Tech titans Jim Clark and Thomas Jermoluk have repeatedly reinvented how people interact with the internet – but their true strength lies in a 40-year bond.

Clark, the founder of Netscape, and Jermoluk, the founder of @Home Network, represent the kind of partnership all founders dream of. That synergy is a driving force behind their success with Beyond Identity, a New York-based SaaS platform for passwordless identity management.

From the beginning, they wanted to create a product that would genuinely protect users, which began with denying hackers access to centralized databases through stolen passwords – a vulnerability Jermoluk considered one of the 'original sins' of the internet.

“Over 85 percent of the issues today with account takeover, ransomware, and supply chain attacks all emanate from this single problem,” he told Cybercrime Magazine. “Passwords are a fundamentally insecure, shared secret mechanism that has been a plague on our industry for 30 years now.”

Guided by a deep love of technology and a drive to advance it for good, Clark and Jermoluk have proven their capabilities and forever reshaped the tech world – a mission that was only strengthened when they joined forces.

Before the Fame

Jermoluk’s journey began in Hawaii, where his father was enlisted in the U.S. Air Force. The area was not known for its stellar school system, which left his early education lacking.

His mother never attended college, but she read the newspaper every day with the young Jermoluk beside her, which is how he learned to read.

One day during their routine, she spotted a small ad in the newspaper for a scholarship test to Iolani, the best preparatory high school in Hawaii. Without any explanation, she turned to her son and said they would be going downtown that Saturday.

Jermoluk had no idea why he was taking a test but completed the task as instructed. He scored so well that he was accepted into the school and even skipped several grades. It was there that a math professor introduced the 12-year-old to computer coding.

When the professor showed him a page of code, it all just made sense – the way others can just “look at a music sheet and just play.” Jermoluk had suddenly found his calling.

Far from the cool ocean breezes, Jim Clark’s path was much different. Born in Plainview, Texas, he dropped out of high school at 16 and spent four years in the US Navy, where he was introduced to electronics. 

With a new interest and desire to better his circumstances, Clark decided to go back to school. He started by taking night courses at Tulane University's University College and eventually earned enough credits to be admitted to the University of New Orleans. There, Clark earned his bachelor's and a master's degrees in physics, followed by a Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Utah.

Clark began taking night courses at Tulane University's University College where, despite his lack of a high school diploma, he earned enough credits to be admitted to the University of New Orleans. There, he received his bachelor's and master's degrees in physics, followed by a Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Utah.

The drop out had come far, and he wasn’t planning on stopping. 

This academic foundation launched him into a decade of work across technical fields, including serving as CTO of SecurityScorecard and VP of Engineering at IronNet Cybersecurity. All of this experience culminating in his founding of Silicon Graphics, the project that would bring him together with his life-long friend and business partner.

Two Forces Collide

In the 1990s, Silicon Graphics was a pioneer in 3D graphics, offering the new intellectual adventure Jermoluk was seeking. But after a “painful hour” with the CEO, he was sure he had blown the interview.

This mindset changed with a chance encounter next door with Clark. The two struck up a conversation, which turned into a four hour brainstorm session that was spread across eight whiteboards on the future of the company’s tech.

That meeting was the beginning of a deep personal friendship and mutual respect that has lasted four decades. The partnership also proved complementary in their business ventures, building on each other’s individual strengths.

“He's a real entrepreneur, classic entrepreneur in the standpoint of aggressive, always pushing hard, impatient about things,” Jermoluk told the Category Visionaries podcast. “And I, of course, am the operational side of it. So, I have to worry more about the P&L of hiring people and taking care of the details – the nuts and bolts of running and setting up a company.”

“So, it's a complementary skill set and a deep respect for technical capabilities.”

Beyond Passwords

While Beyond Identity launched in 2020, its origins trace back to the mid-1990s. At that time, Netscape was helping launch the commercial internet. Part of the project required Clark’s team to create a security system based on public key cryptography — digitally signed public key documents, which would verify if a user was on the correct website with a secure channel. 

Clark was intrigued with the potential of this tech, but he and his engineers lacked the resources to extend this system for personal use. In fact, it would take another 25 years for technology to catch up.

The direct inspiration for Beyond Identity emerged about a decade before its launch. The duo were heavily involved in the investing world, funding three to four companies at a time. This included one with a focus on “Smart Home” automation. Here, they immediately faced challenges with security and user authentication.

“One of the challenges in doing that is, if you walk into a building or your home, and it's dark, and you want to go to turn on the lights, or turn on the AC, you don't want to have to enter a password on your phone,” Jermoluk explained to Forbes. “The system should automatically recognise you.”

As their team searched for a seamless solution, an engineer was able to consolidate the necessary tools onto a single phone. Clark and Jermoluk knew they had discovered something special.

Jermoluk’s due diligence confirmed that while other login options existed, they were ineffective, merely trying to “put bandages on top of this gaping wound” instead of solving the root cause. Soon after, they launched Beyond Identity, giving them the chance to create a system that would completely do away with passwords. 

Even though consumers have fallen short in defending their businesses, Casey does not place the blame solely on them.

“As an industry, we are coming dangerously close to being complicit in cybercrime,” Jermoluk said in a statement. “Truckloads of VC and [private equity] money for legacy authentication technology will not protect companies.”

He continued, asserting that “by throwing money at security ‘controls’ that criminals consistently evade, in an attempt to inexplicably protect and preserve the gaping hole that is passwords, is not only funding failure, it’s knowingly failing companies and customers.”

And today, thanks to their genius and resources, Jermoluk and Clark were able to create the change they want to be.