Putting China On The Silicon Valley Map: NetScreen And Fortinet Founder Ken Xie (Part 7)

SM: What is your observation about Silicon Valley in the era in which China has become such a big factor in the world economy? KX: In our space China is still a small market. Their IT assets are growing very quickly. In our space the key is to quickly do the innovation aspects of technology.

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Putting China On The Silicon Valley Map: NetScreen And Fortinet Founder Ken Xie (Part 6)

SM: What was Fortinet’s revenue last year? KX: We had $250 million in revenue. We are as large as NetScreen was when Juniper acquired them.

Putting China On The Silicon Valley Map: NetScreen And Fortinet Founder Ken Xie (Part 5)

SM: What was your per-share price for your C round? KX: Sequoia came in at $3.50. One of our investors introduced us to Sequoia. They became interested in us once we won the head-to-head evaluation against Cisco.

Putting China On The Silicon Valley Map: NetScreen And Fortinet Founder Ken Xie (Part 4)

SM: Knowing you have a two-year run up front provides a lot of security. KX: It was. When we started NetScreen, the largest hurdle we faced was credibility. Even though we had a prototype developed, when we went out to raise money we did not have credentials behind us. We did not have business experience.

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Putting China On The Silicon Valley Map: NetScreen And Fortinet Founder Ken Xie (Part 3)

SM: How were you living if you did not make enough money from Stanford Systems? KX: I also worked full-time jobs. My wife grew up here in Berkeley. I had a family, and I needed to make sure that I made a living. I made good money with consulting. The startup is great, but I

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Putting China On The Silicon Valley Map: NetScreen And Fortinet Founder Ken Xie (Part 2)

SM: How long did you stay with the PC company doing network installations? KX: I was there for one year. I jumped around quite a bit, and sometimes I was working for multiple companies at a time. The second year I was in a grant program at Stanford. The electrical engineering program is very difficult

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Putting China On The Silicon Valley Map: NetScreen And Fortinet Founder Ken Xie (Part 1)

Ken Xie started his first network security company, Stanford InfoSystem, Inc., in 1993. A few years later, he realized the performance limitations of a software firewall and started NetScreen. NetScreen later was acquired by Juniper for $3.5 billion. At the end of 2000, Xie founded Fortinet, which pioneered Unified Threat Management (UTM). Ken earned his

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IPO In China: Made-In-China.com President Joseph Wong (Part 7)

SM: Why did you list in China instead of Hong Kong? JW: The main decision was made by the CEO and CFO. Since I did not make the decision directly, I cannot say what were the final reasons for choosing the Chinese markets over the Hong Kong markets.