Ping Identity CEO discusses his company’s long, strange startup trip – TechCrunch

Ping Identity was in the news last week with a huge deal to sell itself to private equity investors after several years as a public company.

Ping CEO Andre Durand launched his identity company way back in 2002, raising around $128 million in venture funding along the way. In a 2015 interview with TechCrunch, Durand talked about going public within a year or two. That didn’t happen, at least not then, but what did happen may be one of the stranger founder tales ever told — one with twists and turns Durand admits he could never have imagined.

“There’s no way I could have predicted the series of events which ultimately led me here. First of all, there’s always multiple ways to grow, multiple ways to succeed. There’s not one path. That’s something I’ve come to kind of appreciate and realize,” Durand told me in an interview last week, during which he discussed his unusual startup journey.