Keeping the secret of owning a million-dollar technology company, CEO enters college to please his mother

Marcin Kleczynski, 29, CEO of Malwarebytes technology, kept secret from becoming a technology millionaire from the age of 18 and into college to please his mother.

Marcin Kleczynski, 29, CEO of Malwarebytes technology, kept secret from becoming a technology millionaire from the age of 18 and into college to please his mother.

Marcin was born in Poland but moved with his family to Chicago, USA when he was 3 years old. From a young age, Marcin had a passion for computers and when he was 14, he sought to develop software to kill viruses.

A few years later, at a technology forum, Marcin met Bruce Harrison - a computer repairman and later business partner.

Keeping the secret of owning a million-dollar technology company, CEO enters college to please his mother Picture 1Keeping the secret of owning a million-dollar technology company, CEO enters college to please his mother Picture 1
Marcin Kleczynski. Photo: Forbes.

In 2008, while still in high school, Marcin began his career by establishing Malwarebytes antivirus company. Malwarebytes' business is getting more and more favorable, after only a year of revenue has been grossed. Marcin decided not to go to college to create his own "empire".

Marcin told his mother about this decision: 'I don't think I will go to college' . But Marcin was unable to convince his mother, so he attended the University of Illinois, Computer Science. During college, Marcin ran the company in the dormitory.

Before Marcin graduated in 2012, Malwarebytes' business grew to $ 160 million and he kept it a secret.

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Malwarebytes is headquartered in Silicon Valley and has representative offices in Ireland, Singapore and Estonia. Currently, Marcin manages 750 employees. Malwarebytes' investment fund has reached $ 80 million since 2014.

Marcin shared a story he enjoyed. That was when Marcin was a student, while deliberately downloading the latest virus to school computers for analysis, suddenly the computer screen turned white with the words ' You are prohibited from accessing the school's network. because of malicious activity on the interface ' .

The computer was infected with the virus but the staff did not think Marcin deliberately did it. A student younger than Marcin from the school's information science department came to help him correct the problem by visiting Marcin's company website, downloading Malwarebytes software.

Marcin stood behind the student who saw the computer repaired with his software and said nothing. Marcin recalled and said: ' He left without knowing who I was. I like that moment " .

Keeping the secret of owning a million-dollar technology company, CEO enters college to please his mother Picture 3Keeping the secret of owning a million-dollar technology company, CEO enters college to please his mother Picture 3
Currently, Marcin manages 750 employees. Photo: Kevin N. Hume / The Chronicle.

Marcin acknowledged his student life was more difficult than his friends because he had to study and do business. His social relations were affected, he even nearly did not receive a diploma. However, Marcin added that he did not regret going to college because he met his wife here.

Malwarebytes has a free version for basic features and a fee for advanced versions like all other antivirus software. Currently, Malwarebytes software is installed more than 247,000 times per day and performs 187 million virus scans per month for personal and business computers.

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