By William Dahl
Publication Date: 2026-02-10 18:45:00
Before Nvidia, there was Cisco Systems.
On Feb. 16, 1990, Cisco Systems (CSCO +0.07%) went public at $18 per share. The then-$224 million company, whose software enabled computer networks to link up over greater distances, was created by two computer support staffers at Stanford University who had been tasked with helping to expand the computer network across campus. Realizing the commercial potential of the “network extension cord” that they had created, they quit their jobs to found Cisco in 1984.
The company’s routers and switches were in such high demand that Cisco became known as “the backbone of the Internet,” playing a role in the dot-com boom that isn’t unlike what semiconductor firm Nvidia has meant to the global AI revolution these days.
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63.92%
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By 1993, Cisco had soared so rapidly that a New York…