Mohit Aron, the founder and CEO of Cohesity, a Silicon Valley data-management firm and, with a valuation of $2.5 billion in its latest round of funding—a unicorn. Aron, 47, grew up in Chandigarh, India’s most modern and affluent city. After finishing his education, Aron moved to Silicon Valley and joined a growing company with fewer than 600 people called Google. At Google, Aron displayed his talents as a lead engineer on the company’s file system technology. In 2009, Aron cofounded his first data management startup, Nutanix, and served as its chief technology officer. In 2013 he started Cohesity. The company has an estimated $300 million in revenues growing at 70% a year. Its backers include Qualcomm Ventures, Sequoia Capital, SoftBank and Wing Ventures. (Karlgaard, 2020j, paras. 2–4)
Read the interview with Mohit Aron, CEO of Cohesity, and answer the following questions:
Based on this interview, what were Aron’s main challenges and surprises he encountered once he became a CEO? Reflecting on this question what do you feel would be your challenge being a CEO of a company similar to Cohesity?
The concept of physical space greatly influencing entrepreneurship success was mentioned a few times in this interview. Please use the example from the interview and at least two more that you can find researching outside sources to provide your input on this concept.
Aron indicated that data growth is exploding while becoming more fragmented. Therefore, companies like Cohesity make data management feasible at any level of complexity. Please provide other examples of companies doing something similar.
How is Cohesity competing within that market segment?
