Akshat Jain, co-founder and CTO of Cyware, joins LeaderSpeak to describe how complementary founder skills, close collaboration, and a culture of ownership helped shape a cybersecurity product company. He also explains why he prefers to operate like an intern—free to learn from and contribute to every part of the business.
Akshat started in software development and spent seven to eight years at Adobe, where he worked as a scientist and earned patents. After completing an MBA at IMT’s Noida campus, he worked on Oracle Enterprise Manager at Oracle. In late 2016, he and co-founder Anuj Goel started Cyware, which builds products for security orchestration and automated response, threat intelligence, and information sharing.
The founders brought different strengths to Cyware. Anuj had worked in cybersecurity and understood the industry’s gaps and the capabilities organisations would need in the following years. Akshat had experience building large-scale SaaS and cloud applications. In his description, one founder knew what needed to be solved while the other knew how to build it. That combination gave the company both a relevant problem and the engineering foundation to address it.
Akshat begins early, usually around 5:00 or 5:30, and reserves time for running, yoga, or exercise. His workday starts with a regular discussion with his co-founder about what the company learned and what it could have done better. He then works directly with teams across India, the US, APAC, and the Middle East.
Much of his time goes into unblocking work, reviewing progress, discussing designs, and exploring how an existing feature can be improved. He stays involved with engineering, product, design, technical writing, sales, solutions architecture, customer success, and support. Calling himself an intern helps him resist the artificial boundaries that can come with a senior title: an intern can code, design, investigate, and learn wherever useful.
Cyware’s philosophy is that people themselves cannot be managed; the shared work can. The company aims to remain relatively flat, allowing ideas to surface without fear and enabling employees to become independent. Managers are expected to work with teams, not merely request status reports.
That approach depends on giving people room to make mistakes. The standard is not perfection, but learning and avoiding repeated mistakes. Grassroots participation also helps leaders understand problems firsthand instead of receiving them only through layers of reporting.
Akshat highlights three principles introduced during onboarding. First is ownership, which cannot simply be handed to someone as a label; individuals must choose to take responsibility for their work. Second is team collaboration. Cyware values people who listen, share ideas, and avoid silos, especially when remote work has reduced informal office interactions.
The third principle is enjoyment. Work becomes far more difficult when people dislike the task, team, or culture. Employees should provide feedback about what is not working rather than allowing frustration to accumulate. For Akshat, a team that combines ownership, cooperation, and enjoyment can tackle unusually hard problems.
