"...acquisition of Stanford University for $100 billion in Cisco stock."!!!!!!!!
Satire: What next?
by David Bunnell
June 09, 2000
In a move that guarantees his company will never run short of qualified technology workers,
Cisco Systems (CSCO) CEO John Chambers will soon announce the acquisition of Stanford University for $100 billion in Cisco stock.
This stunning deal, which will change the face of American academia for
decades to come, was made possible when Stanford recently promoted John
Hennessy, the dean of its School of Engineering, to the position of president.
No stranger to the sometimes-blurry relationship between universities and
high-tech companies, Hennessy in 1981 initiated the RISC (Reduced
Instruction Set Computer) technology project at the university, and then
during a sabbatical in 1984-85 he co-founded a company called MIPS
Computer System that produced microprocessors based on this same
technology.
MIPS was later sold to another Stanford spinout, Sun Microsystems (SUNW), which made
Hennessy very wealthy.
Don't panic
While the Cisco deal has yet to be made public, I have learned that Hennessy has already sought
to reassure nervous Stanford faculty members that the university will maintain its high academic
standards. According to one of my sources, he has also reassured the faculty that no one will lose
his or her job as a result of being merged into the world's biggest "Internet plumbing company."
"Cisco has never laid off anyone," Hennessy says, "and since all our professors will get Cisco
stock options, I expect the vast majority will want to stay here for many years to come. In fact,
Stanford will have more millionaires on its staff than all the other universities put together. I expect
to be flooded with applications from old-economy universities like Harvard and Yale."
Barbara Beck, Cisco's senior vice president of human resources, backed up Hennessy's
statements with the observation that, while Cisco has never employed such a large group of
professors, she is "totally, like totally confident that the cultures of the two organizations are
totally compatible."
Chambers, who recently visited the campus, admitted that the price of $100 billion was a bit on
the high side but observed that it was in stock that he called "grossly overvalued Cisco dollars."
UpsideToday has learned that Chambers plans to offer free tuition to computer science and
engineering students who agree to work for life at Cisco following graduation. Plans are also
under way to extend this program to MBA students.
"We need people in our marketing and accounting departments as well as technologists,"
Chambers says.
The company has no plans to change the curriculum. "We'll still have art and music and, of
course, football," adds Hennessy, who will become Cisco's vice president of universities.
On the playing field
On a lighter note, there is discussion under way to change the name of the school to "Cisco
Stanford University" and rename the sports teams from the "Cardinals" to the "Routers."
Stanford football director Tyrone Willingham says that the new name is "very appropriate,
because we pass the ball more than any other college team."
Industry analysts who I've talked to believe that the acquisition is a natural fit and will enhance
Cisco's stock value even more. David Readerman of Thomas Weisel Partners was particularly
enthusiastic. "What you get out of this is a smarter Cisco and a better-connected Stanford," he
says.
Assuming this deal goes through and works out, other companies will be lining up to acquire
universities. A Microsoft (MSFT) acquisition of the University of Washington would be a
natural, as would an Apple (APPL) acquisition of University of California at Berkeley.
It's a whole new era for education, that's for sure.
Editor's disclaimer: David Bunnell likes to write but doesn't have the time to actually do
any real reporting, so he simply makes up his articles and then forces the staff to run them.
Nothing in the above piece is true, except in his mind.
URL: upside.com
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