While November jobs data outpaced economist expectations, many sectors are still struggling to fill roles, including cybersecurity. CrowdStrike (CRWD) CEO George Kurtz joins Yahoo Finance Live to weigh in on the necessary growth of cybersecurity jobs as widespread breaches become more sophisticated.

"It's incumbent on companies like CrowdStrike to be able to arm the people in the field to be able to create that multiplier effect, to be able to actually plug some of these holes, and it's been something that's obviously we've been focusing on extensively," Kurtz says on the cybersecurity sector's labor demand, also commenting on the use of AI to fight cyber threats.

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Video Transcript

MADISON MILLS: I mean, you've had a busy week, my goodness. You were speaking at a few different conferences all out in San Francisco both at the Jefferies Cybersecurity Summit, as well as Barclays Global Technology Conference out there. Ultimately, net, net, you think about the global cybersecurity landscape right now and where more jobs, more roles are still needed to be filled to meet the expectations that many of your customers have, what type of delta are we going to need to see in this near term?

GEORGE KURTZ: Well, great to be here. And it really is a problem in cybersecurity when you think about the job deficit. So many skilled security practitioners are needed and there's over 3 million open security jobs.

So when you think about security and you think about the adversary and how fast they move, it's incumbent on companies like CrowdStrike to be able to arm the people in the field to be able to create that multiplier effect to be able to actually plug some of these holes. And it's been something that obviously we've been focusing on extensively helping our customers. But in terms of the jobs, it's, A, it's great field to be in and B, more people are needed.

MADISON MILLS: More people are needed, particularly when you've got a company that's doing as well as yours. I'm looking at the stock here, year to date returns up 129%. Not a bad year. And when I compare you to some of the competitors across the street, you guys are way outpacing some other cybersecurity names here.

But I do want to talk a little bit about those competitors. Zeroing in on Microsoft, how much do you see them as a competitor? Is that sort of a myth on the street or is that the reality?

GEORGE KURTZ: Well, Microsoft certainly a competitor. But when you think about what we're focused on as a company, it's stopping breaches. I mean, that's why I started the company. And the technology that we use is AI native.

This is not something that's new to us. We didn't just get into this game. Literally started the company using AI and machine learning at the time to be able to identify and stop these attacks that have never been seen before and really create the first security platform born in the cloud. It's much differentiated from Microsoft's technology.

And in fact, what we hear from customers from a Microsoft perspective, again, using legacy signature-based technology to be able to identify threats is just not going to cut it. So AI is the way forward. And what we hear from customers is a level of transparency just in the pricing alone is causing a lot of consternation. And normally, they're getting a big bill and not necessarily getting the outcome that they receive.

But again, we've done well because of the platform we've built. It's been embraced by customers. It is, by all accounts, the best in the industry by industry analysts in terms of technology. And we feel really good about where we are today.