This is a somewhat common startup acquisition pattern; seen it before many times, and not just by Cisco: >Thomas Graf was at Cisco prior to building Isovalent

This is a somewhat common startup acquisition pattern; seen it before many times, and not just by Cisco: >Thomas Graf was at Cisco prior to building Isovalent >Cisco has this idea of spin-ins, that they executed on for sometime Generalized: Work at parent company, create something innovative, start child company to develop that, get noticed by the world, parent buys you ... profit! That is, you profit - if you're smart, and not bamboozled by their acquisition terms.