Chen, who has especially keen insight into the fiber-optic communications market, has founded 13 companies since 1985. When Cisco purchased one of them, Ardent, for US $ 156 million only nine months after the company was established in 1996, financial markets lauded Ardent's management for generating such large returns in such a short time.
對光纖通訊市場眼光獨具的陳五福，自 1985 年創業以來，一共創立了 13 家公司，其中 1996 年創立的 Ardent，9 個月後被思科以 1.56 億美元併購，被金融市場譽為「最短時間創造最高回收」的交易。