Grit18 Dec 2023

#169 CEO & Founder Cato Networks, Shlomo Kramer: The Burden of Persona

Guest: Shlomo Kramer, founder and CEO of Cato Networks

Shlomo Kramer has founded three companies to date — Check Point, Imperva, and most recently Cato Networks — and taken the first two public, with plans to do the same with Cato. By any measure, he is a successful entrepreneur, but he defines “success” as “a burden you need to shake off every day.” And the easiest way to do that he’s found is to keep moving, keep failing, and keep creating. The material wealth he’s created, he explains, was never the goal: “It was never about things. It was about ideas and making them real.”

In this episode, Shlomo and Joubin discuss the contexts of our actions, the IDF, taking three companies public, ideas vs. things, kibbutzes, Gong, Sumo Logic, serial entrepreneurs, leading by example, consumer cybersecurity, trusting others, Albert Einstein, “making it to the pass before winter,” and Israeli directness.

In this episode, we cover:

The delta between micro and macro (00:54)
Working in wartime Israel (03:18)
The burden of persona (06:37)
Shlomo’s family (13:19)
The time between startups (16:30)
Self-fulfillment (18:31)
“What am I going to do next?” (21:14)
Rebelliousness (24:58)
Palo Alto Networks (29:42)
Loyalty and competition (31:32)
Building trust relationships (35:02)
“The last one” (37:41)
Shaq, Tom Brady, and Carl Eschenbach (42:15)
Tough feedback (46:50)
Shlomo’s friends (48:18)
Intellectual honesty (50:14)
What Cato does (52:37)
Hiring and work culture (55:23)
Ignoring startup advice (58:15)
Ideation and being present (59:22)

Links:

Connect with Shlomo
- 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

Det här avsnittet är hämtat från ett öppet RSS-flöde och publiceras inte av Podme. Det kan innehålla reklam.

Avsnitt(293)

Data Centers in Orbit by 2028: Baiju Bhatt on His Plans After Robinhood

What kind of founder walks away from a multi-billion-dollar fintech company to start building rockets?Baiju Bhatt, co-founder of Robinhood, joins Joubin Mirzadegan to talk about life after one of the ...

24 Aug 1h 12min

Booking.com CEO on AI and the Future of Travel

"Our mission is to make it easier for everybody to experience the world."From the dot-com crash to AI, Glenn Fogel has spent nearly three decades helping Booking Holdings evolve through every major te...

10 Aug 50min

Ex-Twitter CEO on Why AI Needs a New Internet | Parag Agrawal

"The answer to every problem is a model."Parag Agrawal shares the ideas behind Parallel: products that continuously learn, and teams designed around versatile problem solvers.He also shares why he bui...

27 Juli 1h 1min

The Sales Framework Every Founder Needs | Mark Roberge

"There's 20 fires going on at every moment in the office and you have enough water to put out four."Mark Roberge shares what it takes to build and scale a company, from finding product-market fit to k...

13 Juli 1h 22min

Airwallex's Jack Zhang on Fintech, Failure, and Growth

In 2020, Airwallex lost nearly half its revenue overnight. Today it's worth $11 billion.Jack Zhang reflects on the decisions that kept the company alive, raising capital during uncertainty, and leadin...

29 Juni 1h 11min

Why 80% of the Fortune 100 Chose Qualtrics | Ryan Smith

AI may change software overnight, but company building still takes time.Ryan Smith explains why, despite the pace of AI, “the race is going to be way longer than anyone thinks.”He reflects on Qualtric...

15 Juni 1h 12min

What It Takes to Build Software for 171,000+ Restaurants | Aman Narang

Great software companies often come from understanding pain points at a very deep level.On Grit, Aman Narang shares how Toast built trust with 171,000+ restaurant operators by helping restaurants mana...

1 Juni 1h 17min

What It Takes to Build a Generational Company | Anduril’s Trae Stephens

Founder quality becomes more important as startups become easier to build.Trae Stephens, co-founder of Anduril and partner at Founders Fund, has spent years backing founders with strong conviction, in...

18 Maj 56min