Well-deserved victory for Denver!

@AyeshaTariq @youseftv Really good 🔥

@EugeneNg_VCap This is the #1 source of happiness that many people miss out on!

Enjoyed the thread, Follow @investianalyst

There are other structural differences btw $CRWD vs $S versus the likes of $MSFT, $PANW that cut across the endpoint industry. We'll be diving into these differences and dynamics next week w/ myself and some security leaders. 2-days left, sign-up below.

In summary, $CRWD early decision to invest in managed services complemented w/ human analysts has led to advantages that are currently benefitting them in this macro env that demands consolidation. $S' lack of investing here has further drifted them away from $CRWD in many ways.

In my opinion, this small but important decision is leading to the divergence between these two companies. Many of these are manifested on this list below:

Also, GTM & Talent issues are beginning is show up. The CEO talked abt the challenges of closing deals on the call. $S lost two key talents *within SALES. * Dan was CMO and held many of the keys to $S MSSPs. He led channel partnerships and business dev roles at several SaaS Cos

This is translating to issues especially in this current environment. For example, $S saw a 'pronounced' Q1 than did $CRWD. However, $CRWD closed more deals and is confident about the back half of the year. These are stack differences for similar competitors.

The dynamic currently at work: 1. $CRWD is the leader on Gartner 2. $CRWD has a strong managed service and partnerships to support customers (SMB & Ent) 3. Full breadth of product modules for customers to consolidate on This makes it easier for MSSP/VARs to pitch CRWD over $S

In cybersecurity, compared to other tech sectors, companies rely on MDR/MSSP recommendations before buying products. $CRWD's recent leadership in MDR makes them an ideal candidate for SMBs who don't have the budget to staff a full security team in this macro environment.

Channel ecosystem of MDRs, MSSPs, VARs etc who recommend products to clients get to buy the product from $CRWD at a discount, then re-sell to their clients & make money on added services. As a result, they're incentivized to recc./sell Gartner's leading products that are popular

Although $S now has a managed service, from its early days, it always believed that AI could take this role of MDR. They never emphasized building out this arm as much as $CRWD. This is why they dubbed their flagship product as "autonomous AI", but this strategy hasn't worked.

Now, this mgd service has been key in helping $CRWD stimulate growth in other areas of the business. As $CRWD has added 25+ product modules, this human element has helped them build trust, allowing to upsell more modules. It's become so good, $CRWD report cust w/ 7+ modules.

Adding a managed service was key at this time bcos when $CRWD launched their EDR in 2012 many SOC analysts in enterprises didn't knw how to manage cloud EDR. $CRWD analysts were always at hand to offer support in analyzing the telemetry their device generated. $S never got this.

To explain a managed service (MDR vs MSSP) MSSP is where you pay $CRWD to watch your data & let you know if they see anything that should be flagged. MDR is alternatively where you can pay for them to just take over all your IT stack and say, "If you see something, fix it."

When $CRWD was founded in 2011, they brought their cloud-based Falcon EDR to market quickly and complemented it w/ human-driven managed services. $S decided to delay the launch of their product into the market until about late 2015/16 and also refused to add managed service.

$CRWD and $S were founded 2-yrs apart. Today, $CRWD generates $3.3B growing 35% YoY meanwhile, $S generates $600M and is estimated to grow 41%. Why this divergence despite only 14-months apart? My thesis is built around $CRWD's early decision to invest in its managed service.

Crowdstrike and SentinelOne used to be serial competitors. However, I'd argue that this macro env. has further drifted them apart. Below are some quick notes from their recent earnings, but I want to go into more depth on the factors leading to this divergence in this thread:

This data is likely why $IOT is doing pretty well both regarding ARR

Using this framework, you'll easily understand how to categorize the top 20 cyber companies on the public market. We'll review $PANW, $DDOG and $CRWD in-depth as case studies. We've almost hit our cap max for this BC. Only 2 days until the deadline!

The NIST cyber defense matrix is one of the most popular frameworks used for simplifying the complex security industry. For example, vendors can be grouped in these areas: + Devices: $CRWD, $S + Apps: $DDOG + Networks: $PANW, $FTNT, $NET + Data: $MSFT + Users: $OKTA 1) Identify…

For the full list, check out this great piece on Mostly metrics and I highly rec. subscribing to get this data frequently. Quickest way to gain alpha!

Always reminded that hiring is a leading indicator of future growth (or contraction) for SaaS companies. Fantastic data from @cjgustafson222 showing the companies with the leading headcount growth in May. Security names dominate the list including key ones like $NET, $CRWD.

Spending for $ZS products got stronger in Apr 2023 than Jan 2023, according to ETR's Fortune 500 survey @mdsmaldon and continues to outpace $PANW. ETR's research shows that $ZS's premium price of their SASE justifies their market leadership. However, players like Cloudflare are…