Feng Deng

eng Deng was a young businessman in China when he picked up a book that would change his life and, ultimately, the security landscape. "Fire in the Valley" told the story of Silicon Valley and awakened Deng's entrepreneurial spirit.

He moved to the United States and soon landed a job at Intel, where he joined up with some fellow engineering graduates who shared his dream of starting a company.

They brainstormed ideas, tossing some aside. Then Deng had a hunch that security would become hot. In his living room, he worked to develop his notion with Yan Ke and Ken Xie,and NetScreen Technologies was born.

"We didn't know what we could do, but we just said, 'Let's do security, and let's do some hardware acceleration because we know hardware acceleration could help the performance issue in security,' " Deng says.

Pat Grillo, president and CEO of Atrion Communications Resources, a solution provider in Branchburg, N.J., says Atrion has had tremendous success selling NetScreen products. "It's an appliance built to do security, so it seems extra secure," he says.

At 40, Deng remains driven by his entrepreneurial dreams, working 12-hour days, six days a week, finding his most productive stretches after midnight. "Innovating and being an entrepreneur is something I want to do for the rest of my life," Deng says.