Catching Up on Readings: Design In The 21st Century

Time for another round of recap since the last one on May 10 … See what you have missed, and catch up.

More Consolidation in Optical Components

Last year, when I interviewed Jerry Rawls, CEO of Finisar, he shared with me Finisar’s strategy going forward: “The biggest new thing for us is our exposure in the telecommunications market. In the early days we did not want to enter that market because it was dominated by AT&T, Lucent, Nortel, but none of those

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Forbes Column 08: Bootstrap Yourself

My new Forbes column Bootstrap Yourself highlights Silicon Valley’s hottest new trend, Bootstrapping. Great bootstrapping case studies I have covered are Sridhar Vembu, Frank Levinson and Jerry Rawls, Cree Lawson, and Beatrice Tarka. Sridhar, Frank and Jerry did it almost without any outside money, while Cree and Beatrice have done it with very small rounds

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KaThunk!

By Frank Levinson, Guest Author When I left day-to-day contributing at Finisar in early 2006, I wondered if it was not possible to teach others some of what we learned in those early years. So began my journey working with small companies somewhere between being an angel investor and a venture capitalist.

Finisar’s First 10 Years

By Frank Levinson, Guest Author [Frank Levinson shares his experience bootstrapping Finisar, which became a public company later. Last year, we spoke with Jerry Rawls about Finisar’s Turnaround story, also a worthwhile read.]

Role Model Interviews

Over the last few months, I have done a series of interviews with leaders – CEOs, Entrepreneurs, Innovators, Technologists, Academics, and Social Entrepreneurs – which offer insights to young and old alike about key choices – in business, in career, in life. * Jerry Rawls, CoFounder & CEO of Finisar * Philippe Courtot, Founder and

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Turn Around Series: Jerry Rawls, Finisar (Part 14)

In the conclusion of the interview, I find it very interesting how Jerry was able to remain motivated and energized throughout the entire process, even after he had made (as Frank calls it) ridiculous amounts of money. SM: That sounds like a great story, congratulations for being able to navigate your ship through all of

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Turn Around Series: Jerry Rawls, Finisar (Part 13)

Here we see some of the philosophical lessons learned by Jerry throughout this entire process. Words of wisdom if you will. SM: This is a great, great story. Personally what is your philosophical analysis or gains out of this experience? You have gone up and down and hit highs and lows, what is your take

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