内容来源：https://www.geekwire.com/2026/from-the-dot-com-boom-to-ai-security-f5-at-30-with-ceo-francois-locoh-donou/

内容总结：

F5迎来三十周年：从西雅图初创到全球AI安全领军者的蜕变之路

今年，总部位于西雅图的科技公司F5迎来成立三十周年。这家从华盛顿大学学生开发在线游戏的“非典型”起点起步的企业，历经多次战略转型，如今已成为全球顶尖的应用安全与交付巨头。

在本周播客节目中，F5董事长、总裁兼首席执行官弗朗索瓦·洛科-多努回顾了公司的发展历程：从90年代的互联网负载均衡初创企业，逐步成长为保障全球众多大型应用安全稳定运行的行业支柱。目前，F5已上市，拥有约6500名员工，年营收超过30亿美元，客户覆盖80%以上的《财富》500强企业。

当前，F5正推进最新一轮战略转型——深度布局AI安全领域。洛科-多努透露，本周公司已完成对SurePath AI的收购，并明确了以平台化策略应对AI安全挑战：整合AI模型与代理的发现、治理、测试及防护功能，解决企业“AI可见性缺失”的痛点。他强调：“企业采用AI越多，对内部AI活动就越难以掌控——谁在用哪个AI？哪个代理在调用什么工具？这极其复杂。”

在领导力方面，洛科-多努反对“自上而下的压力驱动”，主张通过吸引顶尖人才、激发员工自我信念和同侪激励来打造高效团队。他分享个人经历时坦言：“初入科技行业时，我甚至觉得自己不属于这里，更别说成为CEO。第一份工作的头几个月，我的愿望仅仅是别被开除——那种孤独感至今难忘。”

谈及面向少数族裔高中生的参访活动，他表示：“让这些孩子听到一位黑人高管说‘科技行业也属于你们’，非常重要。即使你们不每天写代码，即使家人都未曾踏入科技公司，你们的声音同样值得被听见。”

节目最后，洛科-多努还给出了他的世界杯预测，并参与了一则难倒全场的极客知识问答。

中文翻译：

F5今年迎来成立30周年，这家位于西雅图的公司历经多次自我革新才走到今天——令人意想不到的是，它最初竟是一群华盛顿大学的学生尝试开发在线视频游戏时创立的。
在本周实地录制于F5大厦的GeekWire播客节目中，公司董事长、总裁兼首席执行官François Locoh-Donou与我们一同追溯这段历程：从20世纪90年代的互联网负载均衡初创企业，到如今帮助全球众多大型应用稳定运行并确保其安全的行业巨擘。
如今的F5已是上市公司，拥有约6500名员工，年营收超30亿美元，世界500强企业中超过80%是其客户。
该公司正处于最新一轮转型期，正进一步拓展至人工智能安全领域。Locoh-Donou阐述了这一战略，包括F5本周收购SurePath AI的计划，以及公司更广泛的收购策略。
从个人角度，他回顾了从多哥到西雅图的成长之路、领导哲学，并向来自弱势背景的高中生们分享寄语——这些学生曾受邀参观F5大厦，随后由公司安排观看世界杯赛事。
此外，他还分享了世界杯预测，并设置了一个难倒全场的GeekWire冷知识问题。
以下收听方式：在Apple播客、Spotify或您常用的播客平台订阅。继续阅读下文精华摘要（为简洁清晰已做删节）。
关于转型：“科技公司在初创期进行重大战略转向并不罕见。这是个艰难的决定，但如今我们看到的许多成功企业都经历过重大转型。以F5为例，从视频游戏转向负载均衡——这看似并非顺理成章，但最终收获了巨大回报。”
关于人工智能可见性问题：“企业采用人工智能越多，对人工智能在组织中抓取数据的可见性就越低。它部署更多智能体，这些智能体调用各类工具；部署更多模型，这些模型与应用程序集成并从不同位置获取数据。要弄清哪个员工在使用何种人工智能、哪个智能体调用了何种工具，相当复杂。”
关于F5的平台战略：“用四、五、六种不同的工具来发现、测试和保护人工智能系统简直是场噩梦。因此我们正在构建一个人工智能安全平台，涵盖所有能力——包括人工智能模型或智能体的发现、治理与可视性、模型测试，以及保护它们的安全护栏。”
关于领导力：“我不太认同所谓的‘自上而下施压’——即通过上司向下属施压来打造高绩效团队。我认为打造高绩效团队首先要吸引最优秀的人才，然后激发每个人的自信心，让压力来自他们自身和同伴。”
关于个人起步：“初入科技行业时，我甚至觉得自己不属于这里，更别提成为CEO了——因为环顾四周，没有人与我相似。第一份工作的头几个月，我的希望就是不被解雇。那就是我的梦想。而且当时相当孤独。”
关于对学生的寄语：“对我来说，重要的是让他们从一位科技行业的黑人高管口中听到：科技行业也属于他们，他们在这里有一席之地——即使他们并非每天编写代码，即使家中没有父母、兄弟姐妹或任何人踏足过科技公司。同时，他们的声音也同样重要。”

英文来源：

F5 turns 30 years old this year, and the Seattle company has reinvented itself repeatedly to get here — starting, improbably, as a group of University of Washington students trying to build online video games.
On this week’s GeekWire Podcast, recorded on location at F5 Tower, the company’s chairman, president and CEO François Locoh-Donou joins us to trace that journey, from a 1990s internet load-balancing startup to a company that helps keep many of the world’s biggest apps running and secure.
Today F5 is a publicly traded company with about 6,500 employees and more than $3 billion in annual revenue, and it counts over 80% of the Fortune 500 among its customers.
The company is now in the midst of its latest reinvention, expanding further into the realm of AI security. Locoh-Donou discusses that strategy, including F5’s acquisition of SurePath AI this week, and the company’s broader approach to acquisitions.
On a personal note, he reflects on his path from Togo to Seattle, his leadership philosophy, and his message to high school students from underrepresented backgrounds who visited F5 Tower before the company took them to a World Cup match.
Plus: his World Cup predictions, and a GeekWire trivia question that stumps the room.
Listen below, or subscribe in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen. Continue reading for highlights, edited for brevity and clarity.
On reinvention: “It’s not uncommon for technology companies to make a pretty substantial pivot in the early days. It’s a tough decision, but a lot of the successful companies we look at today had to make big pivots. In the case of F5, it was video games to load balancing — which is not an obvious one, but it paid off in big ways.”
On the AI visibility problem: “The more an enterprise adopts AI, the less visibility it has into what AI is crawling in the organization. It deploys more agents, and these agents call on tools; it deploys more models, and those models integrate with applications and fetch data in different places. Understanding which employee is using what AI, and what agent is using what tool, is quite complicated.”
On F5’s platform strategy: “Having four, five, six different tools to discover, test and secure your AI is a nightmare. So we’re building an AI security platform that includes all of these capabilities — discovery of AI models or agents, the governance and visibility around them, testing of these models, and the guardrails to protect them.”
On leadership: “I don’t believe much in what I call north-south pressure, the idea that you create a high-performance team by a boss putting pressure on their subordinates. I believe you create a high-performance team first by attracting the best possible talent, then instilling self-belief in each of these people, and letting the pressure come from themselves and from their peers.”
On his own start: “When I started in the technology industry, I didn’t think I belonged, let alone becoming a CEO, because I looked at the people around me and there was no one who looked like me. In the first few months of my first job, my hope was to not get fired. That was the dream. And it was quite lonely.”
On his message to the students: “It was important for me that they hear from a Black executive in this technology industry that the technology industry is also for them, and that they have a place here — even if they’re not coding on computers every day, even if they have no parent or sibling or anybody in their family who’s ever set foot in a technology company. And also that their voice matters.”