In the market of forward-looking technologies development, the impact of earnings sheets can easily have more impact on a company’s future than how well their products answer the needs of their customers. This gives the enterprises that do well without being quickly snapped up their own sort of legendary status.

Jerry Kennelly, chairman and CEO of Riverbed Technology, Inc., joined Dave Vellante (@dvellante) and Stu Miniman (@stu), cohosts of theCUBE, from the SiliconANGLE Media team, at the Riverbed Disrupt conference, for a discussion that touched on the company’s marketplace transition, what led them to that change and the roles played by earnings and debt along the way.

Covering the cost

Looking back at Riverbed’s path to this point, Kennelly seemed slightly amazed. “We were the true unicorn,” he said, referring to the company’s time generating high profits for a length of time before being acquired.

Moving on to address its business of networking, Kennelly offered a dispelling of the popular “virtual world” notion. “The truth is, there’s no such thing as the virtual world. There’s only the physical world,” Kennelly explained, a perspective that seems to have served the company well in addressing networking’s speed-of-light transfer limitation.

“Every action in the physical world has two costs: a cost in time and a cost in dollars. … It’s the same with digital packets,” Kennelly explained.

Moving to tomorrow

“What we’ve announced today is our pivot into mainstream general networking,” Kennelly said, referring to Riverbed’s launch of the SteelConnect networking product. “Our application-aware knowledge is very key to this new generation of mainstream networking products. … It’s a fundamental move, not just a little move,” he added.

“Our future before this new product was [very good],” Kennelly noted. “Now, with SteelConnect, we can … envision Riverbed as a $5-million revenue. … Our historical products will plug into [SteelConnect] … the premiere product against all comers, and no one will be able to touch that.”

Revenue shifts

Kennelly also gave a detailed assessment of Riverbed’s habits in past earnings, noting, “Debt can cut both ways if you misuse, but used properly, it’s a very powerful tool. We were a bit more adventurous with some of the technologies that I sold off, because they were best-of-breed technologies, but they were ahead of their time,” he shared. “The businesses we’re buying today, we’re very disciplined, because … they fit into the model of today.”

Taking another look at Riverbed’s current position, Kennelly’s sense of pride in the company’s accomplishments was clear. “When we started the company, we didn’t know we would be competing with the largest technology networking company in the world. … At the end of the day, the product counts in technology. … And we had the best technology,” he said.

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE and theCUBE’s coverage of the Riverbed Disrupt.

Photo by SiliconANGLE