Deciding to quit his job and "burn" through all his savings to start a new business in middle age, the man built a $30 billion empire by the age of 65.

Jay Chaudhry - CEO and Founder of the cloud security company Zscaler, is one of the wealthiest Indian-American billionaires. He has been honored in Goldman Sachs' list of the 100 most successful entrepreneurs.

His success is remarkable, but few know that he started from humble beginnings. Billionaire Jay Chaudhry was born in the village of Panoh in northern India. His parents were farmers, skilled in growing wheat and corn to make a living. Throughout his childhood, the CEO and founder of the cloud security company Zscaler often had to study under the shade of a tree, as the village he lived in had no electricity or running water.

After graduating with a bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering from Banaras Hindu University, Jay Chaudhry won a scholarship to study a Master's program in Engineering and Management at the University of Cincinnati in the US. Before starting his own business, he had 25 years of experience in sales and marketing at companies like IBM, Unisys, and IQ Software.

In an interview with CNBC, Jay Chaudhry shared that he never thought he would run a business, accumulate wealth, or help popularize an entire industry. This was not on his mind when he grew up in rural India, when he moved to the US in 1980 to study engineering and marketing, or even when he worked at large tech companies like IBM and Unisys.

"I didn't have a business background because my family were just small-time farmers. So if you ask me, 'Did I ever think of becoming an entrepreneur when I was young or in the early part of my career?' Not really," the CEO of Zscaler told CNBC.

It was only when the dot-com boom hit Silicon Valley - with the resounding success stories of tech startups like Netscape - that Chaudhry started thinking in 1996, "Why shouldn't I start a company?" He made a hasty decision, quitting his executive role at the technology company IQ Software based in Atlanta, and his wife Jyoti also left her systems analyst job at the telecom giant BellSouth.

They pooled together all the money they had saved their entire lives - around $500,000 (about 12 billion VND) - to establish SecureIT, a cybersecurity software startup that they co-founded at the time.

Due to the limited operating costs, Jay Chaudhry had to personally manage sales and marketing, while his wife decided to quit her job to handle the company's finances and oversee its operations. In 1998, SecureIT was acquired by VeriSign for around $70 million, making 70 out of the 80 employees there millionaires. After this success, Jay went on to establish other companies like AirDefense, CipherTrust, and CoreHarbor, all of which were eventually acquired as well.

The term "Dotcom" comes from the English language, originating from the URL (web address) used to access a website. "Com" is an abbreviation for "commercial", and "dot" refers to the "." (period) symbol. When the domain name revolution erupted in 1995, many individuals and organizations registered their own websites and focused on business activities and investments on the Internet.

By 2007, they had become wealthy entrepreneurs, and Chaudhry began to feel "bored" as he had nothing to do. So, he decided it was time to "start a big company and focus 100% on it," he said.

That company was Zscaler, with the goal of helping companies transition from outdated firewalls to the cloud era. The couple invested $50 million in their company. As of now, the company generates $1.6 billion in annual revenue and has a market value of around $30 billion.

The company currently serves over 50 million user accounts and serves 7,000 customers, including 1/4 of the Global 2000, which are the world's largest public companies such as Microsoft, Siemens, CrowdStrike, and AWS. With its strong growth and wide influence, Zscaler has established an important position in the field of information technology security.

Throughout his career, Jay Chaudhry has been recognized several times as one of the fastest-growing billionaires in a week. He has twice been awarded the Ernst & Young "Entrepreneur of the Year" title and has been honored by Information Week as a "Creator and Influencer." Additionally, he has been listed by Goldman Sachs as one of the "100 Most Talented Entrepreneurs." According to Forbes, Jay Chaudhry's current net worth has reached $11.5 billion.