Inside Nikesh Arora’s Deals Hunt for Palo Alto Networks

Palo Alto Networks CEO Nikesh Arora has never shied away from deals, acquiring more than 40 companies in the eight years since he took the helm of the world’s biggest standalone cybersecurity firm. But over the past 18 months, Arora’s appetite for acquisitions has reached a new fever pitch as he expanded the company’s products to handle new AI threats as well as capture more revenue from existing customers.

For instance, he explored acquiring Datadog, which sells software that helps businesses identify security threats and monitor how cloud applications perform, and Okta, which helps companies ensure workers have access to the right systems, according to two people with knowledge of the situation.