
A lot of cybersecurity firms, it turns out, are still shipping around physical boxes. Great hulking machines filled with blinking lights and needing constant attention. It’s a bit like trying to run a modern hospital from a converted Victorian mansion. CrowdStrike, though, has embraced the cloud. Everything lives ‘up there’, which means no boxes, less electricity, and fewer frantic calls to IT when something goes wrong. This, they say, creates a ‘moat’ – a term economists seem particularly fond of. The idea is, it’s harder for competitors to dislodge you if you’ve built a really good, slippery moat. It’s a surprisingly effective metaphor, really. Though I do wonder if they’ve considered alligators.