Zscaler CEO talks guidance, breach rumors, cybersecurity
Cloud security provider Zscaler (ZS) posted a fiscal third-quarter earnings beat on Thursday, May 30: $553.2 million in revenue (expected $536.8 million) and earnings of $0.88 per share (expected $0.65 per share).
Zscaler Chairman and CEO Jay Chaudhry comes on Asking for a Trend to talk about the company’s full-year guidance and the broader cybersecurity enterprise landscape, while also addressing rumors of a recent data breach.
“Market is tight, there’s a lot of deal scrutiny. Zscaler is a unique provider where we provide the best cyber security with zero trust architecture,” Chaudhry tells Yahoo Finance. “But we also reduce cost because we eliminate a bunch of legacy security point products, firewalls, VPNs, and more. So that’s why we’re able to close business by doing both at the same time.”
For more expert insight and the latest market action, click here to watch this full episode of Asking for a Trend.
This post was written by Luke Carberry Mogan.
Video Transcript
Z Scaler reporting a strong third quarter on the top and bottom lines.
Last week, the company also boosted its fiscal year guidance against the backdrop of more cautious guidance from peers in the cyber security sector.
For more.
We’re now bringing in Z Scaler, Ceo Jay Choudry, Jay.
It is good to have you on the show.
And you know, Jay, this is the first time we’ve had a chance to talk to you since you reported results, Jay, you reported you beat the stock jumped, maybe start that there, Jay walk us through what drove the quarter.
So Cyber is the number one concern for Cio C sos and boats, but they also have to worry about cost savings.
Uh Market is tight.
There’s a lot of deal scrutiny C scale is a unique provider where we provide the best cyber security with zero trust architecture, but we also reduce cost because we eliminate a bunch of legacy security point products, firewalls, VPN S and more.
So that’s why we’re able to close business uh by doing both at the same time.
Hey Jay, it’s Julie here.
It’s good to see you.
Um You guys recently reported a cyber breach, I believe.
What can you tell us about that?
And did that have any kind of effect in the quarter or, or in the present quarter?
So there’s no breach per se, there’s a claim breach, so to speak, the social media can do all kinds of stuff.
Yes, we, we did have uh an engineer trying to play with a new server in a Q environment single machine that was out there discovered that was being set up.
So there’s a little basis for it.
There’s none to it.
We’re very transparent with customers.
We kept in communication but it had no impact.
Rather customers came and said, wow, you guys had great transparent communication.
We love it, Jay when we have you, it’s always worth getting your kind of broader take on the threat landscape.
Jay, I mean a lot of threats, rogue states, bad actors, criminal gangs, what are you seeing out there, Jay, they the two main areas, one the people who want to make money quick so ran somewhere on the rise and then there are nation states trying to steal secrets.
Those are the two big buckets and they are leveraging by getting on the network of the company moving laterally find high value assets and going after that.
So zero trust architecture is being clearly looked at as the primary solution for it.
The reason zero Zalar growth is happening is because companies are embracing zero trust architecture that we pioneered you talked about China just now the big threat from China is that all large companies who are present in China, they have a network coming from China all the way to the US or Europe.
Bad guys can get on the network in China travel and try to infect stuff out there.
We allow you not to have a network connected to China or other countries and still have secure communication.
Those are the type of things, enterprises and fed government organizations need to do to secure themselves.
And Jay of course, um this is an election year, not only in the US, we just had an election in Mexico, we just had an election in India.
And I know that when you’re talking about breaches or insecure communications, that’s a very different issue than misinformation and disinformation.
But I’m just curious what you are seeing if anything sort of linked to geopolitics around the globe.
So we do track it though.
It’s not our primary focus.
We are seeing uptake of this information.
Uh uh We have a research team that actually tries to figure out what content is generated by Gen A I and what what content is created by people.
It’s fascinating to see, you can actually tell the difference and we’re seeing a lot more content that’s being put out, put out there that Gen A I is creating.
So all of us have to need, need to worry about it, Jay, I wanna talk to you on, on competition real quickly and specifically Microsoft uh moving into your world.
You know, I I was checking with an analyst Jay who covers uh the company and he was saying, listen, that that is in his opinion, creating some noise in the market and on the street.
Um What are you seeing, Jay?
Well, large companies like Microsoft, they want to expand in all areas, right?
So I’m not surprised that they’re trying to expand in our area.
They have had overlapping products for a while.
Microsoft Windows has VPN built in for a long, long time.
But when I talk to large enterprises, they asked for two things.
Number one, they said I want a security provider like a Switzerland who can equally support my security to access office 365 Azure, Aws GCP and scores of SAS applications.
We are in a better position to do that than an application provider like Microsoft number two with all the issue you’re seeing out there with midnight blizzard.
I’m sure you saw the report that came from federal government about some of those issues.
More and more customers want application provider to be different from security provider.
Separation of applications and security is a better thing.
You don’t want a Fox was the Henhouse Jay.
We always appreciate you coming on the show.
Thank you, Josh and Julie.
Thank you for the opportunity.
Hope to talk to you again.
