Not really," Chaudhry, the billionaire founder and CEO of cloud security company Zscaler, tells CNBC Make It. Together, they plunged their life savings — roughly $500,000 — into SecureIT, a cybersecurity software startup they co-founded in 1997. His timing was perfect: In 1998, Chaudhry sold SecureIT to VeriSign in an all-stock deal worth nearly $70 million. I said, "If [Netscape co-founder] Marc Andreessen could start a company — he was a young guy [right] out of college — why shouldn't I start a company?" It took us a few years to really start getting traction in the market, and VCs can write you off and move on.

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Persons: Jay Chaudhry, he'd, Chaudhry, Jyoti, SecureIT, Chaudhry —, —, Marc Andreessen, Let's, we'd, Zscaler, you'll, VCs Organizations: IBM, Unisys, CNBC, Netscape, Atlanta, Software, BellSouth, Fortune, Forbes, IDC, Gartner, VCs Locations: India, SecureIT, Atlanta, Alpharetta , Georgia