Even EDA ex-Avanti CEO Gerald Hsu has a blog

If you ever wondered what happened to Gerald Hsu after the infamous code theft trial between his company and Cadence Design Systems, you can find out on his blog post. Yep, even Gerry has a blog. I just happened to be searching the web and I noticed a blog post called Ratna’s Ergodic View. And in one post, there’s a mention that Gerry has a blog. Sure enough, he not only has a blog but on his blog you can hear him being interviewed in 2006. Incidentally, the last time I personally saw Gerry was the last day of sentencing at the Avanti criminal restitution hearing. A bailiff was stripping Avanti co-founder (and Gerry’s co-defendant) Steven Wuu of his necktie, belt and shoelaces, applying handcuffs–prepping him for transfer to San Quentin (the real prison, not Sun Quentin)–and Gerry was walking out the courtroom door a free man. On the way out, I asked an Avanti pr guy/attorney, if Gerry would be willing to do an interview regarding the decision, as well as his and Avanti’s future. To that the PR guy/attorney said sarcastically, “I don’t think so.”

It was not long after that Gerry allegedly suffered a heart attack and moved back to Taiwan, only months later to sell the company to Synopsys. I heard rumors that he was doing some software startup….the interviewer says he’s the founder of the “Éclair Group(?).” Gerry certainly was an interesting cat during his stint in EDA. In speaking with various ex-Avanti employees they always note that Gerry was a business tiger and, for example, wouldn’t stand for price cutting. More than a few said that when Avanti knew it had the premier place and route tool, he warned customers that he would be raising the price of the tool the next quarter so they better buy it now. He actually drove the price of tools up. That’s one of the good stories, of course there are a lot of other views on Gerry’s stint in EDA that weren’t so flattering…