The startup culture in Pakistan is on the rise. However, not a single startup in the country has able to make the headlines in terms of its colossal net worth. As far as Silicon Valley and other startup hubs are concerned, Pakistan haven’t made it big in the field of technology except for a fewer occasion. Amid all this, there is one Pakistani-American who has enjoyed massive success in Silicon Valley. The market cap of his cybersecurity company, FireEye, stands at whopping $2.43 billion.
Ashar Aziz: The brain behind FireEye
FireEye was founded in 2004 has a virtualization engine which protects its customers’ infrastructure from attacks that may come through the web and email. Its dynamic virtual cloud analyzes incoming data and provides real-time intelligence to its users.
The company was founded by Ashar Aziz who was born in Pakistan. 57-year old entrepreneur was also able to make it to the list of Forbes’ Billionaire couple of years ago. The cybersecurity company is currently a market leader in cyber security and has a current market cap of $2.43 billion.
Pakistani-American obtained his electrical engineering and computer science degree from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Additionally, he secured his Master’s degree in the same field from University of California. In the first 8 years after the formation of the company, Ashar Azid served as the CEO and CTO. He is currently serving as the Vice Chairman, Chief Strategy Officer and CTO at the company.
Possible acquisition
FireEye is on the watch list of Morgan Stanley for ‘6 tech companies most likely to be acquired.’ The company’s equity strategists have efficiently updated the ranking of companies they think that are most likely to be acquired in the next 12 months.
The rankings are based on a proprietary model that analyzes the finances of the companies. It seems highly likely that FireEye also has a strong possibility of getting acquired. If it pans out then it will be a massive payout for Ashar Aziz. In addition, he may well appear in the list of Forbes’ Billionaire list this year as well.
Ashar has filed over 18 patents on various aspects of FireEye’s technologies. Furthermore, he is chief inventor of some of the core set of technologies that are behind company’s malware protection system.
Prior to the FireEye, Ashar had received 26 patents in the fields of networking, cryptography, network security and data center virtualization.
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