Marco Palladino

Co-Founder and CTO, Kong Inc.
San Francisco, California,United States
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Who Is Marco Palladino?

Total Experience25 years
CompanyKong Inc.
CountryUnited States

Marco Palladino is a distinguished inventor, software developer, and entrepreneur, best known as the co-founder and CTO of Kong Inc., the leading cloud connectivity company. With a deep expertise in cloud-native technologies, he is the creator of the world's most popular open-source API gateway, Kong, which is used by thousands of organizations to manage and secure their microservices. Marco also created Kuma, a universal service mesh, which was donated to the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF). He is a prolific author, having co-authored 'Microservice APIs' (O'Reilly), and is a frequent keynote speaker at prominent industry conferences, sharing his vision for the future of software and API-first architecture.

How Did Marco Palladino's Career Path Shape Their Journey?

Marco Palladino's work history includes a series of influential roles in various companies. Here is a detailed list of his professional journey:

Kong Inc. - Co-Founder and CTO(2017 to Present)
The Linux Foundation - Member, Business Governance Board @ The Open API Initiative (OAI)(2016 to Present)
Mashape API Marketplace - Co-founder/CTO(2010 to 2017)
MemboxX - Co-Founder(2007 to 2009)

What Are Marco Palladino's Key Achievements?

Co-founder & CTO of Kong Inc.

Co-founded Mashape in 2010, which evolved into Kong Inc., a leading cloud connectivity company. As CTO, he has been instrumental in shaping the company's technical vision and product strategy, valued at over $1.4 billion.

Creator of Kong API Gateway

Invented and led the development of the Kong API Gateway, one of the world's most popular open-source API management platforms. It is used by thousands of organizations globally to secure, manage, and orchestrate microservice APIs.

Creator of Kuma Service Mesh

Created Kuma, an open-source universal control plane for service mesh. Kuma was later donated to the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) and is now a Sandbox project, simplifying multi-zone and multi-cloud service connectivity.

Author and Industry Thought Leader

Co-authored 'Microservice APIs' (O'Reilly, 2022) and is a frequent speaker at major tech conferences like KubeCon, QCon, and API World, sharing his expertise on APIs, microservices, and cloud-native architecture.

What's Marco Palladino's Educational Background?

Degree Program

Università degli Studi di Milano

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Notable news
Hiring actively
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Company Overview

Kong Inc.
Total employees616
HeadquartersSan Francisco
Founded2017

Kong Inc. is a cloud connectivity company that provides open-source technologies and cloud services for managing, securing, and connecting APIs and microservices. Its core product, the Kong API Gateway, acts as a central point of control for microservice traffic, helping developers build and scale modern, distributed applications efficiently and securely across any cloud or hybrid environment.

Kong Inc. Funding Information
Unknown - Total Funding Raised
$100M - Most recent funding amount
5 - Number of funding rounds
Feb 8, 2021 - Latest funding round
Lead Investors:
Index Ventures
Andreessen Horowitz
GGV Capital
Greenoaks
CRV
Goldman Sachs

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