Ken Xie Biography & Net Worth

Ken Xie Biography & Net Worth

American billionaire businessman Ken Xie is best recognized as the founder of multiple firms and software products, such as Fortinet, Net Screen, and Systems Integration Solutions (SIS). He currently serves as the chief executive officer of Fortinet, a cybersecurity firm headquartered in Silicon Valley.

Ken was previously the chief executive officer of NetScreen, a software company he founded and later sold to Juniper Networks for a sum of $4 billion in 2004. He’s a tech genius and has his name writing in multiple software packages that are being used by tons of individuals and corporate entities as well. It is important to mention that he built the first ASIC -based firewall appliance back in 1996, and has only improved on his skills since then.

Finanticum has dedicated this report to discussing the life and accomplishments of Ken Xie, one of the most brilliant minds the technology world has ever seen. Go through this beautiful piece that we have put together for all the exclusive information you may need to know regarding this Chinese-born multi-billionaire tech expert.

Early Life: Childhood, Education

Ken Xie was born in the People’s Republic of China, and also experienced his childhood there under the providence and protection of his parents, who were both Chinese citizens.

He attended and graduated from Tsinghua University with his bachelor’s degree, and also obtained a master’s degree in electrical engineering, He moved to the United States where he attended Stanford University for advanced studies in the field of electrical engineering.

Professional Life: Business Career, Software Firms

Ken founded the network security company known as Systems Integration Solutions (SIS) in 1993. Three years afterward, developed the first ASIC -based firewall/VPN application in his carport in Palo Alto, California. In the same year 1996, he started the online security company NetScreen Technologies, along with Feng Deng and Yan Ke. Their product, NetScreen Technologies, was later purchased by Juniper Networks Inc. in 2004 for the sum of $4 billion.

In 2000, Ken Xie resigned from his position at NetScreen and joined his brother Michael Xie to start a new project called Fortinet. Since then, Ken has served as the chief executive officer of Fortinet, while Michael Xie, an electrical engineer by profession, serves chief technology officer and president. According to the words of Ken Xie, Fortinet was founded because of the brothers’ belief that security must be deeply involved in the end-to-end networking and computing infrastructure. The Xie brothers didn’t stop after their first work together, but went on to launch the first FortiGate products in May 2002 as well.

Mr. Ken Xie has led Fortinet to acquire a number of smaller firms, including SOAR platform provider CyberSponse, endpoint security firm enSilo, and security monitoring firm AccelOps, among others. In June 2018, Fortinet acquired the lot-focused security firm Bradford Networks.

Achievements: Awards & Honors

Ken Xie was inducted to the National Academy of Engineering as a member back in 2013. In January 2019, he was honored as discussion lead for the cyber workforce session of the Center for Cybersecurity that took place at Davos’ World Economic Forum (WEF) summit. In February the following year, Ken spoke about the importance of automation, SD-WAN, and edge computing at the RSA conference in San Francisco, California.

In September 2020, Ken Xie joined the Forbes 400 list. He is a founding member of the Cyber Threat Alliance board of directors. Likewise, he belongs to countless other committees on security, and continues to receive invitations to deliver speeches at conferences and summits.

Personal Life: Wife, Children, Private Interests

Ken Xie is a married man. You may be wondering how he has managed to keep his marriage and family going while also maintaining a solid career. This is also the point where we have to scratch our heads in wonderment because this man has been doing so great in the last couple of years that one would think he always has enough free time in his hands,

Now, Ken is a married man and father of one. His only child, Jaime Xie, is a popular fashion icon and star on the Netflix TV series “Bling Empire”.

Ken Xie Net Worth: Salary, Income Sources, Investments

Following his contribution to the founding of Fortinet, Ken Xie’s net worth has majestically risen to $3.5 billion in the last couple of years. He earned the bulk of his fortune as one of the pioneers of the successful cybersecurity firm Fortinet. Ken owns roughly 7.8 percent of Fortinet which is traded under the ticker FTNT. He and his brother Michael (who owns 7%) became multibillionaires when the firm went public in 2009. As of today, Fortinet has a market cap of $25 billion. The company is a renowned market leader in antivirus, firewall, and other internet security software programs. In 2004 Ken and Michael raised $90 million in private funding. They took their security company public in 2009 and made more than $156 million in the process. As recorded in a 2021 estimate, Fortinet generated roughly $2.16 billion in revenue and $110 million in operating income.