TRAILBLAZER
Tom Jermoluk
The ‘ lightbulb moment ’ to eliminate passwords
Investor and inventor at leading companies like Silicon Graphics , Netscape , and WebMD , Tom Jermoluk is on a mission with his longtime business partner , co-founder Jim Clark , to phase out passwords
Tom Jermoluk ( TJ ) is a serial Silicon Valley investor and inventor leading companies like Silicon Graphics , Netscape , and WebMD . It is his mission , alongside his long-time business partner and fellow Silicon Valley Giant , Jim Clark , to eliminate passwords .
How did your collaboration with Jim Clark begin , and why does it work so well ? My partnership with Jim Clark goes back a long way – 38 years in fact . Our partnership began with 3D graphics and visual effects pioneer Silicon Graphics in the early 1980s , continuing when Jim Clark and I helped ignite the commercial internet with Netscape , the first commercial internet browser and the high-speed cable Internet service provider @ Home Networks . It is fair to say we have been together through some significant technological breakthroughs .
Perhaps surprisingly , the original idea and ‘ light bulb ’ moment for
The average cost of a data breach on average
US $ 4.1 mn
Beyond Identity came about when we were developing technology for a high-end automation company and were met with the challenge of using passwords to turn on a lightbulb . It got us thinking about how the limitations of passwords go far beyond just lighting .
Jim and I collaborated on this idea of getting rid of passwords by revisiting inherent identity weaknesses that existed from the early days of the web , which drove us to go back to the core foundation to ‘ reboot ’ user authentication by extending the cryptography used in Secure Socket Layer ( SSL ), which was invented at Netscape . We knew this opportunity was too big and disruptive to miss . The resulting effort – Beyond Identity – introduces the elegantly simple concept of extending the asymmetric cryptography used in TLS to bind a user with their device . The solution leverages existing secure communications infrastructure and crypto standards like FIDO passkeys to extend the trust boundary beyond server-to-server communications to include users and their devices . By doing so , it completely removes the need for ‘ shared secret ’ passwordbased authentication approaches , and dependence on friction-laden compensating controls .
Jim and I have stayed close and continued to invest together over the past 30 years . In a nutshell , we work well together because our skills complement each other , and we have huge respect for one another
22 April 2023