On August 23, more than 51 million TV viewers watched as a rather arrogant and previously unknown corporate trainer named Richard Hatch enjoyed a fleeting moment as the world’s most famous human being -- crowned the million-dollar winner of ABC’s absurd but popular reality show, “Survivor.” Quick to capitalize on the success of the series before the world comes to its senses, CBS has already slated the next set of episodes for the Australian outback. But rather than place the next crew of “castaways” among the kangaroos, the CBS team might consider an alternate location--Silicon Valley.

In all seriousness, the Valley entrepreneurial experience is about living on the brink of elimination, and although the rise from a few guys and a good idea to a working business is never just a smooth climb to success and riches, the payoffs in the Valley game can also be more than just a million bucks and a new car. Witness Lara Networks, a company with a story of perseverance and unexpected twists and turns that might be worthy of its own TV series. This is “Survivor, Valley style” - only it also happens to be a story much more worthwhile for the rest of the world.

In 1996, Jayan Ramankutty, Ajit Medhekar and Kamal Gunsagar -- all former colleagues at Alliance Semiconductor -- got together to build a company. They brought extensive domain experience within the many facets of the semiconductor business, as well as a substantial network of industry contacts. They understood startups and their experience with Alliance, which went public in 1993, had been a rewarding one. They also had what they were convinced was the all-important good idea.

The idea, according to co-founder Ajit Medhekar, was based on the fact that “the networking industry was the next industry about to be ‘siliconized.’” He explains, “The technology [in the networking industry] was based on software. Companies were building from off-the-shelf semiconductor components and then putting great software in.” It was clear to the founders of Lara that this technology would only go so far, so they set about conceptualizing a product that could more effectively do the all-important “decision making” for IP packets traveling across the network.

The answer was in what is termed a “search engine” -- nothing to do with the algorithms and colorful links of Yahoo or Google, but rather a chip that instantaneously determines where an IP packet is coming from and where it needs to go. The core technology, CAM (content addressable memories), was one that had been around in the memory world for a long time without ever finding its real killer application. CAM technology would allow the Lara search engine to take information about an IP packet and compare it, instantaneously and simultaneously, with stored information so as to immediately understand what the packet is and where it needs to go.