"Mr. Posaka, Ms. Lena, I think I can understand the feelings of the two of you as founders for Cisco, and I can understand that the initial reason for the two of you to bring in external funds is to develop better network technology and provide users with more advanced network products, and I can also understand that you see Mr. Valentine and Morgridge as a pair of businessmen, and think that the two of them just want to make money and profit from Cisco, so that they don't agree with each other and want to quit Cisco."

This is what Liu Xun said straight to the point when he first met Lena and his wife.

The day after the meeting with Mogridge, Liu Xun met with Lerna and his wife who rushed back from New York at Cisco, obviously, the two of them hit a wall on Wall Street, and the investors who showed their intention to acquire on Wall Street before seemed to have retreated a little, and the company on Wall Street could not give the two of them the ideal price, and the offer for the 24% stake was only $400 million, and the other party's concept was also inconsistent with the two of them, and they were angry. The husband and wife naturally put the hope of the transaction on Liu Xun and Zhou Peiwan.

"Oh, dear Liu, your English is so good, very standard." Lerna smiled slightly, the same reaction as Chambers and Valentine when they first saw Liu Xun, except for being surprised by Liu Xun's age, it was a compliment to his standard American English.

"In fact, dear Liu, as you said, for Valentine and Moggerich, our husband and wife do not agree with the two of them, when we created Cisco because of love, in fact, the initial registered capital of Cisco Systems was only five dollars, and the office was still in our own living room, and our husband and wife never thought that the company registered for five dollars would develop to a market value of six hundred million dollars today, but, Liu, as you said, making money is not the purpose of our husband and wife, We just want to develop better network technology and provide users with more advanced network products, which is our business philosophy, Valentine, who only chases money. ”

Liu Xun also smiled, he already knew the founding process of Cisco from Xue Juewu's mouth, Cisco, is indeed a company born out of love.

In 1980, Lera was working as a network administrator at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, while Posaka worked in a computer lab 500 yards away. The newlywed Yan'er was not enough to dispel her longing for her, so Lena wrote love letters to Posaka during her work hours and spare time. Everyone seems to have the experience that once they use the keyboard, they don't want to pick up the pen again. But the question arises, Lena has finished writing a love letter on the computer, how can she show it to Posaka? The network of the business school and the network of the computer laboratory are not interoperable, and of course they can be copied on a floppy disk, but in this way, the joy of "cheating" at work is completely lost.

The power of love is always great, just as someone invented the piston on the steam engine in order to be lazy, and because of love, the Lena couple invented today's router.

At that time, the network used by Posaka was Ethernet, while the network used by Lena was the network of DEC Corporation. DEC uses its own network protocol, which is a different language from Ethernet, so the two networks are not interoperable at all. To solve this problem, they invented a device called a gateway, which came to be known as a router. There are two main functions of the router, one is lane selection, and the other is switching. Routing is to make sure that the packet finds the correct destination, and switching is to ensure that the packet is transmitted to the correct destination.

With the help of Mr. and Mrs. Rena, Stanford University was able to fully connect its 5,000 computers, which is probably the first use of routers.

Talking about the invention of the router, Lena was very interested, "Dear Liu, you can't imagine how difficult it was for us at the beginning, we passed wires through manholes, wires through sewers, we made a lot of things ourselves, just like fighting guerrilla warfare. Of course we didn't get any official permission, but in the end, they didn't appreciate it, but they got the internet. ”

Liu Xun smiled secretly in his heart, of course it was difficult, but fortunately, the two of you are in the United States, you can register a company with five dollars, and you can also work in your own living room.

"Mrs. Lena, I think we have a consensus on the development of more advanced technology and better products, and in fact, I also hope that Cisco can develop better network technology and provide people with more advanced network products, and not just want to treat Cisco as a money-making machine. Oh, Mr. Posaka, in fact, just yesterday I had persuaded Valentine to transfer most of his shares to me. ”

"Oh? Is there such a thing? Possaka looked surprised, they had decided to quit Cisco because of disagreement with Valentine, the chairman and investor, the two of them did not expect that Liu Xun would be able to persuade Valentine to give up the shares in his hand, for this reason, Possaka also went out to ask Valentine for verification, and after a few minutes of return, he nodded to Lena, indicating that what Liu Xun said was true.

At this time, Lera and Liu Xun had already talked quite happily, and the two exchanged a lot of things on the views on the development of the Internet, and with the amount of information obtained by Liu Xun in that era of information explosion and the grasp of the trend in the next few years, it was natural to be able to deeply attract Lerna's attention, and she finally believed Liu Xun's statement.

It is about a rare time to meet a person who wants Liu Xun to have a very good view on the development of the Internet, and the couple talked very happily with Liu Xun, and after half an hour, the three of them finally talked about the transaction of shares.

"Mrs. Rena, I think that our conversation just now has allowed the two of you to understand what I really think about Cisco, of course, in order to dispel the doubts of the two of you, if there is a share transaction between us, I am willing to add a VAM clause in the contract to show my sincerity?"

"Oh? How? In his opinion, the VAM, the name of a business born in capitalist countries, seems to be the concept of Chinese enterprises at all.

A VAM is an agreement between the acquirer (including the investor) and the transferor (including the financier) on uncertain future circumstances when they enter into an M&A (or financing) agreement. If the agreed conditions arise, the investor may exercise a right; If the agreed conditions do not arise, the financier exercises a right. Therefore, a VAM is actually a form of option.

In fact, just as Posaka thought, few domestic enterprises in this era understood the VAM agreement, so that in the trend of introducing foreign capital and joint ventures after the Southern Tour, the domestic enterprise was plotted by the VAM agreement in the contract of the foreign-funded enterprise, and often suffered a big loss. Liu Xun understands the VAM agreement because in another time and space, the company he works for has also suffered a big loss from the VAM agreement, so Liu Xun spent a long time to specialize in research.

"Mrs. Lena, if we reach a transaction contract, I can include in the contract the shares obtained from the two of you, I promise that except for the allotment of shares to Cisco employees, after six years, this part of the shares will not be cashed out, but will always be in your own hands, if this agreement is violated, you two have the right of first refusal to buy back this part of the shares, what do you think?"

Liu Xun smiled slightly as he spoke, looking at the Lena couple with a look of surprise.

To be honest, this agreement is very weighty for venture capital companies, generally speaking, the investment of venture capital companies is based on a cycle of three to five years, and the goal is immediately cashed out after the end, and the mind will not be tied to a company, but Liu Xun's attitude just now is not this, whether it is to take over the shares in the hands of Valentine and Lerna and his wife to become the largest shareholder of Cisco, or the gambling clause of the non-cash-out transaction just now, it shows Liu Xun's determination to put his mind on Cisco.

At this time, Rena and his wife were probably a little disheartened with Cisco, and they were also quite satisfied with the company that they registered for five dollars a few years ago, and now the shares in their hands are worth more than 200 million US dollars, so when it comes to share transactions, they are naturally willing to trade with Liu Xun, the person who can talk to the two of them.

Liu Xun soon put forward the hope of being able to trade more shares, and was willing to pay a premium for it, and after thinking about it, the two finally decided that only 5% of the shares would be retained, and the remaining 30.2% of the shares would be taken over by Liu Xun, but the VAM clause proposed by Liu Xun must also be written into the contract.

In fact, the two of them didn't have much idea about Cisco at this time, and the number of shares they kept didn't mean much to them, and Liu Xun said that he was willing to pay a premium, so they were naturally very happy. The reason why they want to keep 5% is only because they have created Cisco, and they don't want to completely separate from Cisco.

Of course, in Liu Xun's memory, in another time and space, around 96, Lena and his wife finally completely broke off from Cisco and traded their last shares.