About Jagtar Chaudhry
Jay Chaudhry, co-founder and CEO of Zscaler, has been discussing the cybersecurity implications of artificial intelligence, particularly the rise of AI agents and the impact of Anthropic's Mythos vulnerability-finding model. He described AI as a "giga wave" and argued that traditional security models based on firewalls and VPNs are outdated, advocating instead for a zero-trust architecture in which applications are hidden behind an exchange. Chaudhry stated that AI agents, which he said could number between 50 and 100 per user, represent a new security risk because they "act in milliseconds" and "take no break, no weekends, no sleep." He characterized Mythos as "powerful" but suggested its launch involved "a little bit of marketing mystique," and said that while it finds vulnerabilities at a record pace, the greater challenge is that organizations cannot patch all of them.
On Zscaler's financial performance, Chaudhry noted that the company reported 25% revenue growth in its third fiscal quarter of 2026 and crossed $3.5 billion in market capitalization. He attributed a subsequent 28% stock decline to a "misunderstood" comment about new customer acquisition, and said the company expects total ARR and revenue growth of 16 to 17% for fiscal 2027. Chaudhry also announced the intent to acquire Symmetry Systems, a company that provides an access graph mapping identity and data connections, and said Zscaler is partnering with Microsoft, Google, and AWS for agent identity rather than building its own solution. He described AI and frontier models like Mythos as "one of the strongest tailwinds our business has ever seen."
Source: AI-verified profile updated from Jagtar Chaudhry's recent appearances.
Browse all interviews →
✨ AI-enhanced transcript with speaker attribution
I
Interviewer0:02
A new study out today from Zscaler finds less than half of organizations in America feel fully confident in their use of cloud infrastructure. Joining us now to discuss the outlook for cloud services and the rest of the cybersecurity industry is Jay Chaudhry, Zscaler CEO. You with me, Jay?
J
Jagtar Chaudhry0:22
Indeed, thank you for the opportunity.
I
Interviewer0:25
Good to have you here. What do you make of that revelation? Less than half of organizations in America feel fully confident. Why so, and what's your takeaway from that?
J
Jagtar Chaudhry0:36
Well, because the security technologies we have been using were built some 30 years ago. This is around firewalls and VPNs. The bad guys have moved on at a rapid pace, so companies are worried, CSOs are worried. In fact, it's so pathetic that nowadays CSOs have to think that they have been breached; they just don't know. I think the world has to move to adopt new technologies like zero trust. That's the real answer. Many companies are making progress, and many are behind.
I
Interviewer1:10
Yeah, Jay, certainly many companies are making progress, but many of those companies that have even shown an interest in this aren't using it to their full potential. Talk about engagement and the opportunity there for your company in terms of growth.
J
Jagtar Chaudhry1:23
Yeah, tremendous opportunity. If you see our company, Zscaler has been growing 60, 70, 80 percent year over year for the past several years. Even last year, over 60 percent growth. We just announced our Q1, our billings 54 percent year-over-year revenue growth. So what we did was, when I started this company in 2008, I had no legacy security boxes to worry about. I could start from a clean slate, thinking about doing security the new way, just like Tesla thought of doing cars in a clean way with electric engines rather than traditional engines. The challenge you generally face is you have to educate the market. Inertia is a powerful thing. Many times customers are used to what they know. Our job is to make sure they understand the new technology, the benefit, so they are able to better protect their corporations, and more important, our country is able to protect our critical infrastructure and national interests.
I
Interviewer2:28
So you mentioned those most recent numbers, revenue and billings up 54 and 37 percent, and yet we're seeing the stock down 60 percent this year and down another 4 percent today. What is the investor disconnect?
J
Jagtar Chaudhry2:43
Well, we are one of those companies where the market has high expectations. We deliver pretty good numbers, but the market does what it does. I have one focus: to really build innovative products and solve customers' problems. If we do that, all the stock stuff gets taken care of in the long run. That's all I focus on.
I
Interviewer3:06
Okay. The risk of a recession, though, slowing macro landscape—you would think that that would have an impact on some of your clients' spending plans. How are you navigating this pretty uncertain time?
J
Jagtar Chaudhry3:17
Macro is slowing things down. There's a lot more deal scrutiny out there. But there are a couple of things in Zscaler's favor. First of all, cyber is far more resilient than typical IT spend because every CIO and CSO knows that it needs to be done. Secondly, while there is focus on reducing cost on CIOs, Zscaler actually reduces cost by eliminating a lot of point products and some of the natural costs. So when we talk to CIOs, the discussion turns to what all point products, what all legacy products can you eliminate to really reduce my cost and improve my security and user experience. Since we do all these three things, we actually have a high degree of interest across enterprises. So there's a strong pipeline, strong engagement, but there is higher scrutiny. Where the deals that used to get approved by CIOs, now they go to CRO instead. More scrutiny on the needs.
I
Interviewer4:23
Jay, you're not just studying who is using your products, but how and where. What are you seeing in terms of the numbers, remote/hybrid work, and how will that impact the need for cyber as we move forward?
J
Jagtar Chaudhry4:38
Yeah, the way Zscaler was designed, it was assumed that the user could be working from anywhere and applications could be in data center, in factories, all in the cloud. So it doesn't matter because in the zero trust architecture, we don't put users on the network. We connect them like a switchboard from place A to an application B. It's totally independent. That's really what brings us security. Now, having said that, when COVID happened and people had to work from home, we were the solution that is designed for stuff like that. So we had a lot of customer growth. Now customers saw the benefit of zero trust technology that Zscaler pioneered, and they embraced us big time. So that's why over 40 percent of Fortune 500 companies depend upon Zscaler, and our business has been growing. We have been running a very profitable business. We have been doing significant positive cash flow, which many of the high-flying companies don't do. So we are balancing our power growth along with the bottom line.
I
Interviewer5:47
Congrats on that, Jay Chaudhry, Zscaler CEO. Great to have you here, sir. Really appreciate it.
