My name is David Ulevitch, I’m the CEO and founder of OpenDNS.com.
So what is it about that makes OpenDNS special?
First, DNS which what we provide is – is essentially the phonebook of the internet.
It’s used anytime you go anywhere on the web,
anytime you’re sending email, anytime you want to do instant message,
do e-commerce, conduct business, share news, share information.
DNS is one of this core protocols for the internet
and it is used anytime we do anything.
So what OpenDNS has done and we’ve taken this 30-year-old protocol
and we really brought it forward to the way people use the internet today.
So that means we help protect people online by blocking phishing websites
and preventing them from downloading malware so they can have
higher confidence when they buy things online or conduct business.
We also make it possible for parents to keep their kids safe online
so that more and young kids can get online knowing
that they’re not going to be exposed to things
that they shouldn’t be exposed to.
And we really want to give that control to people
so that when they’re using the internet they feel like they’re in charge
and they’re in control.
So I think that’s one of the things that makes special.
The other thing that makes us special
is we’ve grown purely through word of mouth.
We don’t have any aggressive advertising campaign,
we never spent a lot of money on marketing.
We’ve grown to serve over 1% of world’s internet population purely
because people recommend us and our growth rate is getting faster
and faster each and everyday.
And we’ve done that because we think we’ve provided
a world class service that really makes people’s experiences better.
And one of the ways that we’ve done and it’s probably one of the last reason.
One of the last reason we’ll talk about that makes us so special
is that I think we’ve done a tremendous job of listening to our customers.
We actually have a site – an area on our website
where customers can give us ideas and other customers
can vote on these ideas and tell us why they think
we should do the idea or not do the idea.
And I think that’s one of the ways where we really listened to our audience
and our users and said okay, how can we build a service
that you want to be a part of and that you want to use.
And we’ve taken that feedback
and incorporated it into our service over the last 4 years.
Which has helped us to be the world’s largest DNS service,
which is what we are today.
And we look forward to doing these things tomorrow.
Well OpenDNS started a tech company here in the United States
but we reached a global audience and I think that it’s possible to start
a tech company anywhere in the world really,
I mean, you can reach a global audience very quickly thanks to the internet.
You can work and collaborate with people in countries all over the world.
And that said, I think, there’s some cultural things
that help made the United States a great country to start a business in.
You know, we started here in Silicon Valley here in Northern California.
We operate in an environment extremely forgiving of failure
and encourages people to take risk.
And I think if you’re in a culture in your environment that’s encouraging risk,
taking risk and it is forgiving a failure, you’re much more likely to succeed
and take those big steps when necessary to be successful in the business.
I think what makes an innovator is something very simple it’s the desire…
you know, somebody who looks at the status quo
and says I want to make that status quo better,
I want to be disruptive and change it.
And an innovator can be a person, it can be a company,
it can be a movement.
It’s somebody or something that looks at the world with a unique perspective
and has the desire to change that for everyone else for the better.
So there’s no question in my mind
that OpenDNS helps to improve the state of the world.
The internet today provides a massive global area to go
and means for people to communicate whether to exchange information,
share news quickly, or conduct business,
the internet is a global force of communication and connectivity.
In the DNS service which is what OpenDNS provide to,
you know, this 1% of the internet today and more and more each and every day.
The DNS is a critical piece of that infrastructure
and without DNS we wouldn’t be able to visit webpages, send emails,
conduct Skype voice communications,
and really without DNS the internet today as we know it will not function.
And so when we look at what we’re doing
at OpenDNS to help improve the state o the world.
We’re helping to make their overall internet infrastructure
more reliable or making it safer to conduct business
whether that’s blocking phishing sites or protecting the world from malware
or just helping parents to keep their kids safe online.
We want to make sure that the foundations of the internet that we build our lives
on top of is safe for business and safe for our use.
And I think that’s what we’re doing at OpenDNS to make the internet
a better place which in turn improves the state of the world.