A billionaire CEO has shared two key red flags that discourage him from hiring potential candidates. Jay Chaudhry, who co-founded the internet security firm SecureIT with his wife Jyoti in 1996, before selling it to Verisign in 1998, has built a successful career by founding several companies.
After SecureIT, he launched CipherTrust, an email security company that sold for $274 million in 2006. His latest venture, Zscaler, founded in 2007 and specializing in cloud security, further solidified his expertise. With a net worth of $9.7 billion, according to Forbes, Chaudhry has extensive experience in recruiting and leading teams.
Chaudhry is cautious of two particular red flags when evaluating candidates. The first is when an individual is overly focused on expanding the number of people reporting to them, which Chaudhry calls “building fiefdoms.” He explained, “They view success as tied to their budget and the size of their team,” signaling a preference for power and oversight rather than focusing on results. This approach can lead to dissatisfaction among team members if that person becomes their leader.
The second red flag emerges when candidates are faced with less-than-ideal outcomes, such as poor quarterly results beyond their control.
Chaudhry is wary of those who try to make the numbers look better than they are, suggesting a tendency to “package their results to appear good.” While this doesn’t imply outright dishonesty, he prefers candidates who are transparent about challenges and focus on how to improve.
Chaudhry stresses that real growth is what matters, saying, “It’s the growth that’s very, very important.” At Zscaler, he notes, “We spend 10 percent of a meeting celebrating success, but 90 percent of the time is spent finding areas for improvement.”