Thread regarding Cisco Systems Inc. layoffs

@qz what do you mean? Meraki has been broken for years

It's the life cycle of every company.

What general job function were you doing at Cisco that made you say "this is the only thing I want to do from now on?"
5 reactions (+0/-5)

The lack of answers and down votes say the answer is no one else would hire you.

The irony is Cisco had some of the best hardware engineers I ever worked with. Software, IT, Marketing and others were among the worst. Google AI shows Cisco's post-2010 average annual revenue growth at 3% so it's not like most have done anything to change the world in ages and when Cisco was changing the world it was doing it with acquisitions.

Job hopping was almost always the best way to build skills and salary over at least the past 40 years. What general job function were you doing at Cisco that made you say "this is the only thing I want to do from now on?"

I feel like the operating model is just insane. So everyone ends up with their own little fiefdoms of products. Of which a collection of them are bundled together into a business unit. And of everything that goes to the street is the culmination of the success or failure for the entire company. But it just creates pointless tension and unfairness to everyone. Like for any of the software BUs… wtf are we supposed to do about memory cost for hardware? 😆 too bad, overall margins are hit.

In 1H they broke Meraki
This is an achievement in itself
Go to any office the morale is gone

Incompetent leadership everywhere. Folks that would barely have made it to G10 two decades ago are now in VP positions. And a very, very weak ELT.

@fr crazy how this is being down voted. It all rather accurate

The year Chamber took $1 salary, he scored a significant bump in options. More than covered his missed salary and then some.

OP: Here's what happened from an old-timer's (and non-technical) perspective:

• Cisco got too large and management heavy, which created:

   * an enormous amount of internal red tape
   * too many levels of required approvals
   * increased lag times in getting anything accomplished in a timely fashion
   * all of which increase employee frustration levels.
  

• The constant threat of layoffs, which created:

   * low morale amongst those left behind with a heavier workload
   * a lesser amount of loyalty & desire to work hard amongst employees
   * a sense of disloyalty to employees from upper management.
  

• Despite record earnings, cutting back on internal travel and overall OPEX every year.
• The company stock never returning to its hey-day glory of the late 1990s.
• The inconsistency of salary increases (which were given regularly years ago).
• Knowing Cisco's CEO/ELT are 'raking it in' while they eliminate jobs across the company (Chambers took a $1/yr salary during the first layoffs in 2001).
• Company stock/RSUs only being distributed to certain/higher grade levels vs. across the board (years ago).

The sickle and the hammer took over.

Cisco was always a one trick pony: packet shift with a bit of UC and security bolted on. That was a very lucrative area 25 years ago but these days it’s table stakes.

It's everywhere now. Not just tech companies, all "white collar" work. It all stinks. Even for people who dodge layoffs, most are locked in to pointless busywork jobs that slowly rot their resumes and will leave them stranded with no skills when they inevitably have to look for work.

At one point, working for a major US white-collar employer was both low-risk and decent-reward. No these jobs are high-risk and low-reward.

The explanation is basic.
Things used to be simple and easier to manage.
They have evolved to a level of complexity and interconnections that mediocre managers, to say the least, are not able to handle anymore.
Very few of them are really talented and are willing to actually get down to facts and address reality. The corporate lingo that used to serve them well to hide bullsh-t is not helping anymore either. Markets, technologies, economies, politics, all move at accelerated speeds and all the above lead to decisional chaos and confusion, reactive management, no strategy.
Today AI is the new wave, let's ride it. Yesterday was Automation, the day before yesterday it was Cloud and so on. Not a direction we Cisco give anymore, but a direction we take and follow.
That is what happened.

@OP CR and FK