Cloudflare vs General Motors: Founders, CEOs and History

Company facts

Founders

CEOs and their tenures

Timeline: Cloudflare and General Motors side by side

1. 1908General Motors

   General Motors Founded

   William C. Durant incorporates General Motors in Hudson, New Jersey, on September 16, 1908, with Buick Motor Company as its primary asset.

2. 1909General Motors

   Cadillac and Oldsmobile Acquired

   GM acquires Oldsmobile and the prestigious Cadillac Automobile Company, establishing the multi-brand architecture that will define GM's market segmentation strategy for decades.

3. 1923General Motors

   Alfred Sloan Becomes President

   Alfred P. Sloan takes the GM presidency and begins implementing the decentralized divisional management structure and market segmentation strategy that transforms GM into the world's most admired corporate organization.

4. 1931General Motors

   GM Surpasses Ford as World's Largest Automaker

   General Motors overtakes Ford Motor Company as the world's largest automobile manufacturer by sales volume, a position it would hold for the majority of the next seven decades.

5. 1984General Motors

   Saturn Corporation Founded

   GM establishes Saturn as a separate subsidiary intended to compete with Japanese small cars through innovative labor relations, retail practices, and manufacturing processes.

6. 1996General Motors

   OnStar Connected Vehicle Service Launched

   GM introduces OnStar, the world's first embedded cellular connected vehicle service, offering emergency assistance, stolen vehicle tracking, and remote diagnostics.

7. 2009Cloudflare

   Cloudflare Founded

   Matthew Prince, Michelle Zatlyn, and Lee Holloway founded Cloudflare, building on the Project Honey Pot spam-tracking project.

8. 2009General Motors

   Chapter 11 Bankruptcy and Government Bailout

   General Motors files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on June 1, 2009, with $49.5 billion in U.S. Government assistance as part of the Troubled Asset Relief Program.

9. 2010Cloudflare

   TechCrunch Disrupt Launch

   Cloudflare launched publicly at TechCrunch Disrupt in San Francisco in September 2010, offering free website protection and acceleration.

10. 2010General Motors

    IPO Return to Public Markets

    General Motors returns to public markets through an initial public offering on November 18, 2010, raising approximately $23.1 billion - at the time one of the largest IPOs in U.S. History. The offering allows the U.S.

11. 2014Cloudflare

    Universal SSL and Project Galileo

    Cloudflare gave free SSL certificates to all customers with Universal SSL and launched Project Galileo to protect at-risk nonprofits and journalists for free.

12. 2014General Motors

    Mary Barra Becomes CEO

    Mary Barra, a 33-year GM veteran with a background in engineering and manufacturing, becomes CEO on January 15, 2014, becoming the first female CEO of a major global automaker.

13. 2016General Motors

    Cruise Automation Acquired

    GM acquires Cruise Automation, a San Francisco-based autonomous vehicle startup, for approximately $1 billion - at the time one of the largest acquisitions in GM's modern history.

14. 2017Cloudflare

    Cloudflare Workers Announced

    Cloudflare introduced Workers, a serverless platform built on V8 isolates that lets developers run code across its network.

15. 2019Cloudflare

    NYSE IPO

    Cloudflare completed its IPO on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker NET in September 2019 at $15 per share, raising about $525 million.

16. 2020Cloudflare

    Cloudflare One Launched

    Cloudflare bundled its Zero Trust access, secure web gateway, and network services into Cloudflare One, its SASE platform.

17. 2021General Motors

    Ultium Platform and EV Commitment Announced

    GM announces its commitment to invest more than $35 billion in electric and autonomous vehicles through 2025 and introduces the Ultium battery platform as the technological foundation for dozens of future EV models across all four U.S. Brands.

18. 2022Cloudflare

    Area 1 Security and R2 General Availability

    Cloudflare acquired email security company Area 1 Security for about $162 million and made R2 zero-egress object storage generally available.

19. 2024Cloudflare

    Revenue Reaches $1.67 Billion

    Cloudflare reported 2024 revenue of $1.67 billion and free cash flow of $166.9 million.

20. 2024General Motors

    Cruise Robotaxi Program Ended

    Following the October 2023 Cruise pedestrian incident and a long operational pause, GM announced in December 2024 that it would stop funding Cruise's robotaxi business and fold the unit's technology work into GM.

21. 2025Cloudflare

    Revenue Passes $2 Billion

    Cloudflare reported 2025 revenue of $2.17 billion (+29.8%) and closed its largest contract ever, averaging $42.5 million per year in ACV.

22. 2025General Motors

    EV Capacity Cut and $7.6 Billion in EV Charges

    After the U.S. federal EV tax credit expired on September 30, 2025, GM cut EV production capacity and recorded about $7.6 billion of EV-related charges for the year.

23. 2026Cloudflare

    VoidZero Acquisition and Growth Acceleration

    Cloudflare acquired VoidZero, the company behind the Vite JavaScript tooling ecosystem, in June 2026 and reported Q2 2026 revenue growth of 36%.

24. 2026General Motors

    Guidance Raised as North America Margins Recover

    GM reported Q2 2026 revenue of $48.0 billion and EBIT-adjusted of $3.9 billion, with North America margins back in its 8-10% target range, and raised full-year 2026 EBIT-adjusted guidance to $14.0-16.0 billion.

Acquisitions

Questions about Cloudflare vs General Motors