( ESNUG 530 Item 3 ) -------------------------------------------- [07/26/13]
From: [ John Cooley of DeepChip.com ]
Subject: SCOOP -- All's Well That Ends Well -- the Doug Aitelli story
One of the "fun" things about having a readership of ~36,000 subscribers is
I get to hear a LOT of rumors about a LOT of things (and people) in the
EDA/FPGA/FAB/IP/SEMI industry. People just tell me stuff.
And on some sadder occassions, I'm put in a tough situation where I'll get
a heads-up that something bad (like "he's about to be fired") is going to
happen to a specific person.
Exactly that happened to me 8 months ago.
  
A well connected source had told me that Doug Aitelli, then the current CEO
of Calypto, was going to be axed and replaced by Sanjiv Kaul.
Crap.
---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
I knew Doug from my DAC'12 Troublemakers Panel. He did pretty well on it:
Doug Aitelli on CatapultC, SLEC, PowerPro RTL, C-to-RTL synthesis
http://www.deepchip.com/items/0507-03.html
Doug Aitelli announces the new Calypto PowerPro RTL power optimizer
http://www.deepchip.com/items/0508-05.html
In addition, his leadership at Calypto was going really well. PowerPro RTL
tied against Apache and Atrenta for #1 at DAC'12:
SpyGlass Power, PowerPro RTL, PowerArtist as #1 hot tool at DAC'12
http://www.deepchip.com/items/dac12-01.html
And with 5 years in the company all of Doug's financials were good: "strong
growth, record deals and substantial cash in the bank. With our best
bookings year ever..."
---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
My sense of ethics forced me to privately call Doug and tell him the "you're
about to be fired" rumor -- without divulging my source, of course -- but
with my gut feel of how trustworthy this source was. Why? The Golden Rule.
If there were rumors going around that *I* was about to be laid off, *I*
sure as heck would hope that at least *someone* would have the good graces
to please tell me ahead of time about it!
It was an awkward phone call, but I did it anyway. Doug was sort of both
concerned and half laughing it off at the time.
That was in December 2012.
Two months later in February 2013, exactly as predicted, Sanjiv Kaul was the
new CEO of Calypto and Doug was officially "off to persue other interests."
---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
And this bothered me. There's nothing wrong with Sanjiv -- but Calypto was
doing really well under Doug -- yet they booted him anyway??? I understand
booting Doug if Calypto was failing. That comes with being CEO. But while
his company was doing well????
This triggered some personal bad memories from 10,000 years ago when I went
through my own first layoff. I was a Data General design engineer working
on ECL busses. The company missed a few quarters. I was cut. "Hey! I was
doing MY job!!! This ain't right! THIS AIN'T RIGHT!!!"
Those were bad times.
---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
 
Anyway... I'm now quite happy to leak -- although it's NOT been announced
anywhere yet -- that my spies tell me that Ajoy Bose, CEO of Atrenta, has
picked Doug Aitelli to be his new Atrenta VP of Sales. Yay, Doug!
And as a fun plot twist, because Atrenta's and Calypto's product lines
overlap in key areas, Doug is going to be personally selling directly
against the very company that he helped build. Talk about knowing your
competitor's strengths and weaknesses inside and out!
Call me sappy, but I love a good comeback story where the guy lands back on
his feet after unexpectedly being laid off. I've lived it myself.
- John Cooley
DeepChip.com Holliston, MA
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