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LOVE AMONG THE DIGERATINo matter how commonplace entrepreneurs become, husband-wife teams will always be rare. The stress is just too intense. That's why Silicon Valley is toasting Judith L. Estrin and William N. Carrico, whose marriage has survived not one startup, but three. Their first venture was Bridge Communications Inc., a networking company founded in 1981. By 1987, when 3Com Corp. acquired it for $235 million in stock, Bridge was raking in $70 million a year. Next, in 1988, they started Network Computing Devices Inc.--which makes exactly that. The couple took it to $140 million in sales in 1995, then left to found Precept Software Inc. Last year, Precept shipped about $1 million worth of ''multicasting'' software for putting real-time video on corporate networks. The couple's business relationship started in 1979 at chipmaker Zilog Inc. After co-founder Ralph Ungermann left to form Ungermann-Bass Inc., Estrin was promoted to engineering manager of the systems division. Carrico was recruited to help turn the unit around, and the pair collaborated on a networking project called Z-Net. It flopped, but a romance blossomed as they hashed out plans for Bridge, and in 1987 they tied the knot. Often dubbed the Bill & Judy Show, the duo blends a Mrs. Outside, Mr. Inside set of personalities. ''I'm the people person,'' says Estrin, who's president of Precept and thrives on dealing with customers. Chairman Carrico is the strategist but gets involved in operations ''when aggressive action is called for''--at which point, the preferred moniker is ''Punch & Judy.'' REBOUNDS. Joint entrepreneurship can also shred a marriage. Sandra Lerner founded Cisco Systems Inc. in 1984 with her husband, Leonard Bosack. By 1990, each had amassed about $100 million in stock, but their marriage was on the rocks. Lerner blames ''years of overwork, under-money, and having to make all decisions for the benefit of the company, not the marriage.'' After an amicable divorce, Bosack founded XKL Systems Corp. in 1991, while Lerner launched Urban Decay, a cosmetics firm, in 1995. Married or divorced, starting up companies seems to get easier with practice. It's a matter of having the contacts, knowing the pitfalls, and nabbing the capital. Judy Estrin says funding her first company took six months ''and countless presentations.'' For No.2, NCD, two phone calls landed $5 million in minutes. When word of Precept's founding got out in March, 1995, Estrin says: ''We had venture capitalists calling us and begging us to take their money.'' When it comes time for No.4, the phones will probably ring again.
By Otis Port in San Mateo
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Updated Aug. 7, 1997 by bwwebmaster
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