This CEO pirated video video games as a teen and have become a hacker for the Air Force. Now he’s constructed a $3 billion cyber agency

Kyle Hanslovan is proof that may truly work—simply not in the way in which one may anticipate. Now the CEO of Huntress, a cybersecurity agency valued at $3 billion, his path to the highest didn’t begin with an Ivy League diploma or Silicon Valley internship. Instead, all of it started in AOL chat rooms and on-line hacker boards.

Hanslovan described his youthful self as a “shady” child who spent his time pirating video video games whereas dwelling together with his single mother in Florida. That inquisitive, self-taught nature caught the eye of the U.S. Air Force, which recruited him at 17 to place these hacking expertise to work—this time, legally.

“When you grow up pretty darn broke, you have to learn and experiment,” Hanslovan instructed Fortune. “Sometimes you learn by getting your hands slapped, and sometimes you learn with success.”

He spent years in offensive cyber operations earlier than transitioning to the personal sector, supporting missions tied to the National Security Agency. There, he started to see how dramatically the menace panorama was altering. What as soon as felt like a intelligent strategy to outsmart company firewalls or obtain a free online game had developed into one thing way more critical. Hackers had been more and more focusing on important infrastructure, hospital techniques, and small companies.

That realization pushed Hanslovan to take a leap. In 2015, he left a steady profession to cofound Huntress, a cybersecurity startup centered on defending small and midsize organizations that bigger companies usually overlook—from small-town accountants to modern tech startups.

After consuming ramen and sleeping in his automobile whereas scaling to $3 billion, Hanslovan admits he ‘wouldn’t do it once more’

The cybersecurity menace has solely worsened lately: Americans misplaced $16.6 billion to web crime in 2024, a 33% leap from the 12 months prior, in line with the FBI’s most recent cybercrime report. Ongoing geopolitical tensions and the speedy adoption of AI instruments might make assaults much more refined and damaging within the years forward.

For Huntress, that menace has been nice for enterprise: It has scaled to over 700 staff throughout 5 nations and a $3 billion valuation. But in line with Hanslovan, it didn’t come with out critical sacrifice over the previous decade.

“I slept in my car for most of Huntress in the beginning; we couldn’t get venture capital,” the 40-year-old recalled to Fortune. “I had 60 venture capitalists tell me no, and we had burned all of our founder cash.”

Hanslovan acknowledged that entrepreneurial grit alone isn’t distinctive—loads of founders have weathered VC rejections or bootstrapped from a dad and mom’ basement. Instead he believes that funneling early-life hardship into ardour is usually a real benefit.

“I actually think a lot of people that make it have some weird level of dysfunction as a child that just made them [able to] pursue through these hard times,” Hanslovan stated. “So even though it wasn’t the greatest part of my life, I don’t regret it at all.”

Still, he’d make some adjustments. When he began Huntress, his three kids had been 5, 9, and 11 years outdated. Today they’re 15, 19, and 21; two have left for faculty, and a divorce has come and gone in between.

“I over-rotated on work way too hard. The first eight years I believed in that hustle culture, grind culture,” he stated. “I missed a lot of the greatest years of their lives.”

“I probably wouldn’t do it all over again if I could,” he added.

Hanslovan’s recommendation to Gen Z: You don’t need to turn into Mark Cuban

For all his success, Hanslovan additionally admitted that it doesn’t essentially include automated satisfaction.

“All the finances and all the glamour and all that has not made me any happier. If anything, it’s made me more disconnected,” he stated.

Part of that dissatisfaction, he added, stemmed from a mindset he’d internalized early: that constructing a billion-dollar enterprise was the benchmark for having made it.

“I just wish I would have known in the earlier days that I would have still been successful even if this didn’t turn into a $3 billion company,” Hanslovan stated. “There are a lot of ways to make a difference that doesn’t just come with the dollars.”

He’d nonetheless advise Gen Z to pursue entrepreneurship—however provided that they outline success on their very own phrases. It’s a message which will land with a era already transferring in that course. Nearly two-thirds of younger folks age 18 to 35 say they’ve both began a facet gig or plan to, in line with a 2024 survey from Intuit, and practically half say their major motivation is solely to be their very own boss.

Still, Hanslovan pressured in opposition to reaching for the moon if it’s not completely crucial.

“You don’t have to become Mark Cuban. You don’t have to create $3 billion Huntress to have a good life and provide for your family,” Hanslovan stated. “There’s nothing wrong with progressing with a lifestyle business, a local business of their own, or something along those lines that allows them to be able to satisfy that gap.”