks.
Nikesh Arora was born in Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh to an Indian Air Force officer in a Punjabi family. He completed his schooling at The Air Force School and went on to graduate from Institute of Technology, Banaras Hindu University. Later, he earned an M.S. degree in finance from Boston College and an MBA from Northeastern University.
The tech spearhead had humble beginnings as he grew up in a disciplined household. 'Growing up, we kind of moved around every few years. That brings a degree of adaptability to your life,' he said adding that his early years were marked by constant change and values passed down from his father: fairness and integrity.
He pursued engineering from Banaras Hindu University (BHU) and instead of India, he aimed for US business schools. His choices were institutions that did not charge application fees.
Reflecting on the days when he was borrowing from his father's pension fund, he said, 'I was scraping around, teaching nights, doing all kinds of fun stuff just to survive.' He said that the phase after graduation was one of the toughest phases of his life. 'I sent 400-plus applications and got rejected 400-plus times. I saved all the rejection letters. They're my motivation,' he said.
He got a breakthrough in 1992 when he began his career at Fidelity Investments where he held different positions. Eventually, he became the vice president of Fidelity Technologies. He earned a master's degree and Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) certification, eventually teaching a CFA course that subsequently led to his next destination as he joined Google in 2004.
'Amazing, like being in a rocket ship' is how he described his beginning at Google. Over the next 10 years, he played a key part in Google's revenue growth from $2 billion to over $60 billion.
After 10 years at Google, he felt the urge to move on. 'I wanted to do something different,' he says.
After a break, Arora joined Palo Alto Networks. At the time of his joining, the company was valued at $18 billion. Today, it's over $100 billion. He attributes the growth to timing and clarity of vision.
'Cybersecurity is a growing market. The more we rely on technology, the more our attack surface expands. If we can't build it, we'll partner or buy,' he says.
Arora took the company toward cloud and Artificial Intelligence early on, emphasising constant innovation as he revealed his experience with ChatGPT, which left a lasting impression on him.
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