Sandy Lerner

Sandy Lerner
Alma mater	California State University, Chico Claremont Graduate School Stanford University
Known for	Co-Founder of Cisco Systems Co-Founder of Urban Decay
Spouse(s)	Leonard Bosack (divorced)

Sandra Lerner (born 1955) is an American businesswoman and philanthropist. She co-founded Cisco Systems, and used the money from its sale to pursue interests in animal welfare and women's writing. One of her main projects, Chawton House, is in England, but most of her work remains in the United States.

She grew up on a farm in northern California. She received her bachelor's degree in 1975 in political science from California State University, Chico, a master's degree in econometrics in 1977 from the Claremont Graduate School, and a master's degree in statistics and computer science in 1981 from Stanford University.

In 1984, while working as Director of Computer Facilities for the Stanford University Graduate School of Business, Lerner co-founded Cisco Systems with her then partner (and now ex-husband) Len Bosack. It is widely reported that Lerner and Bosack designed the first router so that they could connect the incompatible computer systems of the Stanford offices they were working in so that they could send romantic love letters to each other. However, this was a manufactured corporate legend. In fact, both systems (SU-SCORE and SU-GSB) were TOPS-20 systems. The systems were the same and therefore obviously not incompatible, but the SU-GSB system was not on any network. It has also been noted that the original router was designed and created by a group of people at Stanford, both students and faculty, rather than Lerner and Bosack alone.

Lerner and Bosack brought in John Morgridge to be the third CEO of Cisco in 1988. On August 28, 1990, Lerner was fired; upon hearing the news, Bosack resigned to show his support for her. The two sold all of their stock for $170 million and retired from Cisco.

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