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Ex-VMware founders who just went stealth

18 founders who worked at VMware started a company in stealth in the last 1783 weeks.

Ex-VMware
Showing 18 of 18 founders

Gundars Kokts

Co-Founder and CTO
Left
VMware
Senior Director, Engineering Services
Before that
Went stealthOct 2026
Work
  • Senior Director, Engineering Services at VMware2017-2020 · left Dec 2020
  • VP Engineering, Data and Analytics at insightsoftware2021-2026
  • Director R&D Operations, HPE Software at Hewlett Packard Enterprise2013-2017
  • Senior Director, Oracle Support Analytics at Oracle1995-2013
Education
  • BrownPhD
  • University of LatviaBS

Michel Susai

Founder Chief Architect & CEO
Left
VMware
Founder CEO
Before that
Went stealthOct 2026
Work
  • Founder CEO at VMware2004-2012 · left Apr 2012
  • Researcher at AI Infrastructure Research2024-2026
  • Founder CEO at NebulaConnect, Inc2018-2023
  • Startup Mentor at Vission Factory2013-2018
  • Founder & Chairman of Board at NetScaler1997-2003
  • Chief Architect, Head of Internet clustering, CTO's Office, at Sun Microsystems1996-1997
Education
  • Harvard University
  • Pune Institute of Computer TechnologyBE
  • University of California, Santa Cruz

Mónica Goren

Founder
Left
VMware
Socialcast Director of Engineering/ Cloud Foundry Evangelist
Before that
Went stealthOct 2026
Work
  • Socialcast Director of Engineering/ Cloud Foundry Evangelist at VMware2010-2012 · left Sep 2012
  • Software Engineering Manager at Figma2024-2026
  • Staff Technical Lead Manager at Slack2016-2024
  • Integration Platform Leader at The Honest Company2015-2016
  • Senior Director of Engineering at Crushpath2012-2015
  • Open Web Standards Program Manager at Meta2010-2010
  • Senior Software Architect at Myspace2007-2010
Education
  • The Ohio State UniversityBS
  • Universidad de Lima
  • San Silvestre British SchoolHigh School

Qing 'Matt' Z.

Co-Founder
Left
VMware
Data Architect
Before that
Went stealthSep 2026
Work
  • Data Architect at VMware2018-2020 · left Jan 2020
  • Software Engineer at Oracle2023-2026
  • Expert Contributor at BitDegree2023-2025
  • Senior Architect at TigerGraph2021-2023
  • Software Engineer at Google2020-2021
  • Senior Architect at D-UNI (Series A startup)2017-2018
  • Adjunct Professor at International Technological University (ITU)2015-2018
Education
  • North Carolina State UniversityPhD
  • University of Science and Technology of ChinaBS

Gaurav Lochan

Co-Founder
Left
VMware
R&D Manager
Before that
Went stealthLaunched Abstractios
Work
  • R&D Manager at VMware2006-2011 · left Jul 2011
  • Head Of Engineering at PhonePe2022-2026
  • Engineering Manager at WhatsApp2019-2022
  • Software Engineer at Meta2014-2019
  • Engineering Ion at Little Eye Labs2013-2014
  • Engineering Manager at Flipkart (acquired by Walmart)2012-2013
  • Co-founder at beetroute.in2011-2012
Education
  • University of Southern CaliforniaMS
  • Netaji Subhas Institute of TechnologyBE
  • Springdales School

Aviv Rosenfeld

Founder - Gaming
Left
VMware
Mobile Applications Development Lead
Before that
Went stealthSep 2026
Work
  • Mobile Applications Development Lead at VMware2012-2016 · left Feb 2016
  • Senior Staff Engineer/Senior Engineering Manager at GE Vernova2017-2025
  • Head of backend Engineering / VP R&D at IQP Corporation (acquired by GE)2016-2017
  • Director, Software Engineering at Dell Technologies2006-2012
  • Chief Software Architect at ProActivity inc (acquired by EMC)2000-2006
  • Account Manager, Team Leader at TTI Telecom1998-2000
  • Developer/Team Leader at Deutsche Bank1997-1998
Education
  • Birkbeck, University of LondonMS
  • Ben-Gurion University of the NegevBA

Gary Malone

Founder & CEO
Left
VMware
Regional Sales Director
Before that
Went stealthAug 2026
Work
  • Regional Sales Director at VMware2003-2011 · left Jan 2011
  • VP, Enterprise Sales at Expanse, acquired by Palo Alto Networks2019-2023
  • VP Sales, Western Region at AppDynamics2015-2019
  • Regional VP, Enterprise Sales at ExactTarget2011-2015
  • Enterprise Account Executive at EMC1998-2003
  • Account Executive at Cisco1995-1998
Education
  • UW Foster School of BusinessMBA
  • Arizona State University

Ankitaben Patel

Founder
Left
VMware
Staff Engineer
Before that
Went stealthAug 2026
Work
  • Staff Engineer at VMware2021-2023 · left Nov 2023
  • R&D Software Engineer 5 (Principle Engineer) at Broadcom2021-2025
  • Principal Software Engineer at Dell Technologies2017-2021
  • Software Designer V at Hewlett Packard Enterprise2014-2017
  • Technical Lead at Symphony Teleca2011-2014
  • R&D Software Engineer at Nokia2008-2011
  • Software Engineer at Sasken Technologies Limited2008-2008
Education
  • BITS PilaniPG Diploma
  • BITS PilaniM. S.
  • Dharmsinh Desai Institute of TechnologyBachelor's

Vassil Popovski

Co-founder and CTO
Left
VMware
Sr. Director, PS CoE
Before that
Went stealthJul 2026
Work
  • Sr. Director, PS CoE at VMware2013-2016 · left May 2016
  • VP of Engineering at Alcatraz2023-2026
  • Technical Advisor at IncentivAI2023-2026
  • Angel Investor at SessionStack2019-2025
  • Technical Advisor at nFuse2024-2025
  • Technical Advisor at Taylor & Hart2023-2025
  • Chief Technology Officer at DesignTechnologies2022-2023
Education
  • Sofia University St. Kliment OhridskiBS

AJ Herrera

Co-Founder
Left
VMware
VP, Brand and Advertising
Before that
Went stealthJul 2026
Work
  • VP, Brand and Advertising at VMware2014-2021 · left Dec 2021
  • VP of Corporate Marketing at Cloudflare2021-2026
  • VP of Strategy and Planning at gyro2010-2014
  • Partner at Zoe Street2008-2010
  • VP of Marketing at NetBooks, Inc.2007-2008
  • President at Bravo! Marketing1995-2006
  • Marketing Director at Kelly Micro Systems1993-1995
Education
  • UC Berkeley
  • East West Wing Chun Kung FuSr. Instructor

Pradip Fatehpuria

Co-Founder
Left
VMware
Director of Engineering, VMware Cloud on AWS at VMware
Before that
Went stealthJul 2026
Work
  • Director of Engineering, VMware Cloud on AWS at VMware at VMware2020-2021 · left Jan 2021
  • Co-Founder, CTO, Head of Engineering/AI at Trumio Inc.2023-2026
  • Director of Engineering at Samsung Research America (SRA)2022-2023
  • Senior Director of Engineering, Cortana and Azure Cognitive Services at Microsoft1999-2020
  • Senior Lead Software Engineer at VM Labs1998-1999
  • Senior Lead Software Engineer at Sony Interactive Entertainment1996-1998
  • Senior Software Development Engineer at River Run Software Group Inc1996-1996
Education
  • IIT KharagpurB Tech

Fausto Ibarra

Founder
Left
VMware
Sr. Director of Product Management, Software-Defined Data Center Suites and OpenStack
Before that
Went stealthJul 2026
Work
  • Sr. Director of Product Management, Software-Defined Data Center Suites and OpenStack at VMware2012-2015 · left Jan 2015
  • VP and Group General Manager, Digital Ecosystem at Nubank2024-2026
  • Chief Product Officer at Kueski2023-2024
  • Startup Mentor at Endeavor2022-2024
  • Product Lead, Latin America at Stripe2021-2022
  • Product Director, Ad Delivery Platform at Meta2020-2020
  • Director of Product Management, Advertising Platforms at Google2015-2019
Education
  • University of PennsylvaniaMBA
  • University of PennsylvaniaMA
  • Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de MonterreyBS

Diyan Bogdanov

Co-Founder
Left
VMware
MTS3
Before that
Went stealthJul 2026
Work
  • MTS3 at VMware2016-2020 · left Feb 2020
  • Principal Applied AI Engineer - Payhawk Agents at Payhawk2022-2026
  • Software Development Engineer || at Amazon2020-2022
  • Software Developer at JSS2016-2016
Education
  • Sofia UniversityBachelor's

Ishan Srivastava

Founder
Left
VMware
Senior Software Engineer
Before that
Went stealthJul 2026
Work
  • Senior Software Engineer at VMware2015-2021 · left Jul 2021
  • Senior Engineering Manager at Rippling2022-2026
  • Principal Software Engineer at OneTrust2021-2022
  • Software Development Engineer 2 at Workspace ONE2014-2015
  • Senior Software Engineer at Philips2011-2014
Education
  • International Institute of Information Technology Bangalore
  • Manipal Institute of TechnologyBE

Vincent Wu

Co-Founder
Left
VMware
Senior Solution Architect
Before that
Went stealthJul 2026
Work
  • Senior Solution Architect at VMware2010-2016 · left Sep 2016
  • Chief Product Architect/PMM - Cloud App Marketplace at Tencent Cloud2022-2026
  • Senior Product/Partner Marketing Manager at Nutanix2016-2022
  • Systems Engineer/Consultant at Symantec2010-2010
  • SE Manager/Product Manager at Stone Software2004-2010
Education
  • East China Institute of TechnologyBS
  • Arizona State UniversityMaster's

Wojciech Kocjan

Co-Founder
Left
VMware
Staff Engineer I
Before that
Went stealthJun 2026
Work
  • Staff Engineer I at VMware2019-2019 · left Oct 2019
  • Staff Software Engineer at Chainguard2025-2026
  • Cloud Native Consultant at FikaWorks2023-2025
  • Senior Software Engineer at Chainguard2024-2025
  • Senior Site Reliability Engineer at Shell2023-2024
  • Platform Engineer at InfluxData2019-2022
  • Architect at Bitnami2011-2019
Education
  • University of Silesia in KatowiceMS
  • Wyzsza Szkola Informatyki i Zarzadzania w Bielsku BialejBS
  • The Silesian University of Technology

Karthik Krishna

Founder & Head of Product
Left
VMware
Senior Product Manager
Before that
Went stealthJun 2026
Work
  • Senior Product Manager at VMware2020-2022 · left Nov 2022
  • Product Director, Digital Assets at Velaura AI2025-2026
  • Executive Director at JPMorgan Chase2022-2025
  • Senior Product Manager at Nokia2017-2019
  • Product Marketing Manager at Gainspeed, Inc.2015-2017
  • Product Manager at ARRIS2012-2015
  • Product Manager at BigBand Networks2006-2012
Education
  • UC BerkeleyMBA
  • University of MadrasECE
  • Stanford University

Vinita Paunikar

Co-Founder
Left
VMware
Technical Program Manager
Before that
Went stealthJan 2026
Work
  • Technical Program Manager at VMware2004-2005 · left Mar 2005
  • Senior Vice President of Engineering at Oracle2005-2025
  • Technical Program Manager at Microsoft2002-2004
  • Staff Engineer at Sybase at SAP1994-2001
  • Software Engineer - Siemens Information Systems Ltd at Siemens1992-1994
Education
  • Columbia University
  • Visvesvaraya National Institute of TechnologyBE

Built on Crustdata. Build your own.

Crustdata tracks hundreds of millions of professional profiles. This directory is one saved search: "current title includes founder, current company is Stealth", re-run every week. Point the same search at your own market.

Get an API key 
# the one request behind this page
curl https://api.crustdata.com/watch/person/search \
  -H "authorization: Bearer $CRUSTDATA_KEY" \
  -H "x-api-version: 2025-11-01" \
  -d '{
    "filters": { "op": "and", "conditions": [
      { "field": "experience.employment_details.current.company_name",
        "type": "[.]", "value": "stealth" },
      { "field": "experience.employment_details.current.title",
        "type": "(.)", "value": "founder" }
    ]},
    "fields": ["basic_profile", "experience", "education"],
    "config": { "trigger": { "type": "interval", "every_hours": 168 } }
  }'
# [.] = exact phrase, (.) = all words. Each week it returns only the new matches.

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About this list

What "stealth" means here: the person's current job is a founder title (Founder, Co-Founder, Founder & CEO…) at a company listed as "Stealth", "Stealth Startup" or similar, because they haven't announced it yet.

Where it comes from: public professional profiles, via the Crustdata API. A new search runs every week and adds whoever newly matches. Profiles can take a few weeks to show up, and start dates are by month.

The company on each row is the most recent job before going stealth, with the title they held there. Where we can, we skip internships, advisor seats and freelance stints. On a "former employer" page it shows the job at that employer instead. Click a row for their full work history and education.