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BORN HERE · XIRCOM 1988–2001 · XIRRUS 2004–2017
The best-timed exit in this record: Dirk Gates was born in Fort Wayne on June 25, 1961, and educated in California. In November 1988, in Thousand Oaks, California, he and Kirk Mathews co-founded Xircom, which made the credit-card-sized adapters that let the laptop era connect — first to office networks, then to the internet itself. Gates was the company's president from its founding, chief executive from 1991, and chairman from 1995. On January 15, 2001 — with the Nasdaq already sliding but the old prices still on the table — Intel announced a definitive agreement to acquire Xircom in an all-cash tender at 25 dollars a share, a transaction Intel valued at about 748 million dollars. The tender completed on March 8, 2001, and Gates became an Intel vice president and general manager of its mobile communications business. Weeks later, valuations like that one were gone from the world; the Fort Wayne-born founder had sold at nearly the last moment they existed.
His second act is carried at its documented size, which is smaller and partly undisclosed. In early 2004 Gates co-founded Xirrus, a maker of high-density Wi-Fi arrays. Riverbed Technology acquired Xirrus in April 2017 on terms the companies did not disclose — no price is printed here, because none was published — and Riverbed in turn sold the Xirrus business to Cambium Networks in August 2019. The pattern is worth naming: Xircom's 748 million is a matter of Intel's own press release, while Xirrus's outcome is a matter of record only as an acquisition. This section prints both kinds of knowledge as what they are.
Sources:
- Intel Corporation, press release, January 15, 2001 — the definitive agreement to acquire Xircom at 25 dollars a share in cash, about 748 million dollars. intel.com
- Xircom, Inc., company record (Dun & Bradstreet) — Dirk Gates born Fort Wayne, June 25, 1961; co-founder, president from 1988, chief executive from 1991, chairman from 1995. dnb.com
- SiliconANGLE, April 19, 2017 — Riverbed Technology acquires Xirrus; terms undisclosed. siliconangle.com
- eWeek, August 2019 — Cambium Networks acquires the Xirrus Wi-Fi business from Riverbed.
- the Founders & CEOs section of this history — the produced-CEO roster entry.