Cisco loses 'father of the Ethernet'

Andreas Bechtolsheim, father of Cisco's gigabit Ethernet products, has left the company after seven years. Bechtolsheim wasn't available for comment, but according to reports in The Wall Street Journal he has gone to work for a little-known start-up which he helped found called Kealia, based in Palo Alto, California.

Bechtolsheim said in a statement: "This has been a very difficult decision for me because Cisco is such a great environment to work in. I've really enjoyed working with a great team at Cisco for the last seven years."

Even with the economic downturn in full swing, many top executives have left the company for start-ups in the last couple of years. Don Listwin went to Openwave Systems. So did Kevin Kennedy, before going on to become CEO of JDS Uniphase. Carl Russo helped start Calix. Bill Nuti went to Symbol Technologies.

Paul Sagawa, an equities analyst with Sanford Bernstein, said: "These people are ambitious," said. "But I think Cisco still has a deep bench."

Bechtolsheim is somewhat of a serial entrepreneur, known for big ideas that often generate big bucks. Back in 1982, he co-founded Sun Microsystems. He left that company in 1995 and founded Granite Systems, a gigabit Ethernet switch start-up. Cisco bought the company for $200m a year later.

Marguerite Reardon writes for CNET News.com