(These aren't exact.  They're ballpark totals from ESDA Market Data numbers.)

SAWICKI CLONED HIMSELF: So it's around 2016 and you're Joe Sawicki and after
all the sturm und drang of Siemens-acquires-Mentor, you've risen on top as
the Big Kahuna, the Head Honcho, the Mr. Big of Mentor Graphics.

How did you get there?  Three decades ago when Cadence dominated the DRC/LVS
world with it's Dracula, Vampire, and Diva tools that had around 95% market
share in its heyday -- as a young Joe Sawicki you joined a tiny yet VERY
ballsy tiger team inside Mentor Graphics that set out to steal the Cadence
DRC/LVS crown.

Was it foolish?

Hell, yes!

But this little Mentor Calibre tiger team was very agressive and very focused
and very driven ... and very entrepreneurial.  And, long story short, Mentor
Calibre stole the DRC/LVS market away from Cadence.

So now it's 30 years later and you're the Head Honcho of Mentor.

As a veteran PD entrepreneur with 13 direct report employees under you, you
know how to maintain and defend and even grow your own Mentor physical design
tools.  But now as Head Honcho you're also now responsible for a boatload
of EDA tools that have absolutely NOTHING to do with physical design!

You can take the easy way out by going corporate and just let that part of
your company coast as it always had.

Or you can go out and find clones who have the exact same entrepreneurial
drive that you have for Calibre -- but have these guys cover all the non-PD
parts of *your* Sawicki-flavored Mentor Siemens EDA.

That's where Ravi stepped into the picture.

Again, long story short, because Ravi has all this semi and EDA entrepreneur
experience, Joe Sawicki picked Ravi to be in Game of Thrones terms the Hand
of the King.

Esentially Joe made Ravi his trustworthy right hand man to be in charge of
everything that Joe didn't do -- which was everything NOT physical design.

That is, Joe was still involved with all of his business units, but by having
Ravi as a direct report, Joe and Ravi would discuss how some non-PD problem
was solved -- and the Ravi would execute it.

But when it came to the PD (Calibre) stuff, Joe solved those problems with
his veteran Calibre guys.  That is, he focused the right folks for each
problem as they came up. 

That way Joe's PD division grew 1.5x in 4 years from $550 million (2017)
over to $850 million (2021).

And Joe's and Ravi's non-PD subdivision grew 2.2x from $250 million (2017)
over to $550 million (2021).

Or it's how Joe Sawicki's overall Siemens EDA went from $800 million (2017)
to $1.4 billion (2021), a 1.75X gain in 4 years.  Woof!

        ----    ----    ----    ----    ----    ----    ----

HOW JOE & RAVI GOT 2.2X NON-PD GROWTH: It was all about Joe giving Ravi
the mandate to spread entrepreneurial thinking throughout Siemens EDA.

Actually it was Wally Rhines' universal EDA commandment of "make each of
your business units either #1 or #2 in their space.  Or get out of it.
There is no money in being #3."  Joe just passed it on.

Word at first was that Ravi is not easy to work for -- he expected startup
behaviors in a big company. He was a champion of some new behaviors in Mentor 
like "Radical Candor" and the "Seven Cs for Leaders Communication".

Ravi executed the strategy he and Joe put together; plans for internal RnD
initiatives as well as 5 acquisitons in 4 years.  He revamped the engineering
and product management organizations, and brought in new RnD guys from outside
of Mentor like Abhi Kolpekwar.

Over those 4 years he brought in Solido, Austemper, Fractal, OneSpin, and
ProFPGA to fill gaps in the Mentor verification continuum.  With these
acquisitions came leaders like Amit Gupta, Raik Brinkmann, and Gunnar Scholl 
who took key leadership positions to drive the growth businesses in
Mentor's old AMS, DVT, and FPGA prototyping businesses.

With Joe's support, Ravi refocused the verification RnD from what was called
"Wilsonville-only" mindset over to a worldwide perspective promoting growth
of RnD teams in Fremont, Austin, India, Egypt, Canada, Finland, UK, France and
Tunisia.  (My spies claim Solido headcount grew 4x in the last 4 years.)

SIEMENS EDA'S FUTURE: So, yes, Joe & Ravi did all these great changes that
caused a 1.75X revenue gain for Mentor.  With Ravi leaving, will this all
collapse?  Not hardly!  Why?  Because all those entrepreneurial folks are
there plus all that MENT revitialization has been completed.

        ----    ----    ----    ----    ----    ----    ----

A COUP FOR SASSINE: For Synopsys, this a great move.

First off, I must give credit where it's due -- Aart de Geus and Manoj Gandi
created an amazing empire off of VCS, PrimeTime, and ZeBu that made 100's of
millions of dollars every year for SNPS in verification -- plus it's been a
thorn in both CDNS' and MENT's sides.

My spies tell me that SNPS verification is making around $850 million a year
now.  That deserves respect.

But Sassine is creating a new SNPS with business leadership for all his BU's
by bringing folks with direct start-up and business scaling background.
Shankar (Sierra), Joachim (CADIS), Jason (Aporeto), and now Ravi (BDA).

These are all guys who lived the start-up life at least once (if not more)
and know what it means when people say it cannot be done. 

(And on a personal note, I have to tip my hat to Sassine on this.  By his
snagging both Shankar Krishnamoorthy and Ravi Subramanian, two brilliant
EDA engineers whom I've known for decades, by their actions these guys are
giving Sassine their personal vote of confidence in a Sassine-SNPS future.
These guys had cushy jobs and were already set for life where they were.
To snag both of them is a very public coup for Sassine.  My congrats.)

BUT IT WON'T BE ALL ROSES AND CHOCOLATE FOR RAVI

After Aart gave his Verification Continuum a big rar-rah launch in 2014, there
still remain three major potholes in it that Ravi will have to patch:

   - SNPS Zebu needs it's own SoC uP chip that's custom tuned to emulation
     like how both CDNS Paladium and MENT Veloce have.  It's FPGA-based Zebu is
     first in runtime (yay!), but it's weeks-to-months compile time that takes
     an army of engineers to create (boo!).  Paladium and Veloce also both
     also have a super fast "dynamic duo" co-compile to their own FPGA-based
     Protium or Primo to get killer runtimes, too.  Synopsys needs to match this.

   - In Formal, Cadence easily leads with JasperGold.  Years ago Siemens had
     0-In (and it squandered that lead) but it mostly caught up with OneSpin.
     Synopsys has no solver-based and no app-based formal solution.  And where
     is SNPS VC-Formal these days?

   - While Synopsys DesignWare is the absolute uncontested leader in SIP;
     Cadence dominates in VIP (with MENT having a small piece.)  SNPS
     needs to gain marketshare in VIP to grow.

My point is if Ravi is going to work his 2.2X-gain-in-4-years magic on SNPS'
$850 M verification revenues, Ravi has some Herculean tasks ahead.

        ----    ----    ----    ----    ----    ----    ----

HEADS-UP!, CADENCE: Assuming that Ravi is successful, as Sassine's SNPS
starts revitalizing in verification, it can take verification business away from
Cadence.  Paul Cunningham's Cadence verification group is going to have
to step up its game.

AND A WIN FOR EDA USERS: Whenever EDA competition heats up, it's
a total win for the EDA users!  Sweet!


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