Why Joining a Stealth Startup Could be Your Best Career Move

Your career-defining role may be in a company you haven’t even heard of. 

“When you join a startup in stealth, you have the opportunity to play an instrumental role in building what could become the next iconic tech company while also accelerating your career,” said Glen Evans , Greylock's Core Talent Partner.  

At Greylock , we work with companies from day one. Before Workday , Palo Alto Networks , and Abnormal Security were household names, they were stealth companies at the whiteboard phase, starting up in the Greylock offices and looking for their foundational teams. The Greylock talent team works closely with exceptional people in engineering, design, sales, product, and operations to help them join the next big thing - before they have made a public debut.

Glen noted that by joining a startup in stealth, you will have greater ownership of strategic projects and will expand your skill set beyond your core area of expertise. You’ll also directly collaborate with a wider variety of people and will be exposed to more ideas and ways of thinking than if you work inside a large incumbent. Joining a company in stealth is also a great way to prepare and gain experience for founding a company someday. 

But joining a stealth startup isn’t for everyone. It’s for courageous and exceptional people who are driven to make an impact in an environment that prioritizes speed, experimentation, and risk. People who thrive at this stage jump across functions and collaborate - all amid great uncertainty. 

When there is little to no available information about the company, product, mission, and team, where do you start? Glen has advice for candidates considering a role at a stealth-stage company.

First, carefully assess the founders and the team, ensuring that you establish some level of connection and belief in the business. This includes scrutinizing the idea, assessing the TAM and competitive landscape of the targeted industry, and backchanneling the founders and any existing team members. During conversations with the founders, investors, and other key stakeholders, be prepared to ask direct questions about the business and vision, role you are considering, career growth opportunities, working style, etc. The more transparent people are the better. It’s critical to be as informed as possible about the commitment you are making to an early-stage team. 

In addition, work with a dedicated talent partner to significantly increase the likelihood that you find the right fit. While there are no shortcuts to the due diligence process you must run on your own when evaluating a role at a stealth company, a talent partner at Greylock can help you transparently navigate a process that can sometimes feel opaque.   

Today, we have multiple stealth companies that are quietly building the next generation of category-defining tech. If you are interested in joining a stealth company now - or just want to connect proactively for the future - we would love to hear from you. 

Portfolio News

Builder.ai

Builder has introduced Micro Agent, a new open-source tool, which aims to deliver the benefits of AI-assisted coding while mitigating the problems of unreliable code generation.

Cato Networks

Cato Networks has introduced the Cato MSASE Partner Platform, where partners can market and sell as good as Cato, deploy as fast as Cato, and provide first-level support as good as Cato.

Chronosphere

Chronosphere has been recognized by Comparably as a 2024 Best Company for Career Growth and a 2024 Best Company Leadership Teams.

Dazz

Dazz announced a new partnership with ReversingLabs (RL) that gives engineering, infrastructure, and security teams advanced context that results in faster vulnerability prioritization and remediation. RL will make its Spectra Intelligence solution available within the Dazz Unified Remediation Platform, contextualizing vulnerabilities and other exposures found across code, cloud, applications, and infrastructure.

Gretel.ai

Gretel announced the general availability of Gretel Navigator, the agent-based, compound generative AI system built to automate data creation and curation processes for AI development. The company was profiled in Fortune for their efforts with synthetic data. 

Magical

Magical announced a “no-build” automation solution that empowers businesses to connect and automate tasks across any app or website, without dependency on complex integrations, API’s, or developers.

Opal Security

Opal CEO & Founder Umaimah K. sat down with Code Story to share the challenges she faced while trying to manage identity security, why she decided to build her own solution, and how that led her to founding Opal Security.

PayJoy

PayJoy announced that the PayJoy Asset Fund (PJAF), which allows qualified investors to invest in PayJoy loans, has surpassed $130 million in assets under management (AUM) and welcomed its first institutional investor, with a $25M investment.

Rubrik

Rubrik announced that Rubrik DSPM now supports Microsoft Information Protection (MIP) sensitivity labels, helping joint Microsoft and Rubrik customers to better track and secure files with sensitive data – both within and outside of Microsoft environments. CEO & Founder Bipul Sinha spoke with CRN about security AI and data advantages, noting that “without data and security of data, GenAI is meaningless."

Upwind Security

Upwind released “Issue Stories” – a GenAI-based capability designed to address the challenge of connecting the dots between seemingly isolated security findings.

Greylock Perspectives

Seth Rosenberg and Mustafa Suleyman on Defining Intelligence

On this week’s episode of the Product-Led AI podcast, Greylock partner Seth Rosenberg spoke with Mustafa Suleyman, who leads Microsoft’s AI efforts, on the current state of the field including AGI, autonomous agents, and the opportunities for startups.

Edge: Start a New Company at Greylock

Partner with Greylock to initiate a new company from idea to early revenue and product market fit. Greylock Edge is a bespoke 3-month company-building program designed to advance select pre-idea, pre-seed and seed founders from inception to product-market fit, with fully flexible financing. Apply here.

Portfolio Jobs

Our talent team is always looking to connect with engineers, product managers, designers and great operational and GTM talent who are considering an early stage start-up as a next move in their career. Get in touch if you want to learn more about joining a Greylock portfolio company.

Executive Briefings

Greylock hosts CXOs for highly curated briefings and makes targeted introductions based on a company’s priorities — with the goal of arming organizations with vital insights to help them address its current and future challenges. Greylock portfolio companies benefit from product feedback, advice on product-market fit, and opportunities to co-develop in support of an organization’s technology needs. Reach out at cxo@greylock.com to schedule an executive briefing.

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