In 2014, Ashar Aziz earned his name on the Forbes Billionaire List, alongside many notable others. But since then, the founder of cybersecurity firm FireEye has pulled back, focusing on his personal and philanthropic work rather than making billions.
For example, Aziz has devoted a lot of attention to his family. In addition, he has put emphasis on his up and coming solar company, SkyElectric Inc.
The positive mindset that launched FireEye to great heights—and Aziz to billionaire status—now pushes the success of his new projects.
“Every company faces failures along the way and you need to be calm enough to deal with them,” he explains when describing how FireEye started. “For me, the best way for me to keep my emotions in check was to mentally write a script for FireEye that had a victorious ending.”
Ashar Aziz before, after SkyElectric
Aziz’s first business venture was Terraspring, a data virtualization company. Sun Microsystems bought it out in 2002.
Two years later, Aziz founded FireEye, a cybersecurity firm. At first, Aziz had significant trouble getting it off the ground. “Back in 2008, things were bleak,” he writes. “We didn’t have any paying customers, couldn’t raise money and we were running out of cash. Most of my executive team and half of the engineers quit.”
However, FireEye found success by taking advantage of underappreciated niches. Moreover, Aziz “kept the recruiting bar high”, which led to success within the company.
In 2010, the firm hit its big break, and eventually reached heights of a $10 billion market cap. Aziz first served as the company’s CEO, and then took on the roles of CTO, chief technological officer, and CSO, chief strategy officer.
In 2016, he left FireEye, “reflecting his desire to spend more time with his family and abroad, and also to pursue new projects including one related to distributing solar energy to developing world markets,” said a FireEye press release that year.
Ashar Aziz prioritizes family, philanthropy
Born in Karachi, Pakistan, Aziz moved to the US as a college student at MIT, and then UC Berkeley. His father, Asghar Butt, was a journalist and writer, and editor of Pakistani English-language newspaper The Nation. His mother, Nisar Aziz, was a prominent Urdu novelist. Meanwhile, his maternal uncle, Sartaj Aziz, is a well-known Pakistani economist and former government cabinet member.
Aziz holds over 80 patents in networking, network security, and data visualization. He received the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award, as well as of the Pakistani civil award Sitara-i-Imtiaz, presented by the government for his contributions to the IT industry.
SkyElectric helps power Pakistan, while BedRock keep info secure
Currently, Aziz has two major projects. He acts as founder and executive chairman of SkyElectric Inc., as well as chairman of the board at BedRock Systems Inc.
SkyElectric’s goal is “to make clean energy universally available by building a distributed and intelligent solar and energy storage grid, managed via the Internet, across the world.”
Of of SkyElectric’s major projects, SkyElectric Smart Solar System, has been implemented both on a residential and commercial level to make solar energy more accessible. The Levelised Cost of Energy, or baseline cost of a certain unit of energy, is much lower for solar rather than generated electricity in Pakistan.
“As electricity prices have increased over the last two years, people are ready to switch to solar,” explains Aziz. “They may not care about pollution but they do want a long-term cost-effective solution.”
Outside of SkyElectric, Aziz keeps a toe in the cybersecurity business. BedRock Systems helps secure computer and cloud infrastructures, as well as patch security flaws. Their products help companies save money, work faster and more efficiently, monitor their activity more effectively.
- Osman Ismael describes how this technology works in more detail.
Donate to Aziz’s Namal Institute here.
