Bob Burnett made his money by funding Cisco. Retired as a billionaire in Berkeley and was socially and politically active.
He joined Xamplify as an investor and was involved in its management.
One day, Ellen our secretary was going to be late. She asked me to prepare coffee for the management who were holding the meeting early in the morning around 7 to 7:30 AM. Instructions for the coffee making were very simple.
Bob’s favorite was from a store in San Francisco. Luckily the coffee grind was already bought and stored.
At the meeting I presented the coffee. Instead of putting one small jar of coffee in the entire coffee machine, I put 2 jar.
After a few minutes I was called. Bob wanted to know who prepared the coffee. I went to him not knowing what to expect. He congratulated me in front of others saying I made great coffee.
From that day he knew me. Earlier he used to pass me like other executives but now when he would pass he will nod accepting my presence.
One day it was my birthday. Ellen brought a cake for me. I was a vegan (am still) and couldn’t eat that. Others didn’t care and they started eating pieces of the cake. Bub Burnett was passing by. He asked us what was the matter. When told, he understood, since his daughter was a vegetarian. He asked people to get a vegan cake from Berkeley Wholefoods.
Later when I was fighting the company for fair wages, thought he would help me. But no help came. I was very angry, on my site wrote nasty thing about him. I also knew his daughter’s name and wrote on the website how hypocritical he was in a virtual letter address to her. One day my answering machine had a message from a woman, saying that she was Burnett’s daughter and his father was not like I described in the website.
Now I think I should have never targeted family. I apologize for my behavior.