Answer: Rob Ryan
12/8/97 Fortune 220+
1997 WL 16021974
Fortune Magazine
Copyright 1997
Monday, December 8, 1997
Issue: DECEMBER 8, 1997 VOL. 136 NO. 11
TECHNO FILE/INFOTECH
ROB RYAN'S BIG SKY BOOT CAMP THE FORMER ASCEND CEO SAYS HE WANTS TO "GIVE
SOMETHING BACK." AT HIS TRAINING CAMP FOR ENTREPRENEURS, HIS TEACHING STYLE IS
SHRILL, SARCASTIC...AND STUDENTS LOVE IT.
ERYN BROWN
It's a beautifully sunny Montana morning. A creek burbles, the
Rockies tower on the horizon, horses graze picturesquely in a
well-groomed field. Deer frolic. And then you hear a lone, shrill,
Bronx-tinged voice spill from a log cabin window. "When I see a
business presentation," the voice says, "I barf!" So begins a normal
day at the Roaring Lion Ranch.
The person who owns it all--the vista, the horses, the piercing
voice--is a graying, roundish multimillionaire named Rob Ryan. You
might know him as the former CEO of Ascend Communications, the
network-hardware company. Ryan left Ascend a year after its
successful IPO to nurse a very bad back. Now he's got a foundation
called Entrepreneur America that he runs out of his ranch, the site
of the foundation's entrepreneurial "boot camp" (or "spa," depending
on your perspective).
In a typical week, Ryan invites several budding empire builders to
stay in the guest house (another log cabin) on his 1,200-acre spread.
He feeds them low-calorie food trucked in from a local caterer,
serves them nice wine, takes them on rambling hikes. And yes, he
grinds them down to putty so they can be formed into soldiers of
business who might actually make a startup work. He's got to be
tough. Out in the real world, his enrollees will face circumstances
much worse than Rob Ryan's questioning their entrepreneurhood.
More than 500 startups have asked to visit the ranch since July
1996, but Ryan invites only those he thinks have a fighting
chance--in other words, not very many. The sessions (price: nothing)
are, as often as not, profiles in discouragement. "Startups are a
real pain in the ass!" he's been known to fulminate. One recent
Ryan victim is Gregg Favalora, 23. He walks in after lunch with a
pile of labeled manila folders and a printout that says
ACCOMPLISHMENTS at the top. "What is this?" snips Ryan. "your
laundry list?" favalora, who studies engineering at harvard, has
invented a three-dimensional computer display. The gadget won a
$10,000 award at MIT, which means he has a little bit of money to
play with. Favalora's been working every night from 7 P.M. to 1
A.M., and stoutly withstands Ryan's high-pitched onslaught. "I think
this is a great technology," he says. "there's got to be a niche for
it."
Maybe, says Ryan, but there's a serious problem: The only
prototype of Favalora's machine is locked in a glass case back East.
"You need that prototype if you want people to give you money," he
says, telling Favalora to drop everything until he has a working
model in hand. "Hire another engineer to help you out. No MBAs!
MBA equals disaster. I never hired an MBA when I was at Ascend."
(Ryan's advice is often hyperbolic and usually peppered with Ascend
lore.) When Favalora says he wants to leave school, Ryan loses the
drill sergeant demeanor and waxes avuncular. "No. If you're going to
take time off, make it six months or so. If you don't get a check in
that amount of time, pull the plug. You'll have plenty of other good
ideas in your life. I still have good ideas, and I'm 49." He leans
back. "You know, Gregg, I'm trying to scare you. Sometimes chasing
someone out is as valuable as keeping them in."
Why does Ryan do this? Perhaps because it's fun, perhaps to
secure a legacy. "I want to give something back," he says. "Also, I
think people will remember me more for this than for being a CEO."
It has certainly made an impression on the "kids," as he calls his
pupils. They're pumped in a Robert Bly kind of way. After dinner
one night they head out to walk down the road in the darkness. "This
is like going up the mountain to see the guru," gushes Joel Kehle,
31, vice president of engineering for EntertainNet, a software
company in Los Angeles. The next day Ryan and his campers hike to
Sawtooth Creek, which runs through the ranch. The water is
freezing--before getting in, they joke nervously about
sterilization--but everyone dunks under, as if swimming were a test
of business mettle. "An entrepreneurial baptism!" says Kehle.
"It's so cool!" adds Favalora. Ryan sits on a mossy rock and
smiles
TABULAR OR GRAPHIC MATERIAL SET FORTH IN THIS DOCUMENT IS NOT DISPLAYABLE
COLOR PHOTO: KURT WILSON Rob Ryan on the wonder of entrepreneurship: "When I see a business presentation, I barf!"
---- INDEX REFERENCES ----
COMPANY (TICKER): Ascend Communications Inc. (ASND)
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