George Kurtz
George Kurtz, co-founder and CEO of CrowdStrike
BornMay 5, 1965
(age 57) [1]
New Jersey, U.S.[2]
Alma materSeton Hall University[3]
Occupation(s)President and CEO of CrowdStrike

George Kurtz (born May 5, 1965) is the co-founder and CEO of cybersecurity company CrowdStrike and an American racing driver. He was also the founder of Foundstone and chief technology officer of McAfee.[4]

Early life and education

Kurtz grew up in Parsippany-Troy Hills, New Jersey and attended Parsippany High School.[5][2] He claims that he started programming video games on his Commodore when he was in fourth grade. He went on to build bulletin board systems in high school.[3] He graduated from Seton Hall University with a degree in accounting.[2]

Career

Price Waterhouse and Foundstone

After college, Kurtz began his career at Price Waterhouse as a CPA. In 1993, Price Waterhouse made Kurtz one of its first employees in its new security group. In 1999, he co-wrote Hacking Exposed, a book about cybersecurity for network administrators, with Stuart McClure and Joel Scambray. The book sold more than 600,000 copies and was translated into more than 30 languages.[2][6] Later that year he started a cybersecurity company, Foundstone, one of the first dedicated security consulting companies. Foundstone focused on vulnerability management software and services and developed a well-recognized incident response practice, with much of the Fortune 100 among its customers.[7][8]

McAfee

McAfee acquired Foundstone for $86 million in August 2004, with Kurtz assuming the title of senior vice president and general manager of risk management at McAfee.[7][9] During his tenure, he helped craft the company's strategy for security risk management.[9] In October 2009, McAfee appointed him to the roles of worldwide chief technology officer and executive vice president.[10] In 2010, he participated in Operation Aurora, the investigation of a series of cyber attacks against Google and several other companies.[11] In 2011, he led McAfee's research around the emerging Night Dragon and Shady RAT threats, alongside McAfee's vice president of threat research Dmitri Alperovitch.[12][13]

Over time, Kurtz became frustrated that existing security technology functioned slowly and was not, as he perceived it, evolving at the pace of new threats.[14] On a flight, he watched the passenger seated next to him wait 15 minutes for McAfee software to load on his laptop, an incident he later cited as part of his inspiration for founding CrowdStrike.[15][2] He resigned from McAfee in October 2011.[13]

CrowdStrike

In November 2011, Kurtz joined private equity firm Warburg Pincus as an "entrepreneur-in-residence"[16][17] and began working on his next project, CrowdStrike. He, Gregg Marston (former chief financial officer at Foundstone), and Dmitri Alperovitch co-founded CrowdStrike in Irvine, California, formally announcing the company's launch in February 2012.[18][19] Kurtz pitched the idea for the company to Warburg Pincus and secured $25 million in funding.[3][20]

CrowdStrike shifted the focus from anti-malware and antivirus products (McAfee's approach to cybersecurity) to identifying the techniques used by hackers in order to spot incoming threats.[21][22] The company also developed a "cloud-first" model in order to reduce the software load on customers' computers.[21] CrowdStrike, now headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, attracted public interest in June 2016 for its role in investigating the Democratic National Committee cyber attacks,[15] and in May 2017, the company exceeded a valuation of $1 billion.[23] In 2019, CrowdStrike's $612 million initial public offering on the Nasdaq brought the company to a $6.6 billion valuation under Kurtz's leadership.[24][25] In July 2020, an IDC report named CrowdStrike as the fastest-growing endpoint security software vendor.[26]

Personal life

In his personal time, he is an avid exotic car collector and has driven Audi R8 LMS GT4 and Mercedes-AMG GT3[27] in the Pirelli World Challenge.[2][28] Previously, he raced in the Radical Cup and Sports Car Club of America endurance events.[29] He is currently driving for CrowdStrike Racing.

Racing record

Complete WeatherTech SportsCar Championship results

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position; results in italics indicate fastest lap)

Year Team Class Make Engine 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Pos. Points
2021 CORE Autosport LMP3 Ligier JS P320 Nissan VK56DE 5.6L V8 DAY
5†		 SEB
1		 MDO WGL
2		 WGL ELK PET
7		 11th 968
2022 CORE Autosport LMP3 Ligier JS P320 Nissan VK56DE 5.6 L V8 DAY
3†		 SEB
5		 MDO WGL
2		 MOS
 ELK
 PET
5		 17th 921
2023 CrowdStrike Racing by APR LMP2 Oreca 07 Gibson GK428 V8 DAY
2†		 SEB
5		 MON
3		 WGL
1		 ELK
7		 IMS
3		 PET
1		 2nd 1958
2024 CrowdStrike Racing by APR LMP2 Oreca 07 Gibson GK428 4.2 L V8 DAY SEB WGL MOS ELK IMS ATL
Source:[30]

† Points only counted towards the Michelin Endurance Cup, and not the overall LMP2 Championship.

† Points only counted towards the Michelin Endurance Cup, and not the overall LMP3 Championship.


24 Hours of Le Mans results

Year Team Co-Drivers Car Class Laps Pos. Class
Pos.
2023 Portugal Algarve Pro Racing Australia James Allen
United States Colin Braun		 Oreca 07 LMP2 322 20th 10th
LMP2 Pro-Am 1st
Source:[30]

References

  1. ↑ "WEATHERTECH SPORTSCAR CHAMPIONSHIP George Kurtz". Retrieved 20 February 2022.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Velloor, Ravi (10 September 2017). "In Good Company: CrowdStrike's George Kurtz is in a race against hackers". The Straits Times. Retrieved 15 November 2017.
  3. 1 2 3 Yakowicz, Will (September 2016). "When Wall Street and Washington Get Hacked, They Call This Guy". Inc. Retrieved 15 November 2017.
  4. ↑ "George Kurtz". CrowdStrike. Retrieved 15 November 2017.
  5. ↑ Westhoven, William. "Parsippany native leads charge against cyber attacks", Asbury Park Press, December 29, 2014. Accessed February 22, 2018. "A Parsippany native on the front lines of the global cyber wars says if you thought 2014 was wild, wait until 2015.... Kurtz, who spent much of his time in Parsippany fly fishing or playing for the Parsippany High School football team, started out as an accountant after graduating from Seton Hall University, after which he worked for firms such as Price Waterhouse."
  6. ↑ "Influencers - George Kurtz". SC Media. 22 August 2017. Retrieved 17 November 2017.
  7. 1 2 Fisher, Dennis (16 August 2004). "McAfee Buys Security Consulting Firm Foundstone". eWeek. Retrieved 15 November 2017.
  8. ↑ High, Peter (23 May 2017). "Security Advice From The CEO Of The World's Newest Unicorn - CrowdStrike". Forbes. Retrieved 17 November 2017.
  9. 1 2 McLaughlin, Kevin (18 October 2011). "McAfee Looking For New CTO After Kurtz Steps Down". CRN. Retrieved 17 November 2017.
  10. ↑ "McAfee Names George Kurtz EVP and CTO". Channel Times. 7 October 2009. Retrieved 15 November 2017.
  11. ↑ Jackson, William (1 September 2010). "How Google attacks changed the security game". GCN. Retrieved 14 December 2017.
  12. ↑ Raywood, Dan (10 February 2011). "McAfee CTO warns of new combined threat named 'Night Dragon'". SC Media UK. Retrieved 14 December 2017.
  13. 1 2 Finkle, Jim (18 October 2011). "McAfee loses high-profile researcher and CTO". Reuters. Retrieved 15 November 2017.
  14. ↑ Fox-Brewster, Thomas (6 July 2016). "Duelling Unicorns: CrowdStrike Vs. Cylance In Brutal Battle To Knock Hackers Out". Forbes. Retrieved 17 November 2017.
  15. 1 2 Marwan, Samar (11 July 2017). "CrowdStrike Helped Trace The DNC Hack To Russia -- Now Business Is Booming". Forbes. Retrieved 15 November 2017.
  16. ↑ "CrowdStrike IPO Seeks To Raise $100M, Reveals Strength Of Channel". CRN.
  17. ↑ "Stealth startup CrowdStrike wants to obliterate security threats, raises $26M". geekwire.com.
  18. ↑ "Ex-McAfee execs start security firm, CrowdStrike". Reuters. 23 February 2012. Retrieved 15 November 2017.
  19. ↑ Rao, Leena (23 February 2012). "Former McAfee CTO Debuts Stealthy Security Technology Startup CrowdStrike With $26M In Funding". TechCrunch. Retrieved 15 November 2017.
  20. ↑ "Outmaneuvered at Their Own Game, Antivirus Makers Struggle to Adapt". CNBC. 2 January 2013. Retrieved 15 November 2017.
  21. 1 2 Hackett, Robert (29 July 2015). "Standing up at the gates of hell: CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz". Fortune. Retrieved 15 November 2017.
  22. ↑ Kerner, Sean Michael (21 June 2013). "Former McAfee CTO Strikes Back with Crowdstrike". eSecurity Planet. Retrieved 15 November 2017.
  23. ↑ Hackett, Robert (17 May 2017). "Hack Investigator CrowdStrike Reaches $1 Billion Valuation". Fortune. Retrieved 17 November 2017.
  24. ↑ Novinson, Michael (31 December 2019). "10 Hot Cybersecurity Companies To Watch In 2020 – CrowdStrike". CRN. Retrieved 8 February 2021.
  25. ↑ Schubarth, Cromwell (12 June 2019). "Why CrowdStrike's CEO isn't surprised his company equaled Symantec in value in its Wall Street debut". Silicon Valley Business Journal. Retrieved 8 February 2021.
  26. ↑ Knowles, Catherine (6 July 2020). "CrowdStrike recognised as leading endpoint security vendor on global scale". SecurityBrief EU. Retrieved 5 March 2021.
  27. ↑ "Pirelli Paddock Pass: George Kurtz – Sportscar365". Sportscar365. 22 July 2020. Retrieved 8 February 2021.
  28. ↑ Malsher, David (13 August 2017). "Utah PWC: James delivers fourth GTS win for Panoz". Motorsport.com. Retrieved 15 November 2017.
  29. ↑ "George Kurtz: Leader On And Off The Track". Speed Sport. 20 July 2017. Retrieved 15 November 2017.
  30. 1 2 "George Kurtz Results". motorsportstats.com. Retrieved 10 January 2024.
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