Assaf Rappaport sought to reassure employees at his cyber security start-up Wiz last summer after walking away from a potential $23bn acquisition by Google’s parent company Alphabet.
“We are going to go so big, we are going to make so much money in the future that you won’t regret it.” That was the message from the company’s chief executive during staff town halls at its offices in New York and Tel Aviv, according to a person familiar with his remarks.
This week, Wiz reached a landmark deal to be acquired at a much higher price of $32bn. For insiders who know Rappaport, the transaction —Alphabet’s biggest ever — is befitting for an entrepreneur whose good instincts have guided the company’s skyrocketing growth just five years since its founding.