Jeff Hussey, CEO and co-founder of Tempered, and his wife on a trip to Austria. (Photo courtesy of Jeff Hussey)

Jeff Hussey, co-founder and CEO of Seattle’s Tempered, is not a believer in long-term work-from-home practices.

“We have all the technology to do it, but I don’t think human nature is wired for it,” Hussey said. “I don’t think we have the programming to collaborate and develop new ideas that are creative when we are not together.”

Hussey misses grabbing a cup of coffee with a colleague or an impromptu whiteboard session for brainstorming ideas for his network security company. The lockdowns, the remote work, they’re cramping the style of a tech leader who has a tendency to go his own way.

Back in 1996, Hussey gambled on the belief that the internet would keep taking off and launched F5 Networks, which as a startup set out to manage and improve internet traffic. As Hussey has explained over the years, he was trying to replace a system that was offering twice the performance at five-times the price.

“That’s a value proposition you can derive a semi through,” he said. His education and work background were largely in finance, so he read volumes of tech literature and product manuals, ultimately building a load-balancer that did the job.

F5 went public in 1998, opening at $8 a share and rising to $70 by the end of 1999 as business grew steadily. But the burst of the dot-com bubble ravaged the company, and its stock plummeted to around $7 at the close of 2000. It bottomed out out at a little more than $2 the year after.

Hussey hired John McAdam as CEO in mid 2000 and stepped aside from his leadership role. The company recovered over the past two decades, becoming a billion-dollar business in 2011 and with stock today worth about $140 a share. Hussey left the F5 board of directors in 2004.

Following F5, Hussey went to Lockdown Networks, which was acquired in 2008 by the cybersecurity company McAfee for $2 million.

From there he dabbled in retirement, traveling internationally and engaging in philanthropy, which he said was difficult to do well. He worked with social impact companies, including Ecofiltro, a Guatemalan water purification enterprise, and Pura Vida Create Good, a fair-trade, organic coffee roaster in Seattle. Hussey is co-owner of both.

After a few years, Hussey evaluated his career situation, concluding: “Being retired at 40 was grossly overrated.” He revisited the network security sector and realized that vulnerabilities persisted were everywhere, including utilities and other essential systems. He again saw a lucrative opportunity.

Jeff Hussey.

“These networks are, by and large, unsecure — like a third-grade caliber hacker can discover them and disrupt them,” he said. So Hussey teamed up with some former Boeing engineers who were working on the problem and needed financial support for their startup. In 2014, he became CEO and co-founder of Tempered.

“I bought myself my next job,” quipped Hussey, who describes himself as unemployable.

Tempered has grown to 55 employees and raised $56.1 million in funding. The company has built a product called Airwall, which it touts as “the world’s first hyper-secure networking platform.”

Over the course of his career, Hussey said he’s developed his own management ethos.

“I understand that in business, and especially in startups, nobody ever really has a finance problem or marketing problem or technology problem so much as they have personnel problems that lead to those problems,” he said.

So he strives to hire talented employees, and get out of their way and let them do their jobs. Hussey looks for people who have great domain expertise or are terrific at problem solving. He described the workplace environment at Tempered as egalitarian.

“You get a culture where people work hard, play hard, and enjoy being together,” he said.

We caught up with Hussey for this Working Geek, a regular GeekWire feature. Continue reading for his answers to our questionnaire.

Current location: Seattle

Computer types: Mac, since its release in 1984

Mobile devices: iPhone, iPad

Favorite apps, cloud services and software tools: Photoshop, ProTools, Salesforce and Firefox

Describe your workspace. Why does it work for you? Office and home office: My office has a great view of Puget Sound, is comfortable for 1:1 and small team meetings, and I can see over most of the team from my stand-up desk. At home, I just installed a 65” hi-definition screen so I can see my entire team on a Zoom call.

Hussey misses the ability to collaborate in person due to COVID-19 restrictions. His office at Tempered has views of Puget Sounds. (Tempered Photo)

Your best advice for managing everyday work and life? Don’t let it happen, make it happen. Plan your work then work your plan.

Your preferred social network? How do you use it for business/work? LinkedIn, primarily for networking and recruiting

Current number of unanswered emails in your inbox? 3

Number of appointments/meetings on your calendar this week? 13

How do you run meetings? Have an agenda, begin on time, exchange information, make decisions as appropriate, summarize and adjourn.

Everyday work uniform? Jeans and long sleeve t-shirt or button down

How do you make time for family? During the work week, it’s usually 11 hours for work/commute, 7 for sleep, 1 for exercise, 5 for family. Weekends are mostly family focused.

Best stress reliever? How do you unplug? Music and wine, head for the hills or beach in the Sprinter van, “lose” my phone

What are you listening to? Beethoven, composer Dave Grusin, jazz pianist Bill Evans’ “The Complete Riverside Recordings,” ’80s rock

Daily reads? Favorite sites and newsletters? Zerohedge, Yahoo Finance, SDxCentral

Book on your nightstand (or e-reader)? “Zero to One” by Peter Thiel

Night owl or early riser? Early riser, sleeping from 11 p.m. to 6 a.m.

Where do you get your best ideas? On the exercise bike or treadmill

Whose work style would you want to learn more about or emulate? I’ve always fantasized about Tim Ferriss’ four-hour workweek, but it simply doesn’t apply very directly to companies in our stage of development. It does, however, serve as an aspirational guide to delegate more and to focus on your areas of strength, so I remain mindful of that. And with the new world we live in, I’m also spending time learning from experts in “virtual culture” such as Bryan Miles of Belay.

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