Gil Shwed on CEO Life, AI's Future & Why Culture Matters

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Big speeches make headlines, but real stories happen here.

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This is Brilliantly Candid.

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Let's go beyond the keynote and get to the heart of leadership.

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Welcome everyone to Check Point America's We Are CPX America's 2025.

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And I am here with the one and only Gil Schwinn.

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Gil, thank you so much for joining us today.

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Thank you, great to be here.

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Oh, can I just tell you, I just had a wonderful conversation with so many of your

executive leaders.

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I just left with Cindy Carter and I love her.

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And she said something to me right before we running in feverishly, which is, Gil is a

genius and brilliant person.

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So I know you've heard this many times before, but let's be honest.

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When you were 10 years old, did you think you were a genius at that time?

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First up to today, I don't think I'm genius.

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I'm actually usually hanging up with people that are much smarter than me That's one of

the secrets to success eh But when I was young I have high motivations.

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I mean I was I had the high aspirations

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Okay, well look, it's not every day you hear a 14 year old tell a university, let me in,

and you knock on their doors every day.

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So I was watching an interview about uh this story here.

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um May I ask, ever so gently, did you just end up just walking in and sitting down and

they enforce them to let you in or was it finally at some point they said, Gil, no, you

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got it, let's go.

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Pretty much I went every day and knocked on the door and said I want to in I want to learn

the university and they every day say maybe we don't know we're not sure and after like

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three months of doing that actually what happened is the school year started at the

university the university academic year started and then we just told me we haven't

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approved it yet but just go into class and listen and two weeks later they had no choice I

was already in the class of he approved me

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Oh my goodness, okay, so now this is a credit to your parents then, and you can tell me as

much as you'd like to, there's no pressure.

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Was this something in you or your parents, did they cultivate this, this chutzpah in you

to say, I am, I want to learn more.

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I'm not learning.

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It's a good question.

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think there's a things about, first of all, my parents are very different.

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My mother was very outgoing, so maybe my father is very shy.

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I'm more like my father, actually, on that front.

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But I think what my father did very well, I went to my father and I said, you know, I want

to learn the university.

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Can you help me?

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Can you open the doors?

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Can you call?

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And he just said, if you're grown up enough to learn the university, you can get in

yourself.

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And that's it.

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And that's what I learned.

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And that was a great lesson for life.

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Okay, okay, okay, my gosh.

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Because I think at 14, your brain isn't fully developed.

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I mean, let's be honest, everyone, though you're intellectually gifted, did you feel like

you had to catch up emotionally?

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Not really.

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think, by the way, we're underestimating the value of young people.

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And by the way, we invest a lot on that.

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We have today what we call Tel Aviv University for youth for young people.

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And I think the age of 15 or so is the perfect age to create.

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mean, think about that.

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Our brain is developed.

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We have no worries in life.

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We don't need to worry about, you know, supporting ourselves.

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We don't need to worry about the family.

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And if we really like something, we can dedicate ourselves to be 100 % on that.

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And again, it can be sport, can be science, it can be partying, but kids when they are 15,

they can do whatever they want.

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Oh, I love, your kids must be so happy to have you as a dad.

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First off, without going into too much detail with the children, have you ever had to have

a conversation with any of your kids to say, maybe you could be a little bit more

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assertive?

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mean.

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And sometimes I'm trying to be a different parents, not, mean, I'm trying to be a, so

first I do support whatever they do.

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I'm not pushing them into any big achievements and so on.

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I'd love them to get to great achievements, but I'm definitely not pushing them or forcing

them anything.

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I really didn't like sitting in school.

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So when they don't want to go to school or anything like that, I totally understand them.

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And they're still young.

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mean, my oldest son is now 18 and a half.

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just graduated from high school.

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So when he did well for like 10, 11 years, he do too much at school.

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The 12th year he kind of caught himself and did clicked and did a good job, but he did it

on his own.

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And I'm very proud of him on that.

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Okay, so now that we're talking about children, let's talk about that big children child

that you have called Checkpoint.

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I am in awe.

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I have to be brutally honest, being able to sit here and talk to you is an absolute

thrill.

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But seeing you now, you're graduating your own child here.

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And um can you tell me, what's the one big challenge that you have letting go of

Checkpoint right now?

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I don't know if I, mean, first it was a very long process.

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People ask me that question, why are you continuing for like 28 years since we went public

since: 1996

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So they always ask you, see you achieved, you created the company, public, you made it so

unfortunate, why do you continue?

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And every year I need to give up usually the same answer.

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That's love it and I like it and I want my dream was to build a software company and why

wake up from that dream?

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Still after 30, almost 32 years in that.

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eh I feel that I can change my life pace.

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think that as a CEO, you know, my day is 15 meetings, solving so many problems.

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Most of them is things that I've seen before, but I still need to treat them seriously and

solve them and get that.

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And I feel that it's the right time to let this son graduate.

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And I really care about check.

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And now, of course, one of the factors that held me back is can I find somebody else that

can take care of checkpoint?

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And I'm so happy that I found that, by the way, was my, in the last two years, that was my

main or last year and a half since I made that decision, that was my biggest fear.

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Will I find the right person to take checkpoint to the next stage?

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And I'm so happy that I found Nadav because I think he brings the positive energy and the

skills and the know-how of the field and the energy that's needed.

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And it's when we get along very well, which is also important because

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And so I'm, I'm thrilled with that's the situation right now.

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And I think both the dove and I will tell you in an interview with we feel like we are in

a honeymoon and I hope it continues.

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No, I love that because I can see the energy.

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This is my first EPX and I have to say, you can sense a company culture.

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You can sense their energy based on how they interact with one another.

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Yes.

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mean, don't know.

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Now I'm three months into that role or almost three months, two and a half months.

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I'm still come to the office every day.

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I don't do it for 10 hours.

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I do it for a few hours.

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I don't do many meetings.

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kind of mainly sit with Nadav.

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So I let him run the show, not getting in his way, but it's great to sit with him and be

part of it.

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And knowing by the way that I give advice, but somebody else is solving the situation.

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And that, by the way, when do identify leaders also, when they are saying, let me handle

that.

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And also they can listen and they can implement.

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I mean, that's the thing I like.

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I mean, it's not that if one thing get out of my way, I know what I'm doing.

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And it's one, it's a different thing to say, you know, I'm listening and the next week you

say that your feedback got into the system.

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It's not just that you gave a feedback and it didn't work.

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So I'm enjoying that so far.

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Last month I've been traveling.

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We are in the third CPX, the last CPX here in Las Vegas, but we've been to Vienna, we've

been to Bangkok.

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So we've gone around the world.

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That's a very busy month.

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And starting next week, I'm going to think about this next phase.

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Next week I'm going to be alone at the office and I'm going to say to myself, how do I

structure the next few things that I'm going to do in check?

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Okay, so because you ushered in the whole firewall, I mean, you're just hearing the story

is absolutely stunning to me, but we're at that cusp with AI.

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Do you feel that same energy that you had back in 1990s to now?

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then knowing that that AI revolution, whatever you want to call it, uh does it make you

keep pulling you back in?

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Or are you now in elder states, Mrs.

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Sight?

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I want to play with it, but I don't need to be in it.

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I think we all need to be in AI.

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By the way, just like 30 years ago, people that didn't get into the internet were left

behind.

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No matter what industry you were, eventually you had to be on the internet.

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Now again, we have to remember these revolutions don't happen overnight.

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We're already two years into this AI revolution.

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it's still, again, it's a big revolution we see, but still most of our life behave like

the same way like they were before.

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Now at what phase will we wake up in the morning and suddenly see

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these positions were replaced by AI or this thing we forgot how to do AI does it for us?

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It's a good question.

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By the way, I can see it on my kids.

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My young kid, my eight year old kid is already using AI much more than I do.

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for him, it's a much bigger part of his life because there's a lot of things that I know

how to do so I can do it with AI and say, wow, it's great, but I can do it myself and it

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will work too for him.

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There's so many things that he just just with AI.

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Maybe he will never learn how to do it on his own.

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You know, it's like intuitive.

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The kids just get it more naturally, which I think AI is like, it's language, right?

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In a way that you're, able to communicate or articulate what it is that you need.

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okay.

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So I've been going around the conference because someone had talked about hot dogs and

sandwiches.

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Can I just tell you, I might have created some drama at checkpoint.

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What is a familial company?

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I might have started a fight.

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What do you think are hot dogs, sandwiches?

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And I, by the way, did the same thing.

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I've actually asked the CHIR GPT to answer, and I asked, by the way, three different AI

engines to answer that question.

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And you see, I looked at the structure.

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said, can you give me a table comparing different types of sandwiches?

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And are they sandwich or not?

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And they says, okay, you can look at it as a basic definition or expanded definition.

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So in the expanded definition of sandwich, hot dog is a sandwich.

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the narrow definition, it's not.

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And again, I got a full table, including tacos, including everything saying if they are a

sandwich or not.

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So you see, that's how you use AI.

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You just offload the problem to something else.

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Exactly.

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then you may, we may need to because I'm telling you, I started some fights in the expo

room.

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No, and I sent it back there.

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The guy who sent it is our US president, Avi.

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And I don't know, he likes this kind of stupid challenges, but I sent him back the report

and I just shut down the discussion.

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I've sent it.

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Here's the report.

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You got the answer.

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is awesome.

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Well, thank you so very much for your time.

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It's been a pleasure and honor and guilt.

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Thank you everyone.

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It is Checkpoint America CPX 2025.

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Thank you very much.

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you so very much.