Tony Perez.

Professional experience

Most recently I was General Manager of the Security Product Group at GoDaddy, a $300M+ ARR business line. Before that, I was Co-Founder and CEO of Sucuri, a website security company we bootstrapped and eventually sold to GoDaddy in 2017. Earlier still, I was Founder and COO of CubicTwo, a small service-based development firm.

Between 2006 and 2011, before any of that, I worked as a defense contractor, providing subject-matter expertise in geospatial technologies to the U.S. Army, Marine Corps, Navy, and NATO allies including Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia. I wore a lot of hats over those years: analyst, technical architect, project manager, and program manager, all focused on enterprise systems for range management and sustainment operations around the globe.

Over the years I've built and scaled products used by millions, led distributed teams around the world, and advised startups on everything from infrastructure design to product-market fit.

Marine Corps

December 13, 2000. The day I stepped onto the legendary yellow footprints at Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island. Those footsteps marked the beginning of a journey that would shape my perspective on life.

I deployed twice to Iraq. The first in November 2002, attached to the 1st Marine Expeditionary Brigade. The second came months later: on March 19, 2003, I crossed the Line of Departure as part of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, remaining in-country through July.

Later, attached to the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU SOC) aboard the USS Belleau Wood, we were re-deployed back into Iraq, assuming control of the Karbala, An Najaf, and Al Qadisiyah provinces and completing one of the longest land-based deployments for a MEU at that time: over seven months on the ground. I left the Corps under honorable conditions at the rank of Sergeant (E-5), five years to the day from when it all began.

Building things that matter

In March 2011, while deployed in Afghanistan, I was invited to join the founding team of Sucuri. At the time it was just three of us, curious minds with no bigger ambition than building something meaningful. By January 2012 we realized the potential and went full-time. I served as COO from 2011 to 2014, then was appointed CEO by the board, working closely with my business partner Daniel Cid, creator of OSSEC.

On April 4th, 2017, Daniel and I signed the deal to sell Sucuri to GoDaddy. What came after was a string of tools built to solve our own problems:

1. 2018
   CleanBrowsingFrustrated by the lack of tools to secure our home networks, we launched a privacy-first DNS resolver with content filtering.
2. 2020
   NOC.orgAfter leaving GoDaddy, we needed the very tools we'd spent a decade building, so we built our own edge network.
3. 2022
   TruncOriginally a fork of Daniel's OSSEC project. A simple, affordable way to collect, store, and analyze logs at scale.
4. 2024
   DNS ArchiveThreat intelligence built on the DNS data we collect across every platform, visibility turned into actionable insight.

Education

A degree, or two, for my mom.

I graduated from MAST Academy, one of Miami's more academically recognized public high schools, in 2000. In 2010 I completed a B.S. in Technology Management from the American Military University, part of the American Public University System.

In 2020 I earned an MBA with an emphasis in Technology Management from Capella University, and in 2024 an M.Sc. in Networking and Communication Management from the Keller Graduate School of Management at DeVry University, along with a graduate certificate in Information Security.

Off the clock

I'm a father to three, the hardest and most important thing I do. My hobbies keep growing as I chase the things that challenge and excite me. Do hard things, they say.

I'm a brown belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu under the Carlson Gracie lineage. I snowboard, the faster and harder the better. I'm a CrossFit L2 coach, USA Weightlifting L1, and Gymnastics L1; I picked up the barbell in 2021. In recent years I've fallen for off-roading, rock crawling, and desert racing, and I started DDOS Racing in 2018 to capture it.

I'm an acquired taste, personally and professionally. Strong work ethic, socially awkward, opinionated, and I wear my emotions on my sleeve. Confident, some might say too confident, but focused, with a style of execution that's different but effective. At the end of the day, I'm also just a big joker at heart who loves to laugh.

Still serving

Leaving the Marine Corps didn't get the uniform out of my system. Today I serve as a Captain (O-3) in the U.S. Army Reserve, assigned to the Civil Affairs & Psychological Operations Command (Airborne), attached to the 451st Civil Affairs Battalion.

It's a different mission than the one I crossed the berm for in 2003: less kinetic, more about influence, partnership, and the quieter work that shapes outcomes before a shot is ever fired. But the throughline is the same one that's followed me into every company I've built: show up, do the hard thing, and take care of the people to your left and right.

Two services, two decades apart, same answer when they ask if I'd do it again.

Boots in the dirt

After Florida and California, we put down roots in Texas and bought a ranch. After a couple of decades spent in data centers and command posts, there's something honest about land that doesn't care about your title or your last exit.

Fence lines that need mending, livestock that doesn't keep a calendar, equipment that breaks at the worst possible time. It's the same lesson the Corps and the Reserve drilled in, just with more dirt under the nails: show up, do the work, take care of what's yours. My kids are growing up knowing where hard work starts, and that's worth more to me than any of it.