Is artificial intelligence the future? I could not think of a better person to share insights on this topic than John Chambers who led Cisco from $20 million to $47 billon in 20 years and acquired 180 companies along the way. Let's talk!
african-american twowomen to ra a significant amount of venture money. tell us something you learned along the way. what i have found often times when i i also talk to a lot of entrepreneurs and they re talking about their ideas. i think people think that sca s scaling a problem is a tech neck kal probl technical problem. i ll make a million in this factory, or we ll have 20 stores. i want people to just tell me if their idea scales. it is not a technical challenge any more. they are using third party software. so if you have a e commerce sight to sell something, there is software out there, you can just start and see if people are really resonating with your
gives you polish, feeling of being validated, endorsed, and i m so impressed by those who choose not to go that way. it gives you confidence in a moment when you don t you might be struggling for confidence, and it gives you a network. one of the things that i always get sort of i think is crazy, when you say how is our company doing, they re so successful, they raised $40 million in venture money. venture is littered with unsuccessful companies. sure. it s weird we celebrate that metric, isn t it? for me that was the moment of abject terror. i had people s money, i had their kids college tuition. it became very personal to me because i m raising it through angel, so i knew their family, what the money was earmarked for and why i had to deliver it back and then some. one of my fears is, and i ve had good experiences, a little bit like the other people s money
funding for your company. how much did you raise for sprout. ultimately $100 million. wow. that s amazing. no venture capitalists. i want to know why. what was behind that? i had been in a number of different operating roles in venture-backed companies and i felt that that short-term perspective and that lack of appreciation of the fabric of building the company really was missing and when i was going to do it i was doing it on my own terms, i wanted people in there hobbled in what i was trying to do more than just the bottom line alone. sam, you ve been in vc-backed companies, private equity, public companies and one of the things that i hear from people on the good side of getting venture money is suddenly you are part of a club. yeah. so you get this automatic network and you get this group of people who can help you. no doubt. so i think that and i ve had good experiences in all of the above, whether it s public, private equity backed, private equity owned, vc bac