Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
The official CEO.com podcast featuring unfiltered conversations with the leaders shaping our world.
Clint Betts: Toni, thank you so much for coming on the show. It’s an honor to have you. You’re the founder and CEO of Prowler. Given your work in security and open source, I honestly can’t imagine anyone more relevant to talk to right now. Let’s start with how you became the founder and CEO of Prowler.
Toni De La Fuente: It’s a long story, but the short version is that I started Prowler as an open-source project because I needed a tool to secure my cloud environments.
Ten years ago, I was working with AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, and other cloud platforms, and I couldn’t find a tool that did what I needed. So I decided to build one myself.
I wanted to learn by doing. I wanted to understand cloud security at a deeper level, and writing the tool seemed like the best way to do that.
Over time, Prowler became a very popular open-source project. I eventually joined AWS, where I learned even more about cloud security at scale. After a few years, I left AWS to work on Prowler full-time and eventually founded the company around it.
That’s how I became the founder and CEO.
Clint Betts: Building an open-source project into a company is a fascinating journey. How has that experience been?
Toni De La Fuente: In some ways, it was easier than people might think.
Not easy in terms of effort—I can’t even count the number of hours I put into the project—but easier in terms of creating a company because the demand was already there.
When you build a successful open-source project in a market with huge opportunities, like cloud security, investors start paying attention.
Cloud security and AI security are beginning to converge, so there’s tremendous interest in the space.
VCs started reaching out to me asking whether I had plans to build a company or monetize the project.
At the same time, I was working full-time at AWS while also spending evenings and weekends maintaining Prowler, responding to issues, reviewing feature requests, and supporting the community.
Eventually I realized I needed to choose one path, so I decided to go all-in on Prowler.
Clint Betts: Security has always been important, but it feels especially important right now. We’re seeing AI-generated software, vibe coding, tools like OpenClaw, and a lot of concerns about vulnerabilities.
How should people think about security in the age of AI?
Toni De La Fuente: Software development has changed dramatically.
Today, almost anyone can build an application with AI assistance and deploy it to the cloud.
Years ago people would say, “I’m building an application for Windows” or “I’m building for Linux.”
Now people say, “I’m building for the cloud.”
The cloud providers have effectively become the new operating systems.
Every application consists of many components: databases, APIs, front ends, storage layers, AI services, and more.
Every one of those components has its own security requirements.
The challenge is making sure all of those pieces are configured correctly and securely, whether they’re running on AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, or somewhere else.
And now AI is layered on top of everything.
Most modern applications incorporate AI in some way. That means organizations also need to secure AI infrastructure, AI APIs, AI models, and the data flowing through them.
At the end of the day, AI security is increasingly becoming cloud security.
Clint Betts: Where are you seeing the biggest opportunities right now? What advice are you giving companies?
Toni De La Fuente: One of the biggest opportunities is helping AI agents.
We now describe ourselves as the Agentic Cloud Defender because it’s not just humans using Prowler anymore. Agents are using it too.
Cloud security contains a lot of deterministic information.
You can’t simply ask an AI model, “What’s wrong with my cloud?”
The AI needs context. It needs to understand what good configurations look like, what bad configurations look like, how attack paths are formed, and what vulnerabilities exist.
That’s what Prowler provides.
We’ve built something called Prowler Hub, which is similar in concept to Terraform Registry or Docker Hub, but specifically for cloud security artifacts.
It gives agents and humans the information they need to evaluate cloud security correctly.
Clint Betts: Anthropic recently announced Mithril, a model capable of finding software vulnerabilities at a very high level. How concerned are you that we may need to rewrite massive amounts of software?
Toni De La Fuente: I actually think there’s a lot of positive potential there.
If these systems help us identify vulnerabilities in existing software, especially open-source software used by millions of people, that’s a good thing.
But software security is only part of the picture.
People often think secure software equals secure systems.
That’s not true.
You might have perfectly secure application code running on a vulnerable infrastructure layer.
Security includes deployment pipelines, cloud configurations, firewalls, permissions, networking, monitoring, and everything surrounding the software itself.
AI can help us write more secure code, but securing an entire system is a much larger challenge.
We’ll have to see how effective these models become beyond pure software analysis.
Clint Betts: Have you seen growth accelerate because people are thinking more seriously about security?
Toni De La Fuente: Absolutely.
We’re approaching 50 million downloads of Prowler Open Source.
Fifty million.
Clint Betts: That’s incredible.
Toni De La Fuente: It really speaks to how much people trust open source.
What’s especially exciting is that much of the work being added to Prowler now comes directly from the community.
The controls we released last week and many of the controls we’re releasing this week were contributed by community members.
People are adding support for Microsoft 365, Google Cloud, Cloudflare, GitHub, and many other services.
We’ve become much broader than traditional cloud security.
Now we’re assessing cloud infrastructure, cloud platforms, developer tooling, and collaboration systems that all play critical roles in modern environments.
Clint Betts: What does a typical day look like for you as CEO?
Toni De La Fuente: Every day is a challenge.
My ideal day starts with exercise. I like running, especially trail running, or going to the gym.
After breakfast, I sit down and review messages, priorities, and the day’s agenda.
Because we’re fully remote, everything happens online.
Roughly half my time is spent looking outward—customers, prospects, partners, investors, social media, and market opportunities.
The other half is spent looking inward—working with engineering, product, sales, marketing, and ensuring alignment across the company.
Honestly, I’d like to spend even more time externally, but we’re still a young company and there are a lot of moving parts internally.
Clint Betts: Why did you decide to build a fully remote company?
Toni De La Fuente: It happened naturally.
The first engineer I hired was already working remotely.
The second person was in another city.
The third person was somewhere else.
Before we knew it, we were fully distributed.
Today we have more than 20 employees and everyone enjoys the flexibility.
We do a couple of offsites each year, but otherwise we operate remotely.
At this point, I don’t think we could change it even if we wanted to.
Clint Betts: You mentioned moving to San Francisco. Why make that move?
Toni De La Fuente: Being a CEO means constantly making decisions without immediately knowing whether they’re right or wrong.
Moving to San Francisco is one of those decisions.
I believe it’s important because so much of the AI and technology ecosystem is concentrated there.
Anthropic is there. Salesforce is there. Okta is there. Many potential partners and customers are there.
Being physically present will help us build relationships, close partnerships, and create opportunities that are difficult to replicate remotely.
I’ve lived in the United States before—I spent seven years in Atlanta—so this isn’t entirely new for me.
It just feels like the right time.
Clint Betts: What do you read?
Toni De La Fuente: I’m an avid reader and podcast listener.
I consume a lot of startup content, cybersecurity content, management books, and business books. I also enjoy thrillers and fiction.
Right now, I’m reading Can’t Hurt Me by David Goggins.
One book that had a huge impact on me when I became a CEO was The Great CEO Within.
It’s a relatively short book, but it contains incredibly practical advice about the day-to-day realities of running a company.
Another favorite is The Founder’s Dilemmas.
And of course, Ben Horowitz’s books, especially The Hard Thing About Hard Things.
Those books feel very real. They capture the challenges founders actually experience.
Clint Betts: What have you learned about leadership?
Toni De La Fuente: Being a CEO is incredibly hard.
After 27 years working in cybersecurity and technology, this is probably the most difficult thing I’ve ever done.
One lesson I’ve learned is that effort matters.
I never want my team, my investors, or myself to look back and think I didn’t give everything I had.
Another lesson is the importance of listening.
We have people across five different time zones.
Being available, listening to people, understanding what they need, and helping them succeed is one of the most important parts of the job.
It’s difficult, but it’s essential.
Clint Betts: How are you thinking about the broader economy and planning for the future?
Toni De La Fuente: We have long-term goals, but honestly, AI has compressed planning horizons dramatically.
The other day someone suggested planning a feature rollout over the next two months.
I said, “Two months? Let’s plan for two weeks.”
The pace of change is just too fast.
We still maintain longer-term roadmaps and company goals, but product decisions happen much more quickly now.
As for politics, wars, and global uncertainty, I try not to spend too much time thinking about things I can’t control.
The world has always been uncertain.
Our focus is on what we can build, improve, and execute.
Clint Betts: How have you funded the business?
Toni De La Fuente: We’ve raised about $12.5 million so far.
Our lead investor is Blossom Capital, along with several other venture firms and angel investors.
Most of that funding came between 2023 and 2024.
We expect to raise additional capital to continue growing our sales, marketing, developer relations, and go-to-market teams.
So far, a lot of our growth has been inbound.
Now we’re focused on understanding our users more deeply and converting that incredible community engagement into sustainable business growth.
Clint Betts: Managing an open-source community while building a company seems difficult. How do you balance those interests?
Toni De La Fuente: It’s definitely a challenge.
We exist because of the community.
At the same time, we need a sustainable business.
Cloud infrastructure isn’t free.
Even if Prowler is free, our users are already paying significant cloud bills to AWS, Microsoft, Google, and others.
Our goal is to continue offering a powerful open-source foundation while providing additional value through premium features.
Things like alerts, bulk provisioning, centralized findings management, single sign-on, and advanced AI capabilities are now paid features.
The response from the community has actually been very positive.
People understand that if they want the project to continue growing, the company needs a way to generate revenue.
Clint Betts: How big can Prowler become?
Toni De La Fuente: The sky is the limit.
We’re already seeing website traffic grow roughly 75% month over month.
If we can effectively monetize even a small percentage of that traffic and community engagement, the opportunity is enormous.
Our vision is to become not only a platform for human cloud security professionals but also a platform for AI agents.
Ultimately, we want Prowler to be used by every organization operating in the cloud—which is basically every organization.
Clint Betts: Finally, we end every interview the same way.
At CEO.com, we believe the chances one gives are just as important as the chances one takes.
When you hear that, who gave you a chance that helped get you where you are today?
Toni De La Fuente: I’ve been fortunate to receive many opportunities throughout my life.
I grew up in a very small town in southern Spain.
When opportunities came along, I almost always said yes.
A chance to work with computers at 19? Yes.
A chance to move to Madrid? Yes.
A chance to move to the United States? Yes.
A chance to work on new technologies? Yes.
I’ve been lucky to have people around me who saw potential in me and opened doors.
But I also tried to embrace every challenge that came my way.
That combination made all the difference.
Clint Betts: Toni, thank you so much for coming on the show. What an incredible company and community you’ve built with Prowler. We’re honored to have you.
Toni De La Fuente: Thank you, Clint. Thanks for having me.