Ev started Gravitational with a vision of eliminating the need for "dreaded ops" and converting complex cloud applications into self-running secure appliances. He had realized the timing was finally right for this after leading tech due diligence for RackSpace corporate development M&A and seeing the birth of Kubernetes fundamentally reshape the cloud computing landscape. Previously, Ev was the co-founder and CEO of Mailgun, one of the first email gateway service providers. After a successful acquisition by Rackspace, he joined the cloud product team where he launched "OnMetal" - the bare-metal-via-API offering that eventually became the backbone of OpenStack Ironic. Ev is also an investor and advisor to several cloud & security startups. He had previously spoken at cloud-centric tech conferences like Inbox Love and MongoSF.