Episode Summary
York IE CEO Kyle York joined the ArcanaImperii podcast, where he and host Arianna Roberts — a high school senior! — discussed cloud computing, cybersecurity, venture investing and career advice for students. They also touched on Kyle’s own career journey from Dyn to Oracle to York IE, plus topics such as responding to cyberattacks and battling stress as an entrepreneur.
About ArcanaImperii
ArcanaImperii is a podcast about the news, new technology, literature and cultural trends, hosted by Arianna Roberts and Gabrielle Roberts.
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Key Takeaways
What makes a good startup
“The best companies we ever see have a huge vision, long-game technical innovation, disruption. But they have some practicality today that unlocks the next stage of opportunity to attack that vision. Those are the type of technologies and capabilities that we like. A good example is Pixaera. They’re a virtual reality company but specifically for safety training in the oil and gas industry. This is a really practical use of VR that’s innovative, but it’s not VR in the metaverse that might come in 10 years. We want them to nail what they can do now, that might be more niche-y.”
Advice to students
“Students should be taking advantage of all the education that’s put out there across all these major cloud platforms and SaaS providers. There’s so much good content out there to learn about AWS, Google or Salesforce’s ecosystem. I think there’s a lot out there for students to get smart quickly. Take online courses and get certifications. Hubspot, for example, does certifications on inbound marketing. That stuff is really cool and shows a proactivity for students as they think about their careers.
“Playing the long game is something I recommend, and it’s especially true for young people. Have a vision for yourself: for your career, for your family, where you want to be. Plot it out. Have a vision for the long term. Make sure everything you do from now to then is in the guardrails of that vision and helps you achieve that vision and unlock milestones along the way. It’s no different than what a startup needs to do. Do that for yourself, and you’ll be just fine in your career.”
Recurring revenue
“We’re seeing this monumental shift in how buyers buy technology — and how companies and sellers sell technology — towards this more predictable, repeatable, sustainable, scalable model. Look at the multiples that recurring revenue models get. The reason they get that is because you can look at the unit economics of how they’re acquiring customers, and you see the recurring trends based on their retention rates and their net rates, and you can predict the future of companies at scale, where you can really understand those economics. That’s why you’re seeing this move towards everybody trying to get recurring, because it’s just more predictable.”