ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Though only my name appears on the cover, this book was the ultimate team effort. (As I always say, “You win as a team!”) Thank you to everyone on the immediate and extended team for all your help, support, and guidance every step of the way.

Thank you first to my amazing wife, Sara, for encouraging me throughout my entrepreneurial journey, especially during the darker days and months. To my three wonderful children, Nico, Zoe, and Charlie, for keeping me grounded and honest. To my sister, Juliana, and brother, Marc, for putting up with my entrepreneurial antics from a young age. And to my parents, Sandra and Jacques, the best role models any child could want, who gave me endless opportunities and without whom none of this would have been possible.

Thank you to the personal and professional mentors who nurtured me along the way. Doug Flanzer and Saul Kato, two of my oldest and dearest friends, took me under their wings when I was a wayward undergraduate and taught me about self-determination, responsibility, and hard work. My cousin Adrien Laugier-Werth always models the importance of a positive outlook, a growth mindset, and a deep sense of family and humanity. Roger Goulart is the best manager I ever had, and he showed me what true leadership looks like.

The dozen-plus professional years that preceded the creation of Okta helped me grow as a leader and laid the groundwork for what we’ve been able to achieve since. Thank you to Benton Moyer, who introduced me (with the necessary dose of humor) to the school of hard knocks in South America. Eric Eyken-Sluyters, Jim Steele, and Frank van Veenendaal showed me what excellent corporate leadership looks like during rapid growth, and at scale. The entire MIT ecosystem—led by President Emerita Susan Hockfield, MIT Sloan School of Management Dean David Schmittlein, MIT Sloan Associate Dean Kathy Hawkes, MIT Sloan Assistant Dean of Admissions Rod Garcia, Professor Ed Roberts, Managing Director of the Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship Bill Aulet, MIT Sloan Associate Dean for Innovation and Inclusion Fiona Murray, Professor Antoinette Schoar, Ken Morse, Jennifer Burke Barba, Howard Anderson, Shari Loessberg, Peter Kurzina, and Scott Alessandro—welcomed me with open arms and professionalized my entrepreneurial inclinations. Lars Leckie, Mark Gorenberg, John Hummer, Ann Winblad, Mitchell Kertzman, and the HWVP (now Aspenwood Ventures) team gave me my first peek behind the VC curtain.

I’ll never be able to adequately express my gratitude to Todd McKinnon for taking a flyer on me when he was looking for a cofounder back in 2009. Thank you, Todd, for teaching me so much about leadership, partnership, and building for the long term. To say that Okta has had a major impact on both my personal and professional lives would be an understatement! Thank you also to my friend Charlie Dietrich, who served as a strong mutual reference while Todd and I were “founder dating,” and to my friend Alex Asseily, who set off down the entrepreneurial path ahead of me and who always had time to lend an ear while also, with his Jawbone cofounder Hosain Rahman, providing a literal roof over our heads when Todd and I were first starting out.

Ben Horowitz, Marc Andreessen, and Scott Kupor at Andreessen Horowitz took a bet on us when we were just two guys with an idea and a really bad pitch deck. They not only stuck with us when the going got really rough but readily called in experts like Margit Wennmachers, John O’Farrell, Mark Cranney, and Jeff Stump to help us solve some of our biggest challenges. Pat Grady, Doug Leone, Jim Goetz, Carl Eschenbach, Roelof Botha, Matt Miller, and Sequoia Capital—the most well-prepared venture firm I’ve ever met—brought endless expertise and perspective to help us accelerate our vision. Aneel Bhusri, Asheem Chandna, Reid Hoffman, Sarah Guo, Jeff Markowitz, Tom Frangione, and Greylock Partners generously shared their experience and network. Ron Conway, Scott Jordon, Vinod Khosla, Mike Maples, Steve Marcus, Ann Miura-Ko, Maynard Webb, and David Weiden are foremost among the early-stage investors who channeled their hard-earned wisdom our way.

Thanks to Ed Haddon, Hassan Shabber, and Dr. Bruce Victor for helping me keep my mental, physical, and emotional health in balance over the past decade, and for helping me grow, both as a person and a leader. Thanks also to my amazing executive assistant and longtime business partner, Jessica Martinez, who is the key to my getting anything done.

Thank you to the generation of entrepreneurs ahead of us, who always had time to share advice and feedback, including Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah of HubSpot, David Schneider of ServiceNow, and Tien Tzuo of Zuora. Thanks to the members of Okta’s board of directors, both past and present, for the guidance and direction over the years: Shellye Archambeau, Aneel Bhusri, Robert Dixon, Jeff Epstein, Pat Grady, Ben Horowitz, Mike Kourey, Becky Saeger, Mike Stankey, and Michelle Wilson. I’ve been lucky to count on invaluable advisors, including Byron Deeter of Bessemer Venture Partners, Saar Gur of CRV, Enrique Salem of Bain Capital Ventures, former Frontier Communications CEO Maggie “Magic” Wilderotter, Rich Wong at Accel, and our longtime counsels from incorporation to this day—Anthony McCusker of Goodwin Procter and Sarah Axtell and Rick Kline of Latham Watkins.

Thanks to everyone who helped make this book a reality: my dear friend and partner in crime Josh Davis of Epic; Liza Boyd, who time and again took my jumbled thoughts and somehow made them sound cogent; the tireless Epic team, including Clark Miller, Kiana Moore, Josh Levine, Jon Steinberg, and Will Staehle; my literary agent, Jim Levine; my editor, Casey Ebro, and the team at McGraw Hill Professional; my friends and colleagues who took the time to read rough drafts and provide thoughtful feedback, including Ryan Carlson, Emily Chang, Charlie Dietrich, Avid Larizadeh Duggan, Mark Gorenberg, Lindsay Life, Mike Kourey, Dharmesh Shah, and Maynard Webb.

Many of the insights and stories in this book come from the entrepreneurs and investors who were kind enough to participate in the Zero to IPO podcast that preceded it: Marc Andreessen, Alex Asseily, Aneel Bhusri, Jeremy Bloom, Stewart Butterfield, Beth Comstock, Jasmine Crowe, Charlie Dietrich, Carl Eschenbach, Parker Harris, Julia Hartz, Ben Horowitz, Frederick Hutson, Andre Iguodala, Josh James, Aaron Levie, Fred Luddy, Patty McCord, Ann Miura-Ko, Melanie Perkins, Amy Pressman, Sebastian Thrun, Therese Tucker, Tien Tzuo, Maggie Wilderotter, and Eric Yuan. Thank you as well to Shellye Archambeau, Paul Arnold, Ilya Levtov, Mariam Naficy, Shashank Saxena, Alfredo Vaamonde, and Michelle Wilson who generously shared what they’ve learned from their many years in the trenches.

Thank you to everyone at The Operator Network (TheOperator Network.com), an angel investment group of public company executives I founded to help the next generation of entrepreneurs with operating advice alongside our personal capital. You inspire me, and I learn from you every day: Bradley Armstrong, Kristin Baker, Ryan Carlson, Charlie Dietrich, Mike Dinsdale, Avid Larizadeh Duggan, Stacey Epstein, Viviana Faga, Todd Ford, Tom Gonser, Roger Goulart, Alex Huff, Aaron Katz, Jacques Kerrest, Clark Lindsey, Bill Losch, Olivia Nottebohm, Jonathan Runyan, David Schellhase, David Schneider, Marty Vanderploeg, Dan Wright, and Kelly Wright.

Finally, thank you to every seasoned entrepreneur who takes the time to field calls from new founders. You are helping the next generation build a better tomorrow for all of us.