Quote:
Originally posted by garfield81
30 Sudhakar Ravi 39 Retired $137.1 million
35 Sreekanth Ravi 37 Retired $131 million
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Sreekanth Ravi & Sudhakar Ravi
Two Hyderabadi brothers builds world class security solutions company in US
Hyderabad: The two left Hyderabad when barely eligible to enter school, grew up in the Midwest, went to school there and toiled for nine long years before finding the proverbial pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. In late 1999 the Ravis took their company, SonicWall, public, and before the New Year was ushered in were worth half a billion dollars each, based on the company?s stock price of about $47.
SonicWall started out by making a decidedly simple product: ethernet cards for Macintosh computers, which were still hot in the early ?90s. Sudhakar experimented with a variety of other things, too, mostly by himself or with a small team of engineers.
He made software for virtually every type of Macintosh interface, including SCSI, LocalTalk, Nubus, PDS, PCI, CommSlot and PCI-CommSlot. Although playing inventor was a lot of fun for Sudhakar, it resulted in only moderate success.
The two brothers found their ?eureka moment,? when their office switched to a T1 Internet connection. When they did so, they also started scanning the market for security firewall products because their computers were now always connected to the Net and needed adequate protection. They found none that fit their budget. The cheapest cost $20,000 ? way beyond the means of a small office such as theirs.