Dane Knecht 🦭

Dane Knecht, as the Chief Technology Officer at Cloudflare, is a driving force behind the global infrastructure that secures and accelerates a significant portion of the internet. His journey at Cloudflare spans over 13 years, a tenure during which he witnessed and contributed to the company's explosive growth from fewer than 30 employees to over 4,000, all united by a mission to build a better internet.

Knecht's expertise lies in developing and scaling critical network services, ranging from cybersecurity solutions like WAF, DDoS, and bot protection to performance enhancements via CDN and serverless computing with Cloudflare Workers. He champions the adoption of Zero Trust architectures and the strategic implementation of AI initiatives on the edge, enabling developers to build powerful applications with unparalleled speed and reliability.

Beyond his technical leadership, Knecht is known for his unwavering commitment to accountability. Following service incidents, he transparently communicates with the community, taking direct responsibility for any downtime and ensuring robust postmortems are conducted to prevent recurrence. This dedication to availability and security is a hallmark of his leadership. As an angel investor, he further extends his impact, nurturing the next generation of technological breakthroughs and supporting founders who are also "inventing the future."