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10/22, Palo Alto Networks CEO Nikesh Arora publicly stated a BHAG (Big Harry audacious goal). At the time, Palo Alto had a market cap of $50B, and Arora had the stones to say that they would be the world's first $100B cybersecurity company.
Did he succeed? https://bit.ly/42qy0KS
Costs are rising, prices are coming down, unit economics are going sideways, and cybersecurity startups must adapt. Cybersecurity SaaS businesses are undergoing several significant changes that will hurt the broader market. This is what it all means.
The idea that we will be able to keep 85% margins on successful SaaS software businesses in the future is becoming a fallacy. In the next 12 months, successful SaaS cybersecurity companies will see maximum (thus acceptable) margins drop to the 50-60% range. Because of this, we will have to decrease the size of our sales and marketing engine, lower the number of engineers available to grow the business, and rely on things like AI and co-pilot style development to ensure that we have a stable and prosperous company.
https://www.thecyberwhy.com/p/the-margin-crush-is-coming-in-2024
#cybersecurity #startups #margin #business #SaaS #software #predictions
The new The Cyber Why newsletter just dropped. Go check it out and pass it to your friends! Thank you to Nudge Security for being this week's sponsor!
In this week’s TCW, we cover AI content discrimination, cybersecurity - snowflake or whiney cry baby, PartyPool process injection techniques (crazy deep research, so be prepared), innovate or die - how to be the 1% of cyber companies, and the current state of cyber investing. We hope you like our take on the news, and have a great week!
This week in The Cyber Why, we cover my thoughts on the new wave of transparent marketing (tl;dr it won’t work), former X cybersecurity exec sues the firm for putting him a real tough spot, some significant research on the cyber landscape, and the evaluation of “cybersecurity estates,” Google releases Gemini AI to the Pixel 8 PRO essentially telling ChatGPT to “Hold my BEER!”, and finally some exciting research on the potential cyber IPO landscape of 2024.
Just when you think you hit all of the news worth printing, something new comes out (Sam confirms Q* leak! OH MY!). Also, in this week's The Cyber Why, we discuss OKTA, Super Sam Altman, RIP Charlie Munger, Ukraine ransomware busts, and how to get P*F!
The difference between traditional cybersecurity products and modern cybersecurity platforms lies in the use of context (vs. data) and AI to facilitate more intelligent and accurate decisions.
This wave of change hasn't emerged suddenly; it has been rising and swelling over several years, leading to an inflection point where we witness a drastic shift from the status quo. This new era of cybersecurity capabilities is arriving more swiftly than anticipated, poised to transform daily cybersecurity operations.
This week in The Cyber Why, we look at cybersecurity estates vs cybersecurity markets (which is a better analysis framework), the Clorox CISO gets bounced after a particularly nasty breach, a ransomware gang decides to report one of its victims to the SEC for lack of breach notification, the cybersecurity data and AI race heats up as MS takes aim at PANW, and Andy Greenberg pens a fascinating article on the authors of the Marai botnet. All this and more in this week’s TCW!
It’s been an exciting week. Executive orders and CISO-targeted civil lawsuits take the headline in this week’s The Cyber Why newsletter. How will these changes affect the daily lives of top cybersecurity executives - will they run scared or lean in to defend themselves from a new existential threat? Twitter and Mastodon were alive with discussions, but no real easy answers emerged. In addition to that dangerous drama, we cover the unique attributes of cloud security that made the market explode, Biden stopping Skynet from becoming aware, Charlie Munger hating on VCs, and a plan to rein in the gilded tech bros of today! Go check out the latest issue of The Cyber Why now!
What is Techno-Optimism? The Cyber Angel Top 50! Research on modern job hunting, the law of attach rates for technical partnerships, and highlights from the State of AI Report 2023. Finally, welcome The Cyber Why's new sponsor @nudge_security! GO READ!
