“We stand by our findings and conclusions,” Crowdstrike told the Business Journal last week, as the 8-year-old cybersecurity firm, founded in Irvine, got caught up in political intrigue that’s led to an impeachment inquiry of President Donald Trump.
Crowdstrike was hired by the Democratic National Committee to investigate Russian hacks against it back in 2016, and later cooperated with the FBI in the agency’s own related investigation.
The just-brought-to-light White House “transcript” between Trump and his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelensky, which has led to calls for impeachment, namechecks Crowdstrike and implies that Trump believes the company’s work with the DNC was more than it appeared.
Crowdstrike told our Kevin Costelloe that “we provided all forensic evidence and analysis to the FBI,” and that its conclusions were backed by U.S. intelligence services.
The $12.6B-valued company—which went public earlier this year—was erroneously cited in many national news reports last week as still being based in Irvine; it moved HQ to Sunnyvale in 2017, but still has a large presence here. Its stock (Nasdaq: CRWD) was down about 15% last week.
Crowdstrike’s breakout $610M IPO in June stole some of the spotlight from another cybersecurity firm founded in Irvine, Cylance, which in February completed its $1.4B sale to BlackBerry.
It’s happened again: CrowdStrike’s role in national affairs came to light the same week it was disclosed Stuart McClure, founder and CEO of Cylance, had left the company—and just as BlackBerry had a new logo fixed atop the 400 Spectrum Center tower that holds its local ops.
“I would have wanted him to stay longer, but he had made a personal decision, which we have to respect,” BlackBerry CEO John Chen said.
BlackBerry’s stock (NYSE: BB) was down about 28% last week, following McClure’s departure and the company’s latest earnings report.
McClure was a winner in the 2016 edition of our Innovator of the Year Awards event, and the following year he was the keynote speaker.
This year’s IOTY keynote speaker, Alteryx CEO Dean Stoecker, shows no interest in leaving the data analytics software company he founded in 1997. That maybe wasn’t always the case—he told a crowd at Hotel Irvine last week of navigating “a long swamp of despair” before getting the firm headed in the right direction.
He also brought a tongue-in-cheek political message to the Business Journal’s event: “MAGA—Make Analytics Great Again,” he said, imploring attendees to “follow all the data around you” when making big picture business decisions.
For more on the Innovator event and its winners, see next week’s print edition.
Forget the new Star Wars attraction. When Josh D’Amaro took over as president of Disneyland Resort in March last year, priority No. 1 was improving relations with the more than 30,000 workers at OC’s largest employer. “Over the past two years, we’ve worked hard to ensure that Disneyland is a great place for our guests to visit and for our cast to work,” he said last week, citing numerous investments in employee benefits during an announcement he’s taking on the same role at Walt Disney World in Florida.
You can read the move to Florida as a major promotion: Disney World has 70,000 cast members.
