Arista’s Co-Founder Has Sold About $668 Million of Stock Since May
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Andreas Bechtolsheim sold 260,000 shares of Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET | ANET Price Prediction) on November 5, 2026, at a weighted average price of about $165.45, for roughly $43.0 million. The Form 4 reporting the sale was accepted on November 9 at 7:06 p.m. ET.
Arista lists Bechtolsheim as its Founder and Chief Architect. This was his 14th sale since May 22, 2026. By our count, the 14 sales total 3,784,740 shares for about $668.2 million, averaging about $176.56 a share.
Arista fell 10.82% to $159.16 on November 5 as the AI selloff spread from chip stocks to networking names. It then closed at $170.80 on November 6 and $186.17 on November 9. By our count, that is a 17.0% gain in two sessions.
A founder continues selling while the stock rebounds, so shareholders will ask whether the selling says anything about the stock. The filings suggest it says very little.
What the November 5 Filing Covers
Every sale ran under a Rule 10b5-1 trading plan that Bechtolsheim entered into on February 20, 2026. A 10b5-1 plan is a written schedule, set in advance, that tells a broker when to sell. That schedule was set months before the November selloff, so the timing of the sale shows nothing about how he viewed the drop.
The sale was split into 14 lots at prices from $158.35 to $171.5475. After the sale, his family trust, of which he is a trustee, held 180,015,156 shares. The filings do not show how many shares remain under the plan or when it ends.
Fourteen Sales Leave His Stake Largely Intact
By our count, the 14 sales add up to about 2% of his stake. The trust’s shares were worth about $33.5 billion at the November 9 close, roughly 14% of Arista’s market value.
His largest sale came on August 6: 411,848 shares at $192.75, about $79.4 million. That total included his last 111,848 directly held shares and 300,000 trust shares. The June 4 filing shows him exercising 158,000 old stock options at $14 to $15 a share. When a founder holds most of his wealth in one stock, selling small slices on a fixed schedule is ordinary diversification.
At the November 9 close, the shares he sold on November 5 would have been worth about $48.4 million. That is $5.4 million more than he received, but the gap is hypothetical math on a sale the plan scheduled months earlier.
His October 30 sale of 267,892 shares at $171.19, about $45.9 million, came on a day Arista fell 8.34%. The gaps between his sales have ranged from a few days to about six weeks, which looks like a preset calendar.
The extra shares hitting the market are modest. A $43.0 million sale is small next to a company valued at $235.28 billion.
What the Insider Sales Mean for ANET Shareholders
The filings point to routine diversification. The sales follow a schedule set in advance; his trust still owns about 14% of the company, and the business reported its largest ever year-over-year revenue growth as a public company.
On November 3, Arista reported adjusted EPS of $1.20 against a $1.08 consensus. It also guided fiscal 2027 revenue to about $18.5 billion, above the $16.44 billion consensus. CEO Jayshree Ullal said the quarter “marks our largest ever year-over-year revenue growth in the history of being a public company.”
The main risk is valuation. The stock trades at 67 times earnings and sits below its 52-week high of $217.41, so it can still swing sharply on AI sentiment.
The next Form 4 is what to watch. A sale outside the February 20 plan, a change to the plan, or a sharp increase in the pace of selling would change this view. So would a close below the November 5 level of $159.16.
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Omor Ibne Ehsan is a writer at 24/7 Wall St. He is a self-taught investor with a focus on growth, cyclical, and dividend equities that have strong fundamentals, value, and long-term potential. He also has an interest in high-risk, high-reward investments such as penny stocks.
