Exploring the origins of Okta

Okta was started by Todd McKinnon (CEO) and Frederic Kerrest (COO), former Salesforce employees. They saw that the cloud wasn't just a product for the big leagues. They predicted it would be necessary for anyone who would want to grow their business. They started the business in the middle of the 2008 recession, with Andreessen Horowitz investing as one of the first capital injections for Okta in 2010. In 2017, Okta went public with its IPO and valuation of $1.2 billion.

The name Okta is derived from the unit of measurement for clouds covering the sky at any given moment. On the scale, 0 okta is a clear blue sky and 8 oktas is completely overcast. The wordplay of Okta (in Greek, octa is 8) and the fact that Okta wants to cover all of the cloud access by becoming the identity standard, thus creating a completely overcast sky (8 oktas), is well thought out.

Since Okta came into the space of IAM, they have steadily grown to the leading vector...