Andy Bechtolsheim

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Andy Bechtolsheim
Andy Bechtolsheim

Andy (Andreas) von Bechtolsheim is an electrical engineer who co-founded Sun Microsystems in 1982, along with Vinod Khosla, Bill Joy, and Scott McNealy.

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[edit] Background

Bechtolsheim was born in Germany in 1955. He received his master's degree in electrical engineering from Carnegie Mellon University in 1976 and was a PhD student in EE/CS at Stanford University from 1977 to 1982.

[edit] Founding Sun

At Stanford University, Bechtolsheim had devised a powerful computer (which he called a workstation) with built-in networking running the Unix operating system. He developed the workstation because he was sick of waiting for computer time on the central University system.

Khosla approached him, wanting to build a business around selling the workstation. He also approached McNealy who was at another company after having completed his MBA at Stanford Business School in 1980.

They named the company Sun, derived from "Stanford University Network." Bechtolsheim left Stanford, where he was enrolled in a Ph.D. program, to found the company.

Sun Microsystems quickly became a success, with $1 billion in sales by 1988. By 2003, the market capitalization of Sun Microsystems was $11.5 billion.

[edit] Other companies

He left Sun in 1995 to found Granite Systems, a company focused on developing high-speed network switches. In 1996, Cisco Systems acquired the firm for $220 million, with Bechtolsheim owning 60%.[1] He became Vice President and general manager of Cisco's Gigabit Systems Business Unit, until leaving the company in December 2003 to head Kealia, Inc.

Bechtolsheim founded Kealia in early 2001 with David Cheriton, who was also a partner in Granite Systems, to work on advanced server technologies. In February 2004, Sun Microsystems announced it was acquiring Kealia in a stock swap. Due to the acquisition, Bechtolsheim returned to Sun again as senior vice president and chief architect.[2]

Bechtolsheim and Cheriton were two of the first investors in Google, investing $100,000 in 1998. Bechtolsheim reportedly wrote the check to "Google Inc" prior to the company even being founded. The story that says Bechtolsheim coined the name "Google" is untrue. However, when he gave the check to Lawrence E. Page and Sergey Brin, Google's founders, they did not yet even have a checking account into which the check could be deposited.[3] Bechtolsheim seeded many companies in this fashion, including OnFiber Communications, the industry leader in metro transport for large enterprises (acquired by Qwest in 2006).

As a result of shrewd investments like these, Bechtolsheim is increasingly being seen as the most successful Angel investor, particularly in areas such as electronic design automation (EDA), which refers to the software used by people designing computer chips. He has made a number of successful investments in EDA. He argues that changes in the chips themselves are outpacing the development of EDA tools, creating what he sees as an opportunity. It was his interest in these design tools while at Stanford which prompted his frustration when waiting for access to mainframes which led to his development of the first workstation.

One such EDA company, Magma Design Automation Inc., has been tremendously profitable for Bechtolsheim, with his stake in the company being valued around $60 million. The most profitable for Bechtolsheim was his initial $100,000 investment in Google, which is now worth approximately US$1.5 billion.[4]

Bechtolsheim recently invested in yet another company. He has joined George T. Haber, a former colleague at Sun, to invest in Los Altos wireless chip company CrestaTech The company develops very Low Power RF chips. Andreas was an investor in all of Haber's previous startups 1) CompCore sold to Zoran for $70M 2) GigaPixel sold to 3Dfx for $187M and 3) Mobilygen.

Bechtolsheim is a founding member of Carnegie Mellon University's West Coast campus in Mountain View, California.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Cohan, Peter. "Lessons from High-Tech Companies", Journal of Business Strategy. Retrieved on 2007-04-30. 
  2. ^ Sun Microsystems, Inc. (February 10, 2004). "SUN TO ACQUIRE KEALIA, INC. -- SUN CO-FOUNDER AND INDUSTRY TECHNOLOGY VISIONARY RETURNS AS CHIEF ARCHITECT". Press release. Retrieved on 2007-01-10.
  3. ^ http://www.google.com/corporate/history.html
  4. ^ http://www.forbes.com/lists/2007/10/07billionaires_Andreas-von-Bechtolsheim_0JRL.html

[edit] External links