Silicon Valley Entrepreneurship: Flying Tower founder Xie lead the global network security industry

Flying Tower founder Xie (middle) received Sina Technology interview Zheng from the United States Silicon Valley 1.95-meter Xie (Ken Xie) No matter where the focus, he also maintained the Silicon Valley Chinese circle of several heights.　　NetScreen, a cyber-security firm founded by friends, sold $4.1 billion to industry giant Juniper in 2004, and is still the highest valuation of Chinese overseas start-up companies.　　The Fortinet (Flying Tower), which he founded, has innovated the hardware security protection products of UTM (United Gateway), created a leading company in the network security market, and became a dazzling star in the Silicon Valley technology circle at the time of the worst of the 2009 financial crisis. But the Silicon Valley Chinese circle most dazzling star is quite approachable, the face always hangs the honest smile, the voice is deep and low.　　Due to the huge height of the gap, surrounded by the pressure to avoid the other side, Xie sit down and always intend to bow down, narrowing the height gap with the interlocutor. Xie's entrepreneurial story began in Tsinghua Garden, here is his home forever. Before the age of 27, Xie's life had been related to Tsinghua University. As the son of Tsinghua teacher, Shi Qingshen in Tsinghua Garden, long in Tsinghua Garden, from elementary school to Master's, he hardly ever left here.　　Xie's parents all work in Tsinghua, so he and his brother named Xie and Xie. By virtue of the innate advantages of sports talent, Xie once in Beijing in the late-summer sports school practiced 8 years of volleyball, almost become professional volleyball players. Due to the influence of parents, Xie to the sports career began to study wholeheartedly.　　Xie Xie, with a wide range of interests, showed a strong passion for technology, and it was his greatest pleasure to dismantle the radio and tinker with it. Xie is a leader since childhood. In 1981, he enrolled in the radio major at Tsinghua University and turned his interest into a professional and lifelong pursuit.　　Senior, he by virtue of "flight Information Tracking System" won the Science and Technology Innovation Award, and walked the department to graduate, 1989, and received a master's degree in Tsinghua. Looking for a dream in 1990, Xie, 27, said goodbye to Tsinghua and Beijing, and sailed across the Pacific to the United States to begin his own dream-seeking journey. According to his parents, Xie wanted to have a Ph. D. In the United States before returning to teach.　　But he didn't think his dream would be so wonderful. After arriving in Silicon Valley in 92 to attend Stanford University, Xie felt his vision suddenly enlightened. The Silicon Valley is the Global Innovation Center, grasps the technology profession the heartbeat pulse.　　And the open atmosphere of Stanford University encourages students to start a business and to pursue their high-tech dreams. During his 5 years at Stanford, Xie almost worked as a student while earning money to start a business.　　And at that time, many Chinese students in the restaurant after the departure of the Xie, the mind is always working for technology companies, in addition to the rich income, but also accumulated a lot of valuable knowledge for the future to lay a solid foundation for entrepreneurship. Tsinghua and Stanford are Xie's two alma mater. If Tsinghua is his family and home, thatTanfu is his temple. He initially applied for a school break and ended up giving up his ph. D. In order to start a business.　　But in Xie's words, Stanford has had the most crucial impact on his life. In the early 90, Xie saw a hidden opportunity in the emerging cyber-security market, and his three startups were focused on the field.　　At Stanford, he and several friends started a company called Stanford Infosystem, which installed the firewall software they designed for Silicon Valley technology companies and provided consulting services. Xie's first venture was almost stones. They do not know how to pull investment, also do not know how to manage the division of labor, but with their own youth and technology in almost no yellow skin Silicon Valley scientific and technological sector to fight, so entrepreneurial failure is also understandable.　　But when it comes to first-time entrepreneurship failure, Xie some honest smile, said, "Although the end of no results, but this venture to earn money to buy a house." A lot of Chinese legends in Silicon Valley Chinese engineers will not forget a company: NetScreen.　　The powerful Chinese-speaking cyber-security company used to be a banner for Chinese in Silicon Valley, not only for most Chinese employees but also for working languages in Chinese. The legendary company was founded by three Tsinghua graduates: Xie, Deng and Koering.　　One day in 1996, Xie in the basketball court, also in the Silicon Valley as an engineer alumni Deng and Ke Yan, talking about the idea of hardware firewall, found encounter, then decided to start a joint venture. At the time, Xie was a security officer at a company, and Deng and Koering were well-paid engineers at Intel (Weibo) and Cisco. It should be said that their lives are easy and comfortable, entrepreneurship is entirely out of dreams.　　Among the three, Xie is a security expert, Deng is a chip veteran, Koering is a software master; The trio did not give up their jobs at first, but part-time businesses in their spare time. In addition to 40 hours of work a week, they took out 40 hours a week to start netscreen, almost entirely sacrificing their personal life and rest time.　　Only a year later, Xie they have worked hard to come up with the product, gaining market recognition. In 1997, NetScreen was formally registered, three people resigned their job wholeheartedly into the new company operation. At that time, Silicon Valley had few Chinese success stories, and investors did not believe the Chinese could succeed in the US.　　Xie They are looking for skepticism when they pull the investment, and finally just from the Chinese in Hong Kong and Taiwan to the angel investment. However, with the popularity of chip firewall products, NetScreen's performance is also significantly increased, Silicon Valley VCs have finally begun to focus on this group of small companies of Chinese students.　　The famous VC Sequoia Capital Uninvited, a large investment in exchange for NetScreen largest shareholder position. Quietly quit if there is no VC, maybe Xie will not choose to leave NETSCREen, there will be no future flying towers.　　When it comes to the relationship between investors and entrepreneurs, Xie admits that VCs have their own exit plans and entrepreneurs want to build a company that has long been successful: if the two are the same, it's the company's blessing, but if the two sides are different, there may be a compromise. Sequoia Wind into the main, for NetScreen arranged a rich operating experience of professional managers as CEO.　　However, Xie found himself on the future of NetScreen and venture capitalists have a great disagreement, he put antivirus function into the chip plan also met the new CEO's veto. In the 1999, Xie quietly faded out of the company's day-to-day operations, in the network technology in the background of the big hot to become investors. His departure did not have a huge impact on NetScreen, and he was one of the company's main shareholders. NetScreen in Deng and Ke strict care, continue to hand over the remarkable report card.　　After the dotcom bust slowly recovered in 2001, NetScreen to withstand the pressure of a successful listing. In 2004, cyber-security giant juniper $4.1 billion to buy NetScreen, the highest value company that Chinese students have founded in Silicon Valley overseas.　　Although at this time the Xie has long been away from NetScreen specific operation, but he or Deng and other people to become a Chinese entrepreneurial legend. Now on the Internet to search NetScreen posts, but also see the Chinese engineers to the company's memory.　　NetScreen has brought great success and wealth to Xie, but it has also made him feel the pain of losing his grip on the entrepreneur, prompting him to work harder to build a third start-up company. On the road again, the 2000 US network stocks technology burst, the Nasdaq index fell sharply, Xie investment suffered heavy losses.　　He had to end his short investment career, calmly reflect on his hasty actions, and decide to join his best cyber-security business and start his third venture. At the end of 2000, Xie set up a new company flying Tower, brother Xie as technical director.　　He hopes to create a completely according to their own ideas of the security products, the firewall, antivirus and active filtering virus to add the function of the chip to achieve real network security protection, this is the later UTM (joint gateway). With the experience of NetScreen and VCs, Xie is very cautious in the process of financing the tower, and he does not want to focus on the long-term build of the company as a tool for quick success of the venture.　　So the tower did not find any VCs at first, and Xie and partners only looked for the visionary and patient angel investors, and set limits on the amount invested. The tower initially has more than 100 investors, greatly reducing the risk of investor holding, Xie and other entrepreneurs can release their intent to launch a new generation of security products, to create a truly great company.　　The flying tower has been branded Xie from beginning to end. UTM father Xie Focus on networkWith 20 years in the field, he is confident in the future of this hardware security product.　　Before him, no one had successfully used the hardware in the field of network security, nor had the firewall, anti-virus software and active security monitoring integrated into a security chip.　　Compared with the traditional firewall technology and the user's local anti-virus software, the advantage of UTM is to use the ASIC technology to protect the external chip, so it will not affect the user's local operation performance like the traditional software, but also can actively carry on the external environment security monitoring.　　Xie commonly explained that the traditional anti-virus software is like to give users to eat cold medicine, there is a virus invasion and then antivirus, and UTM is equivalent in the airport to intercept fever patients, to eliminate the source of virus sources, and then give users spare masks and drugs, so that users completely safe. Flying Tower has created a new technology field UTM, has been leading the market for many years. UTM is already the largest market in the field of cyber security, with annual sales of more than 2 billion dollars.　　IDG's data show that UTM in the field of network security market share than the traditional firewall, its composite annual growth rate (CAGR) is up to 26%. Xie another success, in hand Deng to create NetScreen legend, he also by virtue of UTM technology in the world's network security technology forefront.　　Last April, the United States IT Security magazine, "Info Secure" published a cover article, Xie called "The father of UTM technology", highly praised Xie is a minority of the world's industrial pattern has a significant impact on the Chinese people. Against the backdrop of the global financial crisis in November 2009, the tower became the first Silicon Valley technology company to be listed in two years.　　Although the U.S. economy plunged into a severe recession, but the performance of the tower is steadily increasing, they have become the network security market and even Silicon Valley's most dazzling star. It is precisely because of the solid fundamentals, Xie to dare to reverse the market offerings. They also drew on the underwriting of three Wall Street's most prominent banks, Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan Chase and Deutsche Bank.　　Xie said the tower's listing plan had been enacted long before the financial crisis and would not change because of the crisis. November 18, the tower in the Nasdaq-listed trading (code: FTNT), the first day close more than the issue price rose 33%, the Nasdaq for several months to show the most bright-eyed stocks.　　The performance of the Flying Tower to Wall Street for the applause, Xie nine years of efforts to grind a sword finally recognized. Speaking of Chinese Silicon Valley entrepreneurship, Xie said that the cultural and linguistic differences are an important gateway to Chinese entrepreneurship overseas. To be truly successful, you have to develop your vision and plan your company's long-term development in a global perspective. His flying tower business covers the world, with more than 1000 employees in the United States, China, Canada, France and many other countries.　　The United States is the headquarters of the Flying Tower, Europe is the largest market for the tower, and China is the future growth of the tower of gravity. Huayuan President Silicon Valley major technology companies have a lot of Chinese engineers, but Chinese entrepreneurs reallySuccess is not much, flying tower is undoubtedly a benchmark, Xie is one of the leading figures in the Silicon Valley Chinese circle.　　In 2012, Xie became president of the largest Chinese entrepreneur Association of China. Huayuan is a group of Chinese in Silicon Valley founded in 2001, intended to build a bridge between the Chinese and American science and technology industries. They are "Beijing people in New York," The real prototype: Chinese students to study in the United States, after graduation came to Silicon Valley High-tech companies as technical positions, and then in the entrepreneurial tide in succession to create their own career.　　These people have changed the attitude of the American technology industry to the Chinese people, is the pillar of the Silicon Valley Chinese circle. At this time, with the rapid growth of China's economy, the technology industry has also been a huge development, and Silicon Valley's entrepreneurial innovation gap is also slowly narrowing, many to the United States to study in Silicon Valley to work in China's science and technology talent have chosen to return to business.　　Huayuan Center also from the initial focus on the United States the latest technology and wind investment introduced to the domestic, and gradually transformed into the Chinese and American technology industry exchanges channels. To the country 20, the heart of Tsinghua Garden. At the heart of Xie, Tsinghua and Beijing have always been their home. The rise of China's economy has raised the status of Chinese in the United States, and Xie hopes that through Huayuan China and the US will be able to exchange more and more scientific talents and investment funds, so that Huayuan will expand from Silicon Valley to Beijing and Shanghai to make its contribution to China's science and technology industry.