Juniper Networks

In 1995, Pradeep Sindhu, a scientist at Xerox PARC, was introduced to Kleiner Perkins partner, Vinod Khosla, by Andy Bechtolsheim. Vinod and Andy had co-founded Sun Microsystems with Scott McNealy and Bill Joy. At the time, use of the internet was exploding. Pradeep was exploring technologies that would minimize the memory required to route data packets. Vinod and Pradeep spent six months developing an idea that could capitalize on the burgeoning internet. The two would meet every week to discuss how they might compete with Cisco Systems, which dominated the market for networking equipment. Cisco CTO, Ed Kozel, had declared that his company would never build a high-speed TCP/IP router or packet router for the public internet. Vinod and Pradeep saw an opening, and Juniper Networks was born. The company decided to develop a packet-based router custom-built for internet service providers (ISPs) to connect IP addresses and direct internet traffic. Kleiner Perkins invested in 1996.

As an essential first step, Pradeep agreed that he needed to learn the requirements for running a network. We arranged for him to work at one of our portfolio companies, @Home, alongside founder Milo Medin. It was also time to build the leadership team. In a process known as Gene Pool Engineering that Vinod has applied to many of his investments, Pradeep and Khosla spent time carefully thinking about the early leadership team. Startups always have to make adjustments to strategy and the team would need to have a mix of skills and experience to quickly adapt to changing circumstances.