{"633578":{"#nid":"633578","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Raising Money is Sexy, But Pindrop CEO Says Customer Satisfaction Key to Success","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EVijay Balasubramaniyan\u003C\/strong\u003E (MS CS 08, Ph.D. 11) got the idea for his business when his phone rang in the middle of the night.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EHe was a Georgia Tech Ph.D. student at a conference in India, and he had just bought a suit locally. The 3 a.m. call was from his bank back in the U.S. The person on the other end of the line asked for Balasubramaniyan\u0026rsquo;s Social Security number\u0026nbsp;to prove his identity and make sure the purchase wasn\u0026rsquo;t a fraud.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EBalasubramaniyan declined. After all, the call itself could have been a fraud, a trick to get his Social Security number for criminal purposes. Stalemate: neither party could prove their identity to the satisfaction of the other. The purchase was canceled\u0026nbsp;and Balasubramanian never did get his suit.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0026ldquo;Phone calls have existed since Alexander Graham Bell, and we still have no way of proving the identity of a caller,\u0026rdquo; Balasubramaniyan remembers realizing. And suddenly, he knew what his dissertation topic would be.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.cc.gatech.edu\/news\/85961\/pindrop-security-georgia-tech-spinoff-secures-silicon-valley-funding-phone-security\u0022\u003E[RELATED:\u0026nbsp;Georgia Tech Spinoff Secures Silicon Valley Funding for Phone Security Technology]\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EToday, Balasubramaniyan is the CEO of his own company, Pindrop Security, which analyzes more than a billion calls every year for the purpose of detecting fraud. Pindrop serves eight of the top 10 U.S. banks, and five of the top seven life insurance companies, among a number of other Fortune 500 companies.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EHe credits his time at Georgia Tech for his success.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0026ldquo;Not every idea is a great one,\u0026rdquo; Balasubramaniyan said. \u0026ldquo;At Georgia Tech, you\u0026rsquo;re asked to dig deep and come up with a good idea. My peers\u0026nbsp;and the Georgia Tech alumni I have hired\u0026nbsp;think deeply.\u0026rdquo;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ELearning to Phoneprint\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EWhen Balasubramaniyan and his advisor, \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/scs.gatech.edu\/\u0022\u003ESchool of Computer Science\u003C\/a\u003E Professor \u003Cstrong\u003EMustaque Ahamed\u003C\/strong\u003E, began to look at identifying phone calls, they realized quickly that a single call can pass through many different kinds of networks \u0026mdash; cellular, VoIP, landlines.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0026ldquo;The only thing that is there through the whole process is the audio itself,\u0026rdquo; Balasubramaniyan said. His research showed, however, that the audio itself contained clues.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EHe created a technology called Phoneprinting, which analyzes more than 1300 features of a phone call to create a distinctive profile of the caller. Once he could \u0026ldquo;fingerprint\u0026rdquo; phones, he could match them to their users.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EAfter he presented at his first conference, NPR and Popular Science published stories about his work.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0026ldquo;After that, banks started calling me,\u0026rdquo; Balasubramaniyan said. \u0026ldquo;They wanted to license the technology.\u0026rdquo; At that point, his research started to look a lot more like a budding business.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EFrom Research to Start-Up\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EPindrop Security got its start right here on Georgia Tech\u0026rsquo;s campus, in office space provided by the \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/atdc.org\/\u0022\u003EAdvanced Technology Development Center (ATDC)\u003C\/a\u003E, the campus start-up incubator, and with advice from \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/venturelab.gatech.edu\/\u0022\u003EVentureLab\u003C\/a\u003E, an\u0026nbsp;Institute program that provides legal guidance for startups.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EPindrop got its first funding through prizes and grants \u0026mdash; from the Technology Association of Georgia, from the Georgia Research Alliance, and from the National Science Foundation. The company would go on to raise $200 million from investors, but Balasubramaniyan said he would advise anyone to put their product ahead of their fundraising in the early days of a company.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0026ldquo;When you\u0026rsquo;re starting a company, what seems sexiest is raising money,\u0026rdquo; he said. \u0026ldquo;But if you want to have a really meaningful company, you have to start with an obsession for customer satisfaction. If you have customers who want your product, the money will follow.\u0026rdquo;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EGrowing Company, Growing Ties\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EPindrop Security has now moved off-campus, but not far \u0026ndash; its offices are in the Biltmore building on West Peachtree Street. Ahamad, Balasubramaniyan\u0026rsquo;s advisor, is still a part of the company, as is venture capitalist \u003Cstrong\u003EPaul Judge\u003C\/strong\u003E, who is also a GT Computing\u0026nbsp;alumnus.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EBalasubramaniyan says he hires a lot of fellow Yellow Jackets, and for good reason. What Pindrop does is at the intersection of \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/iisp.gatech.edu\/\u0022\u003Ecybersecurity\u003C\/a\u003E and \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/ml.gatech.edu\/\u0022\u003Emachine learning\u003C\/a\u003E, and the College of Computing has great programs in both areas. Tech graduates also bring certain intangibles to the table, Balasubramaniyan said.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0026ldquo;The number one quality we find in Georgia Tech alumni? Perseverance,\u0026rdquo; he said. \u0026ldquo;They\u0026rsquo;ve worked hard on their projects. They\u0026rsquo;ve worked hard to build their fundamentals.\u0026rdquo;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003ENow Balasubramaniyan and his wife \u003Cstrong\u003EKarishma Babu\u003C\/strong\u003E (who is also an alum) have endowed a scholarship to support \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/wst.gatech.edu\/\u0022\u003Ewomen in STEM at Georgia Tech\u003C\/a\u003E. It was her idea, but he supports it with a whole heart.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0026ldquo;My wife is a woman in STEM\u0026nbsp;and it\u0026rsquo;s insane to me that she\u0026rsquo;s a rare breed,\u0026rdquo; Balasubramaniyan said. \u0026ldquo;A great school becomes greater because of a diversity of opinion.\u0026rdquo;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":"","field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"GT Computing alumnus Vijay Balasubramaniyan reflects on success and what Georgia Tech has to offer."}],"uid":"32045","created_gmt":"2020-03-12 19:13:58","changed_gmt":"2020-03-12 19:15:24","author":"Ben Snedeker","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2020-03-12T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2020-03-12T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"633579":{"id":"633579","type":"image","title":"Vijay Balasubramaniyan Pindrop CEO","body":null,"created":"1584040489","gmt_created":"2020-03-12 19:14:49","changed":"1584040489","gmt_changed":"2020-03-12 19:14:49","alt":"Vijay Balasubramaniyan Pindrop CEO","file":{"fid":"241085","name":"Pindrop CEO-Vijay Balasubramaniyan.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/Pindrop%20CEO-Vijay%20Balasubramaniyan.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/Pindrop%20CEO-Vijay%20Balasubramaniyan.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":118203,"path_740":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/Pindrop%20CEO-Vijay%20Balasubramaniyan.jpg?itok=jBFoVyBD"}}},"media_ids":["633579"],"groups":[{"id":"47223","name":"College of Computing"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EAnn Claycombe, Communications Director\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:ann.claycombe@cc.gatech.edu?subject=Pindrop\u0022\u003Eann.claycombe@cc.gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["ann.claycombe@cc.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}