Fergie's Tech Blog

Cisco Loses a Prized Geek

I had the privilege of working with Tony Li while I was at Cisco in the mid-1990's. I wish him the best of luck in his endeavors -- he's one hell of a talented guy.

Om Malik scooped the story of Tony Li leaving Cisco (again) last week, and in more detail, a BusinessWeek Online article by Peter Burrows, via Yahoo! News, reports that:

The networking industry has few household names, even in homes whose residents understand terms like http, proxy server, and VPN. Tony Li is about as close as the industry comes to a celebrity geek. Li helped write the code in the early 1990s that made Cisco Systems the Microsoft of networking, and then he helped Juniper Networks become Cisco's top rival in the market for the world's fastest routers.

Later, Li co-founded Procket Networks, which raised more than $300 million in funding during the Net boom, in large part due to Li's involvement. But Procket never took off, and Li left shortly before it was bought by Cisco in 2004. Shortly thereafter, he rejoined his former Procket mates by returning to Cisco -- bringing him full circle.

Now, BusinessWeek has learned that Li, 43, is heading back to startup land. He departed Cisco on Sept. 16 to join Portola, a tiny outfit whose CEO is Vito Palermo, Procket's former chief operating officer.

posted by Fergie @ 9/20/2005 06:26:00 AM