re: Li Quits ProcketI am sure their fate is sealed, but I am not sure if it is a heavenly or hellish fate. Either they are being acquired and Tony is off to his next gig, or the management cracks have penetrated the foundation and Procket is collapsing in on itself.
re: Li Quits ProcketLooking back appears Randall had it right when he wanted to sell to Alcatel. At the time Tony blocked the move and Randall and head of sales and marketing left in wake. Now Tony is out the door along with the CFO (can you say management turnover) and there is no buyer in sight. Meanwhile tens of millions more cash is gone and Procket still a long way from a viable business model. This is a really bad blunder on the part of the venture investors. It doesn't help our overall vc community when execution happens this way, to say nothing of investors or employees.
People used to say don't worry about Procket, because they have Tony Li. Now they have no Tony, no business, and cash running out. Time to worry.
re: Li Quits ProcketI have to point out that Dave Katz re-wrote almost all of Tony's code at Juniper. Fact. Ponder that for awhile, folks. Tony was demoted at Juniper which is why he quit. He whined. They laughed. They're laughing now. Dave Katz=cool. Tony=notascoolasyouthink. BASIC.
He later got demoted at Procket and quit. When no one chased after him, he came crawling back. Now he's quitting because one of his buddies is quitting and the guys at Procket are now laughing because they got rid of two egomaniacs at the same time without lifting a finger.
I fuc_king hate egomaniacs. Especially when they have far less talent that they think. You wanna know who the real stud is at Procket? Bill Lynch, the Sun guy. He is CTO for a reason. There's a class guy with real talent who understands his role in the universe.
So the real stud story at Juniper is Dave Katz, not Tony and not Yakov. Yakov came way after they introduced the M. The real story at Procket is what the new CEO does with a new bag of money, a new customer win and one less headache. Let's wait and see what happens before equating Tony's departure with failure and doom for a suddenly very promising startup.
re: Li Quits Procket"that a house built upon a single stone will surely crumble; but a house built upon the backs of many stones will last forever."
There are many extremely talented people working at Procket. A good number of them were in the industry long before Tony arrived, and have contributed much to this industry. These people are the ones that will make Procket successful, not as individuals, but as a team.
re: Li Quits Procket>Are you suggesting the Gig-be win by juniper was >not scrutinized and/or evaluated in nearly the >same fashion? --------------------------
I don't doubt the gov tech guys fealt it was an honest eval, and I don't doubt that Juniper has a fine router for their application. But did you read the Gig-be RFP? It was written for Juniper in terms of features and design. I'm surprised it didn't say "Your product name must begin with an 'M' or 'T'". It was a done deal before any testing began, imho.
Not that that's a bad thing - it's the best way to sell and is a testament to their federal sales guys. (and it happens in many RFPs, although usually in Cisco's favor) Just don't think it was an objective contest.
re: Li Quits Procket>You wanna know who the real stud is at Procket? >Bill Lynch, the Sun guy. He is CTO for a reason.
well said wilecoyote
Procket's family jewels are its chip-driver libraries that communicate with and manage the Procket designed integrated circuits in the system. It is Bill Lynch's circuits that make the quantum leap in forwarding performance possible.
Routing and MPLS design is fast becoming a commodity. Much of it is being outsourced to India.
Either way, my options are going to make me rich!
Echo2