Startups in Pakistan have been on the rise, but we still haven’t had an ultra-successful billion-dollar startup. Even in Silicon Valley and other startup hubs around the world, very few Pakistanis have made it big in the field of technology.
There is, however, one prominent Pakistani-American figure who has seen a tremendous amount of success in Silicon Valley.
Meet Ashar Aziz, a 57-year-old entrepreneur who entered Forbes’ Billionaire list two years back. Born in Pakistan, Aziz is the founder of FireEye, a cyber security company that provides automated threat forensics and dynamic malware protection.
FireEye, a leader in cyber security, has a current market capital of $2.43 billion. Moreover, the company is also on the watchlist of Morgan Stanley for “6 tech companies most likely to be acquired”. The company’s equity strategists have updated the ranking of companies they think that are most likely to be acquired in the next 12 months.
The ranking is done according to a proprietary model that analyzes the companies’ finances. Apparently, FireEye also has a high probability of being acquired and is one of the 6 companies. The acquisition, if it happens, could also mean a big payout for Aziz, potentially adding him back into the list of billionaires for this year.
Ashar Aziz attended MIT to study Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and did his Masters in the same field from University of California, Berkeley. He founded FireEye back in 2004 and for eight years, he lead both the technical and business strategy of FireEye as CTO as well as the CEO. He now serves as the Vice-Chairman, Chief Strategy Officer and CTO at the company.
He is also the inventor of some of the core set of technologies behind the company’s Malware Protection Systems and has filed over 18 patents on various aspects of FireEye’s technologies. Even prior to FireEye, he had received 26 patents in the areas of networking, cryptography, network security and data center virtualization.
bravo
This is not pak-amr…… it is only american, they don’t like to mentioned as paki :(
This is a company started by a thorough and highly qualified engineer, funded by real investors, fueling real revenues and growth. Wonder if Plan 9 or PASHA have even heard of the gentlemen let alone know of his achievements If Pakistan wants to progress, then it needs to have this type of entrepreneur in the governing board, be it Plan 9, Vision 2025, PASHA, PSEB etc.
not a plan9 fan, but Ashar Aziz has visited them twice i guess.
Before inventing Fire Eye, Ashar has been involved in many other ventures which were not successful, so we should not be belittling local startups who are not successful yet.
I see him daily in ISE tower, Islamabad… i like his BMW 7 series hybrid.
Next time i see him, I am asking him for a job