Lance Cottrell

Who they are

Lance Cottrell is Founder and Principal at Obscura Security — he founded Anonymizer Inc. in 1995, the world's first commercial internet privacy service, and built Mixmaster, the open-source anonymous email platform.

Person

Lance studied Physics across three institutions — BS at UC Santa Cruz, MS at UC San Diego, and coursework at the University of Texas at Austin — before founding Anonymizer Inc. in 1995, the world's first commercial internet privacy service. That company set the template for his career: building privacy infrastructure before privacy was a mainstream concern. After Anonymizer was acquired, he moved into the intelligence-adjacent world at Abraxas Corporation and then Ntrepid Corporation, where he served as CTO/Chief Scientist and Chief Scientist respectively — the period when he was publicly explaining tools like Ntrepid's Passages product to Washington audiences. He founded Obscura Security in 2017, a privacy and cybersecurity firm where he remains Founder and Principal. Alongside the employed track he's built two public-facing projects: Mixmaster, an open-source anonymous email platform, and FeelTheBoot.com, launched in 2019 as a free startup advice platform — video, podcast, and blog — aimed at early-stage founders worldwide. He also serves as a Global Entrepreneur in Residence at the Founder Institute and angel invests through North Bay Angels, with named portfolio companies including Scollar, Luma Therapeutics, Phyllom BioProducts, Shyft, CloudCath, and Credder. The through-line is someone who has spent three decades working on anonymity and privacy, then turned that operator experience into a coaching and investing platform for founders. He writes for Dark Reading and SecurityWeek on security and privacy, and keeps a site at lancecottrell.com.

Company

Obscura Security's most recent milestone is its first independent audit, completed in 2026, which verified the privacy guarantees of its 2-Party Relay design — a meaningful credibility moment for a VPN product whose core claim is that no single provider can see both who you are and what you're doing. The product, Obscura VPN, routes traffic through a multi-hop connection managed independently by two different providers, using the WireGuard protocol in partnership with Mullvad VPN. The audit result gives the company a third-party-verified answer to the trust question that every VPN vendor faces.

Market

Obscura VPN operates in the consumer and prosumer VPN market, where Mullvad VPN is both a partner and a key reference point for privacy-first positioning. The broader cybersecurity market is consolidating — analysts project the field narrowing to 8–10 major platform vendors by 2029, and M&A scrutiny from U.S. and EU regulators is increasing following large deals like Google's $32 billion Wiz acquisition in 2025. A privacy-focused, independently-audited VPN product sits outside the consolidation wave for now, but the market dynamic creates both competitive pressure and potential acquisition interest over time.

Network

No direct relationship edges are available from the claims. Lance's named network can be inferred from his institutional affiliations: he is a member of North Bay Angels, where he has co-invested alongside other angels in Scollar, Luma Therapeutics, Phyllom BioProducts, Shyft, CloudCath, and Credder. He is also connected to the Founder Institute network through his Global Entrepreneur in Residence role.

How they likely show up

Founded Anonymizer Inc. in 1995 — decades before privacy became a product category — suggesting he is comfortable being early and waiting for the world to catch up.
Parallel tracks across his career (employed operator + founder + angel investor + public educator) → high agency; unlikely to be energized by single-threaded, passive roles.
Built FeelTheBoot as a free platform offering video, podcast, and blog content → he teaches by making things, not just by talking; prefers concrete artifacts over abstract advice.
Writes for Dark Reading and SecurityWeek on security and privacy → comfortable translating technical depth into accessible prose; probably responds well to conversations that go below the surface.
Angel portfolio spans biotech (Luma Therapeutics, Phyllom BioProducts), hardware (Scollar), and SaaS (CloudCath, Credder) → generalist investor mindset, not locked into a single thesis.
Completed an independent audit of Obscura VPN's privacy design in 2026 → values verifiability and third-party validation over self-assertion; likely applies the same standard to claims he hears from others.

Conversation tips

→ Ask about Anonymizer Inc. specifically — founding the world's first commercial internet privacy service in 1995 is the origin story and he'll have views on how far (or how little) the space has moved.
→ Reference the 2026 audit result for Obscura VPN — he just cleared a credibility hurdle and it's likely top of mind; asking what the audit process surfaced will get a more candid answer than asking about the product generically.
→ He coaches early-stage founders at FeelTheBoot and Founder Institute — if you're discussing startups, bring a specific, concrete problem rather than a general question; he teaches frameworks, not platitudes.
→ His angel portfolio is deliberately diverse (biotech, hardware, SaaS) — don't assume he filters by sector; ask what he looks for in founders instead.
→ He has a physics PhD background and spent years as a Chief Scientist — he will follow a technical argument and may lose interest if the conversation stays at the marketing layer.

Toolbox

Openers

Open on Anonymizer Inc. — he founded the world's first commercial internet privacy service in 1995, years before most people knew what a VPN was; that context reframes everything he's done since.
Lead with the 2026 Obscura VPN audit — it's the freshest milestone, it verifies the 2-Party Relay design's privacy claims, and it's a concrete result rather than a press release.
Mention Mixmaster — it's an open-source anonymous email platform he built, a technical side project that predates the commercial privacy work and signals how deep the commitment to anonymity runs.

Discovery questions

You built Anonymizer in 1995 and now Obscura VPN in 2017 — what's actually different about building a privacy product today versus then, beyond the technology?
The 2026 audit verified Obscura VPN's 2-Party Relay design — what did the audit process itself teach you that you didn't already know about your own product?
At FeelTheBoot you coach idea-stage founders — what's the single mistake you see most consistently in early pitches that founders almost never self-diagnose?

Avoid

Don't treat privacy as a feature checkbox or sell it as a compliance play — he has spent thirty years building privacy infrastructure as a first principle, and surface-level framing will signal immediately that you haven't done the work.

Make it yours