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Cisco's former CEO John Chambers, made famous a concept called the "spin-in". The concept is similar to employee's leaving to start their own company but their
by chollida1 10y ago
Cisco's former CEO John Chambers, made famous a concept called the "spin-in".
The concept is similar to employee's leaving to start their own company but their former employer funds the endeavor and often has a right of first refusal for a sale.
http://www.businessinsider.com/why-cisco-showered-three-men-with-billions-2014-9 http://www.businessinsider.com/why-cisco-showered-three-men-...
This acquisition driven R&D worked well for Cisco, it doesn't always, see former Canadian company Nortel for the down side of acquisition driven growth.
As a side note, check out John Chambers some time. Common wisdom is that the CEO of a tech company should be a technologist. He is the exception to this rule. He was an amazing CEO who didn't have a strong technical background. In my opinion, one of the more impressive tech CEO's of the 90's and 2000's.
http://www.mckinsey.com/industries/high-tech/our-insights/ciscos-john-chambers-on-the-digital-era http://www.mckinsey.com/industries/high-tech/our-insights/ci...
- bhaumik 10y agoJack Ma from Alibaba is another great. example of a successful CEO without a technical background. An early exec there wrote a book profiling the company's early growth, great anecdotes on Ma in there: https://www.amazon.com/Alibabas-World-Remarkable-Changing-Business/dp/1250069874 https://www.amazon.com/Alibabas-World-Remarkable-Changing-Bu....
- alex- 10y agoSpin-ins can be a great idea, and have proved to be very successful for Cisco. However it appears that the article explicitly states: > the search giant does not have special rights in the terms, like first dibs on an acquisition Which to me makes it a very different arrangement.