Cyber CEOs Decoded Podcast Season 1 Episode 6
Peter McKay: Snyk CEO
In this episode, Marc and Peter McKay, cyber veteran and CEO of Snyk, discuss how the power of a strong network can both propel a successful career and by the key to scaling a disruptive cyber company.
You’ll also learn about:
- Why the «better together» mindset of a big Italian family helps shape a CEO
- How mowing lawns can inspire an entrepreneurial spirit
- The importance of giving people permission to make mistakes
Marc Van Zadelhoff: Welcome to «Cyber CEOs Decoded,» where we speak with CEOs from established security giants to up-and-coming disrupters, getting the inside track on what makes a security company tick. I’m your host Marc van Zadelhoff, the CEO of Devo, and today my guest is Peter McKay, a security veteran and the current CEO of Snyk. Peter, welcome to the show.
Peter McKay: Hey, Marc. Glad to be here.
Marc Van Zadelhoff: I’m super excited to have you on the show, Peter. You and I, like a number of my guests – I guess it’s inevitable after a couple of decades in the cybersecurity space. We’ve had some overlap, a lot of mutual acquaintances, and I was really looking forward to digging more into your career and into your background. And I also want to thank you because you’ve also offered me lots of good advice as I’ve been on my journey here as a CEO.
Peter McKay: Oh, it’s great to be here. And yeah, you know, if you’re in software long enough, you almost think you’ve met everybody. But software has been a fantastic place to be for the 30 years I’ve been in it. And it’s been fun, and you meet a tremendous amount of great people.
Marc Van Zadelhoff: I agree. Maybe 150 years ago we would have been coal miners, but today we’re in the software space. And I think that’s a lucky situation. So, Peter, I want to go into your background a little bit, and then we’re going to get into your career and then talk about what you’re doing today at Snyk and then try and share some of that advice that you’ve privately shared with me. We’ll get that out for other people to learn from as well.
Peter McKay: Sure.
Marc Van Zadelhoff: Let’s start with the basics here. You and I are both in the Boston area today, but where are you from originally? Where did you grow up?
Peter McKay: Yeah, I grew up in a town kind of in between Boston and Providence called North Attleborough. I went to high school in Bishop Feehan, and so kind of a smaller town, kind of away from the cities and a great place to grow up and have fun.
Marc Van Zadelhoff: And you – I think I heard that you’re the youngest of six kids. Is that true?
Peter McKay: I’m the fifth of six. So we had five kids in six years. So I was the youngest. And my brother – my younger brother Matthew was five years younger than I am. So for the most part, I was the youngest for at least five years or so.
Marc Van Zadelhoff: That’s awesome. And what was growing up like for you? Was it a close family? What was it like?
Peter McKay: So my mother was Italian, so a very, very close-knit family. And till this day we’re all within, like, 10 miles of each other, so very close-knit. I mean, when you get that big of a family that close together, you know, the kids take care of the kids and you kind of grow up together as a group. And we’re still that way today. So it’s great to be part of that kind of family. And now it’s – I think there’s 18 nieces and nephews, so it’s gotten a lot bigger now today, so.
Marc Van Zadelhoff: Wow. Wow, wow. And anything, like, that you in your career today look back to that early upbringing and say, you know, that’s kind of a key value I got from that time.
Peter McKay: You know, I think a lot of it is the – first is just, you know, the family kind of mindset and how, you know, we’re better together as a group. I think we helped each other kind of grow up, and then helped each other through challenging times with each other or kids and as we grow up. And I take a lot of that to companies as well and running them. I think that would be number one. The second is, you know, just interpersonal experiences, you know, being able to be just a normal person growing up in a normal environment and being able to kind of help people – understand people, know how to talk to people and relate to people. I think that has a lot to do with not, you know, growing up with a close-knit family but not a lot of money and kind of having to make your own money and grow up. And I think that taught me a lot about, you know, how to relate to people as I got older in my career.
Marc Van Zadelhoff: Yeah. Are you one of these people from large families, on the younger side of the kids, that has to eat your food very quickly because you’re worried your brothers or sisters will steal it from you?
Peter McKay: There is no question. And I still do that today, unfortunately. I clean plates, and I don’t share well. Those are the things that I – you got to eat fast because it’s – that’s all you’re going to get, and you got to get it before your sisters get it.
Marc Van Zadelhoff: That’s awesome. First meaningful paid job – what did you – how’d you earn your big bucks as a kid?
Peter McKay: I took care of lawns, you know. I started with two or three in the neighborhood. And then I did a pretty good job at that, and other people started asking me to do lawns. And I think I got up to about 15 different lawns I used to do and take care of. So it was actually really good business, and I ended up bringing in some of my friends in to help when it came time for leaves that we had to pick up. So hard work, but I loved it, you know. I love – till this day I love landscaping and working around the yard. And I take a lot of pride in doing it, and, you know, making sure my lawn and other people’s lawns were the best in the neighborhood. So that was kind of my thing growing up.
Marc Van Zadelhoff: Wow. That sounds more like your first CEO job versus – I mean, you’re, like…
Peter McKay: Started early.
Marc Van Zadelhoff: Yeah, started early. Did you IPO that one, or you…
Peter McKay: No, no, unfortunately. I did it through high school. And, you know, at some point I had to slow it down. I had to tell people I couldn’t do it anymore. And, you know, I passed it to my brother, and, you know, he didn’t do as nice of a job as I did. So he started losing that franchise. So my succession planning wasn’t all that – what it needed to be in that lawn care business.
Marc Van Zadelhoff: Wow. Sounds like he had a net retention problem on your business that you handed to him. And you end up going to Northeastern for your university.
Peter McKay: Yeah. A great experience. I loved Northeastern. I went to Northeastern. My brother went to Northeastern. My father went to Northeastern. My wife went to Northeastern. My kid went to Northeastern. My nieces, nephews go Northeastern. So a lot of history in Northeastern. I taught a little at Northeastern. So I think it’s a great program, probably one of the best in Boston. And I have a son that goes to Boston College. No offense to Boston College, but Northeastern with the co-op program and getting out with two years of experience – I mean, I can’t hire enough Boston – Northeastern University graduates. They’re just an amazing school with amazing talent.
Marc Van Zadelhoff: So if somebody were to look you up on LinkedIn, they might think your first job was that you were the – an SVP at Computer Associates. But is that really how you started your career at Northeastern? Take us to your first job out of Northeastern and how you got to the software space.
Peter McKay: Yeah, it wasn’t a straight line, that’s for sure. So I did my co-op jobs as an auditor. So I took accounting and finance. I graduated in accounting and finance. The jobs that were paying were accounting jobs. So I did the internal audit, then became an accountant in companies and then I became a controller. And then, you know, that’s how I started. You know, it’s a great way to learn and understand the business, understand numbers. And, you know, both the audit and the controllership were two amazing ways to begin a career. But I also knew that’s not what I wanted to do long term. And I found my way to, you know, when I saw how big the commission checks were for salespeople that I was – that we had in the company, I said I could go do – I could do that job. So I made a career change. Took me a year to get into Computer Associates. And that’s how I started. I started as a sales rep. So I went from making a couple hundred thousand dollars a year down to $30,000 a year, and, you know, majority commission. And it was – you never look back from there.
Marc Van Zadelhoff: Wow. And, I mean, that might have been at the same time you were buying your first house, settling down and the like. So you’re – both those things are happening at the same time, salaries dropping, responsibilities increasing.
Peter McKay: Yeah. It’s a – it was a funny story because I was – yes, that is the case. I wanted to make the career change, but – and I was building – I had this quest that I want to build my house. And I started building – having my house built. And when I realized I was going and making a career change, I stopped the house. So they didn’t finish the second floor. So I had a house – I lived in my living room for, you know, a couple years until I knew I had enough – made enough money to finish my second floor of the house. So you do what you do when you think it’s the right move for you to make. And I was OK living in my living room for a couple years until I could – had enough money to do the second floor.
Marc Van Zadelhoff: Wow. So you spent nine years working your way up there and did become senior vice president at Computer Associates.
Peter McKay: It was a great run. You know, it was pretty much through the ’90s. You know, CA was growing a lot. I mean, it had an interesting culture – some good and a lot of not so good. So I learned from, you know, a lot of that experience. But every year, I was doing something different. So it was almost like a bunch of, you know, jobs in that one job. But that really got me acclimated to software and, you know, how to run it and, you know, different cultures. And so I learned a lot, and I knew I could parlay that into other moves as I worked my way – and I moved a lot.
Peter McKay: I moved about four times through that journey. And then ultimately wanted to get back to Boston. And that’s where I kind of – I left CA and went over to PTC and started that journey. It was kind of a – you know, I wanted to go to a startup. Like, I wanted to go and run my own software company. And at the time, PTC bought this company, Windchill. And they said, you know, come here. It’s a startup within a well-funded company. And so I said, well, OK. Not as risky as going off and doing my own – and it was clear that ultimately, what I wanted was to do my own. So it was kind of not as much of a startup that I was looking for.
Peter McKay: And then ultimately, I went to a company called eCredit, which was right at the dot-com and, you know, all about credit decisioning – automated credit decisioning. And it was, like, right place, right time – took off. And this company, Internet Capital Group, came in and kind of really, you know, bought a majority of that company out. And so, did it for a little while, stayed there for a little while and then left, and then took some time off – 9/11 happened – and then I ultimately went into a company called Watchfire, which was application security. That’s kind of how I started in the security space. Great company, great culture, great team, really good opportunity. I’m friends with all these people today. That was acquired by IBM. So you and I missed each other just by a little – a few months, both coming in around the same time. And, you know, stayed there for my, you know, one year and a day experience – was enough for me. And then went to a company – took a little time, and then went to a company called Desktone.
Marc Van Zadelhoff: By the way, I heard from a mutual friend that you’re – when you’re at IBM – I heard a couple of interesting stories about your one year at IBM. But the one that I thought was interesting and very complimentary was that on your last day, this mutual friend was making sure that you turn in your computer and your badge and everything. And he mentioned that you were, to the last minute, still on sales calls, pushing this – the Watchfire and now part of – then part of IBM sales team to close deals, add more services revenue on to the proposal. You were in it until the last minute.
Peter McKay: I mean, it was a good fit for Watchfire and it was good for the team. And IBM did a really good job of taking care of the people that came in to – from Watchfire. And, you know, it was just as much of loyalty to IBM as it was, you know, obviously, loyalty to the team that was with Watchfire for many years. So I don’t think you would do it any different. I don’t think anybody would do it – I mean, I hope. You want to leave with a good impression. Like, the people at IBM said, that was a good company, a good leadership team and they did it right. That was important. That was important to me.
Marc Van Zadelhoff: As you said, I inherited that team as we were building IBM Security. And eventually, that became IBM Security AppScan, was the name of the product that Watchfire brought over. And I can tell you, it was many, many multiples in revenue of where it was when you sold the company. So I think it was a good deal for everybody.
Peter McKay: It was. In the back of my mind, though, I knew that I kind of felt we could have gone longer in Watchfire. I think people deeded that. And so it was the right thing for Watchfire. But what I wanted next was to come in at a company that was where Watchfire is when IBM bought. So that was still sticking in my mind like a little unfinished business for me, career-wise.
Marc Van Zadelhoff: Yeah. Yeah, for sure. For sure. I mean, Snyk is a continuation of solving that problem actually, right? We’ll go – pace quickly. You became CEO of Desktone and – I think with a couple of your Watchfire colleagues, but I’m sure a bunch of new ones, and ended up selling that company to VMware.
Peter McKay: Yeah, I moved into VMware. I said – I started in the mailroom at VMware. You know, it was kind of like this group within end user computing. So it was kind of like, you know, end user computing was a little bit of the black sheep of VMware because they had vSphere and they had, you know, NSX and all these different – and then there was this end user computing. And then there’s this Desktone within end user computing. So, you know, I had to kind of build a whole brand in Desktone, but also myself within VMware, and worked my way up through that organization to become the general manager of the Americas business. So, you know, I don’t know. Desktone was, you know, under 50 million. And next thing I’m running a $5 billion business for VMware in like two years.
Peter McKay: So it was a great experience. I had a ton of fun, wasn’t ultimately what I wanted to do long term. And then VMware was very Palo Alto-centric, so I knew that I didn’t want to go to Palo Alto. And I didn’t want – so I knew it was at some point I wanted to go do something. And that’s when I stepped into Veeam. That was kind of a mid-stage company in the back of a recovery. So really stepped into a company that was kind of ripe for acceleration. And I think we started in, you know, sub $400 million range. I think we ended at about just under a billion. So good three-year journey, learned a lot. A lot of the team, you know, was kind of a mixture of kind of the Watchfire, Desktone kind of team, VMware team, kind of a lot of people we knew and we didn’t all coming together to make that experience. And that was – learned a ton. I look back as a great learning experience.
Marc Van Zadelhoff: It was a publicly listed company or…
Peter McKay: No.
Marc Van Zadelhoff: Oh, it wasn’t. OK. Got it.
Peter McKay: Private by, you know, the two founders who’ve been part of that journey since the beginning. Three years was enough for me. And so I needed a break. And I was running really straight from Watchfire to IBM to Desktone to VMware to Veeam. I was pretty beat. I was pretty exhausted, ended up doing an Ironman in between, kind of – I said, I need to get a distraction from getting another job. So I ended up, you know, signing up for Lake Placid Ironman. I did that one. And then I then my wife said, you know, you that’s the last time you’re going to do that.
Peter McKay: And so that’s when I started having conversations with the founder of Snyk. And, you know, he was my CTO at Watchfire. And we were always friends from that point on. And he said, come on. You got to come in. You got to come in. You got to come in. I said, I am not coming in. I am not doing that. Go find someone else. And then, you know, I – that whole Watchfire to IBM kind of – it’s where I had the most fun. You know, if I think about when did I have the best time in my career, it was Watchfire. And I said, let’s go do that again.
Marc Van Zadelhoff: So before we go to Snyk, again, another mutual friend said that you once said that early in your trajectory that you thought that big companies spend time blaming people when there’s a problem, and small companies get into a conference room, order pizza and figure out how to solve it. And that was maybe early in your journey that you made that statement. But then since then, you were at VMware. And Veeam is not a small company. As you said, that’s – it’s bigger than, you know, what a Watchfire or Desktone would have been. Looking back to all those experiences, small company, big company, do you think that that’s the case? Big companies blame and small companies solve?
Peter McKay: I don’t know if it’s the blame per se as it is there’s a lot of people who can say no and not as many people who can say yes. It’s risky to say yes. And I think the reason I went – I moved so fast at VMware was I wasn’t worried about losing my job. Like, I said yes to things. I took chances. I took risks. And they needed to change. And I was this change agent inside of the big company that not a lot of people do. And it wasn’t because I was so good at what I did. I was just someone who was willing to take chances and make tough decisions when not a lot of people were doing it at the time. They needed to disrupt. It was a single product, needed to be a multi-product. It needed to change its approach. And, you know, I was like this glass of water to someone coming through a desert with like, no, go ahead, you can do this. Try it. Let’s see what we can do. I think it can happen, but it’s really a mindset shift that has to happen in the big companies that allows people – it gives them permission to make mistakes and not worry about their jobs if they do.
Marc Van Zadelhoff: But I think maybe part of that is having had the experiences outside and knowing there are other options out there for you if – should you fail, right? And I think that’s what I noticed when I was at the big company myself was a lot of people had grown up there. And they are quite conservative because that’s their world. Whereas if you’ve had some other experiences and then go to the big company, you may take those risks that end up being that entrepreneurialism that they need because you kind of have a perspective.
Peter McKay: Yeah. It’s not for everybody, right? I mean, the whole, you know, start up, small company, you got to be a little bit more of a risk taker. And you got to be OK with not everything is kind of buttoned down. And you got to be able to be scrappy and creative and curious. That maybe is different than a bigger company.
Marc Van Zadelhoff: Awesome. OK. cool. So Snyk, us about Snyk and how you met the founder. They wanted you to come over, but it wasn’t the same team that founded Watchfire, I don’t think. Or was it?
Peter McKay: No, no, it was not. It was a – I mean, people from – the founder of Snyk was the CTO at Watchfire. I was one of the first investors in Snyk. I became the first adviser. Then I became the first board member. So I’ve been on the journey all along. I knew Guy really well and then the team over the years. And they did well. And it was just kind of scaling. And it was, OK, how do I do this? And he said, can you come in for a day, a month? And then it became a day a week. And next thing you know, I’m like signing up to run the thing. And I’m like, how did I get here? This is not what I thought I was going to be. But it’s been great. I mean, we’ve been a very collaborative partnership. And it’s not easy coming in as CEO when the previous CEO was the founder. I’ve done it many times. You can’t have these huge egos that it’s all about one or the other. It’s about all of us and what’s right for the company. And if it means I got to take a little bit of a back seat so that person can get more limelight and visibility, that’s OK. It’s whatever’s right for the company. And that’s what we did.
Marc Van Zadelhoff: That’s amazing. On a product level – and I can, by the way, relate to that in this role here as well. Some amazing founders here, and we’ve shared the limelight and figured out how to navigate that. At a product level, Watchfire, Veracode and a lot of players were preceding Snyk. What do you – you guys are growing, like, crazy rates, tons of money, huge valuation – $8.6 billion I think was your last valuation according to the press – 1,300 employees. So just all the stats are amazing, but it comes down to the product, right? What does that product do that the other guys before you weren’t doing?
Peter McKay: Yeah. I think this is the genius of the founders is that they recognize that there’s a fundamental shift in the way application security needs to be done. These were all tools. The tools you mentioned were tools for security people, right? They were built – security tools for security people. The users were security people, which is this small group of people at the very end of the process that would review an application, find all the problems and throw it back to developers. And the view from the beginning was that’s way too late, and that’s not scalable. With the pace of application development today and the number of developers versus security people, we’re getting way out of whack. So you had to flip it upside down. What if we shifted security to be built into the developer process? And so as the developers are building the apps, you’re testing to make sure they’re secure.
Peter McKay: So think like a Word document. You type in a Word document, spell check, grammar check. It highlights the problem and how to fix it and built into the application. And that’s what we’ve done. We’ve done that through open-source security, container security, infrastructures, code, cloud security, all built into the software development lifecycle. So it’s like, why would you wait till the end of the process when you’re about to go into production or in production to find a security issue? Why wouldn’t you find it at point of creation? And so it was this completely different view of how this market is being done. And we’re dramatically changing how application security is done. And that’s why we’ve been as successful as we’ve been.
Marc Van Zadelhoff: Is it product led? Do people try it, buy it that way? Or is it still kind of more of an enterprise sale?
Peter McKay: Because the users are developers – like, our users are developers. You know, a lot of times, the buyers are security, but the users are developers. You have to have this. And this is what we started in 2015 with this developer community, free content, free tools. Then we had a freemium. All of our products have a freemium version. Then once they like it and they want to use it on a paid version – and we started actually selling in 2015, 2017, and it’s gone from there. It was very much a bottom-led, PLG motion that nobody has ever done in security, right? I mean, it’s done for tools and security – developer tools but not for security.
Peter McKay: So that’s what we’ve done – we did. We developed this massive inbound, which is 55% of our leads today come in through this inbound motion. And then we have this top-down motion that goes in through security that expands and kind of bills that across the organization. So developers don’t even have to talk to a person. I can try it. I can buy it without talking to a human. And that’s what we needed. That was a big part of, you know, kind of changing your go-to market to the way your users wanted to buy. And that’s what we did.
Marc Van Zadelhoff: That’s awesome. And any hiccups along the way? You’ve been – has it been a straight shot since you got there? Any moments where it was like, gulp, you know, we got some stuff to…
Peter McKay: I think – I don’t know gulp’s not – I’d say, yeah, a fair amount of mistakes made over the over the years. Yeah. I mean, you’re moving incredibly fast. You’re growing 150% year over year. You make – you know, you’re hiring a lot of people. I mean, you don’t get them all right. You know, you don’t get all your decisions right. I mean, we made some things that I would definitely take back, but we made a hell of a lot more right than we did wrong. And when we made a wrong decision, you know, we’d call each other out. Like, look it; we made a mistake. Let’s move on, and let’s figure it out. Well, let’s not make it again and make sure that we acknowledge it and move on. And that’s been our culture. Like, not everything’s going to be work. Not every decision was the right one, but it was based on the data you have at a particular point in time, and it’s OK to make mistakes.
Marc Van Zadelhoff: Yeah, I can relate to that very much for sure. So you guys hired a lot of people, so maybe just a couple topics to dive into in this journey and maybe more philosophically in your various journeys. Hiring – you must have a philosophy on hiring because you’ve had to do so much of it, and some of it comes through a network. But how do you navigate that beast?
Peter McKay: It’s really hard, and I can’t encourage people – it’s probably the most important process you need to get right in the company is make sure you bring the right people in. So not only are they really experienced and they’re really good at their role, but it’s critical that they’re a good culture fit into the company. So we always had this humble and smart kind of mentality, you know, no egos. I mean, confidence, yes; egos, no – you know, getting really people who can work as a team. And we got our core values as a company that we make sure that in every interview, there’s someone focused – at least one person focused on purely culture fit. We’ve done a really good job.
Peter McKay: I was worried that we were going to lose this amazing culture we had as a company through COVID, you know, and that we were hiring people and new people were hiring new people that hired new people. And I’m like, how are we going to keep this culture? And, you know, I think what happened was most of the people came to Snyk because of the culture and the opportunity. And so they have vested interest in making sure that the reason they came here was the culture. So I’m part owner of making sure it stays that way or gets better. And so that was it. It’s not the CEO owns culture. It’s everybody owns culture. You come here, you want to be in a place you can do your best work, and you can have fun, and you could meet some really good people, no jerks. And that’s what you want. OK, it’s not just my job; it’s all of our job to make sure that we have that type of person in the company, and we keep our culture. And that’s why it’s gotten better and better as we’ve grown.
Marc Van Zadelhoff: That’s awesome. The no jerks is something that’s come up in many of these discussions with CEOs. And – but to your point on the pandemic, but there’s also been this social, we’re in the middle of a war, economic situation, you know? Are you doing anything different in the last six months or last two years in your leadership style and your tactical – tactics around leadership, given everything happening in the world?
Peter McKay: I think this market condition is different than COVID. And, you know, COVID helped – you know, was, in some cases – you know, it was a little bit of a pause. But for a lot of software companies, it was an accelerant – right? – the shift to the cloud and more application development and acceleration of digital transformation. So for us and others, it was a tailwind. I mean, this is different. You know, it’s not like COVID was, like, a black swan event. There’s, like, five black swan events all going on at the same time.
Peter McKay: I always say do things to build up the trust and the loyalty in the good times that’ll get you through the hard times. And we’re going through a hard time. I mean, this is going to be a challenging period of time that’s not going to be over anytime soon. And so it’s going to require leaders and teams to be resilient and to not get – you know, don’t get too high, don’t get too low. Let’s kind of work our way through this. You know, we’re going to have to make some tough decisions. We’re not going to be able to solve problems by adding people. I mean, we’ve got to be more creative in how we build and scale a business. And the conditions are harder than they ever were.
Peter McKay: And so it’s like – I always say, the sign of a good team is not when things are great; it’s how you can persevere through hard times and come out better on the other end of this. And that’s the challenge for leadership. I mean, it’s easy being a leader in good times. It’s really freaking hard to be a good leader in tough times. And it’s ‘cause you got to say no to a lot. And nobody – it’s a hard job and thankless job in a lot of cases that – but if you have a good leadership team and a good culture, they understand. And you built the trust. They know you’re not doing it for anything other than what’s the best interest of the company.
Marc Van Zadelhoff: Yeah. Oh, you mentioned Lencioni, and I love «The Five Dysfunctions of a Team,» right? And I’m sure you’ve read that, as well. And in bad times, those dysfunctions tend to bubble up if you haven’t taken care of it beforehand.
Peter McKay: It is a great point because I think, I would say, many companies are going through this, right? I always use this – you know, high tide. In good times, the water level is high. In bad times, the water level starts dropping, and the rocks underneath start showing. And it’s normal. I mean, it’s normal in a bad time. It’s how your company handles those issues. Did they start pointing fingers? Did they start panicking? Do they start – you know, the frustrations come in. It’s how they handle those rocks that now appear that they didn’t have for many years before is the sign of a good team and a not-so-good team, you know, because they’re all coming. They’re all there, and every company has them. It’s how well the team keeps together through those – you know, that period is the sign of a good team.
Marc Van Zadelhoff: Cool. So two things maybe to round us out, Peter. It has been awesome to catch up. And one is I think you guys are – by the time this announces, we’ll have done the 1% pledge. So I thought it would be good to kind of talk about that and how you see that playing out at Snyk.
Peter McKay: Yeah. Yeah. It’s a big week next week all around the 1% pledge. And, you know, this is – I know Salesforce and other companies kind of started this a long time ago, which is really giving back to the community. And I think what we found at Snyk is when we’ve been doing what we call Snyk impact for many, many years, you can be successful and do the right thing at the same time. It doesn’t have to be one or the other – investing in the community, giving 1% of your shares, 1% of people’s time. A lot of that – there’s a whole ecosystem around this 1% pledge that I and many other companies have done.
Peter McKay: And you do it now where, you know, your stock’s kind of at a reasonable level. And as it goes and as you go public, that becomes a very significant amount of money that you can use to invest in your community, invest in – you know, whether it’s environment, social, every kind of cause that your company believes in around the world, is a very important part for us to make sure that that’s part of our culture as we grow. And so – very proud of it. The team is very proud of what we’ve been able to do. And we’re still in the early innings of what we want to get accomplished there with our 1% pledge. But you’ll hear a lot more coming up in the next few weeks.
Marc Van Zadelhoff: Awesome. OK, Peter, so final question – where are we going to see Snyk and yourself in the next five years?
Peter McKay: We’ve got 2,500 customers today. We should have – you know, if you look at like a Twilio or Atlassian, they have 200-plus-thousand customers. So we’re very early innings of this developer security motion. That’s what we consider our category to be. And so we’ve always viewed, at some point, we’d be a public company. That’s been kind of how we’ve been running as an organization. And we feel as though we’ve done – we’ve got an amazing team, amazing board of directors and amazing people all around the world. So we think there’s a lot more we need to do in this developer security space. And, you know, there’s 34 million developers around the world. We want to get as many of them as we can, as fast as we can. And that’s our quest. If we were able to, either free or paid, enabled all 34 million developers to use Snyk, the digital world would be a much safer place. And that’s been our passion at Snyk from Day 1.
Marc Van Zadelhoff: Awesome. Well, Devo is a happy customer of Snyk, and so we appreciate what you guys do. The spell-checker of application security is at work here at Devo and helping us a lot. Peter, thank you so much for joining us on «Cyber CEOs Decoded.»
Peter McKay: Thank you very much, Marc, for having me.
Marc Van Zadelhoff: And thanks to our audience for listening today. Be sure to join us for the next episode of «Cyber CEOs Decoded.»