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Michelle Zatlyn

Co-Founder, President & Co-Chair of the Board, Cloudflare

Search every verified Michelle Zatlyn interview, podcast appearance, and on-the-record quote — each transcript cross-checked by AI and human review to confirm speaker identity. Michelle Zatlyn, co-founder, president, and co-chair of the board at Cloudflare, appeared on the podcast "Founder's Mentality: The CEO Sessions" with host Jimmy Allen of Bain & Company, where she discussed her experience building the company since 2009. Zatlyn, who co-founded Cloudflare with Matthew Prince and Lee Holloway without an engineering background, described her outsider status as an asset and emphasized the importance of solving meaningful customer problems. She recounted that early on, the company maintained a single prioritized list of tasks, which she said became a cultural norm of "doers and builders" during its first decade. Zatlyn also recalled that as Cloudflare grew to around 350 employees, new hires from other founder-led businesses expressed surprise that she and Prince still "showed up for work," a comment she said she initially did not understand. In the conversation, Zatlyn reflected on the discipline required to keep showing up until one becomes an expert, and the wisdom needed to build an organization that can operate without the founders as the company scales. She noted that starting a company is difficult and that most fail, and she advised aspiring founders to find a problem that customers need solved repeatedly to build a sustainable business. The podcast host framed her approach as a lesson for leaders navigating AI-driven change, suggesting that those who remain engaged and present will be better positioned to shape the future.

Recent appearances

Notable quotes

“Worst-case scenario is I get the job and I can't get the H-1B and I got to move back to Canada — I could move in with Jamie in Vancouver or even go live with my parents; I had somewhere to go, so I could tolerate that outcome while I tried to see where this startup went.”

“To build trust you need to be transparent; when something went wrong we explained what happened and what we were doing to fix it. We felt it was important to show up publicly because operating infrastructure for the internet is a huge responsibility.”

“There are kind of two ways to raise money early on — you either raise on traction or you raise on a story. Cloudflare was very much in the latter camp: we did not have revenue very early on, so we had to raise on a story and show other kinds of progress.”

“Seventy-one percent of countries have passed a data localization law in the last three years, and another roughly 10% are about to pass laws.”

“The day before we filed to go public — you need to paint a big picture and believe what you're doing, but you also have to stay grounded in reality; there are two ways to crash a plane: go straight down, or climb straight up and stall.”

Other executives at Cloudflare

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