Mårten Mickos

Mårten Gustaf Mickos
Born (1962-11-06) November 6, 1962
Espoo, Finland
Alma materHelsinki University of Technology
OccupationsStartup advisor, board member

Mårten Gustaf Mickos (born November 6, 1962, in Espoo, Finland) is a Finnish-American technology CEO and executive. He was the CEO of HackerOne, a security vulnerability coordination and bug bounty platform.[1] from 2015 to 2024 and the CEO of cloud computing company Eucalyptus Systems from 2010 to 2014, when the company was acquired by Hewlett-Packard and Mickos was appointed GM of HP's Cloud Business Unit.

Mickos was chief executive officer of MySQL AB from 2001 to 2008, when Sun Microsystems bought MySQL AB.[2] He served as senior vice president of the database group at Sun Microsystems until March 2009.[3]

Mickos moved from Finland to the United States in 2003. He has lived in Los Altos Hills, CA and San Francisco, CA and currently resides in Seattle, WA.[4]

Early life and education

Mickos is the third born of four siblings, and was raised in the town of Kauniainen, outside Helsinki, Finland. The family later moved to Jakobstad, where Mickos attended high school. His parents were both engineers by training.[5]

Mickos studied technical physics at Helsinki University of Technology (now called Aalto University), and graduated with a M.Sc. degree.[6][7] In 1987 he co-founded the company Polycon Ab with student friends at the age of 24.[8]

Career

Mickos was a co-founder and CEO of MatchON Sports Ltd. Prior to this, he was CEO of Sonera subsidiary Intellitel Communications Inc, and held sales and marketing positions at Solid Information Technology Ltd and other software companies.[9]

Mickos became CEO of MySQL AB in January 2001 and served in this role until February 2008. During this time, he became a voice for the value of, and business model behind, commercial open source.[10] He oversaw that settlement with NuSphere Corp over a dispute regarding the use of MySQL AB's trademarks and copyrights and compliance with the GNU General Public License (GPL).[11] After Sun acquired MySQL in February 2008 for $1 billion, Mickos served as Senior Vice President of Sun's database group until March 2009.[12]

From 2009 to 2010, Mickos was the Entrepreneur In Residence of the venture capital firms Benchmark Capital and Index Ventures.[13][14]

In 2009, Mickos participated as an expert witness for the European Commission when they were examining the Oracle-MySQL merger because of their concern over an antitrust issue.[15]

In March 2010, Mickos was appointed CEO of Eucalyptus Systems, the company behind the Eucalyptus open source software for cloud computing on computer clusters.[16] When Hewlett-Packard acquired Eucalyptus in September 2014, they appointed Mickos SVP and GM of HP's Cloud Business Unit.[17] Mickos left HP in October 2015.

Mickos served on the Board of directors of Nokia Corporation from 2012 to 2015.[18] He also served on the boards of Electrosonic,[19] RightScale,[20] Mozilla Messaging[21] and the Node.js Foundation.[22]

Mickos served as the CEO of the bug bounty platform company HackerOne from 2015 to 2024.[23][24] In May 2024, Mickos announced plans to transition from his CEO position and to continue as a strategic advisor for HackerOne. The leadership transition was finalized in September 2024, with Kara Sprague appointed as CEO effective November 2024.[24][25]

From 2019 to 2024, Mickos served as the Honorary Consul of Finland in San Francisco. [26]

In 2025, Mickos became the Executive in Residence at his alma mater, Aalto University, with responsibility for launching and building the Aalto Founders School, a new entrepreneurship program. [27]

Personal life

Mickos and his wife married in 1988. They raised three children, now adults, in Finland and California.[28] The couple divorced in 2015.

Awards and recognition

Mickos has received the following awards and recognition:

References

  1. ^ "HackerOne Snags Former HP Exec Mårten Mickos As CEO". 11 November 2015.
  2. ^ "Former MySQL CEO Mickos joins Benchmark".
  3. ^ "Sun's CEO talks up buy as MySQL deal closes". 26 February 2008. Archived from the original on May 19, 2018.
  4. ^ "My liquidity moment: Mårten Mickos".
  5. ^ "CEO Talk: Marten Mickos". HuffPost. 6 January 2017.
  6. ^ "An Interview with Marten Mickos of MySQL".
  7. ^ "Former MySQL CEO Marten Mickos Joins Benchmark As Entrepreneur In Residence". 29 September 2009.
  8. ^ "Kolumni | Juhlista pienimmätkin saavutukset – Mårten Mickos kokosi parhaat neuvot aloitteleville yrittäjille". Helsingin Sanomat (in Finnish). 2022-08-27. Retrieved 2022-08-28.
  9. ^ "New CEO at MySQL AB". Archived from the original on 2006-11-13.
  10. ^ "Open for business: Building successful commerce around open source". 29 May 2025.
  11. ^ "MySQL, NuSphere Settle GPL Contract Dispute". The Register.
  12. ^ "MySQL CEO Marten Mickos Leaves As Sun Reorganizes".
  13. ^ "Former MySQL CEO Marten Mickos Joins Benchmark As Entrepreneur In Residence". TechCrunch. 29 September 2009.
  14. ^ "Former MySQL CEO Marten Mickos joins Index Ventures as EIR". TechCrunch.
  15. ^ "I was CEO of MySQL, am CEO of Eucalyptus". Archived from the original on 2014-06-27.
  16. ^ "Mickos new CEO at cloud manager Eucalyptus". The Register.
  17. ^ "Mickos new CEO at cloud manager Eucalyptus". ZDNet.
  18. ^ "Nokia plans board of directors refresh, chairman to step down". Engadget. 26 January 2012.
  19. ^ "Mårten Mickos Named CEO of Eucalyptus Systems" (Press release).
  20. ^ "Former MySQL CEO Joins Cloud Management Vendor". CIO Magazine.
  21. ^ "Mozilla Messaging starts up operations". 19 February 2008.
  22. ^ "HackerOne CEO Talks About Joining the Node.js Foundation and Becoming a Board Member". 6 November 2017.
  23. ^ "HackerOne Snags Former HP Exec Mårten Mickos As CEO". TechCrunch. 11 November 2015.
  24. ^ a b Higgins, Eoin. "Incoming HackerOne CEO Kara Sprague talks new role, gender equity in tech". IT Brew. Retrieved 2025-08-27.
  25. ^ "HackerOne Appoints Kara Sprague as CEO". Archived from the original on 2025-06-24. Retrieved 2025-08-27.
  26. ^ "Introducing the Honorary Consuls of Finland: Mårten Mickos, San Francisco". Finland Abroad.
  27. ^ "Mårten Mickos". Aalto University.
  28. ^ "My liquidity moment: Mårten Mickos". Financial Times.
  29. ^ "Honorary doctors in technology 2020 - 2022 | Aalto University". www.aalto.fi. Retrieved 2022-04-20.
  30. ^ "Kunniajäsenet" (in Finnish). Retrieved 2025-12-15.
  31. ^ "Lista över ordinarie ledamöter jämte hederstecken och hedersledamöter" (in Swedish). Retrieved 2025-12-15.
  32. ^ "The Silicon Valley 100: The most amazing and inspiring people in tech right now". Business Insider.
  33. ^ "Secrets of the Serial Entrepreneur: Interview with Mårten Mickos".
  34. ^ "Press Release: MySQL Wins Audemars Piguet "Changing Times Award"". Archived from the original on December 5, 2006.
  35. ^ "Press release: Nokia Foundation Award to Mårten Mickos". Nokia.

Further reading

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