Fred Destin

Forgive me for ticker watching today but shares of Isilon Systems opened up 92 percent at $25 before touching $27.45 in morning trading on Nasdaq. Currently trading at $22.92, up 76 percent.  That makes our share worth over $350M.  Hope it holds!

The team at Atlas first funded these guys in May 2001 with Madrona, which means they had to build the business right in the middle of the telecom downturn.  Most people think of the internet bubble as the big one, but of course that was only paper.  The real hit for business like Isilon came when telco capex went from $240bn to about $120bn in a year (if I remember correctly).  I was toasting the end of 2001 with Mark Gray at Kasenna thinking “2002 can’t be any worse”.  Famous last words.

So Steve Goldman, Sujal Patel and the rest of the team had to build a company in the worst possible conditions.  It’s no surprise that it’s so robust.  Well done !

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