Kathmandu. Nikesh Arora’s name was also at the top when the Wall Street Journal released the list of the highest-paid CEOs. He is the CEO of cybersecurity company Palo Alto Networks.
Arora came in second with a salary of $151.43 million. His earnings are much higher than Meta Platform CEO Mark Zuckerberg ($24.4 million) and Google’s Sundar Pichai ($88).
There is a story behind Aurora’s success. It’s a story of hard work, rejection and simple starts to rising to heights in the world’s largest tech industry.
In a conversation with Humans of Bombay, Arora opened up about his life. He spoke about how he started from an ordinary family in Ghaziabad and became the CEO of one of the world’s largest cyber security companies.
Arora was born in Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh. His father was in the Indian Air Force. So his family was disciplined. His father continued to be transferred. Therefore, Arora had a habit of living in different places since childhood. It filled him with qualities such as adapting to change and honesty. He studied at The Air Force School. He then did engineering from IIT-BHU.
Arora’s family’s financial condition was not good. Nevertheless, he decided to go to the United States for further studies. In 1990, he had only $100 for Rs 1,700. He applied to universities to waive the application fee.
Northeastern University in Boston gave Arora the opportunity to come to the United States in 1990 on a free application. He also had the opportunity to study computer science.
After graduation, Arora faced a very difficult phase. He was denied a job by more than 400 companies. He reserved every rejection letter. He used them as inspiration.
Arora got a job at Fidelity Investment in 1992. He started with entry-level positions. He then became Vice President in Fidelity Technology. Later he also received an MS in Finance and CFA certificates. This increased his career options. While teaching the CFA course, he got a job opportunity at Google.
Arora joined Google in 2004. This is just a few months after Google’s IPO. Over the next 10 years, he helped increase Google’s revenue from $2 billion to $60 billion. Arora described it as a rocket ship.
Arora left Google in 2014 in search of a new challenge. He found this challenge at SoftBank. There he served as president and COO. He learned a lot there. He learned when to stay away from bad investments. Keeping this in mind, he did not invest in Wework.
Arora left SoftBank in 2016. Because CEO Masayoshi Sun had postponed his retirement.
In 2018, Arora Palo alto became ceo of Networks. At the time, the company was valued at $18 billion. Under his leadership, the company has reached more than $100 billion. He focused on cloud security and artificial intelligence. Arora says, “I was an early adopter of these technologies. ’
Arora acquired or partnered with companies that could not grow internally. He focused on innovation. This helped Palo Alto Networks to stay ahead in the field of cyber security. – Agency
