The Founders Story

In early 2026, Melissa Kilby started Nero Duality. Through about a decade in Defense and Big Tech cybersecurity in Silicon Valley—work layered in secrecy—she kept circling the same hard truth: 'the truth is stranger than fiction'. For all the advances in security, the ending usually writes itself: unauthorized access. The guiding ethos became singular—there needs to be 'a better way to trust'.

That idea shaped the company name. 'Nero Duality' holds both halves of the fight: Nero for the obscure side of cyber—the shadowed, hard-to-see edge where real threats move—and Duality for the forever-game itself: always two sides of the same coin.

Open source is part of that story too—work shared on GitHub. She is a former CNCF project maintainer, and that experience left a clear conviction: focused, transparent OSS work matters—and when it fits, it can be one of the strongest ways to build trust.