Himalayas-born cyber tycoon Jay Chaudhry climbs into world’s richest club

Decades before he joined the ranks of Silicon Valley’s super rich, Jay Chaudhry lived with his parents in a Himalayan village without running water.

The founder of Zscaler is now part of a growing wave of billionaires who have built cybersecurity businesses. Chaudhry, 60, and his family benefit from stakes in the San Jose-based firm worth almost $3 billion. He along with six other cybersecurity software tycoons to emerge with 10-figure fortunes in the past year are worth about $9.5 billion combined, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, and together represent the latest wealth surge among the founders of internet-focused firms.

“I do look sometimes back and say, ‘Whoa,’” Chaudhry said in a telephone interview last month. “My success so far has mainly been because I have very little attachment for money. My obsession is really to make sure that the internet and cloud are a safe place for everyone to do business.”