Building Verkada, the $4.5B Physical Security Company | Filip Kaliszan, Founder and CEO
The Peel with Turner Novak
Turner Novak
4.6 • 11 Ratings
🗓️ 10 April 2025
⏱️ 103 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Filip Kaliszan is the Founder & CEO of Verkada, the physical security company.
Verkada started in 2016 by building the best camera for physical security teams, and has since evolved into a full suite of security products for buildings. Filip takes us inside Verkada’s rapid growth to almost a billion in annual revenue, over 2,000 employees, and raising capital from investors like Sequoia, Meritech, First Round, General Catalyst, and Next47.
We get into how AI and LLMs are changing hardware, the power of customer therapy, how Filip iterated on early startup ideas, inside Verkada’s very difficult first funding round, how signing their first big customers changed the trajectory of the business, and how to think about adding new products over time.
We also talk through Verkada’s commitment to in-person work in the summer of 2020, how you should evaluate joining a startup as an employee, Verkada’s “software zero” employee bonus policy, and building a rooftop bar for the office.
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Timestamps:
(4:20) Verkada, the physical security technology company + Demo!
(11:02) Building software powered hardware
(12:56) LLM opportunities in cameras
(15:49) Filip’s lifelong fascination with photography
(17:57) Taking one year to come up with the idea for Verkada
(22:27) Building his own home security system to learn the $16B market
(27:14) Why hardware experimentation is cheaper and easier than you’d think
(30:36) The importance of customer therapy
(32:37) How to get your first customers, importance of quick time to demo
(35:06) Why early fundraising was so hard
(40:38) Verkada’s first big customer
(42:23) How to decide what startup to join
(45:45) The opportunity in “smart building tech”
(50:34) How to launch new product lines
(58:07) Re-architecting the security industry to be software-native
(1:02:31) How hiring and managing a team changes as you scale
(1:08:55) Why each team at Verkada has its own recruiters
(1:14:00) Adding senior leaders to the team as you scale
(1:17:06) Evolving from introverted engineer to CEO of multi-thousand person company
(1:21:59) Verkada’s cool office and focus on in-person work during COVID
(1:28:12) Building a rooftop bar on the office
(1:32:20) Verkada’s Software Zero employee bonus program with 40x ROI
(1:36:00) How Filip thinks about IPO vs staying private
Referenced
Verkada: https://www.verkada.com/
Open roles at Verkada: https://www.verkada.com/careers/
Follow Filip
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kaliszan/
Follow Turner
Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/turnernovak
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | One of the things that fascinates me is just how AI will reshape how we interface with the computer, right? |
| 0:05.1 | So we're used to doing what I just did, which is tapping and clicking and moving around. |
| 0:10.0 | But we're certainly at the cusp of I can now tell the computer what it is that I'm trying to accomplish, |
| 0:15.7 | and the computer can accomplish complex tasks for me and just give me the answer. |
| 0:25.6 | And that, you know, that is something that, you know, I'm very excited in the context of physical security, especially since there's actually a shortage of physical security personnel, right? |
| 0:30.6 | So physical security as in guards, first responders, it's one of the largest employment categories, |
| 0:36.6 | and there is a shortage of labor, |
| 0:38.8 | of people who are willing to do these jobs, and they are scary jobs, right? I mean, like, |
| 0:42.8 | you're, you know, it's stressful, it's nerve-wracking, you're responding to real situations. |
| 0:47.8 | And so I think the more we can make the, you know, the technology sort of seamless, and it just, |
| 0:56.2 | it just works, it disappears, and it makes that personnel better, more efficient, less stressed, more prepared for that situation. |
| 1:01.2 | I think the better doubt comes to the world. |
| 1:03.5 | Welcome to the peel. |
| 1:04.9 | I'm your host, Turner Novak, founder of Banana Capital. |
| 1:07.5 | Today's guest is Philip Kalazan, founder and CEO of Ricotta, the physical security company. |
| 1:12.6 | Verkata started in 2016, building the best camera for physical security teams. |
| 1:17.5 | Very quickly, we realize that actually you can iterate very quickly on hardware. |
| 1:21.6 | The company has since evolved into a full suite of security products for buildings. |
| 1:25.9 | The way we think about the company is, as time goes on, we'll add more categories, we'll bring all of these systems into a unified single pane of glass software experience. |
| 1:35.3 | Philip takes us inside for Cotta's rapid growth to almost a billion in annual revenue, over 2,000 employees, and raising capital from investors like Sequoia, Meritech, first round, |
| 1:44.7 | and general catalyst. |
| 1:45.7 | Your biggest limiting factor is how quickly can you bring competent people, train them |
... |
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