categories
HOT TOPICS
- The Accelerator Conundrum
- The Startup Velocity Question
- Platform as a Service
- Man and Superman
- Web 3.0 = (4C + P + VS)
- The Future: End of Capitalism
- Capitalism 2.0
entrepreneur interview
Turn Around Series: Jerry Rawls, Finisar (Part 8)
After confronting the realities of the new market, difficult decisions needed to be made. Here the “engineer” in Jerry proves very helpful as he tackles the issue, at least in some ways, as an engineering problem. Cutting costs and establishing new operating procedures required far reaching changes. Also, I find it impressive that Jerry did
The Education Problem: Raj Reddy (Part 6)
How do you take a new educational model, fund it and successfully convince students to enroll in your school? Raj answers all of these questions in this segment. SM: What is the model of Gurukulam? Is it foundational support? How are you financing the project? RR: The financing is very interesting; it is what we
Turn Around Series: Jerry Rawls, Finisar (Part 7)
Dramatic changes in the market had forced major fiber optic giants like Lucent into tough decisions. The market also proved to be volitile and unpredictable. Nortel, in desperation, offered Finisar its optics business. SM: Nortel had interest in survival. JR: Yes. We spent two weeks in Ottawa trying to figure out how we could assume
The Education Problem: Raj Reddy (Part 5)
The new educational model proposed by Raj is based on capability and performance, and negates the advantages that some students have in terms of better access to quality schools and a better support system at home. SM: Children raised in cities have an advantage as well becuase they have environmental nurturing which the village kid
Turn Around Series: Jerry Rawls, Finisar (Part 6)
A very interesting discussion of the dramatic times during the late 90’s and the early 2000 timeframe. Read on. SM: What were your sales pre-IPO? JR: I think in the ’98 period they were probably $30M. Our fiscal year 2000, which is when we went public, was $67M. In January of 1999 the IPO market
The Education Problem: Raj Reddy (Part 4)
Raj explains his theory of the “local best”, as well as how he identifies these students for admission into his school’s masters program. SM: You are also saying the book or lecture based education is not the way to go. RR: That is what I am saying. If this person is just putting the same
Turn Around Series: Jerry Rawls, Finisar (Part 5)
Among the many amazing feats Jerry has accomplished with Finisar, one of the most impressive is how the company was able to grow and develop without the assistance of outside funding. SM: All of this you were still doing without outside money; it was still a bootstrapped company? JR: Still a bootstrapped company. SM: Wow,
The Education Problem: Raj Reddy (Part 3)
The cost of education has been the source of intense debates around the world. Can a new framework and approach increase the quality of education while decreasing the cost? Can it increase accessibility to quality education and become a global solution? In this next segment, Raj provides some insight to these questions.
