Joe Levy: Scaling Sophos to $1B+ revenue and defending the 350M overlooked businesses

16 snips

Jun 28, 2025

Joe Levy, CEO of Sophos and a seasoned leader in cybersecurity, shares his journey from CTO roles to steering Sophos towards $1B in revenue. He discusses the stark reality that over 350 million businesses lack a CISO and the importance of bridging this cybersecurity gap. Joe reveals insights from Sophos’ $800M acquisition of Dell Secureworks and highlights the culture of 'vulnerability-based trust' in leadership. He also opens up about navigating personal health challenges while leading, emphasizing resilience and support.

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ANECDOTE

Early Tech Curiosity

Joe Levy's curiosity began as a child taking things apart to understand how they work.
In his teens, he learned programming by writing his own video games after writing to Atari for manuals.

ANECDOTE

CEO Role's Emotional Challenge

Transitioning from CTO to CEO required Joe to spend much energy on emotional regulation.
Managing people's careers and decisions is harder than technical or financial decisions.

ADVICE

Master Delegation as CEO

Delegation is key when stepping up to CEO; trust your leadership team fully.
Maintain personal technical interests but relinquish ownership of tech leadership.

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In this episode of Inside the Network, we sit down with Joe Levy, CEO of Sophos, a 40-year-old cybersecurity company that has quietly become one of the most important global players, serving over 600,000 organizations and generating over $1 billion in revenue.

Throughout his career, Joe has operated with a founder's mindset: thinking in bets, building great teams, spotting technical and market inflection points, and executing with long-term discipline. A great example is Sophos’ recent $800+ million acquisition of Dell Secureworks, adding over 1,000 new team members and significantly expanding Sophos’ managed detection and response and extended detection and response (MDR/XDR) capabilities.

Today’s session is an exciting masterclass on how a technically astute CEO navigates demanding customers, engages positively with Private Equity giants like Thoma Bravo, and partners with MSPs globally, while building a culture of "vulnerability-based trust”. One of the most insightful statistics Joe and his team at Sophos have highlighted is that while there are over 350 million businesses worldwide, fewer than 1 in 10,000 have a CISO.

This episode is packed with practical lessons on founder transitions, managing through personal health crises, and building resilient security organizations. For any cybersecurity founder thinking about the long game, Joe’s story is one you’ll want to hear.

As mentioned in the episode, Joe shared a curated list of books he’s been collecting over the years for his daughter, a shelf he calls “my daughter’s bookshelf.” These aren’t just bedtime stories; they’re books that have shaped Joe’s thinking about the world, passed along with personal inscriptions to provide context and reflection. Some were even introduced by his wife, Tracie, and read together as a family, like the James Herriot series, which took nearly a year to complete and left a lasting impression. This isn’t meant to be a definitive reading list - many classics, business books, and philosophical staples are intentionally left out. But it offers a deeply personal window into the stories that have mattered most to Joe as a parent, leader, and lifelong learner. He also shared a second resource: a living document of quotes, mental models, and hard-won career lessons, many of which have shaped his leadership journey and are referenced throughout the episode. You can explore both below.