The company has a rare opportunity ahead: To become the next cybersecurity giant.

Yes, $23 billion is a lot of money to turn down. But in spurning Google’s acquisition offer, I believe Wiz is positioning itself for something even bigger—and even rarer to achieve—in the cybersecurity industry.

Given the stunning growth of the cloud security vendor in just over four years of existence, it had frankly been a head-scratcher to me why Wiz CEO Assaf Rappaport (pictured) would entertain an acquisition offer at this point, regardless of how generous Google was willing to be.

Plus, not only did Wiz hire a new president in February, with the addition of ex-Zscaler COO Dali Rajic, but the company has continued to build out its executive ranks in recent months. Just a month ago, for instance, Wiz brought aboard a new channel chief with the hire of security veteran Michelle Hartley Graff.

The company’s $1 billion funding round, which closed not even three months ago, is another data point to keep in mind here.

In my view, these are not the actions of a company preparing to imminently shop itself around.

Indeed, with the disclosure of an internal email from Wiz’s CEO to staff Monday, it’s now apparent that the company was not actually looking to be acquired. The email suggests that Google’s offer was an unsolicited bid.

“While we are flattered by offers we have received, we have chosen to continue on our path to building Wiz,” Rappaport, who is also a co-founder of Wiz, told employees in the email Monday.

Rappaport made clear in the email that Wiz has its sights set on reaching $1 billion in annual recurring revenue (ARR) and going public, two milestone goals he had earlier mentioned to me during an interview back in February.

“We want to be a public company. So that’s our overall goal,” he said in the February interview with me. “I would say when we’ve reached probably $1 billion in ARR, that would be when we should be thinking more seriously about IPO.”

But with the series of recent moves by Wiz including the major executive hires, “I think that [$1 billion in ARR] is around the corner,” Rappaport told me at the time.

Now we know that, even with all the buzz from Google proposing its largest acquisition ever, Wiz has opted to stick to the previous plan. And I believe it’s the right move.

Wiz got a fast start coming out of the gates in early 2020 and has not slowed its pace since. The company’s technology for quickly improving visibility into cloud environments has made a huge impact in the security industry, practically from the beginning. And Wiz is now considered a top player in AI security, as well.

Earlier this year, Wiz said its ARR had surpassed $350 million, and the Wall Street Journal has reported that its ARR has now reached $500 million. (I’ve reached out to Wiz for comment.)

As increasingly crucial as cybersecurity has become in recent years, these are still not the sort of growth numbers that any other security vendors are putting up. Wiz has been in a class of its own over the past four years and clearly believes it can stay that way over the longer term.

From my vantage point at least, Wiz has one of the rarest opportunities in the industry. Wiz is on track to become the next cybersecurity giant, joining the ranks of Palo Alto Networks, Fortinet and CrowdStrike (yes, that CrowdStrike).

Wiz doesn’t need Google’s help to get there. In all likelihood, the company would have only been slowed down by the M&A and integration process.

As Rappaport told staff this week, remaining a standalone security vendor and reaching the IPO milestone is the path that makes the most sense for Wiz to achieve its massive potential.

Turning down billions is not something that most security vendors would, or even could, do. But the simple fact is this: Wiz is not most security vendors.