Michelle Zatlyn: Scaling Cloudflare to a $70B giant and building a better Internet

Michelle Zatlyn: Scaling Cloudflare to a $70B giant and building a better Internet

From Inside the Network by Inside the Network Pod

July 31, 2025 · 1h 2m · Episode 15

About this episode

Michelle Zatlyn discusses her journey in scaling Cloudflare and the challenges of building a better Internet.

In this episode of Inside the Network, we sit down with Michelle Zatlyn, Co-founder and President of Cloudflare, one of the most iconic Internet infrastructure companies in the world. From its launch during the depths of the 2009 financial crisis to today’s $70 billion market cap and 5 million+ customers, Cloudflare has become a cornerstone of global Internet security and performance. Michelle’s journey is remarkable. Raised in a small farming town in Saskatchewan, Canada, she left behind plans to become a doctor and instead teamed up with Matthew Prince and Lee Holloway to tackle an audacious question: “How can we build a better Internet?” Fifteen years later, Cloudflare is the third most valuable cybersecurity company in the world, protecting millions of businesses and powering the modern web. In our conversation, Michelle shares what it really took to build Cloudflare, why grit mattered more than expertise in the early days, how deep trust among co-founders carried them through the hardest moments, and why “just ship it” became a guiding principle that fueled rapid growth. She also reflects on how Cloudflare has avoided the innovator’s dilemma, continuing to reinvent itself…

People in this episode

Guest: Michelle Zatlyn

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Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Cloudflare, Matthew Prince, Lee Holloway

Places: Saskatchewan, Canada

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