Sandy Lerner
person on 1 show · 41 statements across 2 episodes · said 1 times in 1 episodes since 2026
On the record as a speaker too: Sandy Lerner across every show, appearances and statements → this page counts the times other people say the name.
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How I Built This 1
every mention on every show, scene by scene, with the transcript →
41 statements about Sandy Lerner, every show
Cisco survived multiple near-collapses through sheer luck, Lerner says
“There were so many times that company could have gone under, and we were saved by circumstances out of our control. So there was huge luck in there.”
Lerner and Bosack sold all Cisco stock out of disrespect for management
“Len and I agreed to sell our stock on a very joint basis, and we did it because we fundamentally had no respect for people running the company, and it wasn't really that we didn't believe in the company.”
Lerner says farming is harder than building tech or graduate physics
“Farming is the hardest thing I've ever done. Much, much harder than learning calculus as a graduate student and, you know, physics and the rest of all of that stuff. It's much, much, much harder than anything I've done, and it takes more work. And more heartac…”
Lerner sold Urban Decay because cosmetics lack intellectual property protection
“Oh, I, for the simple reason that there's no intellectual property. You can't patent color.”
Cosmetics brands all use identical raw ingredients, Lerner says
“Everybody uses the same stuff. It's just how they put it together and what they're willing to pay for.”
Sandy Lerner launched Urban Decay in three months with only $50,000
“Makeup's a very easy thing. You can do it three weeks. We're on the shelf in three months. You know, just add 50,000 dollars and stir.”
Lerner and Bosack placed 70% of Cisco proceeds into charity
“Remember that right after that, Len and I put 70% of the proceeds into charitable vehicles.”
Lerner: It was probably time for Bosack and me to leave Cisco
“Yeah, it was probably time for me to go. It was probably time for Lem to go. We're just not good people in a collaborative environment.”
Incoming Cisco CEO John Morgridge told Lerner she was 'everything wrong'
“Yeah, and he denies it, but I will swear on the lives of my cats, the first thing he said to me was, I hear you're everything that's wrong with Cisco.”
Don Valentine invested $2.6 million for massive Cisco equity and control
“He gave us 2.6 million dollars, and Len and I got about 30%, but remember, he was the chairman of the board of the company, and he got stock from that, and all of his friends got stock.”
Sequoia imposed four-year vesting despite Cisco booking $250,000 a month
“Len and I walked into a four-year vesting plan after funding the company for three years, clearly a mezzanine investment. We're making, we're booking a quarter million dollars a month at that point.”
1980s venture capitalists struggled to relate to a female founder
“First of all, there was a woman founder, and they're all 60 or 70. They just didn't know how to relate to a woman in business, you know.”
Stanford excluded Lerner from curriculum meetings held at a men-only venue
“When the faculty would meet at the beginning of the year to plan the curriculum, even though I was the head of all of the computing facilities, Both administrative and the curriculum computing I went and had lunch with the faculty wives because where they had …”
Stanford paid Lerner half her predecessor's salary and a third her successor's
“I was paid half of what my predecessor made, and I was paid a third of what my successor was paid.”
Cisco was the 36th name attempted for the networking company
“Cisco was actually the 36th name that we tried to get. Anything having to do with computers, we couldn't have.”
Early ARPA network development lacked political or financial motives
“ARPA was giving money. It was all public, public domain. Nobody had a financial motive. And the thing that ARPA did that was so amazing, even today, was it gave the right people the right money. It wasn't political.”
Stanford Ethernet precursor ran under the radar until around 1981
“We were definitely under the radar, and we kept it under the radar, and it wasn't until One day, I think it was by 1981, our time-sharing Ethernet became the Stanford University Network.”
Stanford computing group built and maintained its own network hardware
“We built our own internet we maintained our own internet, we built our own printer interfaces, we built our own computer terminals.”
Stanford peer wrote the first spell checker and manually typed the dictionary
“One of the people had written the first spell checker and typed in the entire dictionary himself.”
Lerner earned $25 per hour programming computers as a student in 1975
“And, you know, in 1975, I was making 25 bucks an hour computer programming.”
Lerner's 1970s bank employer made tellers kneel for skirt length checks
“The bank owner made all of the tellers kneel, so he could check that our skirts were long enough, and he called us all Louise.”
Founders sold all Cisco stock due to zero respect for management
“Len and I agreed to sell our stock on a very joint basis, and we did it because we fundamentally had no respect for people running the company. And it wasn't really that we didn't believe in the company. I mean, I was the one who said that Cisco would be a bil…”
Lerner sold Urban Decay because cosmetic colors cannot be patented
“Oh, I, for the simple reason that there's no intellectual property. You can't patent color.”
Lerner: All cosmetic brands use identical base ingredients
“Everybody uses the same stuff. It's just how they put it together and what they're willing to pay for.”
Lerner: Bosack and Lerner donated 70% of Cisco exit proceeds
“Remember that right after that, Len and I put 70% of the proceeds into charitable vehicles.”
Cisco founders threatened PR disaster post-IPO to recover full unvested equity
“We ended up getting it back, but only because it would have looked very bad for the stock six months after when both of the founders walk out, and you can't tar and feather the other one with, girls don't know how to play on a team.”
Lerner: Co-founder Len Bosack resigned from Cisco in solidarity
“And so Len, I think you probably could have knocked over both Valentine and everybody else like little bowling pins when Len walked up there and walked out with me.”
Cisco CEO John Morgridge abruptly fired co-founder Sandy Lerner six months post-IPO
“I was sitting in my little office in the corner, as I did every day, and he came in, and he sat down in the chair without making an appointment, and he said, ah, you know, I think it's time you retire. He says, you've got all this money now, you just, time to …”
Incoming CEO Morgridge told Lerner she was everything wrong with Cisco
“Yeah, and he denies it, but I will swear on the lives of my cats, the first thing he said to me was, I hear you're everything that's wrong with Cisco.”
Sequoia's Don Valentine invested $2.6M in Cisco, leaving founders with just 30%
“He gave us 2.6 million dollars, and Len and I got about 30%, but remember, he was the chairman of the board of the company, and he got stock from that, and all of his friends got stock.”
Lerner: Older Silicon Valley VCs could not relate to female founders
“First of all, there was a woman founder, and they're all 60 or 70. They just didn't know how to relate to a woman In business”
VCs rejected Cisco believing public networking protocols had no commercial value
“And the problem was that, you know, at this point, the investor community, which was a whole bunch of old, you know, Fairchild semiconductor salesmen, they didn't think that you could make any money on a public protocol because, of course, everybody would do i…”
Lerner: Cisco pitched 70 to 80 venture investors before raising funding
“We went through about 70 or 80 of them.”
Stanford barred computing head Sandy Lerner from meetings because venue excluded women
“When the faculty would meet at the beginning of the year to plan the curriculum, even though I was the head of all of the computing facilities, both administrative and the curriculum computing I went and had lunch with the faculty wives because where they had …”
Stanford paid Lerner half her predecessor's salary and one-third her successor's
“I mean, I was paid half of what my predecessor made, and I was paid a third of what my successor was paid.”
Lerner: Cisco was the 36th company name attempted
“Cisco was actually the 36th name that we tried to get. Anything having to do with computers, we couldn't have.”
Lerner: Early ARPA networking work had no financial motive
“We did it because it was the right thing to do. ARPA was giving money. It was all public, public domain. Nobody had a financial motive.”
Stanford router project began as an unauthorized shadow network by Cisco founders
“Officially? Absolutely not. We were definitely under the radar, and we kept it under the radar, and it wasn't until one day, I think it was by, Became the Stanford University Network.”
Stanford peer created first spell checker by manually typing entire dictionary
“One of the people had written the first spell checker and typed in the entire dictionary himself.”
Lerner: Earned $25 an hour computer programming in 1975
“And, you know, in 1975 I was making 25 bucks an hour computer programming.”