Chris Wysopal, is co-founder and chief security evangelist of Veracode, a platform designed to build and maintain secure software from code creation to cloud deployment.
Veracode was co-founded by Chris in 2006 alongside Christien Rioux, both members of the renowned L0pht hacker collective. The group achieved particular eminence when they famously testified in front of the US Congress in 1998 to expose software vulnerabilities.
The platform has raised a total of $110 million in funding. This includes several funding rounds, the last being a Series F hosted in 2018. In March 2022, the company was acquired by private equity firm TA Associates for $2.5bn.
The firm is headquartered in the US, but has a strong presence across the UK and Europe.
In this week’s Founder in Five Q&A, Wysopal talks about the things he wishes he’d done differently, how he motivates his team and the revolutionary potential of synthetic biology,
What one thing do you wish you’d done differently when launching your company?
I wish we had done a better job telling our story early on. We made bold moves, such as scanning binaries instead of source, delivering via SaaS before that was cool and including customer success when others outsourced it. But what we did not do was fully connect the dots for the market. We knew we were building the future, but we didn’t explain why your approach mattered – at least not in a way people could act on.
Eventually the market caught up, and even our competitors followed suit. But being ahead of the curve only helps if you bring people with you.
How do you motivate your team?
I connect the work to the mission. People stay motivated when they see the real impact of what they are building – whether that is on customers, the industry and even the world. I give them space to think deeply, solve hard problems and own their outcomes.
I have learned that trust and clarity are more powerful than micromanagement. I also make it a point to recognise progress, especially when the work is tough or unglamorous. People want to do meaningful work with people they respect. My job is to make that possible and keep the spark alive.
How do you prevent burnout?
I do not try to do everything and instead try to focus on the things that matter most or on the areas where I know I can bring the most value. I’ve learned that burnout often comes from saying yes too often and spreading yourself thin, which isn’t good or helpful for anyone.
I also endeavour to create space for deep work and recovery, because stepping away, even briefly, is often when breakthroughs happen. I call it giving your brain a “change of air.” It’s not about doing less, it’s about choosing better, preserving your edge and being ready to go the distance.
Excluding your sector, which nascent technology holds the most promise?
Synthetic biology is quietly revolutionary. It’s about reprogramming life; engineering cells to produce new materials, medicines, fuels and even food. It’s software thinking applied to biology, and that unlocks incredible potential. We are talking about bacteria that eat plastic, yeast that brews pharmaceuticals and crops that fix their own nitrogen.
As tools like CRISPR (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats) – a gene editing technology that allows scientists to precisely modify DNA sequences – advance, we are moving from theory to real-world scale. It’s a frontier as big as the early internet, just messier, more complex and maybe even more transformative.
Which role was the most important early hire you made?
Our first customer success hire changed everything. At first, we charged for those services, but we quickly saw a pattern: the customers who used them were more successful and spent more. That told us something critical. Customer success wasn’t just support, it was strategic.
So, we stopped charging and made it core to our model. That mindset shift helped fuel our growth. In SaaS, your product gets you in the door but it’s your investment in customer outcomes that keeps the door open and the relationship growing.
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