Keep pulling the thread on Sanjit Biswas.
Sanjit Biswas co-founded the networking company Meraki, which was subsequently sold to Cisco for over $1 billion.
Samsara went public on the New York Stock Exchange in December 2021.
Samsara simplified its product installation to be 'plug and play,' which enabled a go-to-market strategy based on free trials where customers could self-install hardware without on-site assistance.
During the global financial crisis era, Meraki was doubling its revenue every year.
Following its acquisition by Cisco, Meraki's annual sales grew to billions of dollars.
In its early years of rapid growth, Samsara doubled its headcount in some years and tripled its headcount in one specific year.
Samsara's current strategic focus is on applying artificial intelligence in ways that are practically useful for its customers in the physical operations industry.
Samsara allocates its R&D investments using a 70/20/10 model, where 70% is dedicated to immediate customer needs (1-2 year horizon), 20% to medium-term projects, and 10% to speculative, long-term bets.
Samsara has been investing in artificial intelligence for over five years as part of its long-term, speculative R&D budget, even before customers were explicitly asking for AI features.
Across both of his companies, Meraki and Samsara, Sanjit Biswas has served as CEO while his co-founder John Bickett has served as CTO.
The technology behind Meraki originated from an MIT research project called RoofNet, which created a free Wi-Fi network covering all of Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Sanjit Biswas attributes part of Meraki's success to its timing, having launched its Wi-Fi deployment company in 2006, the year before Apple introduced the iPhone, which created massive demand for Wi-Fi.