Okta CEO Todd McKinnon has words of caution for people jumping ship to work at AI startups

lastmansurfing
Dec 29, 2025
1 min read

Todd McKinnon might never have become CEO of $16 billion software company Okta if not for an uncool move he made early in his career — and one that goes against the conventional wisdom.

As his coworkers bailed for “sexy” jobs at internet startups during the height of the dot-com boom, McKinnon made the seemingly boring decision to stick things out at PeopleSoft, a maker of human-resources software.

“It turned out to be the best thing ever,” he told MarketWatch. Not only was he promoted and given meaningful projects, but “when all the dot-com companies started going out of business, it was good to be at a company that had real customers, real revenue.”