George Kurtz Insider Information

George Kurtz is the president, CEO, and co-founder of CrowdStrike, a cloud-based cybersecurity company. 

Kurtz founded the company in 2012 with a focus on pinpointing incoming cybersecurity threats by reverse-engineering the hacker’s approach. In a space populated by traditional antivirus and anti-malware products, CrowdStrike is a leader in using the cloud-first model, eliminating the need to load software on customers’ computers. 

Under his leadership, CrowdStrike was tapped to investigate the much-publicized Democratic National Committee cyber attack in 2016, and the company was integral in determining if the attack came from Russian intelligence agencies. The company’s valuation exceeded $1 billion in 2017. 

Earlier in his career, Kurtz founded cybersecurity company, Foundstone, in 1999. He guided the company to become one of the first security consulting companies to create vulnerability management software. Additionally, Foundstone created the industry standard for incident response practices resulting in its adoption by a majority of Fortune 100 companies. 

In 2004, Kurtz became the senior vice president and general manager of risk management at cybersecurity company, McAfee, when they acquired Foundstone for $86 million. He was promoted to worldwide chief technology officer in 2010. While in this role, Kurtz was integral in pivoting McAfee from a point product company to a security risk management provider resulting in McAfee’s revenue growing from $1 billion to over $2.5 billion. In 2011, in one of the largest tech mergers at the time, Intel acquired McAfee for $8 billion. 

Kurtz saw the pace of new cybersecurity threats begin to evolve faster than existing security technology. He cited an incident of watching a passenger seated next to him on a flight wait 15 minutes for McAfee software to load on his laptop as inspiration for his eventual resignation from McAfee and creation of CrowdStrike. In 2011, Kurtz joined Warburg Pincus, a private equity firm, to bring his idea to market. Warburg Pincus provided $25 million of funding for CrowdStrike in early 2012. 

In 1999, he authored one of the best-selling cybersecurity books of all time, Hacking Exposed: Network Security Secrets & Solutions. Kurtz is also an exotic car collector and race car driver participating in the Pirelli World Challenge, the Radical Cup, and Sports Car Club of America endurance events. 

Kurtz received his B.S. from Seton Hall University.