Jay Chaudhry went to the US three decades ago for higher studies. He worked in many big tech companies and then went on to set up several startups. He currently runs the cybersecurity firm Zscaler. Excerpts from an interview:
Q/ Your story is like an American dream come true, from a village in India to building successful global enterprises in the US.
A/ There were limited basic resources when I was growing up in a small village called Panoh in Himachal Pradesh. But seeing my parents, both of whom were farmers, working hard to provide for our family taught me the importance of hard work, integrity and ethics. While my father never had the chance to go to school, he always encouraged me to study and I was good at it. After high school, I decided to pursue higher education in electronics engineering at IIT BHU.
I came to America for further studies and found myself working at large technology corporations for over a decade. I was fascinated by the internet and the world wide web. I believed that it would be critical to secure the internet against cybercriminals looking to exploit it. This inspired me to kickstart my first internet startup.
Q/ What were the kind of challenges you faced as an entrepreneur?
A/ After completing my education in the US, I had the opportunity to join large technology enterprises—IBM, NCR and Unisys. My tenure in these companies allowed me to take on various roles, from engineering to sales, marketing and management. It was around this time that internet adoption was beginning to gain traction in the US. My fascination with the web drove me to pursue my first startup venture in the internet security industry.
It was a difficult road ahead. When we first drafted a business plan and took it to a venture capital for funding, they rejected it because we lacked experience. From that instance, the choice was clear—either we give up on the startup dream and go back to our comfortable jobs or we invest everything we have in our startup dream. We decided that the risk was worth it.
Q/ Many US unicorns were founded by Indian immigrants. Tell us something more on the startup culture there.
A/ When I launched my first startup, SecureIT, in 1997, there were very few Indian leaders. After SecureIT was sold, the main question I had was ‘what’s next?’ At that point, I reached out to one of my mentors, Khan Vulreki, for advice. He told me of The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE) organisation he was initiating to help fellow Indian entrepreneurs.
There are great entrepreneurs in the US who hail from India and the numbers are growing. Perceptions are changing now. Today, there’s a lot more confidence as we are seeing more success stories when it comes to business leaders with Indian origins, such as Robinhood or Sprinklr.