From Cisco to Kashmir in 6 minutes

A2A? P2P. Path to Profitibility.

What is a B2B infrastructure play, really? A dotcom that’s come back from the dead.

The rides over. For now.

Actually we are not just a group of angel investors, we are more of an incubator

[actually we did not know how to exercise our cisco stock options so now we are swimming in it, OR we are doctors who think ASP means something that needs to happen urgently]

Actually we are not a consulting group, we are an incubator.

Actually we are more than an incubator, we are an excubator.

Actually, you can think of us as an accelerator for early stage startups.

[Actually we are sultans of self marketing, masters of regurgitation, consultants who are as averse to being called consultants as Iranian Americans are to being called Iranian (“we are Persian - as in the carpet and the kitty”) and we will take you where you are already going for 20% equity].


Everyone else is trying to climb up the corporate ladder.

Entrepreneurship is about climbing down the corporate ladder. You start by being ceo, cfo, and cto. And you hope to end up as manager of press relations.

Everyone else is going the wrong way.



Intel is a sweat shop.

So is Cisco.

Cisco is crazy – I am there till 11:00 every night [of course I come in after Zohar namaaz and work only on my Stanford assignments after maghrib].

The number of desi’s at Cisco is incredible.

It’s the same everywhere – the official language of Intel is hindi.

Warning: trespassers will be hired. Desi trespassers will be hired along with their spouses and siblings.

I have a friend who joined Cisco 4 years ago. Now he is a…

I have a friend who joined Ariba before their IPO. Now he drives a…

I have a friend who joined CommerceOne two years ago…

I have a friend who joined Red Hat…

If only I had joined juniper…

The future is optical networks. And Nortel has the clear lead there.

A lot of desis at Nortel too, you know. A lot of Indians.

11% of all startup CEOs in the valley are Indians. [Little mentioned trivia: 47% of all real estate agents in the valley are also Indians. 99.2% of all Amway salesmen in the valley are also Indian. All of them also work at Cisco]

I saw Sabeer Bhatia on ZeeTV the other day.

Can you imagine what he would be worth if Hotmail had gone public instead?

ZeeTV is just a propaganda arm for the Indian Govt. [5 minutes, 45 seconds elapsed]