![\"Krish](\"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/04\/26-Krish-Ramakrishnan-ANGELA-DECENZO-9932-5-683x1024.jpg\")
<\/figure><\/div><\/p>\n\n\n\nSelf-funded and lacking any name recognition, the startup still managed to get the attention of Silicon Valley tech giant Cisco Systems, which eventually offered to buy the company. The final negotiations were a remarkable scene. Ramakrishnan was called in to meet with John Chambers, Cisco\u2019s legendary CEO, who told him he wanted to buy the company on the condition that Ramakrishnan work there for four years afterward. There would be a contract, Chambers said, but what guarantee could the founder really give him that he would stick around? \u201cYou\u2019re right,\u201d Ramakrishnan told him. \u201cNo contract is going to force anybody to stay if they don\u2019t want to stay.\u201d He extended his hand. All he had was his word: \u201cI don\u2019t need a contract. You just need to trust me.\u201d Chambers took his hand, and the deal was done.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After five years at Cisco, Ramakrishnan tried retirement for three months. It didn\u2019t take. \u201cStaying at home, learning golf\u2014it wasn\u2019t working,\u201d he says. In 2001, he became CEO of Topspin Communications, whose tech helped string clusters of servers together. Or at least, that was the company\u2019s eventual offering. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
When Ramakrishnan arrived, Topspin was in disarray. The market for its main product had collapsed, he soon realized, and he had no ready fix. \u201cSo we either had to return our investors\u2019 money,\u201d which was about $14 million of the $15 million it had raised, \u201cor we had to find something different to do.\u201d He divided the company into three teams, each tasked with devising a new idea in 30 days. \u201cAll of the ideas were bad,\u201d he says with a laugh, \u201cbut one idea was slightly better than everything else.\u201d The new tech found a market, took off, and\u2014once again\u2014caught the attention of Cisco. In 2005, they acquired Topspin for $250 million.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After another stint at Cisco, he spent a few years at Silicon Valley venture firm Norwest Venture Partners, where he met his BlueJeans cofounder, Alagu Periyannan. Ramakrishnan had a vague interest in doing something in the video space; Periyannan had relevant experience, including working at Apple on the company\u2019s QuickTime video application. They hit it off over an initial coffee and spent the next several months developing what would become BlueJeans\u2014a simpler, more user-friendly videoconferencing system. (The name BlueJeans is meant to connote its strength and ease of use. Ramakrishnan came up with it while driving to a pitch meeting with venture capitalists, listening to Neil Diamond\u2019s \u201cForever in Blue Jeans.\u201d)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Again, it would be Ramakrishnan\u2019s job to run the company. He attributes his fit in this role to \u201ca disability of mine.\u201d \u201cI can\u2019t dive that deep into a subject, but I can see the forest from the trees. I can see the pattern,\u201d he says. \u201cMy cofounder, Alagu, is a very rigorous engineering talent\u2014very bright, very articulate. I could only paint a picture, but he had the wherewithal to construct it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Periyannan says those pictures are important, of course. \u201cMy ideas were very broad and focused on how to solve a problem,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd Krish had a really nice way of taking that and creating a story out of it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Periyannan also heralds his cofounder\u2019s steadiness: \u201cWith any sort of entrepreneurial journey, it\u2019s got many ups and downs. Lots of these can actually pull apart a founding team. That never happened with us\u2014we\u2019ve always had that trust, but also a fair amount of empathy for each other.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Navigating the downs can be emotionally taxing, though. Periyannan offers an example from a few years ago, when BlueJeans\u2019 growth stalled a bit and the pair decided it was best to bring on an outside CEO and have Ramakrishnan move into an executive chairman role. \u201cThat was not easy,\u201d says Periyannan. Humility can be a rare trait in Silicon Valley, but it\u2019s another reason why Ramakrishnan has thrived, he says. \u201cOne of the things that Krish has taught me is that when you start a company, it\u2019s about the investors, the shareholders, the employees, the customers\u2014you know, all of the stakeholders. It\u2019s not just about the two founders and what we wanted.\u201d It\u2019s about doing the right thing, he says, even if it\u2019s the hard thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
~<\/p><\/p>\n\n\n\n
In mid-April 2020, BlueJeans announced that it was being acquired by Verizon. In the midst of an unprecedented surge that tested its mettle, the company was now also in the process of managing its sale, with the cofounders ping-ponging between war room calls to address the booming traffic and huddles about the upcoming acquisition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The move offered the company an instant influx of cash and the stability of a Fortune 500 company in Verizon, says Ramakrishnan. And as he did when he sold his previous companies to Cisco, he has stayed on to help with the transition. \u201cI need to feel that this acquisition has been successful for Verizon,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But there won\u2019t be a victory lap. \u201cMy success has really been about being fortunate and being lucky more so than being smart,\u201d he says. Turning a canceled class into a master\u2019s degree at Monmouth, chasing a dream in Silicon Valley, hoping a handshake would make a viable replacement for a contract\u2014 these are all moments where Ramakrishnan could easily have failed. And while some might naturally attribute Ramakrishnan\u2019s success to perseverance, honesty, integrity, gumption, or guile, he prefers to attribute it to simple good fortune.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Entrepreneur Krish Ramakrishnan has made a career of being in the right place at the right time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":57,"featured_media":13034,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"image_focus":"{\"x\":41,\"y\":44}","hide_title":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[93],"class_list":["post-13033","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","tag-alumni-donor-profiles"],"thumbnail":"![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/04\/26-Krish-Ramakrishnan-ANGELA-DECENZO-0516-300x200.jpg\")
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