Exodus Communications

Exodus Communications was an Internet hosting service and Internet service provider to dot-com businesses. It went broke, along with many of its customers, during the bursting of the dot-com bubble. It declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2001 and was purchased by Cable and Wireless in November 2001.

Exodus was founded by K.B. Chandrasekhar and B.V. Jagadeesh in 1994, originally named Fouress, Inc.. Fouress then merged into Exodus Communications in 1996. Exodus Communications was the first company to offer colocation services and enterprise-level Web Hosting; it coined the term "Internet Data Center". It was based in Santa Clara, California. It completed an IPO on the NASDAQ in March 1998, the stock symbol was (NASDAQ: EXDS).

The original headquarters was located on Benicia Ave in Sunnyvale, California. The final Exodus HQ was at 2831 Mission College Drive in Santa Clara.

K.B. "Chandra" Chandrasekhar served as CEO from inception until September 1998. He was the Chairman until September 2000. B.V. Jagadeesh served as VP Engineering and CTO from inception until July 2000. Exodus went from a zero in 1996 to $37 billion valuation in 2000.

In March 1998, Ellen Hancock, a former Vice President at IBM and CTO of Apple Computer, was recruited as President. She assumed the CEO post in September 1998. Key board members resigned in 2000. She resigned September 10, 2001.

She was followed by Bill Krause as CEO on September 1, 2001. Exodus filed for bankruptcy shortly thereafter on September 26, 2001. Once the Company assets were sold off to Cable and Wireless, Bill Austin took over as the CEO.

Sam Mohammad became Vice President of Sales in 1997 and grew annual revenue from just over one million dollars to almost two billion dollars in less than 5 years. Richard 'Dick' Stoltz became CFO in 1995. Bob Sanford became VP Operations in 1997. Other key members of the team such as Barry James Folsom as consultant VP Marketing, saw the potential market for an "Internet Data Center" business; this luminary vision was key in setting the trajectory of the company, back in 1997. Michael Myers and Robert Bowman built the beginnings of the backbone connecting two data centers and two Internet Exchange Points. Prabakar Sundarajan, Michael Myers, and Rob Bowman joined the company in 1995. Paul Steiger, former Director at Pacific Bell Internet, joined Exodus in 1997. Rob Bowman and Paul Steiger designed and built the next generation of the Exodus Backbone Network. Prabakar was promoted to CTO in 2000.

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