He always seemed like a cookie cutter empty suit Cisco executive. How did he win out against all the others?
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I'm sure glad shareholders were paying Chuck all of that money because he promised them growth despite never really having any chance to deliver it.
Can you provide a copy of that promise along with citations? Sometimes the job is to wring as much value out of a dying property as possible.
Chuck doubled the stock from 25 to 50 in far less time than it went under 50 and ending at 25 under Chambers where it bounced between the teens and mid 30s along the way. Add in the dividend, Cisco's returns haven't been super, but they're no where near the worst performance in the market either. In a profit every quarter world that growth wasn't built on sustainable principles so without major changes I expect an ultimate reversal.
As any real creationist capitalist will tell you, survival of the fittest is the only way a system can thrive. The fact is that companies from IBM to Eastman Kodak are producing far better operating margins than many of Cisco's competitors is telling.
"Cisco is what it is, and while it could have executed better it was never likely to create a major new technology that changed the world."
I'm sure glad shareholders were paying Chuck all of that money because he promised them growth despite never really having any chance to deliver it.
Cisco needed someone in the CEO job that would find the next major growth market or two for the company.
Cisco is a company with no development skills, massive revenues and a high operating margin. They rely largely on partners for the vast majority of their customers. "Major growth" over $58B in revenue is a huge lift.
Cisco isn't magically developing something with direct interaction with hundreds of millions to billions of customers like the biggest tech giants. They aren't taking on "free" services like Zoom started with, and while Zoom is now seeing massive earnings growth, if you take out the COVID years the revenue growth curve quickly moves downward starting at the beginning. Cisco has no application level services like IBM and Oracle, both of whom have only taken tiny single digit percentages of cloud.
Cisco is what it is, and while it could have executed better it was never likely to create a major new technology that changed the world. Note that they didn't even create their first product, they walked off with it from Stanford.
Chambers and Chuck are very different.
Chambers had the charm to make people feel good about his lies and he drove the stock from $82 to $25. He also wasted time and money on a lot of failed products in markets which would never produce the kinds of returns Cisco needed to support its stock price.
Chambers did layoffs out of necessity...
It wasn't a "necessity" to have layoffs every quarter even when revenues were increasing which he did for many years from 2001 to his departure in 2015. It wasn't a necessity that a BILLIONAIRE get a bonus he completely failed to qualify for and for us to take another day of forced vacation to pay for because he "believes in accountability."
I predict a monumental class action HR lawsuit on the horizon. ...money stolen from our people.
First, they're not "our" people. Cisco has a large law staff to insure the layoffs meet legal standards. You are alleging theft. Prove it to a legal standard.
I'd happily see my stock price go down for a while, treat people well again, and get this company back on track.
Second, it's not "my [your]" stock price. For two decades Chambers cast the die for a company that cannot develop and therefore has to acquire. Trashing the stock price and sticking with the current set of employees will do nothing to change that and as the golden handcuffs rust the top performers will move on.
Find a kid in elementary school to try to explain the story of The Scorpion and the Frog. Hint: Cisco is the scorpion, and its nature was defined long before Chuck became CEO.
Chambers and Chuck are very different. Chambers did layoffs out of necessity and hated, just hated doing them!!!! He cared about people! Chuck does LRs to drive profit and avoid paying out stock options. He drives the LR culture along with Fran by his side. He doesn't care about our people but he loves to pretend he does and always has a spin on things. Although Cisco needed someone who could take us into new markets like Cloud, Subscription, and Renewals, too bad we didn't find someone ethical like Chambers.
When enough ex-employees come together and bring out the truth about what has been going on, I predict a monumental class action HR lawsuit on the horizon. Just add up all their lost stock options, and that's an easy $ figure to compute and lot of money stolen from our people.
I'd happily see my stock price go down for a while, treat people well again, and get this company back on track.
this board has plenty of intelligent people i would consider them as CEO
just too bad they had to go for a sale rep as CEO
the Karma time finally has arrived
most of these guys on the customer calls don't even know what they are talking about.
When Chambers retired, it was clear then that the growth phase of the legacy networking business was over. Cisco needed someone in the CEO job that would find the next major growth market or two for the company.
The Board hired what they knew - another sales guy that acted and sounded like Chambers. Unfortunately for employees, Chuck never found the company's next growth market so Cisco is now just in managed decline, making decisions through the lens of cost reduction, for the rest of its lifetime.
Stock on 10/1/2002 closed at $11.18?
Broadcom was not lying, i was one of the very females working with broadcom chipset for one of the networking startups 20 years ago, directly 2 years out of college.
"It's inadequate to compare Apple with anyone from 2000 on. Try again."
SYSCO - 1/7/2000 - 19.44
SYSCO - 2/6/2024 - 80.96
CSCO - 1/14/2000 - 53.78
CSCO - 2/6/2024. - 50.39
Cisco was 270 Billion market value in 2000...
It actually peaked around $550B on March 27, 2000.
As noted in a post from a few hours ago that was deleted, Broadcom started by making chips for Scientific Atlanta which was eventually bought by Cisco, claims that 99% of internet traffic passes through one of their chips and they now have a market value of $570B.
Only Amazon and Monster Bev stock have performed better. Everyone else is in the rearview mirror to Apple over the last 30 years.
It's inadequate to compare Apple with anyone from 2000 on. Try again.
Cisco was 270 Billion market value in 2000, Apple was 4.3 Billion Market Value in 2000
see where it is Cisco and Apple today as far as market value goes, that's how you know if you have happy investors or not
Today Cisco Market value is 200 billion and Apple Market value is 3 trillion, apple is at 3,000 billion from 4.3 billion that is about 70,000% growth in Apple and Cisco has been losing market value 25%-30% within last 23 years.
The board fell short by choosing someone with narcissistic behaviors which actually create a positive impression
Narcissists with their need for admiration and lack of empathy are impulsive and uncollaborative which are not desirable CEO traits
Narcissists don’t like to give others credit and when asked to describe an accomplishment made by a team you will hear how they steered the entire process to victory
Chambers took Cisco from $82 to $25 over 15 years and Chuck took it from $25 to $50 in four years where aside of significant COVID dips it remains. Revenues from October 2013 for a year and a half were down under Chambers. Chambers also tried a lot of bizarre failed consumer products. Neither could transform the company from an acquisition company to a development company and with 30 years of acquisitions its unlikely anyone could change it now. Chuck's only deficit compared to Chambers is a complete lack of charisma.
I'm betting the best talent would rather serve as a VP in heaven taking in stock that doubles frequently to ruling in he-l so you have to take what you can get.
He was SVP of Field Operations. AG was SVP of Sales
He expected to be heir to the throne, but when JC did not select them, they left the company shortly after. CR was a SVP in Sales at the time & I think even he was surprised to get the CEO role.
best person for the job
Rest of the clowns interviewing were clearly power hungry egotists and could not be trusted AT ALL. CR was the lesser of the evils. At the time he was the one I could trust the most to take the helm. Thinking SJC life must have messed him up badly.
It could've been age related. He was much younger than the oldsters who expected to be heir to the throne, but when JC did not select them, they left the company shortly after. CR was a SVP in Sales at the time & I think even he was surprised to get the CEO role.
CEOs should be clowns since they’re public facing. People directly underneath him would be feeding him information to sell it out to the public. In this case with Cisco looks like chuckie has bunch of unqualified ELTs are taking advantage of him instead of helping him.