Titans of Tech - Kip Compton of Fastly

Kip Compton, the Chief Product Officer (CPO) at Fastly, has swiftly adapted to his role since taking the helm in January this year.

Fastly, an edge cloud provider known for its focus on delivering fast, secure, and engaging experiences, has no doubt found in Compton a hard-working leader whose vision aligns with its technological ambitions.

With a career deeply rooted in technology and innovation, Compton brings a wealth of experience that is already making an impact at Fastly.

Compton's decision to join Fastly was driven by his admiration for the company's robust technology platform. He was particularly impressed by Fastly's client base, which includes some of the largest internet and media players globally. Despite Fastly's platform being widely appreciated, Compton identified an opportunity to broaden its market reach by making it more user-friendly and clearly articulated.

His goal is to take the power of a platform that companies like Google admire and make it accessible to a wider audience, enabling them to solve their most challenging problems.

Navigating the Role of CPO

While this is Compton's first official role as a CPO, he is no stranger to product management.

Speaking with TechDay, Compton explained that throughout his career, primarily in larger companies, he held various general management and Chief Technology Officer (CTO) roles, with product reporting under his purview.

That experience has equipped him with the skills necessary to lead Fastly's product team effectively.

Reflecting on his time at Fastly so far, Compton describes the experience as "delightful." He values roles where he can make an impact, learn, and work with people he likes—criteria that Fastly meets. He has already seen success with product launches and team restructuring, which have positioned the company well for the future.

Compton is particularly impressed by the strong customer focus at Fastly, noting that the company's employees, or "Fastlyans," care deeply about both their colleagues and customers.

Industry Trends and Innovations

As CPO, Compton is keenly aware of industry trends, particularly in the realm of edge AI. He sees edge computing as a critical complement to traditional cloud technologies, especially when it comes to enhancing security and delivering the best possible user experiences. Compton believes that intercepting security threats at the edge, before they reach centralised cloud deployments, is essential in today's landscape.

Under his leadership, Fastly has introduced significant innovations, such as the Fastly AI Accelerator. This new capability enhances the performance and cost-effectiveness of chatbots by caching responses and understanding semantically whether a question has been previously asked. The result is faster response times and reduced costs for customers, especially those using large language models like OpenAI's GPT-4. Additionally, Fastly's bot mitigation technology, launched earlier this year, has been well-received by customers dealing with security challenges like credential stuffing attacks.

Driving Future Growth

Compton is clear that the results of product work often take time to materialise. However, he is confident that the steps taken so far have already made a positive impact at Fastly. His focus has been on complementing Fastly's exceptional technical capabilities with a stronger product department that can better address customer needs. While the journey has not been entirely smooth, Compton appreciates the challenges as they indicate that the company is pushing forward with the necessary urgency.

Looking ahead, Compton is focused on understanding customer needs and orchestrating Fastly's resources across different functions to solve customer problems. He emphasises the importance of building the organisation and talent necessary to achieve Fastly's mission. His role is not just about delivering products but also about developing the team and ensuring that Fastly is well-positioned for future technological trends.

What makes Kip Compton a Titan of Tech

Based in Palo Alto and working from Fastly's headquarters in San Francisco, Compton is part of a global organisation with offices around the world, including Denver, New York, London, and Tokyo. In Australia, the company employs 30 staff in marketing, sales, client services, infrastructure and technical support and has Points of Presence (POPs) in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth.

Compton's recent visit to Sydney underscores Fastly's commitment to expanding its presence in Australia, where the company has strong relationships with loyal customers, such as Nine, Canstar, Stuff, Linktree, Blackpepper, and Monoova, to name a few.