Matt Bross seems intent on finding an answer to the question: “How much money can one man spend?” And his pursuit of happiness (or a larger bank balance – they seem synonymous to Bross) earns him a debut among the Light Reading Movers and Shakers.
There’s no doubt Bross has demonstrated considerable influence. For one thing, he’s helped a whole bunch of startups have hugely successful IPOs by spec’ing their products for use in Williams Communications Group’s (NYSE: WCG) network. This allows a startup to point to a customer (and revenues), thus boosting its offering’s performance. In return, the startups give Bross shares in their ventures, and he gets really, really, really rich (see Williams' CTO Profits From His Position ). In fact, Bross is becoming a perennial beneficiary of optical networking IPOs. He owns shares in ONI Systems and Sycamore. And he allegedly also benefited from options from Avici Systems Inc. and Corvis.
He’s been influential in another way, also. By being found out taking startup stock, Bross has inadvertently raised the whole issue of suspicious goings-on between vendors and carriers – thereby forcing folk to think twice before following in his footsteps.
Bross is not, or course, the only high placed executive at a service provider that is using his position to his own advantage – he just happens to have gotten caught. In the spirit of fair play, Light Reading will be publishing a report next month (September) that “outs” other repeat offenders. Expect a ripping good yarn.
Note: Light Reading was amused to receive a couple of emails from readers complaining that we were “picking on” poor old Matt after first breaking the news of his deal with ONI Systems. We find it hard to feel any sympathy. Actually, we wish we had his problems. As of today, Bross’s 322,460 shares in ONI are worth $32,246,000.
Three years later, I would be interested to know how are those shakers doing? Can LR run a follow-up article and a comparison of their wealth before and after the crumble, esp. for Woo-Foo Chen? A Taiwanese friend told me Chen's wife wrote a book in Chinese with the title "From Zero to Ten Billion (USD)!" and Mr. Chen personally gave one copy to the Primer Minister of Taiwan.
>>Couldn't agree more with #1 on your list and disagree more with #10.
Susan would be #1 on the "sky is falling" "glass is totally empty" mantra list<<
I put Susan Kalla on there to represent financial people that didn't get carried away during the bubble days of last year. I'd disagree with you on her assessment of the demand economics in that I worry a lot about the carriers being there at the other end of this "V-shaped" recovery, buyers of automobiles will be there at the other end of the "V", I'm not sure about carriers. I think a good criticism of Ms. Kalla is that she has a poor understanding of optical data-networking vs. circuit switching. If you read into her comments, she doesn't seem to comprehend the potential for optical data networks. You might say she would make a good manager at Lucent. :)
Given the selloff in stocks since the last Top 10 Movers and Shakers, why not a list of 10 people who have been realists all along, a "non-full of sh$&! list"?
10. Susan Kalla, BlueStone Capital, Equity Research Analyst. Nice profile in Barron's of 3/12/01.
9. Tom Koch, Agere Systems, Technical Staff. Gave an excellent speech at OFC 2000, warning of irrational "technical/engineering" exuberance. A forewarning about "science-project" startups.
8. Kevin Slocum, Bob Mandra, Equity Research/Banking, WitSoundView (Only when they are good). Like a lot of Wall Street, when they are actually honest and not trying to sell something, their insights are penetrating. Witness their recent article in Lightwave panning MEMS and metro start-ups. Of course, this pair pushes it sometimes and is at 180 degrees to the spirit of this list.
7. Ho-Sang Lee, CEO, Dicon. Eschewing an IPO, the company keeps up a successful expansion program. This is a questionable inclusion, the firm is a step behind several peers in technology and I've heard several complaints concerning customer service.
6. ... 5. ...
4. John Midgley, Lightwave Microsystems, CEO. John never bought in to some of the hype, and this was a nice contrast to other integrated optics startups (especially those that begin with the letter "N".)
3. Vinod Khosla, KPCB, VC. Scaled back investments in optics while "dumb-money" flooded into the space, creating too many startups.
2. John Pilitsis, CEO, Fitel N.A. Fitel keeps chugging along, unbuffetted by the fluctuating tides of Wall Street sentiment and dumb-money VCs.
1. Patrick Nettles, Ciena, CEO. The poor guy has had to endure the Tellabs fiasco, highflying competitors such as Sycamore, and crosstown rival Corvis. He's come through with a winner and should emerge from the slowdown ok, albeit with a few more bumps ahead. But listening to Patrick is like listening to a good "old economy" CEO who happens to be well-positioned in the new economy.
LieutKije, you're absolutely right, I worked for McGinn,and now Schact, what guys like him really deserve is a gaunlet of swift kicks from the 16,000 or so employees that will be getting the boot this year. I was wondering if you could give me your source on his compesation. If so, send to hotlantalover@yahoo.com. Thanks.
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