In this fun interview Marcin Kleczynski, CEO and founder of Malwarebytes, tells the fun story of growing his company from its start when he was a teenager to $30 million in revenue from a college dorm room to $200 million and 800 people today.
Marcin shares why OKRs are foundational for next-level growth, how they’ve motivated and engaged the large engineering organization, and how they’ve accelerated company growth. In our conversation, Marcin expands on how his OKRs are authored for impact and what’s changed in hallway conversations over the first year.
Marcin Kleczynski is a category‑defining cybersecurity founder who turned a teenage obsession with stopping malware into Malwarebytes, a global leader in endpoint protection and remediation. He is focused on helping individuals and organizations defend themselves from ever‑evolving digital threats with simple, effective security technology.
As CEO and co‑founder of Malwarebytes, Marcin led the transformation from a one‑man project into a company protecting tens of millions of devices worldwide, across consumers, SMBs and enterprises. He is known for challenging legacy antivirus models and championing a “protect the underdog” mission in security.
Marcin frequently shares lessons from his journey from student programmer to industry leader, speaking and writing about entrepreneurship, product‑driven growth, and building mission‑centric companies.
Deidre Paknad has founded and led three tech startups, acquired companies and been acquired, and led a high-growth business as an executive at IBM for several years; this affords her a unique perspective on using both speed and scale to drive growth. In her role as CEO at WorkBoard, she works with senior leadership teams at some of the world’s largest companies to clarify, align, and drive strategic priorities with greater speed and agility. She is a frequent speaker on Outcome Mindset™ and tapping into ambition.
Deidre has over a dozen patents and has twice been inducted into the Smithsonian Institution for innovation. Goldman Sachs named her one of the 100 most intriguing entrepreneurs of 2019. Deidre hosts The OKR Podcast, which focuses on accelerating outcomes and fostering an outcomes culture.