Cofounder, Darktrace
Search every verified Emily Orton interview, podcast appearance, and on-the-record quote — each transcript cross-checked by AI and human review to confirm speaker identity. Emily Orton, co-founder and chief marketing officer of Darktrace, has spoken in recent years about the company’s growth from a startup to a publicly listed cybersecurity firm. She described Darktrace as the first company to develop AI capable of interrupting in-progress cyber attacks inside a company’s systems, and said the technology learns a “sense of self” for an organization to spot novel threats. Orton noted that the COVID-19 pandemic expanded the attack surface for companies as they adopted tools like Zoom and Microsoft Teams, and she stated that the industry’s traditional approach of building a perimeter around a network is “discredited” because attackers are often already inside. She also discussed the company’s IPO, saying the process forced the business to present itself as an external party would and was a proud moment for employees. Separately, Orton has spoken publicly about her family’s decision to live on a sailboat for nearly a year with her husband and five children, including a child with Down syndrome. She said she had a fear of deep water and sharks, and that the family deliberately disrupted their routine by asking “what could go right” rather than focusing on reasons not to go. Orton described the experience as galvanizing their family and teaching them to be comfortable being uncomfortable. She has also said that she believes people can have the courage to step through their fears and seek the lives they dream about.
“An interesting question for me was: what are the risks of not going? We decided the potential good that would come of this situation far outweighed the potential downfall of losing what we already had — we wanted to go from good to better.”
“Some might say, 'You have five kids, your youngest has Down syndrome — that's an out, an excuse not to go.' We decided to flip that: what if our kids were our reason, our excuse to go rather than our excuse not to go?”
“Whenever I'm feeling overwhelmed I will go to Heavenly Father and say, 'I can see all the reasons this is not going to work — what's going to go wrong — but will you show me how this could be possible? Will you show me what could go right?'”
“I think our righteous desires can be a form of personal revelation — that unshakable idea that takes hold in our heart and mind; often the small, repeatable messages that tell you 'this is right, this is good.'”
“I kept a big stack of those little post-it notes — I wrote them down, I told Eric and the kids about them, and I didn't let them pass by unnoticed. So when we actually had to leave our home, I knew it was the right thing for our family.”
“Sometimes He is leading the way and I obey His inspiration; sometimes I'm leading out with an idea and He supports me. We take turns leading out and we're co-creating this life together.”
“We should reframe how we think about being 'adventurous' — if you look back to when you lived with Heavenly Father and Heavenly Mother, you chose to give up everything you knew to come here. That radical agency gives the possibility of greater growth and greater potential.”
“Darktrace is a cyber security company based in Cambridge — we were actually the first company to develop AI back in 2013 that was capable of interrupting in-progress cyber attacks inside a company's systems.”
“The whole industry approach of having a wall around your network and keeping bad actors off is discredited — people are on your systems all the time, and in many cases when we start working with organizations we find that the bad actor or threat is already inside.”
“We decided early on to roll out a trial period — provide the technology free of charge and install it into the customer's environment — because the AI needs to learn the customer's normal activity; in over 75% of organizations where we apply it we find threatening activity the company was unaware of despite existing pe...”
“Hiring is probably the most important thing you can do when building a business — you can learn a lot on the job, so spot potential: when you're growing a company you are hiring your future leaders.”
“In the UK we have second-to-none scientific research and universities — it's critical that government support and funding for research is maintained; within Darktrace we run parallel teams so some can execute roadmap priorities while others have time and space for pure research and lateral thinking.”
“Floating the company has enabled us to invest and expand our R&D team in Cambridge and accelerate innovation — it also increases credibility and our customers have been proud to be part of the Darktrace journey up to the IPO.”
“When expanding internationally culture is one of the biggest concerns — you need regional hubs as centers of gravity, bring founding people to those regions, and translate your culture while listening to local norms like event strategy or language.”
“One of the key things for us has been to facilitate customers telling stories about how they use our technology — bringing CISOs together and creating community lets peers share insights and becomes a powerful advocacy channel.”
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You have an idea, something big you want to do in your life, something audacious, maybe a little crazy. We get it. We want to help.
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