Jyoti Bansal is the founder and former CEO of AppDynamics. He addresses how the company's $3.7B acquisition by Cisco transpired right before AppDynamics was set to go public on NASDAQ.
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Bansal: AppDynamics rejected two Cisco acquisition offers before accepting the third
“We looked at the offer and actually we decided to say no to the first offer. They came back with a second offer, which we said no to, and then they came back with a third offer, which at that point, it was the right thing to do for all shareholders involved, f…”
Insight
Bansal: Operating public is healthier than staying private past 1,000 employees
“In IPOs and being public companies, it does bring some kind of discipline and rigor that you need at a larger scale. Like once you start getting that scale of like, you know, a thousand plus employees, I do think operating as a public company is healthier than…”
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Bansal: AppDynamics told each department to operate as if others were failing
“At AppDynamics, you know, it was a bit controversial, but I, what I used to tell the teams was like, I would go to the product team. And I'll tell the product team that you've got to assume that our sales team is, is not going to, there will be times when they…”
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Bansal: U.S. immigrant visa red tape delayed founding his first startup
“I had to wait to start a company, not just AppDynamics. I had some other ideas that I wanted to start a company on, but I was in the U S on a immigrant visa and it's really hard because of the red tape here for an immigrant entrepreneur to start a company.”
Insight
Bansal: Self-awareness is the top criterion when selecting venture capital partners
“I primarily look for VCs who are self-aware, who are aware of, like, in what they're good at, what they're not good at. That's my number one criteria.”
Disclosure
Bansal: BIG Labs invested $5M in Harness's $20M Series A round
“So, like, the first company, Harness, that came out of Big Labs, We just announced a twenty million dollar series A round, and five million dollars of that was put by Big Labs in there.”