Routing wizard explains his approach
Published: 21 Jun 2004 11:25 BST
Where Tony Li goes, success often follows.
Li, an Internet Protocol routing engineer, is a Silicon Valley wunderkind. He helped Cisco Systems develop its first true core IP router and then played a key role building Juniper Networks from a scrawny little start-up to the industry's No. 2 IP routing company.
Li left Juniper in 1999 just before the company's lucrative initial public offering. He then helped found another routing start-up, Procket Networks, where he served as the chief scientist. After a tumultuous five-year stint at Procket, Li resigned from the company earlier this year.
Cisco and Juniper flourished during -- and after Li's -- tenure. Procket, which raised over $300m (£164m) in funding, will be bought by Cisco for $89m, the companies said on Thursday.
Many people regard Li as one of the brightest minds in the IP networking industry. A self-proclaimed perfectionist, he acknowledges that some colleagues find him "difficult," which could explain why he has left all three of these companies amid some controversy.
ZDNet UK sister site CNET News.com caught up with Li shortly before Cisco announced it would buy Procket. During the hour-long phone interview, Li, speaking from his home in California, dished the dirt on his previous employers, explained his rock-star persona and gave some insight into new trends he sees in the IP routing market and the Internet in general.
Juniper is the only core routing vendor to successfully take on Cisco. How did they do it?
Cisco had annoyed its customers because they had not presented them with a reliable and useful core router. Cisco's corporate bureaucracy was structured so that people were awarded for playing very safely. At the same time, the Internet was growing by leaps and bounds. We were basically a roadblock in the growth, because we could not get a reasonable system to market. It is not that Juniper succeeded so much as Cisco failed.
You left Cisco and went to Juniper, which was then a start-up. Then you left Juniper in 1999, just before the IPO. Why? It was time for me to move on. I had run into some issues there, and it was simply time for me to find other opportunities.
Didn't you leave a lot of money on the table in terms of stock options?
I left some things on the table, but it was hardly enough that I would care. I am one of these strange people who doesn't think this is all about the money.
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