Sandy Lerner

Routers for the internet. Lerner and her then husband Leonard Bosack, who ran computer networks in different Stanford departments, co-founded Cisco in 1984 to sell multi-protocol routers that let incompatible networks talk to each other. Cisco's routers became the backbone equipment of the growing internet. Professional managers brought in by venture investors forced her out in 1990, and Bosack left with her. She later founded the cosmetics brand Urban Decay.