Grit Building Cloudflare for the Next 50 Years | Co-founder Cloudfare Michelle Zatlyn
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Dec 1, 2025 Michelle Zatlyn, co-founder and President of Cloudflare, shares insights from 15 years of building a leading web security company. She discusses the challenges of maintaining customer connections amid success and the need for content creators to adapt in an AI-driven landscape. Michelle emphasizes long-term thinking in leadership decisions and the importance of prioritizing sleep and customer interactions in daily routines. She also highlights Cloudflare's role in safeguarding web monetization against AI crawlers and envisions a bright future for the company and the internet.
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Customers Are The Ultimate Prioritization Tool
- Spend time with customers to clarify priorities and cut internal noise.
- Use customer interactions as a North Star to decide what to build and prioritize.
Say No To Create Space
- Protect your energy by saying no and creating calendar space for reading and reflection.
- Trade off missing some events for more focused thinking and less reactive firefighting.
Weekly Calendar Planning With Your EA
- Block regular time with your EA to plan the coming week and protect priorities.
- Use seasonal rhythms (e.g., compensation cycles) to allocate focused internal time.
