Frederic Kerrest

Kerrest earned a B.S. in computer science from Stanford UniversityStanford UniversityStanford University is a research university in California founded by Leland and Jane Stanford in 1885 and opened in 1891.Open the full entry, then worked in sales and business development at Salesforce.com and in venture capital at Hummer Winblad Venture Partners.⁠[1]

He later earned an MBA in entrepreneurship and innovation from the MIT Sloan School of Management and received the 2008 MIT Patrick J. McGovern, Jr. Entrepreneurship Award.⁠[1]

Kerrest co-founded Okta with Todd McKinnon, who had a technical background at Salesforce.com; he has been a director since July 2009 and served as chief operating officer from 2009, overseeing corporate strategy, corporate development, strategic partnerships and Okta for Good.⁠[1][2]

When the two first met Andreessen HorowitzAndreessen HorowitzAndreessen Horowitz (a16z) is a venture capital firm founded in 2009 by Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz. It invests from the seed stage through the growth stage and provides operational support to its portfolio companies.Open the full entry co-founders Ben HorowitzBen HorowitzBen Horowitz is an American entrepreneur, venture capitalist and business author who co-founded Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) with Marc Andreessen in 2009. He previously led Loudcloud’s transition into Opsware and its 2007 sale to Hewlett-Packard. His writing and investing address startup management, organizational culture and the relationship between technology and cultural industries.Open the full entry and Marc AndreessenMarc AndreessenMarc Andreessen is an American entrepreneur and venture capitalist, a co-founder and general partner of the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z). While in college he helped develop the graphical web browser Mosaic, then co-founded Netscape and Loudcloud (later renamed Opsware), and has long served as a director of Meta; he has also published essays such as “Why Software Is Eating the World.”Open the full entry, they had an idea and a couple of folding tables but no pitch deck; their aim was to reinvent directories and corporate identity in the cloud. Okta was Horowitz’s first board seat at a16z.⁠[2]

On February 13, 2017, Andreessen Horowitz published the podcast episode “a16z Podcast: Securing Infrastructure and Enterprise Services,” recorded at the a16z Summit. Kerrest, then co-founder and COO of Okta, spoke with NASDAQ chief information officer Brad Peterson and News Corp chief information officer Dominic Shine in a conversation moderated by a16z co-founder Ben Horowitz.⁠[3]

The discussion covered how large enterprises such as news media outlets and financial institutions secure infrastructure and identity, lessons from the previous year’s DDoS attack, the role of decentralized approaches such as blockchain in security and what they would mean for high-frequency trading, and security in user interface and design. The episode was uploaded to the a16z YouTubeYouTubeYouTube is Google’s video-sharing and creator platform, founded in 2005 by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim and acquired by Google in 2006. Built around video uploading, viewing, and creator earnings, the platform has developed Shorts, YouTube Music, Premium, YouTube TV, and products for children, and is headquartered in San Bruno, California, United States.Open the full entry channel on January 1, 2019.⁠[3][4]

On April 6, 2017, Okta priced its initial public offering at $17 per share, above an earlier target of $15, offering 11 million shares plus a 1.65 million-share option for underwriters, to raise up to $187 million, or about $215 million with the option.⁠[5]

The next day Ben Horowitz published “Todd and Freddy,” recounting Okta’s early years of slow sales and tight cash and how the two founders reworked their strategy and strengthened the team.⁠[2]

In April 2022 McGraw Hill published Zero to IPO: Over $1 Trillion of Actionable Advice from the World’s Most Successful Entrepreneurs, which Kerrest wrote with Tom Parks; organized by stage of company growth, it collects advice from founders and investors including Eric Yuan of Zoom, Stewart Butterfield of Slack and Patty McCord of Netflix. Kerrest also hosts the Zero to IPO podcast.⁠[6][1]

Kerrest stepped down as Okta’s chief operating officer in November 2023 and remains vice chairman of its board. He is also a member of the MIT Corporation Visiting Committee for the MIT Sloan School of Management and advises early-stage software companies.⁠[1]

Okta: Official website: https://www.okta.com/ (opens in a new window).⁠[1]