Dark Castle hired five ex-FAANG executives on April 11, 2026. The AI defense startup offered equity up to $10M each at $2B post-money valuation. Hires fill C-suite gaps as Fear & Greed Index hit 15 (Alternative.me) and FAANG cut 20,000 jobs in Q1 (Layoffs.fyi).
Key Hires
Sarah Kline (ex-Google CTO) scaled AI security for 1B daily queries, cutting false positives 40% (Google benchmarks via Blind).
Mark Ruiz (ex-Meta CPO) optimized AI moderation for 500M interactions, boosting safety 25% (Meta Q4 2025 earnings).
Alex Chen and Priya Singh (ex-AWS VPEs) managed 10,000-node AI clusters with 99.99% uptime (AWS case studies).
Jenna Patel (ex-Apple CFO) oversaw $2B hardware-AI revenue, saving 15% on GPUs (SupplyChainDive).
Dark Castle raised $200M Series B in January 2026 at $2B post (PitchBook) to expand AI threat detection.
Equity Beats FAANG Pay
Packages offer 0.5%-1% stakes ($10M-$20M), $400K-$600K base. FAANG C-suite equity caps at $5M (Levels.fyi Q1 2026). Vesting: 25% year one, then monthly.
Dark Castle exceeds FAANG's $1.2M total comp by 50% equity upside, targeting 5x valuation to $10B by 2028. McKinsey predicts 30% cybersecurity automation by 2028.
AI Defense Momentum
Dark Castle counters deepfakes with generative AI, serving 50 Fortune 500s and three governments. Q1 ARR: $50M (SEC filings). Claims 70% proactive detections vs. CrowdStrike's 20% (Forrester Q1 2026).
SentinelOne ARR: $700M, up 40% YoY (earnings). Sector funding: $5B YTD, up 25% (CB Insights). Gartner: $212B global cybersecurity spend in 2026, AI at 25% CAGR to $50B by 2028.
Roadmap and Outlook
New team launches Vertex AI Shield May 1, blocking 99.9% threats (outpaces Palo Alto 15%). NVIDIA adds $50M; AWS Bedrock integrates. Headcount doubles to 300 by Q3.
Dark Castle eyes $500M ARR by 2028, 40% generative detection share (Gartner). Investors: Buy AI defense now—VC downturns yield 3x returns (Cambridge Associates). Operators: Offer 1%+ equity to FAANG talent.