Ben Horowitz, the rap-loving, book-writing co-founder of the big shot venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz will be joining the board of directors at Tanium, the computer security outfit in which the firm has so heavily invested, sources briefed on the move tell Re/code.
Ben Horowitz to Take Board Seat at Security Startup Tanium
He’s taking a seat on the board of the VC firm’s biggest single investment.
Andreessen Horowitz
In joining Tanium’s board, Horowitz will become a director of the company that remains one of Andreessen Horowitz’s largest investments so far. As of last year, it had invested a combined $142 million in Tanium. He’ll replace Steve Sinofsky, the former Microsoft-exec-turned-AH-partner who took a Tanium board seat in 2014. Sinofsky will become an observer on the board.
And until last fall, Andreessen was Tanium’s only outside investor. That changed when TPG and Institutional Venture Partners teamed up on a $120 million round in September that valued Tanium at $3.5 billion.
Tanium makes software built to help manage and secure endpoints, which in the lingo of IT pros can apply to computers, servers, printers, tablets, phones or any other device that gets installed on a corporate network. With a 15-second response time, a manager can basically ask those devices “what’s up?” and quickly tell them to do something like update their software if there’s a problem. This is especially useful when a network comes under attack and for analyzing evidence after an attack has been carried out.
Horowitz will be joining a board composed mostly of insiders. Its only other outside director is Gordy Davidson, the chairman of the high-powered Silicon Valley law firm Fenwick & West.
Horowitz has been working with Tanium behind the scenes for a few years and wanted to get involved in an official capacity. But he also has a long history with Tanium CEO Orion Hindawi dating back to when Horowitz was running Opsware, the software company he sold to Hewlett-Packard in 2007, and Hindawi was running BigFix, which he sold to IBM in 2010.
And speaking of Tanium and Hindawi, he just happens to be our guest on this week’s Re/code Decode podcast. (Yours truly took a spin in the hosting chair.) If you’ve never heard him talk about his opinions of Silicon Valley culture, you’ll appreciate his outspoken take. (Hint: He’s not a fan of nap pods or pink coconut water.) You can listen for yourself right here:
This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
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