CrowdStrike vs Tailscale: Founders, CEOs and History
CrowdStrike was founded in 2011 by George Kurtz, Dmitri Alperovitch, Gregg Marston and is led by George Kurtz. Tailscale was founded in 2019 by Avery Pennarun, David Crawshaw, David Carney and is led by Avery Pennarun.
Company facts
CrowdStrike
- Founded
- 2011
- Headquarters
- Austin, Texas
- Current CEO
- George Kurtz
- Employees
- 10,698
Tailscale
- Founded
- 2019
- Headquarters
- Toronto, Ontario, Canada (remote-first)
- Current CEO
- Avery Pennarun
- Employees
- 300
Founders
CrowdStrike
George Kurtz
George Kurtz co-founded CrowdStrike in 2011 and has served as CEO since then, later also taking the title of president. He pushed the company to replace signature-based antivirus with a cloud-native, behavior-based platform.
Dmitri Alperovitch
Dmitri Alperovitch co-founded CrowdStrike and served as its chief technology officer, building its threat intelligence practice and adversary-naming approach (for example "Fancy Bear" and "Cozy Bear").
Gregg Marston
Gregg Marston co-founded CrowdStrike in 2011 alongside George Kurtz and Dmitri Alperovitch.
Tailscale
Avery Pennarun
Avery Pennarun is co-founder and CEO of Tailscale. Before Tailscale he worked at Google, including on Google Fiber, and earlier built open-source tools and wrote widely read essays on engineering and product management.
David Crawshaw
David Crawshaw co-founded Tailscale in 2019 and served as its chief technology officer, building much of the early coordination server and client in Go. He previously worked at Google, including on the Go programming language.
David Carney
David Carney co-founded Tailscale in 2019. Serving as the absolutely critical initial backend architect, he helped design the highly robust, incredibly scalable control plane that allows millions of distributed devices to instantly discover and connect to each…
Brad Fitzpatrick
Brad Fitzpatrick created LiveJournal and the Memcached caching system, then spent years at Google working on the Go language.
CEOs and their tenures
CrowdStrike
- George Kurtz2011–present
Co-Founder, President, and Chief Executive Officer
As Co-Founder and CEO, he pioneered the massive shift from legacy, signature-based antivirus (like his former company McAfee) to highly advanced, AI-driven cloud endpoint protection.
Source - Dmitri Alperovitch2011–2020
Co-Founder
Dmitri Alperovitch co-founded CrowdStrike in 2011 and served as its Chief Technology Officer until 2020. He was fundamental in designing the Falcon platform's cloud-native architecture and establishing the company's renowned threat intelligence capabilities.
Source - Burt Podbere2015–present
Chief Financial Officer
As CFO, he attempts to minimize the severe financial liabilities and potential massive customer churn resulting from the catastrophic 2024 global IT outage.
Source
Tailscale
- Avery Pennarun2019–present
Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer
Co-founded Tailscale and sets its product and company strategy.
Source - David Crawshaw2019–present
Co-Founder
As Co-Founder and CTO, he is the absolute visionary behind the platform's incredibly elegant, peer-to-peer routing architecture.
Source - Mike Shaver2026–present
VP of Engineering
As an early executive and key operational leader, he helped translate deep, complex networking technology into an incredibly simple, highly commercial B2B product.
Source - Ross Kukulinski2026–present
VP of Product
As a senior product leader, he manages the absolute critical roadmap required to secure highly lucrative, multi-million dollar contracts with Fortune 500 CISOs.
Source
Timeline: CrowdStrike and Tailscale side by side
2011CrowdStrike
Company Founded
George Kurtz, Dmitri Alperovitch, and Gregg Marston founded CrowdStrike to build a cloud-native alternative to signature-based antivirus.
2013CrowdStrike
Falcon Platform Launches
CrowdStrike launched its Falcon endpoint platform, built around a lightweight sensor that streams behavioral data to the cloud.
2016CrowdStrike
DNC Breach Investigation
CrowdStrike investigated the Democratic National Committee breach and attributed it to Russian state-linked groups it calls Fancy Bear and Cozy Bear.
2017CrowdStrike
Series D at $1 Billion Valuation
CrowdStrike raised $100 million in May 2017 at a valuation of more than $1 billion.
2019CrowdStrike
Nasdaq IPO
CrowdStrike listed on Nasdaq under ticker CRWD in June 2019, pricing shares at $34 and raising about $612 million.
2019Tailscale
Company founded
Founded by Pennarun, Crawshaw and Carney.
2020CrowdStrike
Preempt Security Acquired
CrowdStrike bought the identity-security company Preempt Security in 2020 for about $96 million.
2020Tailscale
Seed and Series A
$3 million seed in April; $12 million Series A led by Accel in November.
2021CrowdStrike
Humio Acquisition and Move to Austin
CrowdStrike bought log-management company Humio for about $400 million (later Falcon LogScale) and moved its headquarters from Sunnyvale, California to Austin, Texas.
2022Tailscale
Series B
$100 million led by CRV and Insight Partners.
2023CrowdStrike
Charlotte AI Introduced
CrowdStrike introduced Charlotte AI, a generative AI security assistant built into the Falcon platform.
2023CrowdStrike
Acquired Bionic
CrowdStrike Holdings acquired Bionic.
2024CrowdStrike
S&P 500 Inclusion and July Outage
CrowdStrike joined the S&P 500 in June 2024. On July 19, 2024 a faulty Channel File 291 content update crashed about 8.5 million Windows devices worldwide.
2025CrowdStrike
Acquired Pangea
CrowdStrike Holdings acquired Pangea.
2025Tailscale
Series C
$160 million led by Accel at a reported ~$1.5 billion valuation.
2026CrowdStrike
$5 Billion ARR, Acquisitions, and Stock Split
CrowdStrike ended fiscal 2026 with $5.25 billion of ARR, agreed to buy SGNL ($740 million) and Seraphic in January 2026, and completed a 4-for-1 stock split on July 2, 2026.
2026Tailscale
Border0 joins Tailscale
Adds privileged access for production systems, databases and Kubernetes.
2026Tailscale
Pricing v4
Simplified plans and more predictable pricing.
2026Tailscale
Nearly 40,000 paying customers; Mike Shaver hired
Customer count roughly doubles since November 2025; new VP of Engineering appointed.
Acquisitions
CrowdStrike
- SGNL2026$740M
- Seraphic Security2026Undisclosed
- Pangea2025Undisclosed
- Flow Security2024Undisclosed
- Bionic2023Undisclosed
- Humio (Falcon LogScale)2021$400M
Questions about CrowdStrike vs Tailscale
Who is the CEO of CrowdStrike Holdings, Inc. and Tailscale?
CrowdStrike Holdings, Inc. is led by George Kurtz and Tailscale is led by Avery Pennarun. Both serve as the top executive responsible for the company's strategy, operations, and financial performance.
When was CrowdStrike Holdings, Inc. founded vs Tailscale?
CrowdStrike Holdings, Inc. was founded in 2011 — 8 years before Tailscale, which was founded in 2019. CrowdStrike Holdings, Inc.'s longer operating history gives it a deeper track record but also potentially more institutional inertia compared to the younger Tailscale.
How many employees does CrowdStrike Holdings, Inc. have compared to Tailscale?
CrowdStrike Holdings, Inc. employs approximately 10,698 people, while Tailscale employs approximately 300. CrowdStrike Holdings, Inc. has the larger workforce at 10,698 employees, compared to Tailscale's 300. A higher headcount does not necessarily imply greater efficiency — it often reflects differences in business model (e.g., manufacturing vs. software).
Where are CrowdStrike Holdings, Inc. and Tailscale headquartered?
CrowdStrike Holdings, Inc. is headquartered in United States and Tailscale is headquartered in Canada. Their different home markets mean they may face different regulatory frameworks, tax regimes, and currency exposure.
Who founded CrowdStrike Holdings, Inc. and Tailscale?
CrowdStrike Holdings, Inc. was founded by George Kurtz, Dmitri Alperovitch, Gregg Marston. Tailscale was founded by Avery Pennarun, David Crawshaw, David Carney, Brad Fitzpatrick.
Which company has a longer operating history — CrowdStrike Holdings, Inc. or Tailscale?
CrowdStrike Holdings, Inc. has been operating for approximately 15 years, making it the more established of the two companies. Tailscale has been in operation for around 7 years. A longer operating history often signals greater institutional resilience and brand recognition, though it can also mean slower adaptation to new market conditions.
Figures come from each company's filings and the sources linked beside them. Amounts reported in another currency are shown in US dollars at an approximate rate and marked with ~. Back to the CrowdStrike vs Tailscale overview