Cisco used to make the best networking gear. What happened? Outsourcing, MBAs/sales guys running the place, commodification, rock star engineers more interested in newer areas of technology, innovators dilemma?
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Understand this, most networking companies are not doing great. It is how industry has become in this segment. Do you care about the companies that makes transformers or electric bulbs?
You do need them, but do people yearn to work for those companies? Cisco is in that state from the segment it is in. The software thing in Cisco is a joke. Cisco is a hell hole for anyone. I was also a new hire out of college and joined this rotten to the bone gutter. Trying to worry about 3% raise and not getting laid off was all that we mostly worried about. And this is when I was in the hottest BUs. Culture is sh–ty, talent except few very good people is not just subpar but worse than 3rd rated. Silicon valley is cut throat, if you have a horrible culture with low pay and non hot domain, only losers will want to work for you. Yes I repeat, losers. Or those, who want to just glide and want the paycheck coming and don't care about skills or this next job or for doing anything real or meaty. Until I switched 2 jobs after Cisco, all I felt was ashamed of myself. It is a black spot to even have it on resume. There are only 2 professional regrets I have life - Why did I join this filthy place? And why did I stay for good number of years. And I am an immigrant, at least I was lucky that my green card process was at least rolling, for many others it is constant f— because of layoffs. I do not even feel pity anymore for anyone who joins Cisco. IF they are experienced and want to get entrapped into this sh–, they probably deserve it or are outright lazy.
What do you expect from a leadership team of salesmen?
JC definitely ruined the company. But why didn’t CR focus on technology? I know he’s not a technical person. But did he have a plan all along to cash out around now? Rearranging deck chairs eventually runs out as an option.
Cisco transformed into a bureaucratic company focused on stock buybacks and dividends. Products, Services, and Technology never mattered internally. The culture is broken.
Any mention of the present technology environment gets you sidelined or fired.