Proving the Skeptics Wrong

Juniper is now a publicly traded company with billions of dollars in revenues. But it wasn’t always that way. When you joined the company back in 1997, it was a startup still working on its very first product. It was trying to compete against much larger, entrenched incumbents in the networking technology industry. So, what made you want to take that risk and join an unproven company?

Well, you’re right. When I joined Juniper, there was quite a bit of uncertainty. In fact, I was coached by many not to even attempt to try to do what we were up to doing, dislodging a major, very large and powerful incumbent in an industry where customers were typically quite conservative, unwilling to try new technologies. But to me, honestly, I have a bit of a strange, maybe a stubborn personality when it comes to taking on challenges like this. I love to prove the skeptics wrong. The more skeptics there are, the more motivating I find the challenge. I love the underdog story. So, I base my decision, not necessarily on the magnitude of the challenge, and more on the capabilities of the team.
And in fact, I recall getting some pretty precious advice from, I think, it was a professor at the time when I was considering this offer. And he said, “You know, Rami, it doesn’t matter what you are up to, how big the challenges are for this company, the most important thing you need to keep in mind is the quality of the team. Because then that’s how you pivot around and work around all of the obstacles, the inevitable challenges that you’re going to face as a company.” So, I basically did that. I did the research on the small team that had started the company and ultimately concluded that this is a team that can win. And it was sort of a fateful decision, certainly.