#133 CEO Palo Alto Networks, Nikesh Arora: Create Certainty

Guest: Nikesh Arora, CEO and Chairman of Palo Alto Networks

Nikesh Arora has been in the C-Suite for more than two decades, including a 10-year stint as Google’s chief business officer and — most recently — five years as Palo Alto Networks’ CEO. But the COVID-19 pandemic made him radically reconsider the gap between the executive floor and the rest of the company. “There was a tremendous amount of anxiety and fear and uncertainty,” he says, “and this person I was talking to says, ‘Listen, your job as a leader is to create certainty.’ [...] It’s simple: Tell your employees you have their back.” That’s why, for the past 30 months, Nikesh has been making time to virtually meet thousands of Palo Alto Networks employees on Zoom; he gets candid feedback, communicates company goals, and provides a safe space for everyone to bond.

In this episode, Nikesh and Joubin discuss honest CEOs, not having a career plan, process vs. outcomes, remaining independent inside Google, organizational superpowers, understanding your competitors, “evergreen companies,” the ChatGPT disruption, integrating product and sales, blindfolded communication, Evian water, cloud vs. on-prem security, and problem solvers vs. problem representers.

In this episode, we cover:

• Amazing people at Google (02:15)
• T-Motion and T-Mobile (04:05)
• “You cannot control the outcome” (07:36)
• Growing up in India (11:12)
• 400+ rejection letters (14:38)
• Loving what you do (18:26)
• Joining Google (19:55)
• Sergey Brin and Eric Schmidt (24:16)
• Relocating to “the mothership” (27:01)
• “He’s not Googly enough” (28:26)
• Profit, innovation, and paranoia (31:12)
• Cybersecurity and AI (34:04)
• SoftBank CEO Masa Son (38:54)
• Joining Palo Alto Networks (43:04)
• Hiring as home-building (47:04)
• “Nobody comes to work to screw up” (50:25)
• Product and the power of marketing (53:28)
• Cybersecurity “swim lanes” (56:36)
• M&A strategy (01:01:14)
• The two schools of due diligence (01:05:05)
• Moving past problems (01:07:42)
• Creating certainty for employees (01:10:59)

Links:

• Connect with Nikesh
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
• Connect with Joubin
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Email: grit@kleinerperkins.com
• Learn more about Kleiner Perkins
• This episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm