Cape Blueprints: Your Cell Phone Is Not Remotely Secure. Meet the Startup Founder Who’s Fixing That (For Real)

Costanoa’s BuilderOps Blueprints are designed to help early-stage start-ups build successful foundations. Through this series, Costanoa’s BuilderOps team interviews founders and start-up leaders, showcasing their superpowers and learnings on all things company building. Costanoa is an early-stage VC firm backing company builders across AI & data infrastructure, cyber and national security, and fintech.

For our latest BuilderOps Blueprint, we sat down with John Doyle, Founder and CEO of Cape, a mobile carrier that offers premium 4G/5G cell service and unlimited talk and text, built from the ground up with security and privacy in mind. Cape recently announced the launch of their privacy-first open beta. In 2024, Fast Company named Cape one of its Most Innovative Companies for its efforts to defend cell phone users’ privacy from malicious actors.

So we obviously believe in the importance of privacy. How has that belief animated your work with Cape? Why is privacy worth fighting for?

Privacy is an interesting construct – it’s not explicitly written into law as a fundamental right, but as Americans, we generally seem to agree that privacy is a core value. The problem is that, in practice, most people give away a huge amount of personal data just to stay connected. It’s the new norm—to live, work, and function in modern society, you need to be connected to the global cell network, which is operated by companies with poor security hygiene and anti-incentives around privacy. Breaches happen constantly, telecoms monetize subscriber data as part of their business model, and, for a long time, there were no real alternatives to these practices

I started Cape because I couldn’t fathom how we’d painted ourselves into this corner. While we can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube in terms of reliance on mobile devices, we can offer people a cell service that’s built to actually protect them.

You came from Palantir, which has a famously flat organization. Have you replicated that at Cape? Why or why not?

Absolutely.  One of the things I appreciated most during my time at Palantir was the ethos of flatness. It meant better ideas were surfaced, and decisions weren’t made just because someone had a different title. 

At Cape, we believe in removing the layers between our engineers and the problems they’re solving. We want them as close to customer pain and feedback as possible. When you trust your people and give them visibility into what matters, they build better solutions.

And a telco is a bit different than what engineers usually deal with, right?

That’s exactly right. When you own your own software stack, you can hack away at it—iterating quickly, expanding, and improving security. With telecom infrastructure, we’re operating inside a global ecosystem that isn’t ours to change. That’s why it’s even more important to get our engineers as close to the real customers as possible. It helps crystallize what needs to be done and enables them to do it.

What’s next on the horizon for Cape?

We’re working on a zero trust telecom service for enterprises as part of our next chapter. There’s no question that foreign adversaries like China have infiltrated every telco’s infrastructure. It’s been widely and repeatedly reported. And it raises serious concerns for corporate espionage and national security. 

To counter these concerns, we’re starting an enterprise-level early adopter program, focused on zero trust architecture. This means operating with the assumption that everything—your network, devices, services, etc.—are at risk, and shoring up your defenses accordingly. We’re excited to partner with companies who want to take a more serious approach to modern telecom security.

You value an in-person culture at Cape – say more about that.

We’re hybrid, and I think that flexibility gives our team what they need. For me, in-person time is not about accountability whatsoever; I know our team isn’t loafing when they’re working from home. It’s about the concentration of energy. You can clearly feel this amazing vibe shift when people are in the office together, working hard and having fun. 

We’re upfront about it when we hire so that our candidate pool is self-selecting. If they choose to apply, they know this about us and they’re into it too. They’ve opted in with enthusiasm.

You’re both a founder and a board member. What have these roles taught you?

Yes, I’m also on the board of Vannevar Labs. It’s been an amazing experience working with an awesome company. From my perspective, being an independent board member is less about focusing on shareholder and investor interests and more of a pledge to help make the leadership – Brett Granberg and Nini Hamrick – and the team successful. You’re really in maximum ‘help mode.’ It’s about preparing for meetings, asking  good questions, and being willing to roll up your sleeves and dig in. 

As a CEO, it’s also been tremendously useful because they’re a couple of years ahead of where Cape is right now. My board position is essentially a front-row seat to the operational challenges and opportunities we’ll encounter. Watching Nini and Brett work through thorny strategic questions in a rigorous way has been super valuable to me. And sometimes it’s great perspective to see, “Oh, it’s not just us; this is part of the journey.” 

Let’s wrap up with a personal question: what’s your best lifestyle hack?

My wife bought me an analog alarm clock and it’s so much better. At night, I turn my cell off before bed and I wake up early in the morning to the physical alarm. I exercise (without music – it’s super meditative!) and make coffee. I do some parenting. Somewhere in there I’ll get on my laptop to see if anything’s truly urgent. But it’s often nine, ten, even eleven before I turn my phone on.

As a result, I’m much more centered, more ‘there’ for my family, and better at my job.