- Jay Chaudhry’s net worth rose by 70% in 2025, reaching $17.9 billion.
- Born in a remote Himachal village, he studied under a tree with no electricity or water.
- He moved to the U.S. on a Tata scholarship, completing multiple master’s degrees.
- Founded Zscaler in 2007, now valued at $46.64 billion with $1.6 billion annual revenue.
Lives in Reno, Nevada, with his wife and three children, still leading Zscaler at 66.Jay Chaudhry is the richest Indian American who has seen his fortune soar up by 70 per cent in 2025, reaching $17.9 billion at the start of the year. His company, Zscaler now valued at nearly $46.54 billion, has made him one of the most influential figures in the global cybersecurity industry.
Born in 1958 in Panoh, a small village in Himachal Pradesh's Una district, Chaudhry grew up in humble surroundings. His parents Bhagat and Surjeet Chaudhry, were small-scale farmers. The village had no electricity or running water, aqnd young Jay often studied outdoors under a tree. He would walk nearly 4 km daily to a nearby school in Dhusara, always prioritizing his education despite harships.
After graduating in electronics engineering from IIT-BHU (Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh), Chaudhry's academic brilliance earned him a Tata scholarship that changed his life. At just 22, he boarded his first flight to the US, where he completed master's degrees in computer engineering, industrial engineering, and an MBA from the University of Cincinnati. He later pursued an executive program at Harvard Business School.
Before becoming an entrepreneur, Chaudhry worked with major tech firms like IBM, Unisys, and NCR. In 1996, he and his wife, Jyoti, invested their savings of around $1.14 million to launch their first cybersecurity venture, SecureIT.
The startup was so successful that VeriSign acquired it two years later for $70 million. Over time, Chaudhry founded four more companies, including CipherTrust and AirDefense, before creating Zscaler in 2007.
Zscaler pioneered a 'Zero Trust' cloud security model at a time when traditional firewalls were losing importance. The idea proved visionary; when Zscaler went public on Nasdaq in 2018, it cemented Chaudhry's place as a leader in cybersecurity. Today, the company has annual revenues crossing $1.6 billion.
Behind his success is also the support of his wife, Jyoti, who left her job as a systems analyst to back his entrepreneurial dream. The couple now lives in Reno, Nevada, with their three children. At 66, Chaudhry continues to serve as Zscaler's founder and CEO, winning awards such as IIT Varanasi's Alumnus of the Century and the American India Foundation's Corporate Leadership Award.
