Rouzbeh Yassini-Fard, founder of LANcity, author of The Accidental Network, and widely known as the "father of the cable modem", shares the story of how broadband was built and the lessons it offers for today's leaders navigating AI and emerging technologies.
Arriving in the U.S. with $750 in savings, Yassini-Fard envisioned carrying "voice, data and video… over one cable instead of two" at a time when few believed homes would ever need to be connected. Over nine years, with just 13 employees and seven consultants, he built a working product, proved its reliability, and persuaded the cable industry to adopt it. By 1996, his team had driven device costs from $8,000 down to under $300 and helped create DOCSIS, the global broadband standard, released royalty-free to speed adoption.
Reflecting on today's tech landscape, he cautions: "It's not just really money… you need more than that. It's a proven prototype and a product that actually does the talking." Valuations without execution, he warns, will accelerate failure.
Key lessons include:
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Prototype before scale: Capital is wasted without demonstrable performance in real environments.
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Treat infrastructure as strategy: Broadband enabled Silicon Valley, Netflix, telehealth, and remote work; leaders must model today's energy, compute, and connectivity constraints when sizing AI opportunities.
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Open standards matter: Royalty-free interoperability can turn a niche idea into an industry platform.
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Execution trumps valuation: LANcity beat Motorola and Intel with disciplined engineering, resilient supply chains, and relentless customer trials.
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Anchor to customer economics: Early users became advocates because the modem delivered day-to-day value.
Looking forward, Yassini-Fard stresses that AI and robotics will stall without addressing power and infrastructure: "For some of these AI companies to be successful, they need gigawatts of power… it takes 10 years to build a nuclear reactor that gives you one." He highlights quantum computing and network management as the next frontiers, and calls for workforce retraining in mathematics, physics, and the skilled trades that sustain digital systems.
For executives evaluating platform bets or emerging technologies, this conversation offers a grounded blueprint: start with the prototype, model the infrastructure honestly, choose standards deliberately, and align capital with execution discipline.
📚 Get Rouzbeh's book, The Accidental Network, here: https://shorturl.at/rUB1T
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