JLABS, LLC
Judy Estrin is CEO of JLABS, LLC, formerly known as Packet Design Management Company, LLC. She is the author of Closing the Innovation Gap, published in September, 2008. Prior to co-founding Packet Design, in May 2000, Estrin was chief technology officer for Cisco Systems. Beginning in 1981 Estrin co-founded three other successful technology companies: Bridge Communications, Network Computing Devices, and Precept Software. In 1998 Cisco Systems acquired Precept, and she became Cisco's chief technology officer until April 2000.
Estrin has been named three times to Fortune Magazine's list of the 50 most powerful women in American business. She sits on the boards of directors of The Walt Disney Company and FedEx Corporation as well as two private company boards - Packet Design, Inc. and Arch Rock. She also sits on the advisory councils of Stanford's School of Engineering and Stanford's Bio-X initiative. She holds a B.S. degree in math and computer science from UCLA, and an M.S. in electrical engineering from Stanford University.
Related Links: http://www.jlabsllc.com/
Last Updated: Sat, Oct 25, 2008
Estrin emphasizes that a good leader and entrepreneur should have flexibility--flexibility in dealing with people and navigating through changes in plans. Estrin thinks that this is a hard time and environment for startups, but that should not prevent people from being entrepreneurs. Big companies must embrace entrepreneurial thinking.
Estrin talks about how dominant vendors are vendors that are so strong in their market that it is hard for a start up to work around them. It is great to partner with them and very hard to go up against them, she adds.
There is a fine line between confidence and arrogance, says Estrin. You have to have confidence in order to take risks, she notes. After successes, it is important to make sure the confidence does not change to arrogance. Arrogance indicates that you are not listening to customers, employees and the market. Beware the fine line, she warns.
Estrin talks about how the last cycle is about connecting embedded devices, as opposed to connecting computers. The real win in this is when we can build a completely new architecture for networks that are self-configuring, she says. Interesting work in academia is targeting this area. She talks about technology enablers in this cycle and the focus on low power, and not performance.
Estrin explains the reasons the consumer market is hard for startups is: 
The low-hanging fruit of problem-solving has been plucked, says Judy Estrin, CEO of JLABS, and the remaining modern challenges are so complex, they can only be solved by a group effort. Teams working toward innovation not only require talent, but also a genuine blend of cognitive diversity - members with different backgrounds, varying life experiences, and diverse fields of study. Only through this kind of collaboration can larger, global problems be divided and conquered.
Not only does innovation drive the economy, says JLABS CEO Judy Estrin, but it influences the very quality of our day-to-day life. However, Estrin believes real innovations need decades of institutional push and resources behind them to develop. Here she asserts that we've become too shortsighted and more risk averse when it comes to developing new technology, and that this cultural shift away from innovative breeding grounds is to our own long-term detriment.
Exit strategies are less clear than they use to be to 10 years ago, says Estrin. She talks about the cycles that exit strategies went through. IPO and acquisitions are both tough in today's market. People need to have patience and plan for time to liquidity, she adds.
Leadership, funding, policy, education, and culture are all concepts that leaders should keep in mind when trying to foster innovation in any organization. Judy Estrin, CEO of JLABS, breaks down these five influential elements and discusses their interplay. Effective and strategic leadership is perhaps the most important element. The right leadership and the right culture will facilitate adequate funding, strategic policies, and education that can contribute to furthering new ideas.
Estin talks about the history of Packet Design and how it adapted to the downturn in the economy. Packet Design started in 2000 as a technology company with the idea of bringing researchers and developers together under the notion that they would work on 5-6 projects and either spin out or license technologies. This model was successful for 3 years, but after that more money was needed as there was no licensing business.
Estrin talks about the key things that entrepreneurs can do to adapt to the climate today: 1) Adjust the business model and expenses. 2) Ask yourself, can I afford to run this business at critical mass? 3) Look for areas of incremental growth. 4) Lead with tight execution skills and flexibility.
JLabs LLC CEO and author Judy Estrin puts the processes and philosophies of innovation under the microscope. Her current analysis indicates that we're short-changing the business arena and culture at large, as we've stopped planting the seeds for true, monumental invention and problem-solving.
The consumer market is not a very friendly market for startups, says Estrin. It can be a 5-7 year deal and not a 2-year cycle. It is a long haul to liquidity, she notes, but the good news is that rent is cheaper. It is important to build a strong foundation a brick at a time.
Estrin emphasizes the reality of entrepreneurship sometimes being about money. But she rebukes that entrepreneurship can never be JUST about the money.
Estrin explains how it is important not to confuse marketing with reality. Know when you are marketing and know what is real. Make sure you listen to real customer input, she cautions.
Estrin talks about the personal connectivity cycle. The cycle of connecting people is the notion of people being able to connect to each other and connect to information anywhere. This means true mobility and ubiquitous, high bandwidth connectivity, she says. The enablers of this cycle are economic and behavioral. From an IT demand perspective, she explains, the real win is in the consumer devices and services and not in the IT infrastructure. Related issues are business models (walled garden, AOL vs. seamless systems, Internet), affordable broadband to the home, and making technology easier to use. The consumer market is not an easy market for a startup to begin with and to innovate in, she notes.
Judy Estrin, co-founder of several technology companies, introduces her talk about her perspective of the IT market and lessons learned as an entrepreneur.
Estrin explains how it is difficult to reach critical mass in a tough economic environment, which prevents startups from growing enough to compete. She gives a personal example of Precept attempting to enter the market, but not reaching critical mass by the time Microsoft entered the market as well.
Estrin talks about how the hurdles for self-configuring architecture are a combination of new communication architecture, semi-conductor technology that can drive low power devices, new fuel sources, and from a software perspective, new communications architecture.
Estrin declares that technology cycles have to start with a break-through innovation, something significantly disruptive. When it happens we don't know it is a break-through technology, she notes. In time, however, applications are built around this technology, she adds.