Cybersecurity is humming. CrowdStrike caught more than 20% in one day, Okta ran nearly 30%, and the hosts have officially graduated from SaaSpocalypse to SaaS Tapalooza. Zscaler is the name that has not reported yet, and it could have a catalytic move just like those two.

Zscaler sits in the traffic path between enterprises and the internet, checking every connection instead of trusting someone because they work there. That is what zero trust means. The debate the whole episode hangs on is whether that position becomes more valuable as AI creates drastically more machine activity, or whether the original zero trust business matures before the newer products are big enough to move the needle.

They get into the race to become the AI security operations center, platform-wide adoption and the Z Flex consumption engine, the 17% growth guidance that disappointed everybody, the Red Canary confusion around what is organic, and the multiple that surprised both hosts mid episode.

Neither host is reaching for the stock here. Brad has bought the cheaper second best company in a field before and paid for it, and no multiple gets him back in until a quarter proves the expansion beyond network security. Show me something and then I will bother, in his words. Shay came in thinking Zscaler was cheap, pulled it up mid episode, and found 40 times earnings. He wants to see data security become a much larger business before the story earns back his trust.

The show has a name: welcome to The Deep End.

Watch the full episode with chapters on YouTube: https://youtu.be/JLtgbgVCZhA

New episodes every Monday, so you know what to watch before the week trades.

Nothing in this episode is investment advice. Shay and Brad discuss their own portfolios; neither owns Zscaler. Shay owns CrowdStrike and Cloudflare and sold his Rubrik position the day this episode was recorded.