YouSaid · the spoken record

Jeetu Patel

lines on the record: 107
first: 2026-02-26
most recent: 2026-02-26
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Can listeners be useful to me if there is, I would say that if you got something out of this session and if you get something out of whatever you learn from social media, Bay it forward and help the next person out a little bit more yesterday I was at a talk and someone pulled me aside and said hey I saw your LinkedIn post about this don't be stingy with words and G2 since then I've been going to see my parents once every two months or so in India and when I see them I tell them that I love them all the time Literally What could be more rewarding to me than that? It was amazing that they were able to go out and have joy brought to their lives as a result of something they got inspired by something that I learned in my life.”
2026-02-26 · Lenny's Podcast · AI is critical for humanity’s survival: Cisco president on the AI revolution | Jeetu Patel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You can find me is I tend to a lot of people will ask the more. Success you encounter, the more people Want to get mentored by you and learn from the experiences you've had. And I have run out of cycles to be able to do that on a one-on-one basis. So what I try to do is do a lot of that on LinkedIn and Twitter, but largely I do a lot of that on LinkedIn. And so find me on LinkedIn. I tend to be very open about not just the work stuff, but the non-work stuff to do that. How can people be useful to me? Was that the question? What was the last question?”
2026-02-26 · Lenny's Podcast · AI is critical for humanity’s survival: Cisco president on the AI revolution | Jeetu Patel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Work in hospitality for a while in the younger years. And I'm kind of sad that my daughter has no interest in doing that because I'm like, I wish she just worked as a waitress somewhere for a bit. And it's just so important to just, there's so many lessons on, you know, I clean toilets at the restaurant. I actually wash dishes. I actually waited on tables. And it was... Was the best experience I had. It shaped me for what was to come in the most profound way.”
2026-02-26 · Lenny's Podcast · AI is critical for humanity’s survival: Cisco president on the AI revolution | Jeetu Patel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, they used to have this Malibu chicken dish. It was like magic. And then. It was probably about, I don't know if people know this, and I know this is rapid fire, but I used to stutter. When I started working at Sizzler, and Sizzler is what allowed me to Break out of my shell and not stutter because something changed in my brain. I'm like, I have to entertain people. And if I don't, then they're not going to give me a good tip. And so the stuttering went away at Sizzler. And so I have an immense debt of gratitude. And I think everyone.”
2026-02-26 · Lenny's Podcast · AI is critical for humanity’s survival: Cisco president on the AI revolution | Jeetu Patel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Stamina Trumps intellect. I feel like it's very important to have smart people, but you can become smart. You have curiosity and hunger and staying power and persistence. And so I think that trait of learning to learn and constantly being hungry and having the stamina and persistence is far more important than the absolute measure of intellect that you might. Hunger is very, it's not teachable, is what I've found.”
2026-02-26 · Lenny's Podcast · AI is critical for humanity’s survival: Cisco president on the AI revolution | Jeetu Patel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Most people don't realize I fundamentally believe this is the reason that I'm able to enjoy some of the experiences I have. I was lucky enough that I'd made enough money before this job, that was not the thing that was actually holding us back. But the reason I'm able to experience some of the things that this job afforded me to experience would have not even been remotely possible without AI, like no chance that would have happened.”
2026-02-26 · Lenny's Podcast · AI is critical for humanity’s survival: Cisco president on the AI revolution | Jeetu Patel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I mean, it's cliche, but I feel like what ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude have done, it's changed lives. It's changed my life and the way that I learn in some ridiculous ways. So I actually feel like when I got this new job to run all product for Cisco, there is zero chance I would have been able to do it if AI wasn't there. Because I didn't know anything about so many domains that we were in. I had to get an accelerated training course within a matter of three months. And I mean, I worked around the clock during that time, but I could have worked around the clock without the tooling and I would have been nowhere near as effective. So I feel like those three have done an amazing thing. And Grock, even what you're seeing with Grok tied to Twitter is pretty amazing.”
2026-02-26 · Lenny's Podcast · AI is critical for humanity’s survival: Cisco president on the AI revolution | Jeetu Patel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Zach Brown is a good friend of mine and big supporters of McLaren. And so it was actually pretty cool to watch that movie.”
2026-02-26 · Lenny's Podcast · AI is critical for humanity’s survival: Cisco president on the AI revolution | Jeetu Patel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Bible in tech in my mind is innovator's dilemma and innovator solutions from Clayton Christensen. I think you have to read that book. And I'd say I'd recommend to people that read it every few years. And then the other one that I love is Ben Horowitz's book, Hard Thing About Hard Things, really talks about how you manage your psychology when things get hard. I think those are the ones. I'm not a big believer that you keep reading thousands of books all the time because I think to me retention really matters My brain's just not that big that I can retain that much. So I tend to. Distill the essence of a few things quite a bit more. At least the older I've gotten, I've actually used that pattern more.”
2026-02-26 · Lenny's Podcast · AI is critical for humanity’s survival: Cisco president on the AI revolution | Jeetu Patel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Experience Lenny can jade us, right? And I always, when people say, Oh, entry level people will never be hired again. That's the stupidest thing a company can do because now what you've done is you have completely shut the door to new fresh ideas. I cannot think today the way I thought when I was 19. There is just no way that I can do that. But what I can try to do is I can try to make sure I surround myself for enough amount of my time to get exposed to that thinking and then couple it with what I know and maybe have something better than what either of those two could have had by themselves.”
2026-02-26 · Lenny's Podcast · AI is critical for humanity’s survival: Cisco president on the AI revolution | Jeetu Patel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Inexperience is what creates the magic because the inexperience allows you to ask questions that you might have never had with experience. And the combo of those two gives you the best of the pattern recognition, plus the charting new territory that's never been kind of walked on before.”
2026-02-26 · Lenny's Podcast · AI is critical for humanity’s survival: Cisco president on the AI revolution | Jeetu Patel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The other thing you have to keep in mind is you have to also be good enough to know that when something is going to be ready in six months, you can't think about where it's doing today. Like AI is moving so fast right now. Like one of the things I tell my team is fast forward six months from now and anticipate what that's going to do and get prepared for that world. Don't get prepared for the world of today thinking that you're not going to be able to get there. Because in six months, your assumption sets are going to be different. And please don't actually then bias yourself with the assumption sets you have right now to not move forward. Like one of the worst things I think companies do sometimes is they put too much emphasis only solely on experience. And I think experience is good, but experience can actually be meaningfully bad in some areas where you get too biased. And so you almost have to say that I have to have the ability to unlearn. And combination of experience with complete”
2026-02-26 · Lenny's Podcast · AI is critical for humanity’s survival: Cisco president on the AI revolution | Jeetu Patel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Steve Jobs put away the iPad because he thought that the iPhone was a better idea. And timing wise, he actually made exactly the right call. You know, the iPad became successful because of the iPhone success. The reverse order might have not had the same effect, but he had to make sure that he focused on one thing and he actually put the other, he said, the timing's not right, but I'm going to get back to it. By the way, when timing is wrong, it doesn't mean that you scrap the idea. It just means that you might put it on ice for a bit.”
2026-02-26 · Lenny's Podcast · AI is critical for humanity’s survival: Cisco president on the AI revolution | Jeetu Patel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, Brook 3 was the one that I actually cite all the time. I couldn't understand what. Would it be, and like all of these people were kind of like, oh, Web3, web three. I'm like, I couldn't make a heads of tails out of a use case. But with AI, it's like you go to chat GPT, you ask it a question, you get an answer. Like, I get this. This is easy, you know.”
2026-02-26 · Lenny's Podcast · AI is critical for humanity’s survival: Cisco president on the AI revolution | Jeetu Patel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“AI is a megatrend in my mind. And there's a bunch of hype cycles we've had where I don't, I did never particularly subscribe to them. And the easiest way for me to tell is... The way it's described is it easy to understand what this could do in its ultimate form for most people? Or do you need to have a PhD to understand what someone's saying? When you feel like you need a PhD to understand what someone's saying, chances are it ain't going to be a mega form. Large population of the world, and if the thing is too complicated. Chances are it's not going to have that level of effect, outsize effect.”
2026-02-26 · Lenny's Podcast · AI is critical for humanity’s survival: Cisco president on the AI revolution | Jeetu Patel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's actually exactly like that. I will ask myself the question is this the right time for us to go out and double, triple, quadruple down? We might still be in experimentation mode, but do I need to double down on this right now because this might not manifest for another seven years and then it's going to be too early? And by the way, you have to know the difference between a mega trend and hype cycle. When there's a mega trend, don't fight it and don't succumb to the temptation of trying to go out and do vanity work for a hype cycle. And there's a big difference between the two. And I think having that judgment, the older you get, the better that judgment gets. It's just miles. But having the judgment is really important because you see a pattern recognition at some point.”
2026-02-26 · Lenny's Podcast · AI is critical for humanity’s survival: Cisco president on the AI revolution | Jeetu Patel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Market, market, Trump's team, Team Trump's product, product Trump's brand, brand Trump's distribution. You don't have all six, you don't win”
2026-02-26 · Lenny's Podcast · AI is critical for humanity’s survival: Cisco president on the AI revolution | Jeetu Patel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Product as a soul of a company. That's the place where people seek value what are you delivering to me? What problem are you solving to me? Gets manifested through the delivery of a product. So you have to make sure that you build a great product. I actually think it's unethical to have a mediocre product sold in the market. So timing, market team product number five is brand. I had a mentor one time that told me, Mark Lewis, he said, G3, don't ever go to a company who's lost their brand Mojo because it's very hard to resurrect it back. If they have lost their product and you can fix the product, but do you think SciBase is coming back? No. Once you lose your brand and once you lose the trust, people don't come back to you that much. It's very hard to do. And then number six is distribution. Just because you build it, they will not come. You have to make sure that you figure out a scaled mechanism of getting that offering to many, many people. And so timing trumps.”
2026-02-26 · Lenny's Podcast · AI is critical for humanity’s survival: Cisco president on the AI revolution | Jeetu Patel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Someone else is really good at, and you've both accepted that of each other. Like, for example, I have a person that I never go to another job without, and she is my partner in crime. And the reason I have her is because she is so good at things that I'm not good at. And so she's able to, so any job I've taken since I've been working with her, it's always a combined deal. Like if we don't have two offers, we don't go. And so team is really important, a well-rounded team where people understand how to complement each other. And by the way, in the team, sometimes people say, well, isn't team more important than market? No. If you have a great market mediocre team, the market pulls you up. If you have a shitty market and a great team, the market drags you down. The market always wins. So no, timing, market team. Number four is product. I think...”
2026-02-26 · Lenny's Podcast · AI is critical for humanity’s survival: Cisco president on the AI revolution | Jeetu Patel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Tends to be the second most important thing in my mind after timing. The third one, then, is team. You have to have the right team, and the team does not mean just people liking each other, team means that it is actually well-rounded. That means the things that you...”
2026-02-26 · Lenny's Podcast · AI is critical for humanity’s survival: Cisco president on the AI revolution | Jeetu Patel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There's a six part framework that I have, which is like, you know, in descending order of importance. How to build great companies. This is You get it for free, you get what you pay for it. So take it with a grain of salt. But here's the way I think about it. The most important thing is timing. There's six things you need in a company. If you don't have all these six, you don't win. But they're stack ranked in descending order of importance. But you have to have all six. Number one is timing. It's the most important. It's the thing that you control the least. And there's a lot of companies that have built amazing products, amazing services at the wrong time, in the right market, and not one, right? And so timing really matters. You don't control timing. But if you don't have timing, you don't win. Number two is the market. You have to be able to go after a large enough market, a chunk at a time. And if you don't, if you're not able to go out and prosecute a market a chunk at a time, but make sure that that keeps getting bigger and bigger, it's very hard to win. So market.”
2026-02-26 · Lenny's Podcast · AI is critical for humanity’s survival: Cisco president on the AI revolution | Jeetu Patel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“People that you share it with actually appreciate that you're sharing it with them, and most people in the world love to help. So ask for the help, but make sure that that help is not transactional. And don't just go to them when you need something. Actually try to add value first for a long enough amount of time. Not because at some point you might need something from them. Just hardwire yourself into adding value to others and then eventually that value starts showing up. And life's just a better way to live life. And I do feel like right now it's hard for kids getting into the workforce and all of that. Don't lose hope and stay persistent and have stamina because these things go up and down. But if you kind of stick with it, the people that have the most amount of persistence, it's very seldom that they don't end up winning.”
2026-02-26 · Lenny's Podcast · AI is critical for humanity’s survival: Cisco president on the AI revolution | Jeetu Patel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“In tech of having great friends and mentors, all of those things created compounding value, right? But I intentionally sought out those platforms. Seek out the platform. Obsessed about being extremely prepared and don't be intellectually lazy. Laziness is not a good trait. So do the preparation that's needed. And then just make sure that during that time period that you're doing, if you A community around you of people that are vested in your success. Think it's just life is just a more fun way to live it rather than being the lone wolf that's going out of by themselves. And that's why I always feel like making sure that you are expressive and communicative and don't try to carry the entire world's burden on your shoulders, but actually share it with people with you.”
2026-02-26 · Lenny's Podcast · AI is critical for humanity’s survival: Cisco president on the AI revolution | Jeetu Patel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And I'm thinking to myself, I was a box at the time. I'm like, this guy is smarter than every person on the executive team and probably just as smart as every salesperson we have, but he's making $10 a day. All of us are enjoying this amazing life, and it's because we have access to a platform and he doesn't. When people start confusing life thinking that everything that I've earned is because of my amazing abilities, I always kind of question that because there's a lot of luck in this thing. When Locke does present itself, be extremely prepared to capitalize on it. And make sure that you pick the platform that can actually give you that springboard because platforms really matter. And if we, like I had the platform, Being”
2026-02-26 · Lenny's Podcast · AI is critical for humanity’s survival: Cisco president on the AI revolution | Jeetu Patel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“All these people, and he would just start talking to them and he'd bust out in different languages. He'd talk to someone in German, talk to someone in French, someone in Spanish, someone in Hindi, someone in, you know, at some point in time in Mandarin. And so at some point in time, I kind of stopped, dude, how many languages do you speak? He's like, oh, I speak like, I don't know, 12 or 14 or something ridiculous number. But I tried to learn a new language every year. Like, oh, why's that? And he goes, Well, I just want to honor the people that come here and not be presumptuous that they will speak the language that I know. I want to speak in their language.”
2026-02-26 · Lenny's Podcast · AI is critical for humanity’s survival: Cisco president on the AI revolution | Jeetu Patel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“For whatever reason, I hadn't gone back. I took my daughter and we went to Agra to see the Taj Mahal, and we went there. And there was this tour guide. His name was Raj. The store guide was like he understood so much about the product that he was selling, which was the tour of the Taj Mahal. I don't know if he was making this shit up or not, but it sounded really good. And he seemed like he was kind of early on it. But when we were walking back.”
2026-02-26 · Lenny's Podcast · AI is critical for humanity’s survival: Cisco president on the AI revolution | Jeetu Patel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Find what you're intrinsically hungry about and make sure that you try to pursue that area. And that's different from passion about something. It's like, in everything that you do in work, you have to just understand the formula that there is going to be 30% of the stuff that you do at work that you're just going to hate. And you have to get used to things that you hate that you have to do. But find something that you're really hungry about that makes you want to come in. To work every day because the mission is worth the expenditure of energy that you're putting into it. Leave you with a story which was like I hadn't gone to India in a long time when I left India. I didn't go back. I left in 1991 and I hadn't gone back in any kind of meaningful way until 2017 because of all the trauma and childhood I was like, you know, I was.”
2026-02-26 · Lenny's Podcast · AI is critical for humanity’s survival: Cisco president on the AI revolution | Jeetu Patel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The problems that are hard and important enough to solve, then you get the best team and you get the best team. Your odds of winning just go up exponentially. So most people think I'm going to go out and pick an easy enough problem to solve. It's like, you don't get the best team attracted to you to start up a lemonade stand. Very important job, but that might not be the thing that actually gets the best team to come to you. But if you actually pick a hard enough problem to solve, you'll get the best team to come. So that's one. Number two, I'd say that you can teach. Learn a lot of things in life. I don't think you can learn hunger. You can't teach hunger”
2026-02-26 · Lenny's Podcast · AI is critical for humanity’s survival: Cisco president on the AI revolution | Jeetu Patel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The platform that you choose and the quality of problems that you pick to solve actually determine a lot of the path of success for you. And typically harder problems. A higher likelihood of success because the harder problems are the ones that attract better people. That problem, and business as a team sport, and if you attract”
2026-02-26 · Lenny's Podcast · AI is critical for humanity’s survival: Cisco president on the AI revolution | Jeetu Patel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's so true. You're so intentional about the way in which you do these things. I wish I'd done like a I should do that now that I think about it. You're a podcast for my daughter that's only for her when she gets older.”
2026-02-26 · Lenny's Podcast · AI is critical for humanity’s survival: Cisco president on the AI revolution | Jeetu Patel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“When I find them, and when I find them rewarding, I let them know how much they mean because I genuinely find a lot of energy coming out of that. And the circle of friends just keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger. And I found that to be like a super rewarding thing in life. And you're right, most of the people that were at the AI summit are dear friends. Isn't that just a better way to live life?”
2026-02-26 · Lenny's Podcast · AI is critical for humanity’s survival: Cisco president on the AI revolution | Jeetu Patel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Everything that I did was to make sure that my mom was okay. Why did I feel that way to her? Because she didn't know how I was thinking. And that kind of notion of people don't know what's going on in your mind is so important. My biggest lesson from that was don't be stingy with words. Because even my mother that knows me inside and out didn't know how much I loved her, that there's no chance that people in the business world are going to know how you feel if you're not explicit with them. And so I'm actually very clear with people.”
2026-02-26 · Lenny's Podcast · AI is critical for humanity’s survival: Cisco president on the AI revolution | Jeetu Patel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I had almost become a parent to her. Of the last eight weeks things flipped. And she was, she became a parent again. And so we were, you know, kind of getting to the point where she was ending her journey. And I was sitting like one in the morning at the bedside by her in the hospital. I was living in the hospital at the time. And she was sleeping. And I was just crying profusely. She wakes And she knows why I'm crying because she's going to be gone soon. And she looks at me, Lenny, and she's like all perplexed. And she's like, I had no idea that you loved me so much. Now, by the way, this is like the most. Abnormal thing for me to hear because I'm like, what are you talking about, mom? I like you're one of the most important people in my life. And I was...”
2026-02-26 · Lenny's Podcast · AI is critical for humanity’s survival: Cisco president on the AI revolution | Jeetu Patel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“She passed away two and a half years ago, but she was extremely sick in the hospital for like. Weeks before she passed away I was very close to my mom. She was my everything. I grew up with a rough childhood. I had to, you know, my dad was a high stakes kind of con man like Bernie Madoff. I didn't want to be any part of that. So I had actually left India, come over here, hadn't seen him. And so he was very abusive to my mom. So there was a bunch of that that had happened. And so we had had a very, you know, kind of difficult early childhood life for me. And her and I had bonded during that time very, very at a very deep level. And so when she came to America, we kind of, she always wanted to have her own place, but she kind of lived very close by, and she was very dependent on me emotionally in every way.”
2026-02-26 · Lenny's Podcast · AI is critical for humanity’s survival: Cisco president on the AI revolution | Jeetu Patel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Feel like life's too short not to be. And I'm only friends with people that I feel are good human beings. Like what I try not to do is I try to minimize my time no matter how successful they are with people whose energy I don't vibe with because I think life's too short. And in my mind, one of the most off-putting things. Is look, all of us have a healthy ego. There are times when ego gets manifested with insecurity and you have to make sure that you're at least self-aware enough to know when your ego is starting to take over, your behavior in a way that's counterproductive. And all of those things are super important. But what I think is extremely important is that you life is just fun to live when You love the people you are around Can I digress for a second in this one story that I so I'll tell you the story So, my mother was.”
2026-02-26 · Lenny's Podcast · AI is critical for humanity’s survival: Cisco president on the AI revolution | Jeetu Patel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And by the way, they are, you know, Libu is a very dear friend. Pat Gelsinger used to be my mentor at MC. And so both those people that have had such a profound contribution to that industry in general, like when you start thinking about them, they're very, very much on that mode.”
2026-02-26 · Lenny's Podcast · AI is critical for humanity’s survival: Cisco president on the AI revolution | Jeetu Patel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“By the way, it's not surprising given that he spent like, I don't know, 26, 28 years over here. He's conditioned with the fact that he's focused on other people succeeding from it From his point, your work, you know.”
2026-02-26 · Lenny's Podcast · AI is critical for humanity’s survival: Cisco president on the AI revolution | Jeetu Patel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But the moment it doesn't work, they're going to call you and say, you know what? My network's not working and my people can't work and patients are dying in the hospital. And I think you just have to be comfortable with that.”
2026-02-26 · Lenny's Podcast · AI is critical for humanity’s survival: Cisco president on the AI revolution | Jeetu Patel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And we need to make sure that we're working with someone with the infrastructure is working. And so I feel like at that point in time, you can't be navel gazing too much about, look how cool you are because you did something. You have to just make sure that you're really immediately shifting your focus to what does the customer do and what does the ecosystem do with your infrastructure so that the outcome is achieved. And you have to get very outcome oriented. I feel like that was something that I always intellectually knew, but I didn't fully realize it until I came here on how important of a mindset shift that is. You are not talking about yourself. You're talking about the system just working. No one will come and tell you, hey, G2, thank you so much. My network worked today.”
2026-02-26 · Lenny's Podcast · AI is critical for humanity’s survival: Cisco president on the AI revolution | Jeetu Patel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Every single time our infrastructure doesn't work. This morning I was with. A medical institution. I was with a healthcare company this morning. And they were telling me that they were very complimentary. They were thanking us on the partnership. I ask them, why are you doubling down with us? And they're like, because. The infrastructure doesn't work, people die. Someone doesn't get dialysis. Someone doesn't get a surgery done”
2026-02-26 · Lenny's Podcast · AI is critical for humanity’s survival: Cisco president on the AI revolution | Jeetu Patel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Was an apps guy. I operated in the apps layer. I worked at box. And even when I was at EMC, I was building apps that you built for the end user. Infrastructure is a different game. And the thing that I learned about infrastructure is Don't always get the glory, but you always get the blame. And you have to be comfortable with the fact that you are working in a way that other people get the glory. Great infrastructure companies. The application companies get the glory when they're running on that infrastructure. And so you have to be hardwired in infrastructure to orient on your ecosystem success, not just your own success. That is probably one of the lessons that I learned at Cisco in a very stark way, which I didn't fully appreciate it until I got into the details of the infrastructure going, wow, if this thing doesn't work.”
2026-02-26 · Lenny's Podcast · AI is critical for humanity’s survival: Cisco president on the AI revolution | Jeetu Patel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Put it in between Ben Horwith says and the hard things about hard things like you have a shit sandwich, you say something really nice to someone, then you say something that's not really nice and then you put, no, just treat people like adults. Tell them the facts, watch your tone. Still have to work on that. There are times when I get very passionate. People think, but watch your tone. Sure, that you debate conflict is a necessary condition of business, but the only way that you can have productive conflict is if you've established trust. And the only way that you can establish trust is by making sure that you spend the time to establish the trust. So spend the time to establish trust. But then focus on the best idea winning and actually having the debate.”
2026-02-26 · Lenny's Podcast · AI is critical for humanity’s survival: Cisco president on the AI revolution | Jeetu Patel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Be respectful, but be direct in public. This is not working. Let me tell you why it's not working. We got to face the facts. And then be very, very kind of clear with people that you got their back in private. And don't be stingy with words on that front. Because I feel like there are times when people are very stingy with words with people in private. You can't be stingy with words over there. And don't be stingy with critique in public because I think people need to make sure that we're solving problems together. And if we don't know the play that we're executing, if we don't know the things that we're going to need to do, then I'm not really certain if you're making collective progress. And I think it's not going to be fulfilling to either you or the recipient at some point. And those compliments will feel hollow because you didn't mean them because you were trying to...”
2026-02-26 · Lenny's Podcast · AI is critical for humanity’s survival: Cisco president on the AI revolution | Jeetu Patel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Don't want to be in a mode of posturing, you want to be in a mode of problem solving when you're just giving people perfunctory compliments all the time and everything is just hunky-dory, rose-covered glass is great, all your dashboards look green, but you're growing the business at like one and a half percent. There's an asymmetry there. Something's broken. It's like, what do we need to do over here? And so what I tend to do is use the exact opposite approach. I tend to be very, very direct in public.”
2026-02-26 · Lenny's Podcast · AI is critical for humanity’s survival: Cisco president on the AI revolution | Jeetu Patel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Very sterile in the facts that they provide. And sometimes it's okay to just say, hey, we screwed up here. This was really bad. That's not meant to, you know, like one of the things that I found to be very counterintuitive because every management book that you read will tell you otherwise. What do they say? Praise in public and criticize in private. I fundamentally disagree with that notion. I think what you have to do is establish enough trust among the team. So that you are comfortable. Critiquing and debating in public. Near in private Take that moment to build a trust. Because if you build that trust And you tell them that you've got their back. You create a level of safety there in public”
2026-02-26 · Lenny's Podcast · AI is critical for humanity’s survival: Cisco president on the AI revolution | Jeetu Patel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Is so lost and constantly reminding people why it's important and having the least amount of asymmetry between the topmost layer in the organization and the bottommost layer is super. Now, by the way, I'm a section 16 officer. There are certain things that, for example, in a quiet period, you can't go talk about to someone else during that time period. But that's not allowed. However, the most amount of context that you can provide them in the way that you can because you're allowed to, the better off you are. And always treat people like adults. You know, what I found is oftentimes when you go into corporate environments, like people start becoming”
2026-02-26 · Lenny's Podcast · AI is critical for humanity’s survival: Cisco president on the AI revolution | Jeetu Patel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“First thing I feel is you have to have very clear thinking because the clarity of thought is what brings clarity of communication. So you have to spend the time with your team. In sweating the details on what it is that you want to do and why you want to do it. The context of why”
2026-02-26 · Lenny's Podcast · AI is critical for humanity’s survival: Cisco president on the AI revolution | Jeetu Patel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And stay motivated about that direction and make sure that everyone's on the same page and what needs to be done to execute, you will have success. If not, you will actually have guaranteed failure.”
2026-02-26 · Lenny's Podcast · AI is critical for humanity’s survival: Cisco president on the AI revolution | Jeetu Patel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“This is a direct connection. And there's no back to loss on this one. You got to make sure it gets to the intended audience. And I think the reason for that is as companies get large, They can lose touch with the front lines. Like, everyone gets really good with the math of the business, but they don't really always preserve the soul of the business. And there's the lossiness that happens because if you have seven, eight layers between you and the front line, even the message that's coming back to you from them is actually getting lossy. And so what you have to do is just preserve. And I think what was said earlier about the intensity is the same way, which is you got to preserve the intensity, you got to preserve the sanctity of the message and you've got to preserve the clarity of the message so that everyone is clear on the direction we're going down. And if you can stay clear.”
2026-02-26 · Lenny's Podcast · AI is critical for humanity’s survival: Cisco president on the AI revolution | Jeetu Patel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I want to make sure that they hear it from me directly so that there's no lossiness. Like we have this concept in networking called packet loss when you actually send packets over a wire and you have a loss of packet and actually there's There's lots of data. You don't want to have package loss in your storytelling from you to the person on the front line because”
2026-02-26 · Lenny's Podcast · AI is critical for humanity’s survival: Cisco president on the AI revolution | Jeetu Patel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source