- Nikesh Arora faced 400 job rejections before securing a position at Fidelity Investments.
- Arora transitioned from finance to technology, joining Google in 2004 after obtaining a CFA.
- Under his leadership, Palo Alto's valuation increased from $18 billion to approximately $118 billion.
Nikesh Arora, the CEO of cybersecurity firm Palo Alto Networks, might be helming a $130 billion company at the moment but the road to glory wasn't easy.
Mr Arora said that after graduation, he would write letters to multiple companies in search of jobs; all he received in return were rejection letters, in a conversation with Human of Bombay.
Opening up about the early struggles in his career when he faced as many as 400 rejections, Mr Arora said that he didn't lose hope and eventually got a job at Fidelity Investments. And while he knows what success feels like, he still keeps those rejection letters in his closet, reminding himself he has to keep moving forward.
Born in Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh, Mr Arora completed his graduation in engineering from IIT-BHU, and then, earned degrees from Boston College and Northeastern University in the US. He said he barely had $100 when he started looking for higher education. So, he decided to aim for institutions that waived application fees.
Mr Arora said that Northeastern University offered him a scholarship but offered him to opt for computer science, so he had no other option but to accept it.
In 1992, he joined Fidelity Investments, where he held various positions before eventually rising through the ranks to become the Vice President. Even though people told him he wasn't fit for finance, he didn't give up; instead, he chose to earn a master's degree and get a CFA certification, which helped him land a job at Google in 2004.
Mr Arora spent a decade at Google and called his journey "amazing." Asked what made him leave Google, he said, "It was time to move on and I wanted to do something different."
He moved to SoftBank, where he was chosen by CEO Masayoshi Son as the company's President and COO. However, he had to leave the company after 2.5 years because Mr Masayoshi was expected to retire at age 60 as part of a 10-year life plan.
He joined Palo Alto in 2018 after taking a sabbatical, spending his time playing golf. "I got worse at it. I realised I needed to sink my teeth into something," he laughed.
At the time when Mr Arora joined, Palo Alto was valued at around $18 billion. As of today, it's approximately $118 billion.
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