Bechtolsheim working on new supercomputer for Sun

[pg]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/26/technology/26sun.html?ex=1340510400&en=b823557c723d4dd6&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

[sharpshoot]

I really admire his obsessive dedication to improving the technology! No wonder he was such an exceptional founder. Find what you are good at and make ourself a million times better than anyone else at it. An inspiration.

[gyro_robo]

The initial $100,000 check he wrote to the Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page is an investment now worth more than $1.5 billion.

So $100k for 1%? That's 40x the YC rate. What kind of dilution are we talking about?

[pg → gyro_robo]

Maybe roughly 4-5x dilution. I'm not sure if Bechtolsheim was the very first funding they had. 2m would be a high valuation for a seed round.

[gyro_robo → pg]

Looks like it: http://www.google.com/corporate/history.html

Larry and Sergey's Charlie Rose interview is a bit unclear, because Larry talks about getting that check from a "David Sheridan" or "Sheraton", one of the "founders of Sun". I think he may have mixed up Andy with the Stanford faculty member at whose home they met.

The only other occurrence I see of "David Sheraton" is here: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0407/14/i_ins.01.html

Charlie Rose interview: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6958201596441974119 (40 minutes in)

[pg → gyro_robo]

Cheriton. He invested too.

[gyro_robo → pg]

Thanks! I've wondered about that since I saw the interview. Looks like he got 1% also.

"Cheriton is also credited for setting up Stanford students Sergey Brin and Larry Page with money men at Kleiner Perkins, thus becoming one of the early investors that helped get Google off the ground." (Wikipedia)

Silicon Beat says, "He'd invested in Google as part of the angel round."

[staunch]

"I have come to realize that very little goes right the first time."

Never go in against a German when a $10B market is on the line!

[brett → staunch]

That is a classic blunder.