Is he as bad in front of customers as he is in internal meetings?
15 replies (most recent on top)
Chambers was great until he wasn't.
He stayed a decade too long and wasted time, money, and energy on marketing programs instead of putting sufficient investment behind new market disruptions that would have provided Cisco with a second wave of growth.
Instead, the company has just been managing its decline for decades.
Folks, please. Say anything about Robbins but don't you dare criticize Uncle Chambers! His great vision is what led Cisco to where it is now. Think of all the marvelous acquisitions he completed!
Last Chuck thread got deleted.
JC had no charisma either. Twitchy and word salad.
Chuck's path to CEO was through partner sales. He didn't even have to sell to customers. His primary responsibility was ensuring the partners showered him with lavish gifts for handing the business to the partners.
Ave Imperator Chuck.
Worst CEO in Silicon Valley
I think he has psychopathic tendencies with a personality disorder, possibly Borderline, histrionic or narcissistic personality disorder, without knowing him personally it’s hard to be certain but he has a blend of those three. You can tell how he talks about himself. He fires anyone who remotely questions him, even in constructive ways - classic NPD disorder symptoms. I don’t wish him any harm but he is definitely on the spectrum. He should have got no higher than a SVP. CEO requires more gravitas, empathy and charisma and a willingness to listen to employees and customers. JC was useless too but he did have a lot of charisma and this helped Cisco.
Yes, yes he is. And, in my experience, badly prepared. I arranged for him to meet the CEO of my (non-US) customer. I was asked to travel in the car with CR to the meeting. He had not read any of the material that had been submitted in advance and I was having to provide basic details about the company and the person we were meeting. That lack of preparation showed through during the meeting, it came across as “I’m too important to be talking with you”. This is a company that is bigger than Cisco on nearly every financial metric.
Fortunately, I had a good, long-standing, relationship with the CEO and we were able to move on but he did say to me “never again”. As far as he was concerned he was just another logo to put on CR’s travel itinerary.
Technically CR's customer would be pension funds & wall street. Convincing wall street to buy csco
Our competitors CEO's are technical and customers benefit from meeting with them vs Cisco's used car salesman CEO
My fortune 100 customer called him an empty suit and refuses to meet with him as waste of time
His charisma is deteriorating with age. Have you seen JC lately? It's not pretty... think Rudy Giuliani
Just sh-t chuck the topic
What a lame topic.