The Ledger
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.
why aren't all 30 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 0 checkable ones are still open, waiting for their date. predictions held up or didn't; assertions are supported or contradicted. on every card: ▮▮▮▮▮ certainty · ▮▮▮▮▮ debate potential. speakers are clickable
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.”
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…”
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.”
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.”
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.”
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.”
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.”
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…”
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.”
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.”
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: 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”
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.”
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.”
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.”
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: Stanford refused to license early router technology
“But 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 Technolo…”
Lerner: Cisco settled with Stanford via product royalties and 3-year 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.”
Green: A $20K Cisco sponsorship made the first VidCon profitable
“I remember the actual difference between making money and not making money that first year was that I said on a Vlogbrothers video, if anybody knows anybody who would like to sponsor an online video convention, please email me. And the daughter of an executive…”
Major 1990s tech companies had no solution for incoming customer emails
“When we made those calls out to these other companies, nobody had a solution. Nobody was, they all had a huge problem.”
Early Cisco booked $250,000 monthly without a dedicated sales force
“With no sales force, we were booking a quarter million dollars a month.”
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.”
Cisco pitched 70 to 80 venture investors in early fundraising efforts
“We went through about 70 or 80 of them.”
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.”
Lerner: Cisco booked $250K monthly by 1987 without a sales team
“By 1987, with no sales force, we were booking a quarter million dollars a month.”
Lerner: Cisco pitched 70 to 80 venture investors before raising funding
“We went through about 70 or 80 of them.”