On today's tech podcast, I am proud to share one of the most inspirational tech startup stories I have heard after recording nearly 600 interviews. Andrew Rubin is the founding CEO of cybersecurity unicorn Illumio

Andrew’s fast and unconventional rise in Silicon Valley from a small business owner in St. Louis with little security background only five years ago to fast-tracking Illumio to “unicorn” status just six months after launching out of stealth in 2014 is exceptional.

Of the nine cybersecurity “unicorn” CEOs at companies like Cylance, Crowdstrike, and Tanium, Andrew is the only one without a tech pedigree or deep roots in security. This is one of the reasons why Goldman Sachs has named him one of their Most Interesting Entrepreneurs of the Year for the past three consecutive years.

The key to his success? Mentorship. Andrew says he built Illumio 100% through his mentors, enlisting people like Marc Benioff, Ben Horowitz and John Thomson (MSFT chairman). But what did these tech titans see in an unknown sales guy from NYC?

Andrew shares his unconventional path and inspirational tech startup story to building a $1B+ company and how other non-traditional, non-pedigreed entrepreneurs can rewire their own approaches to mentorship.