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- Cloudflare co-founder, president and chief operating officer Michelle Zatlyn says “build and sell” is the mantra for roles in the AI era.
- Last May, Cloudflare laid off 20% of its workers, shedding jobs in areas including finance, marketing and HR in a move Zatlyn says was inevitable and will happen throughout the economy as AI leads to redundancies in work functions.
- But Cloudflare’s 2026 intern program is expected to reach a total headcount of 1,100 interns, equal to roughly 25% of the company, and it’s where the builder and seller mentality is being instilled, she tells CNBC’s Julia Boorstin in the latest episode of the “CNBC Changemakers” podcast.
watch nowVIDEO03:01Cloudflare faces 234 billion cyberattacks a day. AI will stop 95% in 5 yearsCNBC Changemakers
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Cloudflare says it sees 234 billion cyberthreats each day, and the $100 billion cybersecurity company is facing the onslaught with a leaner company.
Cloudflare laid off roughly 20% of its workers last May, citing artificial intelligence specifically, with hits coming hard in areas including finance, revenue operations, marketing operations and recruiting, where as many as four roles were suddenly whittled down to one. The role of AI is going to become more pervasive across core cybersecurity operations, too. According to Cloudflare co-founder, president and chief operating officer Michelle Zatlyn, within five years she expects 95% of cybersecurity to be handled by AI.
The 234 billion attacks “just gives you a sense for the craziness of the internet,” Zatlyn told CNBC’s Julia Boorstin in the latest episode of the “CNBC Changemakers” podcast.
In the short term, the security environment will get worse yet. “It’s going to be very noisy,” she said.
But within five years, Zatlyn expects that as much as 95% of attacks will be handled by AI. “We’re going to get to a point where things will be much better because finally code will be secure by design, so that you don’t have to worry about all this stuff after the fact, and it’ll just be more embedded in everything, and it’ll just be more safe for both every businesses and people. … But we’ve got to get from here to there,” she said.
As Cloudflare rethinks the “factory floor” — as Zatlyn called the process of reevaluating what the workforce and workplace should look like for the AI future — she has two words of advice for those seeking careers in cybersecurity and beyond: build and sell.
“Building is a really good one to lean into,” Zatlyn said. “Our sellers, I think the business still continues to get done between relationships, and so that’s really important to invest in,” she added.
Cloudflare continues to hire for these building and selling roles and invest in these roles, Zatlyn said, and she added there is also more focus on “some of the connective tissue” within the organization, the workers who can bridge these functions. “And maybe that’s a framework you can use yourself,” she said.
In a world where AI is transforming operations across enterprises in every sector of the economy, engineering roles are more often blurring into selling roles and vice versa, such as through the development of what the biggest AI firms in the world, including AWS, Anthropic and OpenAI, now call “forward deployed engineers.”
I think all of us being builders and sellers is what’s going to be really important in the next decade.
There is plenty of reason to remain concerned about jobs in software development and cybersecurity after a few decades during which many students were pushed towards these fields as sure-fire professional career opportunities. There is already research indicating a steep decline for software developers ages 22-25 and broader effects in highly AI-exposed occupations. But Zatlyn says students dreading the workforce in the AI era should flip the script and consider themselves lucky that they are early in their career path as “everything is shifting.”
And within Cloudflare, she says, the builders and the sellers remain “powerful.”
It’s a model of worker development and learning that the company has been stressing in its internship program, which is expected to reach over 1,100 workers this year — roughly equal to 25% of the under-5,000-person company, and the most interns the company has ever had.
“This idea of being a builder is the right way to think about it. Whether you’re using vibe coding or you’re actually the engineer, I think both of those will continue to exist. But how do you build something? How do you ship something instead of directing or letting someone else do it?”
“Even if it’s just the prototype or even the ‘Version One’ to show traction. Then we’re going to scale it up in a more operational way. You don’t have to do everything, but I think that the builders, the doers, are the ones who do really well,” she said. “They’re learning, they’re shipping, they’re contributing, and it’s this really positive flywheel,” she said of the 2026 interns.
In Cloudflare’s view, it is the people who build that will end up with “the most ownership” in the workforce.
“They’re going to be the most positive. They’re going to be almost the best sellers too. And if you’re in the business of selling something, the more you can get closer to building things, the better. And so I think all of us being builders and sellers is what’s going to be really important in the next decade,” Zatlyn said.
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