Special Report: The Top Entrepreneurs
Covad Operations
01/10/2000
Business Week
81
(Copyright 2000 McGraw-Hill, Inc.)
As CEO of Covad Communications, ROBERT E. KNOWLING JR. has turned copper
phone wires into gold. Knowling, 44, runs the most successful of a crop of new
phone companies that sell speedy digital Internet connections. Surging demand
has sent Covad's revenues skyrocketing, from $5.3 million in 1998, to an
expected $60 million in 1999, though the company is still in the red. Covad's
subscribers should grow to 290,000 this year, up from 55,000 in '99.
Knowling--a veteran of the Baby Bells who joined the three-year-old Covad in
1998--oversaw its IPO last January. The stock has since more than quintupled,
to around 60, giving Covad a market cap of $5.6 billion. For Knowling, who
grew up in poverty in rural Missouri, the sixth of thirteen children,
entrepreneurialism has brought sweet success indeed. |
