Deshpande started his career at
Codex Corporation, a
Motorola subsidiary located in Ontario, Canada which manufactured
modems, before moving to the U.S. in 1984. Later, he co-founded Coral Networks, a router developer. He left the company prior to its sale in 1993 to SynOptics. He sold the company for $15 million. Deshpande knew Peter Brackett PhD, a professor of electrical engineering at Queen's university in Ontario for a few years in between industry positions. Brackett offered Deshpande a job at Codex. Brackett also sponsored him for Canadian residency. In 1990, Deshpande co-founded
Cascade Communications, whose products were important in routing the early internet, initially as its president and later executive vice president; he hired Dan Smith as CEO. He sold Cascade to
Ascend Communications for $3.7 billion in 1997. Subsequently, with the help of MIT researchers, he launched
Sycamore Networks in 1998. Sycamore Networks went public in October 1999, and raised a market cap of $18 billion. With his 21% shareholding in hand, this IPO made Deshpande one of the wealthiest self-made businessmen in the world. In 2000, he was featured on the
Forbes 400 listing of Richest Americans. He is also chairman of
A123Systems, which manufactures high-power
lithium-ion batteries, which went on
NASDAQ in October 2009, and raised $438 million and trading at a 50% premium on the day of listing. == Philanthropy ==