Assertion Not checkable as stated
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.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
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.”
Assertion Supported
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 …”
Disclosure
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…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
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 …”
Assertion Supported
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.”
Assertion Supported
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.”
Opinion
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.”
Disclosure
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.”
Assertion Supported
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.”
Assertion Contradicted
Stanford refused to license federally funded router technology, Lerner says
“Stanford said, no, you cannot license this technology. They would not entertain any licensing. We had done our part, and we had taken the government's money. This is all public domain. We'd invented all of these wonderful things, but the Office of Technology L…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
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.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Early venture capitalists believed public network protocols could not be monetized
“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 it.”
Opinion
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.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
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 …”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
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…”
Opinion
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”
Assertion Supported
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.”
Assertion Supported
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.”
Assertion Supported
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.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
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.”
Assertion Supported
Cisco settled Stanford IP claims with royalties and network maintenance
“We ended up paying them, I think, a very fair royalty for the first, gosh, I want to say three million dollars a product or something. Very fair royalty. And we had to fix their network for three years.”
Disclosure
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.”
Insight
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.”
