Snyk’s CEO steps aside, arguing the AI era demands a different kind of leader
Peter McKay says company needs new leadership for “hyper-intensive AI innovation.”
Peter McKay, who has led cybersecurity company Snyk since 2019, announced that he will step down as CEO once a successor is found, saying the company’s next phase requires leadership “with deep roots in product innovation and AI.”
“This is a deeply emotional decision,” McKay wrote in a post titled A New Chapter for Snyk. “I love this business… But after much contemplation — and with the full support of our Board — I believe the right path forward for Snyk’s next decade is to bring in a leader with deep roots in product innovation and AI.”
McKay will remain in place until a successor is appointed and says he will continue as a significant shareholder.
In his announcement, McKay said Snyk has surpassed $325 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR) and now serves more than 4,800 customers. He described the company as operating “from a position of incredible power — with a healthy balance sheet and a leadership team that is second to none.”
Yet recent financial disclosures tell a more nuanced story. In 2024, Snyk generated $278 million in revenue, up 26 percent from 2023, a sharp deceleration from the 50 percent growth recorded in 2023 and the 150 percent surge in 2022. The company posted an operating loss of more than $188 million for the year.
The figures reflect invoiced revenue rather than ARR, the SaaS industry’s preferred forward-looking metric.
Snyk trimmed 10 percent of its workforce in 2023, reducing headcount to roughly 1,100 employees, before modestly expanding again in 2024 to 1,162.
McKay framed his tenure as one defined by reinvention. “Very few SaaS companies have the willpower to reinvent themselves mid-stream,” he wrote. “This team did it.”
The reinvention he refers to is Snyk’s pivot toward what it calls “AI-native security.” Last year, the company launched the Snyk AI Trust Platform, a product aimed at helping organizations manage and secure software development in the AI era.
That strategy appears central to McKay’s rationale for stepping aside.
“The opportunity ahead of us is even greater than what’s behind us,” he wrote. “Snyk is entering ‘Part Two’ — an era of hyper-intensive AI innovation. This next chapter requires a visionary, AI-immersed leader ready to commit their full energy to a multi-year journey of technical disruption.”
Founded in 2015 by Assaf Hefetz, Danny Grander and Guy Podjarny, Snyk built its reputation on embedding security directly into developers’ workflows, a shift from traditional perimeter-based cybersecurity toward “developer-first” security.
McKay joined in 2019 and oversaw a period of rapid scaling. In December 2022, the company raised $196.5 million in a Series G funding round at a valuation of $7.4 billion, down from the $8.5 billion valuation it received in its $530 million Series F in September 2021.
By the end of 2023, it held $350 million in cash, even after spending more than $40 million on acquisitions, including Israel-based Enso Security and Helios.
The Information reported last October that Snyk had spoken with private equity firms about a potential acquisition, with the firms aiming for a price below $3 billion, which Snyk rejected.
“My goal has always been to create an organization so strong that it can thrive beyond any one individual, including me,” he wrote. “For the long-term success of our customers and shareholders, the right thing to do is to find a successor who lives and breathes the technical frontier of this new era.”
