Hi Hassell,
Your note brings up two areas where I'd like to add some comments.
First, with Rich Prodan going to Terayon, and second with the
Gilder technology report from June 1999. The second one will
take me several hours to compose, and I'll do it later today.
I prefer to think of the Rich Prodan move to Terayon slightly
differently than just a sign of due diligence. There's a large
component of strategic image building that's also motivational.
CableLabs is witnessing the problem of keeping good people around
in the presence of equity opportunities. Prior to Rich leaving,
several people have left CableLabs, either a employee or a
cable operator employee stationed at or working close with
CableLabs. Seeing these folks depart and make a small fortune
sets part of a state of mind for the other talented people still
working at CableLabs.
As Terayon has broadened its product portfolio through acquisitions,
some of the additional technology falls more under Rich's interests.
Rich is an expert in RF modulation, noise impairments, and digital
video. Terayon has the challenge of putting all these pieces
together into a workable business. I know this challenge appealed
to Rich's interests. I haven't checked the recent SEC filing,
so I don't know if it mentioned the size of the option grant
that Rich received. My own guess is that it was meaty.
I have to admire Terayon's masterful ability to find ways of putting
spin on their scripture. By hiring away the CableLabs CTO, people
immediately think it validates their S-CDMA sermon and Gilder's
CDMA prophecy. (I'll get to this in the next note.) I've
worked with Rich on a number of occasions and standards activities,
including CableLabs DOCSIS and IEEE 802.14. I know that TERN's
broadened future potential is what he finds interesting, not a
narrower cable-modem only focus which happens to include S-CDMA.
Another side to this is that the North American cable industry
is very entrepreneurial and very political. Technology merits
are often secondary to business plans and politics. Rich has been
participating in technology, business, and politics in the industry
as a natural result of being what he was at CableLabs. He might
be able to use this past experience to TERN's advantage.
In my view, this just adds to why I think this was a masterful move
on Zaki's part. The broadened Terayon appealed to Rich's interest.
TERN is able to keep its story spinning. People who have gone
to work for TERN possibly think they'll have great gain riding on
the tail of Zaki's comet. Time will tell us all.
Mark |
