How Duo Security went Zero to $1B ARR in Ann Arbor | Dug Song, Jon Oberheide
The Peel with Turner Novak
Turner Novak
4.6 • 11 Ratings
🗓️ 5 February 2026
⏱️ 129 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Dug Song and Jon Oberheide are the co-founders of Duo Security.
If you’ve never heard of Duo, it might be one of the most underrated software stories of all-time.
Starting in 2010, they burned only $14 million to hit $100m in ARR, were acquired by Cisco for $2.35 billion in 2018, and now rumored to be doing over $1 billion in ARR inside Cisco 16 years later.
We talk about how they built one of the most capital efficient SaaS companies ever from Ann Arbor, Michigan, and how their focus on the customer and company culture helped them win in a crowded cybersecurity market.
We talk growing up in the early hacking culture of the 90s, why most security tools are painful to use, sizing their market, solving for non-consumption of a product, and how Duo flipped the model by designing for end users instead of security teams.
We talk about staying in Michigan instead of moving to Silicon Valley, and why staying out of the tech bubble helped them execute.
We break down the mechanics of scaling from zero to $100 million in ARR, everything they learned integrating with Cisco, and why more founders should build outside of San Francisco.
A quick thank you ex-Duo employees Zack Urlocker, Ash Devata, and Katie Kilroy for their help brainstorming topics for the conversation.
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Timestamps:
(4:49) Meeting from Dug’s Wi-Fi honeypot
(7:33) 90’s hacking culture and cybersecurity’s wild west
(14:49) How the internet was born in Ann Arbor
(18:58) Staying in Michigan instead of moving to Silicon Valley
(31:20) Philosophy on leadership and team building
(39:48) What makes a good engineering leader
(44:01) Starting Duo to make security easier
(45:22) Why most security products suck
(48:36) How fixing account takeover became a $1B ARR company
(59:10) TAM, competition, fixing the non-consumption of security
(1:04:04) Being a radical advocate for the customer
(1:08:35) Duo’s pizza sales play
(1:12:45) Branding lessons from Anthropic, Tesla, Cliff Bar
(1:17:47) When to say no to customers
(1:21:27) Importance of culture when scaling
(1:27:56) Duo’s role in uncovering the SolarWinds breach
(1:31:29) Scaling to $100M ARR on $14M burned
(1:39:30) Inside the $2.35B Cisco acquisition
(1:44:02) What big companies get wrong about customers
(1:51:53) Building Michigan’s startup ecosystem
Referenced
Duo Security: [https://duo.com](https://duo.com/)
Cisco: [https://www.cisco.com](https://www.cisco.com/)
University of Michigan: [https://umich.edu](https://umich.edu/)
Follow Dug
Twitter: https://x.com/dugsong
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dugsong
Follow Jon
Twitter: https://x.com/jonoberheide
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jono
Follow Turner
Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/turnernovak
Subscribe to my newsletter to get every episode + the transcript in your inbox every week: https://www.thespl.it/
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the Peel. I'm your host, Turner Novak, founder of Banana Capital. |
| 0:07.0 | Today's guests are Doug Song and John Oberhide, co-founders of Duo Security. |
| 0:11.0 | If you've never heard of Duo, it might be one of the most underrated software stories of all time. |
| 0:16.0 | Starting in 2010, they burned only $14 million to hit $100 million in ARR, were required by |
| 0:22.7 | Cisco for $2.35 billion in 2014, and now we're going to be doing over $1 billion |
| 0:28.4 | ARR inside of Cisco 16 years later. |
| 0:30.7 | We talked about how they built one of the most capital-efficient SaaS companies ever from |
| 0:35.3 | Ann Arbor, Michigan, and how their focus on the customer |
| 0:37.5 | and company culture helped them win in a crowded cybersecurity market. |
| 0:41.2 | We talked about growing up in the early hacking culture of the 90s, why most security tools |
| 0:44.6 | are painful to use, sizing their initial market, solving for non-consumption of a product, |
| 0:49.6 | and how do you flip the model by designing for end users instead of security teams. We talk about staying in Michigan instead of moving Silicon Valley and why staying out of the tech |
| 0:58.0 | bubble actually helped them execute better. We break down the mechanics of scaling from |
| 1:02.0 | zero to 100 million ARR, everything they learned integrating with Cisco, and why more founders |
| 1:06.0 | should build outside of San Francisco. A quick thank you to ex-duo employees, |
| 1:10.0 | Zach Erlocker, Ash Devada, and Katie Kilroy for their help brainstorming topics for the conversation. As a reminder, I publish two episodes of Appeal every week exploring the world's greatest startup stories just like this one. Check out the back guideline of over a hundred episodes and tune in over the next few weeks for guests like Gary Tan at YC, Chatham Putaganta at Benchmark, Jake Stouk at Serval, Mike and Nikila Footwork, and Scott Stevenson at Spelbook, the fastest-growing startup in Canada. Let's talk to Doug and John after a quick word from Numeril and Flex. This episode is brought to you by Numeril. Numeril is the fastest, easiest way to stay compliant with U.S. sales tax and global VAT. |
| 1:48.0 | It's easy to set up and they automatically handle all registrations, ongoing filings, |
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| 2:26.7 | for sales tax and VAT compliance. This episode is brought to you by Flex. |
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