Team

Currently, Andy is working with the founders of Skyfire, a mobile browser; Ambarella, a video-processing chipmaker; and Fanfare Group, which sells test automation software.

Andy applies an engineering approach to business and everyday life.

Growing up on a lake in rural New Jersey, Andy began working at a young age, mowing lawns, delivering papers, shoveling snow and tinkering with engines and radios. He developed an interest in electronics in high school and enrolled at Cornell University, where he majored in electrical engineering and minored in operations research. After working for two years as an engineer, he returned to Cornell on a full scholarship to complete master’s degrees in engineering and business.

His coursework in operations management, circuit design and microprocessors led him to Intel in 1981. He managed marketing for the chip maker’s flagship microprocessor, the 8086, during the debut of the IBM PC. Andy worked at Intel for five years, leaving in 1986 in order to get one step closer to the end-user.

Anticipating the rise of the communications industry, Andy joined 3Com to help define and launch the 3Station, the world’s first disk-less workstation. The business generated $22 million in revenue in its first year. Andy moved on to run marketing for all hardware, and later started a new division to focus on network adapters and hubs. By its third year, the new division was highly profitable with more than $250 million in annual revenue.

In late 1991, Andy left 3Com to explore opportunities in venture capital. While doing that, he helped some former colleagues start an Ethernet switch business, Grand Junction Networks. During this process he got to know the partners at Matrix, and in early 1992 joined the firm. Matrix Partners invested in Grand Junction, and the company was sold to Cisco three years later for $350 million.

Since then, Andy has invested in and advised dozens of companies, including Unwired Planet (Openwave), which went public in 1999; SiTera, a network processor company that was sold to Vitesse for stock worth $1.5 billion at the time of the close; and Alteon Websystems, which listed its shares on Nasdaq before being acquired by Nortel Networks in a landmark $7.8 billion deal.

At Alteon we came across multiple challenges. Whenever I was faced with problems, Andy would discuss opportunities and potential pitfalls and then back off to let the management think it through. I really appreciated that. The company had a successful IPO in 1999 and we sold it to Nortel for $7.8 billion the following year. I had such a good experience with the firm that I signed on again with Aruba, which we took public in 2007. There is not a moment of doubt that my relationship with the partners at Matrix is based on mutual trust. Matrix will always stick by you in bad times. In good times, who needs VCs?

Dominic Orr, CEO, Aruba; former CEO, Alteon Websystems