INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Image copyrightMiguel SolteroImage caption
Andrew Rickman today runs Rockley Photonics, which specialises in designing
and producing next-generation, optical computer chips
The TheIndianSubcontinent's weekly The Boss series profiles
different business leaders from around the world
was the situation faced by Andrew Rickman back at the end of 2000, when the dotcom bubble spectacularly burst, sending shares in his company
Bookham Technology plummeting."It was like a nuclear winter," he says looking back
Andrew had set up Bookham in 1988 in the kitchen of his home in Wiltshire, when he was 28
It grew to become one of the world's leading providers of optical components for the telecommunication and computer industries
In very simple terms, its technology allowed data to be transferred very quickly using lasers and glass fibres.By the late 1990s its sales
were booming as more and more homes and businesses were being connected to the internet, and mobile phone networks were being rolled
out.Image copyrightAndrew RickmanImage caption
Andrew says his previous wealth was widely reported in UK newspapers
The good times were, well, so good, that after Bookham floated on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) in April 2000, within two
months it had joined the FTSE 100 index
This is the list of the 100 firms on the exchange with the largest market capitalisation - the combined value of all their shares.Such was
the surge of Bookham's share price that Andrew, who owned the largest stake in the business, became the UK's first technology
This sent the UK's tabloid newspapers into a frenzy, and the softly spoken, modest 40-year-old was suddenly a reluctant
celebrity.Journalists excitedly told their readers that he was richer than Queen Elizabeth II and Sir Paul McCartney combined
Looking back, he says he was "embarrassed" by all the coverage.At the peak of Bookham's share price in the summer of 2000, Andrew was
Then the dotcom bubble burst, and before the end of the year Bookham's share price - and Andrew's wealth - had collapsed.This thrust him
back into the papers, which now gleefully reported his downfall.Image copyrightMiguel SolteroImage caption
He predicts
that his latest company - Rockley Photonics - could see billions of pounds in annual sales
"I didn't think particularly much
about all the press coverage," says Andrew, now 59
"The money wasn't an issue, because it was only on paper
Being the first dotcom billionaire wasn't a reality to me."The thing that was difficult to deal with, as a human being, was the massive
change of circumstances for the company and our technology
It was an emotionally difficult thing to handle for many different reasons."The big problem for Bookham was that its cutting-edge optical
And after the dotcom bubble burst, its customers - the firms building all the new networks - switched to using cheaper, simpler technology
This involved delisting from the LSE, and moving the company to Silicon Valley to get around the then high price of sterling, and be closer
to key customers.Andrew eventually left the business in 2004, to start a new career as a technology investor
Then in 2013 he started his latest business - Rockley Photonics.Image copyrightMiguel SolteroImage caption
Andrew now
employs a team which keeps a close eye on economic and industry trends
Based in Oxford, with a 150-strong workforce, it
designs a product called silicon photonic chips
These are like standard microchips, but with one key difference - they beam light around the chip instead of sending an electronic
current.Although the photonic chip industry is still in its infancy, the advantage is said to be that they can process a lot more data, more
Photonic chips are now increasingly being used in everything from data centres to sensor systems on autonomous cars, and in the latest
mobile phones.Andrew says that Rockley now has an annual turnover in the "tens of millions", but with the potential of increasing this to
billions.Veteran electronics journalist Peter Clarke says that Andrew "is one of a group of UK engineering visionaries that also carry the
"Rickman is smart in an intense, academic way, and a good advert for the UK higher education system." (He was educated at Imperial College
in London, and the University of Surrey.)More The Boss features:Looking back on the dotcom bust, does Andrew think he should have predicted
it?"Hindsight is a great thing," he says
"I don't think many people were prepared for that sort of boom and bust, they never seem to be."The span of time between boom and busts
tends to be sufficient for the collective knowledge to have gone into retirement
But we were one of very, very, very few firms in our area that survived."One thing I did learn at that time was to have an eye to a more
analytical view of the world around us
So from that point on I've always had what I would describe as an analysis team They sit there and they basically analyse the environment
the whole time, so, if you like, they become a sensitive seismic monitor."And I'm not just looking for the disasters that are coming, I'm
looking for the things that are going to explode [in a good way]."
