Tweet by nickgrossman

September 24, 2025

I spoke w/ @cloudflare co-founder & CEO Matthew Prince (@eastdakota) for the latest ep of the Slow Hunch podcast. Since 2010, Matthew and his team have built Cloudflare into one of the most important companies on the internet: powering and protecting vast portions of global traffic. I’ve known Matthew since @USV’s investment in Cloudflare’s Series C back in 2013, and it was really fun tracing his slow hunch, right from those early days. We covered: - how he met co-founders Michelle Zatlyn (@zatlyn) and Lee Holloway (@icqheretic) - the early experiments and risks that shaped Cloudflare - stories from the company’s pre-IPO days - their decision to make website encryption free - how their infra ended up running 2 of the internet’s 13 root servers - his thoughts on AI (esp the transition from a search-driven internet to an answer-driven one) Hope you enjoy!

Author
nickgrossman
Date
September 24, 2025
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